The computer privacy screen wasn’t for his computer. He cut it in half, fitting a section over his front and back license plates. Privacy screens were designed to turn a screen black unless viewed head-on. Placed over his license plate, it would lessen the chance that a random surveillance camera might capture his plate number.

Then he fired up the Bronco.

As six o’clock neared, Gavin found himself back in the parking lot across the street, watching the final customers of the day leave the salon. He began to worry a bit as he waited for Bebe to leave. If she dragged out her departure, it would throw a wrench into the plan. But at six on the button, Bebe walked out, leaving Sadie alone.

Gavin waited for Bebe to leave the parking lot before driving across the street and parking where Sadie wouldn’t see the Bronco. When he entered the shop, he took off his sunglasses and his hood. Would she recognize him? If she did, she might make a fuss, become suspicious. At the very least, she would be reluctant to leave him alone with her water bottle. Then what? If he aborted, she would tell Bebe about him and end the game.

This was his only chance—the moment of truth. If she recognized him, he would walk away. But when she looked at him, her eyes held no sign of recognition.

“Hi,” she said. “Are you Kevin?”

“I am,” he said.

Chapter 7

Joe arrived home after Lila, his shoulders slouched like those of a man who had spent the day carrying stones. He’d been working double duty for the past month, picking up assignments for another reporter who was out on maternity leave. He walked straight to the couch and plopped down, his head tipped back, his eyes closed, knees splayed open. Lila thought he looked like a man who could use a beer. But Lila couldn’t get him one, because they kept no alcohol in the apartment.

She’d never asked Joe to give up alcohol, and he drank on those rare occasions when they ventured out to a restaurant, but as an act of unspoken solidarity, he never brought alcohol home. Lila was eight years sober now, her last drink the half bottle of vodka she’d downed just before swallowing a handful of her mother’s Ambien.

It took almost dying, two weeks in a psych ward, and meeting Dr. Roberts to stop the slide she had been on. Her decision to quit found its roots the day Dr. Roberts showed her his twenty-year medallion.

“How was your day?” she asked Joe.

“Same as yesterday and probably won’t be any better than tomorrow. How ’bout yours?”

Lila sat down on the couch, slung an arm around him, and tipped his head onto her shoulder. “My day was…Well, you remember back in law school, that case I did with Boady Sanden?”

“The Pruitt case.”

“Do you remember the name of the prosecutor?”

“Dovey?”

“Look at the whiz kid—two for two.”