Traffic wasn’t bad, and the sun had risen as he drove along the Causeway to Key Biscayne and entered one of the parks shortly after it had opened for the day. After parking, he walked to the beach, breathing in the sea air, listening to the gulls, watching them glide on the ocean breezes. As the waves caressed the sand, he stood there numb, fighting to keep it all together. He cut a lonely figure, a portrait of a solitary, well-dressed man looking out at the Atlantic and the horizon as if at a funeral or preparing to spread ashes.

Vida’s dead.

Murdered.

Loften’s arrested.

A sense of finality rolled over him, for ever since Loften had attacked Lisa and Vida had surfaced to torment him, he’d been a coiled spring, winding tighter and tighter. Now, for the first time in a long time, the muscles in his gut loosened as his body and soul found peace.

And with it came the realization that it was over with Vida.

Like a sudden and swift amputation.

Still reeling, he couldn’t believe it.

Then, for a moment, his heart wrenched for Vida’s little boy. Jeff knew what it was like to lose a parent early in life, how your world went dark and the earth stopped spinning. Your insides just cleaved open, broke apart. Being fatherless left you with an aching black hole. It shaped you, weighing on everything you did for the rest of your life.

In the midst of his whirlwind of emotions, a faint alarm was clanging in a distant recess of his mind.

The pictures of Vida naked with me. I forgot about her phone and her laptop. How could I forget?

His phone vibrated, and he looked at it. A news alert on Loften’s arrest, a repeat of what he already knew.

Staring at his phone pulled him back to the night when he went to Vida’s motel. She wasn’t there, but he’d bribed the clerk to get into her room. He was out of his mind with anger. He was going to confront her, put a stop to all her bullshit.

But she wasn’t there. So he’d waited.

But for how long?

Thoughts sparked in his head.

What happened? Did I fall asleep? Did I have an episode, black out and wake up? I don’t remember. I was so angry that night.

Then he looked at the cut on the palm of his hand.

I got that slicing an apple in the kitchen.

Didn’t I?

Fear shot up his spine and made the small hairs on his neck stand up.

He remembered driving home from Vida’s motel and a vague memory of blood webbing down his arm. No, that was wrong. He was confused with slicing his palm in the kitchen later.

The knife was slippery with juice and had slipped.

That’s what happened.