“Shauna doesn’t approve of me,” she says.

I don’t answer. I’m probably supposed to say something.

“Has she told you that? Or said anything about me?”

“I think she’s concerned about me,” I say.

“And she doesn’t think I’m good for you,” Alexa finishes. “I know. She told me that.”

“She did?”

“Yes. When I went to pick up a few things at your office, when you were going to leave the firm. She yelled at me. She said you and I shouldn’t see each other. It was . . . unpleasant. If I may say so, I don’t think Shauna’s a very pleasant person.”

“Shauna’s wonderful,” I say. “Shauna saved me after my wife and daughter died.”

“Oh.” One word, but more than one syllable the way she says it, a bell curve of octaves, like she just discovered something meaningful. “I think she likes being the only woman in your life.”

“That’s not true.”

I’m adjusting my position in bed as I say this, not looking directly at her, but the ensuing silence brings my eyes to hers, and hers do not look amused. She looks, more than anything, like she wants to slap me.

“I’m sure you’re right,” she says with mock sweetness.

She turns and walks back toward the bathroom.

“Alexa,” I say. “You told me you’re an only child.”

She stops in her tracks, her back to me. She turns around slowly, as if she’s afraid of what she’ll find behind her. “What?”

“Is it true that you’re an only child? Or do you have a brother, Aaron, in Glenwood Heights?”

She turns to face me again, her eyes narrowed, a look of discomfort. “Why . . . would you ask me something like that?”

“You first,” I say.

“Me first . . . me first . . .” Her eyebrows rise. She lets out air. She crosses her arms. “Aaron is my brother, yes. We aren’t close. We never have been. He’s not . . . he’s not nice to me. He’s not a good person. But technically, yes, I have a brother.”

“Technically.” I laugh. “Why tell me this whole thing about how your mother had you when she was forty and didn’t want any more kids?”

“Your turn,” she says, color coming to her face. “How do you know about Aaron? Are you . . . Did you check up on me?” She’s good at this. Regaining the moral outrage, or trying hard to.

“My friends did, yes,” I say.

“Shauna, you mean.”

“Shauna and others. They’re concerned, that’s all.”

“So they did, what, a background investigation on me?” Try as she might to resist, Alexa is losing composure, placing a hand on the dresser for stability as the earth moves beneath her, as the footing of this relationship shifts sideways without warning.

“Yes, they did. I didn’t know about it. I was mad when they told me, actually.”

“Really? How mad? Did you stand up for me?”

“I did, in fact.”

“Well, go on.” She whips her arm about. “Go on. Get it over with. They told you about Brian.”

“Brian Stermer,” I say. “Yes.”

Alexa gives a bitter shake of the head, her eyes brimming with tears, red and swollen. “Oh, God. I can’t believe this.”

“They told me—”

“I told you!” she cries, slapping her chest. “I told you I’d been in a relationship that ended badly when I found out he was married. Did I leave out some details? Yes. Did I leave out the part where his wife found out about me at around the same time I found out about her? Did I leave out the part where Brian turned out to be a complete coward, who wouldn’t admit to his wife that he was fucking somebody on the side, and so he had to turn me into a stalker? Did I leave out the part where his wife basically bullied him into telling lies about me to a judge, as if that would somehow make Brian’s lies true? Or the part where Doctor Brian Stermer has more money than God and hired, like, ten lawyers to go after me, and I couldn’t afford a single one?”

She is trembling now, her entire body, her face contorted, her voice getting deeper with emotion as she goes on.

I get out of bed. “Listen—”

“Did I leave out the part where I didn’t put up a fight when he wanted his stupid restraining order, because I was planning on staying away from him, anyway? So I just let the judge order whatever he ordered? I did, Jason. I left out those parts. This man screwed me over like nobody ever could, then when he got caught in his bullshit string of lies, he screwed me over even worse to cover up his new lies.”

I approach her, but she gives me a warning look: Do not enter.

She wipes at her cheeks with the fluffy arms of the robe and takes a gasping breath. “Well, let’s keep going, Jason. Let’s get it over with. Why stop the laughs now?”

“I’m not laughing.”

More tears fall, little rivers angling along her cheeks. “He said I showed up at his house with a knife, but I didn’t. I can’t prove I didn’t. Apparently the judge felt like I was supposed to prove my innocence. I don’t know how to prove a negative.”

I nod, but I’m not sure why.

“Let’s see, what else? Oh, when they wanted to make the restraining order for a wider distance, because I was supposedly hanging out down the street, just beyond a hundred feet? Yeah, like anyone’s just going to loiter around on a sidewalk for hours in the dead of December in northern Ohio. Do you have any idea how cold it was last December in Ohio? Yeah, but I’m standing out there for hours on end, holding up signs saying ‘Please take me back, Brian!’ or whatever he said they said. I mean, really? Really, Jason?”

“Hey—”

“But you know what? I didn’t fight that, either. I didn’t fight him because I couldn’t afford anyone to represent me and because I didn’t care, anyway. I didn’t care if the restraining order was a hundred feet or a hundred yards or a mile. I had no intention of going anywhere near him after what he did to me.”

“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

“And now I finally meet a nice guy and he hears all this and he thinks . . . whatever you think . . .”

“I believe you,” I say. “I do.”

She looks at me for a long time, her expression easing, her breathing slowing, the tears drying up. She takes a deep breath, runs her fingers through her wet hair.

“I believe you,” I say again.

72.

Jason

Monday, July 22

“Hey.” Joel Lightner sticks his head in my office, cautious.

I wave him in. “It’s okay, Lightner. You’re still doing a job for me, whatever else.”

“You’re pissed at me,” he says when he walks in and helps himself to a seat.

“You’re not at the top of my list right now,” I agree.

“I’d like to see that list. I’m pretty sure there’s only one name on it: Alexa Himmel.”

I put down the court opinion I was reading. “I take it you didn’t come to apologize.”

“Apologize? Why would I apologize? For the background check? Shauna asked me for a favor, and she was doing it out of genuine concern for you. And she’s right to be concerned.”

I raise my hands in surrender. “Let’s stick with business,” I say.

He holds his stare a moment, just to show his displeasure, before moving on. “We’re having a hard time digging up records, like you thought,” he says. “We’ve found some in a warehouse. So far, no recently released ex-cons—by recently, I mean in the last eighteen months—were interrogated by you. We aren’t done, but we’re starting to run out of places to check. There are big gaps. You got moved around all the time when you were on Felony Review. It’s not like you even stuck at one station house.”

None of this is a surprise, but it’s a big blow nonetheless. We’re running out of places to check. We’re running out of ways to catch “James.”