Jack walked back downstairs and found Milo Hildebrand in his study, alone. He gently closed the door.

“Milo, I see your wife isn’t here.”

“No. I asked Pat to take her to her doctor. Olivia didn’t want to see you again.”

“So you decided you didn’t need to have Ms. Bigelow here to protect you?”

Milo laughed. “Not likely, Chief. What can I do for you?”

“You can tell me about Jason’s affair. You can tell me the woman’s name.”

Milo Hildebrand sat behind his desk. He said nothing for a moment, just tapped his pen lightly against the desk blotter, a handsome dark green wood-and-leather affair.

“I wondered if Marci would tell you. Well, now that she has I suppose there’s nothing to protect her from.” He shrugged. “I have no clue who she is. Maybe she’s a golfer at the club since he was killed with a driver.” He nodded. “Yes, I know it wasn’t one of Jason’s. I did ask Jason about it, but he told me he was faithful to my daughter, swore he’d never hurt Marci. So unless I found out for sure he was lying to me, there was nothing I could do.”

“But you suspected him before Marci knew for sure?”

“Yeah, I suppose I did. It was clear something was wrong between them. The fact is since Jason was a salesman, he spent a good deal of time outside the office. He could have seen her as often as he liked.”

“Did you notice if his work suffered recently? Fewer sales, say, for the past three months?”

“No, if anything, I’d have to say they went up.” He shrugged. “In fact I’d say Jason didn’t seem to be suffering in any way before he died.”

Late Thursday afternoon Mary Lisa Beverly left the terminal of the Goddard Bay Regional Airport outside the small town of Inverness. It was only a fifteen-minute boat ride to Goddard Bay, or an hour’s drive on the coast road that wove south, then skimmed the southern end of the bay to downtown Goddard Bay.

Mary Lisa felt good to be home, and a state away from the person who’d tried to run her down. Before she’d left Los Angeles, Detective Vasquez had brought her a list of 111 names of people who owned a 2000 LeSabre but she hadn’t recognized any of them.

Only Lou Lou and Elizabeth and her agent at Trident Media knew where she’d gone. It was a relief to leave L.A., what with the National Enquirer and the Star carrying the photos Puker had snapped of her laid out on a gurney looking pathetic and dazed. The captions beneath the photos ranged from “Drunk Soap Star Hit by Passing Car” to “Mary Lisa Beverly Run Down by Angry Lover.” If she’d seen Puker she would have tried to rip his throat out. At least the photos were inside and not staring at the world from the cover.

At least her hip no longer looked like Australia. The massive bruise had retreated to the size of Mississippi, and all the vivid shades had muted. She’d taken off the last Band-Aid this morning and found she’d not needed any more makeup to cover the healing cuts and scrapes.

She drove her rented red Cadillac convertible down the narrow two-lane coast road, crossed a small bridge over a bay inlet, and headed down to the tiny hamlet of Berrytown, the beginning of her favorite part of the trip, the southern stretch of the coastline toward Goddard Bay.

She hadn’t been home in three years and had to admit she was worried about how it would go. Still, some primal part of her recognized the air, the way it smelled, the way it settled on her skin. She breathed in deeply, enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her face, and knew that from one minute to the next, the rain could pour down, not at all like Southern California.

She drove slowly, even stopping once to take in the sand dunes that glowed golden beneath the afternoon sun.

When she turned onto Central Boulevard and stopped for her first red light, the first person she saw was Chief of Police Jack Wolf, a big man with a hard face and intense blue eyes that were too smart and seemed to see too much. He was walking purposefully, dressed in dark gray slacks, white shirt, no tie, and a dark brown leather jacket. He appeared deep in thought. And then, for no good reason, he looked up at the convertible, and saw her. He did a little double take, as if he couldn’t believe who it was. His hard face seemed to turn to stone. He did not look like a happy man, definitely not ready to do handsprings at the sight of her. Well, big surprise there, not after he’d tossed her in jail before she’d left three years before. She gave him a sweet smile and a jaunty little wave, but she wasn’t about to stop and have a nice little tête-à-tête with him.

Some things never changed, she thought, as she continued down Central Boulevard, past a good dozen downtown stores she’d known since she was a child, having arrived in Goddard Bay with her family at the age of five. She breathed in the clear, sharp bay air, glad she’d rented a convertible, and made a note to check out the new boutiques. The town seemed to be thriving with the growing tourist trade.

She waved at Peter Perlman, owner of Pete’s Paint Store, who yelled a greeting at her and grinned his head off. His place was gossip central in town, so by nightfall everyone in Goddard Bay would know Mary Lisa Beverly was back.

She wondered as she drove toward her parents’ house on Riverview Drive how her mother and sisters would greet her.

MARY Lisa walked the neat flagstone path to the front door, looking around her as she walked, as if checking out a set for a shoot. Nothing had changed. Her mother had always loved flowers, and they were still everywhere, bursting with wild color in the late spring, the scents of the roses mixing with the scent of the jasmine on the light breeze. At the entry, beside the beautifully stenciled glass doors, Mary Lisa touched her finger to the doorbell and wondered what role she would be called upon to play in this upcoming scene with her mother. The return of the prodigal daughter? No, that would require her mother to show a bit of joy at the sight of her. Well, who knew? It had been three years. Her father had visited her perhaps a dozen times in L.A., even helped her through the experience of buying her first house, in Malibu. But her mother had never come, not that she’d wanted her to. And she hadn’t asked her father. She hadn’t wanted him to have to make excuses.

So why did I come back here? Fact is, New York’s lovely this time of year. So is London. So is Grapevine, Texas. People don’t change, they simply become more so. And the problem with being gone for three years is that you forget the bone-deep hurt waiting for you until it’s too late.

It was too late. She rang the doorbell again, and heard soft footfalls approaching.

The door opened. Her mother saw her daughter standing there, her hair windblown, big sunglasses covering half her face, the handle of the wheeled carry-on in her hand. There was a moment of silence, of bland scrutiny, and then, “Well, it’s nice that you’ve come back, dear.”

Not promising. Mary Lisa made no move to embrace the elegant woman who stood in front of her, the woman who was her mother. She wasn’t stupid. She took off her sunglasses and slipped them into the bulging side of her hobo bag, which weighed five pounds on a light day, and gave her mother a big smile. “Would you be interested in some Tupperware, ma’am?”

“Sorry, dear,” her mother said without pause, “all our storage containers are glass.”

“That was a good line, Mother.”

“Where do you think you got that mouth of yours?”

Hey, maybe we’ve got some softening here. At least some recognition. “How are you doing?”

Her mother looked at Mary Lisa’s single carry-on and stepped back. “Do come in, dear, we can’t have you standing there.” Her mother turned away from her and walked toward the living room. She called out from the doorway, “Betty, would you please bring some tea and two cups? We have an unexpected visitor with a carry-on.”