“It’s your own fault for making us wait,” Tanya said. She turned around in the seat. “Oh, don’t forget Ellie.” Evan’s hand snatched up the stuffed elephant.

Tanya’s voice sounded strained. “Bye, baby, be a good girl for Daddy and JuJu.”

“Nooooo,” Maya cried. “I want Mommy.”

Letty clicked STOP on the video. She’d watched all the disturbing images of the wreckage of her late sister’s life that she could take for one night, and she was weary from the day’s roller-coaster events.

She went to the front door, locked it and engaged the safety chain, then retreated to the bathroom, washed her face and brushed her teeth, checked on Maya one more time, and gratefully climbed between the sheets in her own bed. Right before she fell asleep, she checked her phone to make sure she hadn’t missed any messages from Vikki Hill. Nothing.

34

BY NINE O’CLOCK, VIKKI HILL could feel the walls of the Murmuring Surf’s efficiency closing in on her, so she walked down the beach to Gianni’s, the Italian joint Ava DeCurtis had recommended.

It was a small place, located at the end of a strip shopping center with a nail salon, a dry cleaner’s, and a liquor store. She opened the heavily carved wooden door and was welcomed with the scent of garlic, onions, and red sauce.

The hostess was busy, so Vikki looked around. It was a narrow room, fairly dark, with a wall of red leatherette booths facing the bar. The décor ran to heavily stuccoed walls with cheesy frescoes that she guessed were supposed to be Italian villages. The arched entrance to the crowded dining room was framed with a pair of gigantic fake olive trees draped with straw-wrapped Chianti bottles and clumps of green plastic grapes. The tables were topped with red-and-white-checked vinyl tablecloths and more Chianti bottles with candles stuck in them.

It was like a scene straight out of Lady and the Tramp, and she halfway expected to see a cocker spaniel and a mutt sharing a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

The hostess, a rail-thin woman with fake eyelashes like dead spiders, approached. “Sorry, hon, we’re awful busy tonight. There’s a thirty-minute wait, unless you want to sit at the bar.”

“The bar’s fine,” Vikki told her.

She actually always preferred to eat at the bar when she was out of town, not because she was such a big drinker, but because it felt less awkward than sitting at a table for two or four and explaining to the servers that she’d be dining alone tonight. Again.

“Get you a drink?” The bartender was Hispanic and twenty-something.

“Yeah. Do you have a really dry red Merlot?”

“So dry you’ll spit dust,” he said. “Will you be dining with us tonight?” He offered her a menu, she took it, glanced at it, and nodded.