Page 129 of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

“I . . . had a good scan last month.” The words were out of her mouth before Lana knew what she was saying. “The tumors are shrinking faster than expected. The doctors say I can stop doing chemotherapy, that I can switch to immunotherapy only now. One infusion every six weeks. And fewer side effects.”

“That’s incredible.”

Lana nodded. “I’m cleared to go back to Los Angeles, to my condo. To work, if I want.” She looked out the grimy window toward the sailboats.

“And?”

“I’m not sure I want to go back.” Lana hadn’t said this out loud yet, not even to herself.

“No?”

“No.”

“They must miss you in the big city,” Ramirez said.

“They might have forgotten about me.”

“I don’t think that’s likely.”

The two women stared at each other across the table. Teresa Ramirez raised her Corona.

“To being underestimated,” she said.

“To being seen.” Lana clinked her bottle.

Chapter Fifty-Six

It took three more weeks for Lana to finally make her move.

She woke up early that Wednesday to the sound of an animal shuffling outside her window. When she sat up and peeked through the blinds, she shook her head. It was Beth messing with her rock garden again. Lana got up, pulled on her robe, and went into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee.

Lana opened the back door and handed her daughter a steaming mug.

“What’s bothering you, Beth?”

“Nothing.” Beth accepted the cup of coffee, pocketing the piece of shale in her hand. “It’s just . . . you’re all packed up.”

It was true. Lana had spent the past ten days working like a demon, taking down the bulletin board, sorting out shoeboxes, and bagging clothes. She’d convinced Beth it wouldn’t hurt to get the bedroom painted, and Jack chose a steely blue that mirrored the slough at sunrise so perfectly you could wake up thinking you were already outside with the plovers diving for fish for their breakfast. Later today, Esteban and Max were coming to deal with the last of the junk in the garage. Lana had left a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt and a fresh legal pad on Jack’s desk, and she’d convinced Beth to take a vintage suede trench coat. Everything else was moving.

Lana joined her daughter in the swirling river of stones beyond the concrete step. She picked up a yellowed hunk of sandstone, the grainy surface rough against her cold fingers. It had rained on and off all March, and Lana could see grass and thistle peeking up between the curling stone paths. By May, the whole labyrinth might be hidden in foxtails.

“Beth, we made this decision together,” she said.

“I know,” Beth said.

“Jack needs her own room.”

“I know.” Beth kept winding through the stone maze, replacing a flat black oval with a quartz-veined cube. She didn’t alter the overall shape of it anymore, but she kept making adjustments. Tiny choices, made slowly over time, building something beautiful.

“Beth, we’re going to make this work.”

There was a shout from below, and the two women looked down the gravel hillside to the beach. Jack was down there, her back to them, paddle in hand, yelling goodbyes to a lean, muscular figure paddling farther up into the slough.

“Who’s that?” Beth asked.

Lana shook her head. “Want me to get the binoculars?”

Jack bounded up the hill, her pink paddleboard on top of her head. “Mom, so I met this guy at school who’s interning with the harbormaster? He’s older, a senior, and he went to Semester at Sea in the fall. He was telling me all about how they lived on this ship and cataloged wildlife and I was thinking, maybe instead of buying my own boat, I could—”