“I always have more whiskey.” This, from the kitchen.
“Is that Nadia?” Isabel, Graham’s wife, hurries into the hallway. “Oh, it is you! Good. It’s been too long.” She takes Evie from me, presses a kiss to her cheek, then sets her down and shoos her to join the other kids in the backyard.
It’s been exactly two weeks, but I don’t tell her that. I just accept the hug she offers and let her guide me to the barstool on the opposite side of the white-tile kitchen island where she’s slicing French bread. A drizzle of olive oil goes in a plain white bowl, and she slides it across the counter. Before I can so much as take a bite, Piper’s there, nabbing the first piece, just like she did when we were kids, but in return gifting me with a two-finger pour of amber whiskey.
“Graham called a family dinner,” she says through her mouthful of carbs.
“Is there an occasion?” I ask, fingers itching to pull out my phone and continue my search.
“Only that we love you two ladies.” Isabel gives me a wink from where she’s chopping vegetables, playing sous-chef.
“And you don’t have a date?” I ask Piper.
“Nah.” She scrunches her nose.
I peer at her, thinking of the other night, the dangling wineglass before she passed out on the couch. “So, what happened?”
“Nothing.” But the way she steals my drink and takes a swig makes me think it’snotnothing. Maybe this new date needs to be unalived in the same fashion as her college boyfriend? Or maybe I’m feeling a little prickly toward men today. That doesn’t mean theyallneed to die. Not necessarily, anyway. I mean, Graham is one of the good ones.
“What is it?” I whisper, leaning in.
She meets my eyes for a quarter second, her voice soft enough that no one else can hear. “He’smarried. I followed him one day. They have ababy.”
My eyebrows shoot up—I’m surprised that he’s married, and also that Piperstalkedhim—but Isabel takes that moment to set a glass of water in front of Piper. “Cool it, sis. Drink something besides booze.” Her gaze shifts to me. “How are you?”
I fake my very best smile, the one that reaches my eyes, that makes people think I’m being honest. “Good. Work has been busy, but I’m having fun.” A partial truth. “I really appreciate Graham picking up Eliza.”
“It’s no trouble. Brian’s traveling for work?”
“Again.” I give another smile, shrug, like that’s just how life goes. In my head, I’m wondering what he’s doing in Austin at this very moment. If he’s shacking up with that woman, if he’s doing awful things that earned him a death sentence.
“Good time to have you over, then.” She goes back to the stove, where Graham is busy stirring something—they love cooking together, it’s theirthing. I wander through the connected dining room to a window that looks out over the backyard. Piper’s stepped out onto the porch, watching the kids and sipping her glass of water. Eliza looks happy as a clam as she races around a tree with her cousins, and Evie chases after them, face wide in a grin. I begrudgingly admit to myself this family dinner was a good idea.
When I bring my gaze back to the other adults, Graham’s adjusting the burner on their giant Viking stove,hismidlife crisis splurge. He’d gone to his yearly checkup, found out he had high cholesterol, and decided to do something about it—mainly, learning to cook incredibly healthy meals incredibly well. He eventraveled to Italy for a two-week wine and olive oil tour. He came home with the biggest bottles of expensive olive oil he could get on the plane and insists we use them instead of what’s available at H-E-B, the local grocery chain.
I’m not sure about the tofu he sometimes cooks, nor the lentil and veggie protein-based chili he makes in autumn. But the rest of it is pretty good. And he’s right—olive oil from Italyisbetter.
Maybethat’swhat this is all about—maybe Brian is acting out as part of his midlife crisis, having an affair. Maybe he hired a fancy car to impress her, got a nice hotel room to take her back to.
For about five seconds, I consider finding out who she is and killing her. Squashing the fling and making sure it doesn’t affect our marriage—but that’s leaving out the part where someone put a hit out on him. Unless it’s the mystery woman’s spouse, which I highly doubt, a midlife crisis affair doesn’t explain it.
With everyone else busy, I text Ian:Are you available to talk later? I think I need help.Then I grab my DSLR and swipe until I find the image of the town car. I enter the license plate into my phone, searching yet another website to see who owns it.
The search comes back and the owner is listed as Soren Vehicles. I stare at the name a beat; it’s familiar. Another quick search lands on a news page, a long article titled “Organized crime in Texas? What is the world coming to?” A quick skim leads me to a paragraph:
In a shocking turn of events, a decades-old town car and limo service in San Antonio is under investigation following allegations of a connection to local organized crime…
The rest of the text is mostly detail, discussing people whosenames I don’t recognize, suggesting that this crime has been going on right under the nose of city officials for decades.
I can’t believe for a second that Brian is involved in organized crime—I mean, how could I miss something like that? But apparently I missed a lot of things.
A shout from outside draws my attention back to my girls playing—my girls, whose father I don’t even know.
Chapter Twenty
There’s only one person whoI suspect knows more about killing husbands than I do.
“Gran?” I whisper her name as I pull a chair up next to her bed. I’ve stolen a moment away to come see her again.
