“But you said everyone lies, right?”

“Yes, they do. Jo-Jo seems like an airhead, but she married an ex-con who’s made lots of money in the last five years. That suggests to me she’s more comfortable with trouble than you’d think.”

Marisa shook her head as these realizations sank in. “You don’t appear affected by these facts. Just another day on the job.”

“Don’t be fooled.”

Her eyes were filled with a bottomless sadness that had touched a soft spot in my heart, even when I’d known she was lying. I’d always found a reason to excuse her.

“What do you do to deal with all this nastiness?” she asked.

“There was a time when I drank, picked fights with my wife, and isolated myself. That led to two divorces and a damaged liver. Now I’m retiring before all this eats me alive.”

“We should start our own club.” Her lips lifted into a half smile that held no mirth.

“Right.”

“Not knowing who killed her is eating me alive,” she said. “I can’t let it go.”

“We might not ever get our answers. And if we don’t, you have to find a way to make peace.”

She understood the pain of loss. Her mother, her sister—the one-two punch would’ve sent anyone spiraling. And a sister poisoning her took it to another level.

If there was a blessing, Marisa had never stood over her sister’s lifeless body; nor had she been a firsthand witness to the violence inflicted on Clare by the killer and then the medical examiner. I wasn’t so lucky.

“You make it sound easy,” she said.

I shook my head. “I can lie to anyone, including myself, and say that a change of scenery or a wife will fix all my problems. It helps, but it never really heals the mark left by a homicide.”

“You must be covered in scars.”

“Not as bad as you might think.”

Marisa arched a brow. “You’re a good liar, aren’t you?”

“One of the best.”

35 JO-JO

35

JO-JO

Friday, March 18, 2022

2:00 p.m.

My hand trembled a little as I stared at this morning’s test strip, which sported double stripes. It represented a hard-fought battle of temperatures, fertility tests, and timed sex to optimize potency. Touchdown. Score one for the team. Odd, but I’d stopped really trying to get pregnant a few months ago and hadn’t bothered with the charts, graphs, and data streams.