Page 60 of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

“I have it. And your tote bag.”

Lana took a long sip of the water. “Did my wig make it?”

“I don’t think so. I have your suit, but it’s in pieces. The ICU nurses had to cut it off you because of all the glass embedded in the back. How are you feeling?”

“Sore. But I’ll survive. The doctor came by this morning. He said he expects I’ll make a full recovery.” Lana’s voice was rough, as if she’d swallowed a lump of charcoal.

Jack squeezed Lana’s hand.

“You were so brave, Prima.”

“Not really, Jack. I just don’t want to miss your high school graduation.”

“Don’t start getting modest now,” Beth said. “I talked with the firefighter, Chase Tucker, who brought you in. He said you practically leaped out of a burning building and kept going. He said if he hadn’t run into you, you would have crawled all the way here yourself.”

“Mmm. Chase. I had a dream about his . . . suspenders.” Lana looked over at the bedside table. “Are the flowers from him?”

Beth handed Lana the card.

Lana read it, looked at the bouquet, and jammed the card back into its envelope, her mouth set in a tight line.

“Victor. Hmpf. He probably set the damn fire,” she said.

“The man who runs the land trust? Why would he do that?”

Lana glared at a calla lily. “Maybe he wanted to scare me off. I think he was involved in Ricardo’s murder.”

Jack rested her hand on her grandmother’s ankle. “What did you find?”

“Victor and Ricardo were doing a brisk business in that little do-gooder office. Lots of contracts, lots of money. The fire started right when I was getting to the good stuff.”

Beth shook her head. “I don’t think you’ll be able to go back anytime soon. The rear of the building is apparently a crater, and the rest of it’s covered in water and soot. You got out of there just in time.”

“It was arson, right?”

Beth rubbed at the dark circles under her eyes. “I don’t know, Ma. But Detective Ramirez came by. Apparently the Santa Cruz police towed your car. Evidence, the detective said. She wants to meet with you.”

“Now she’s willing to talk to me.” Lana’s smile broke into a hacking cough.

Beth handed her mother the bottle of water. “We can call her when we get home.”

“Once I get my list of questions together.”

“Sure, Ma.”

Lana put down the water bottle and motioned with her chin to the Styrofoam coffee cups. “You aren’t going to tell me this is a stupid endeavor? Trying to crack the case? Chasing down a murderer?”

“No. I’m not.” Beth passed Lana a cup of coffee. “I can see this is important to you—”

“It is.”

“Can you tell me why?”

Lana sniffed the coffee before taking a sip. It smelled of stale almonds, like the kitchen in her first house in Los Angeles, the one Ari bought for them. She saw her twenty-six-year-old self there, bustling and humming to herself as she arranged new knives in the new butcher block. She’d quit law school to have the baby, but life was good, Beth was manageable, and Ari was passionate as ever. She hadn’t listened when her brother suggested it was dangerous, marrying a divorce lawyer. She loved Ari’s heat, the way he charged through life, fighting everyone—waiters, cab drivers, opposing counsel—to get exactly what he wanted. Their love language was war, and they were champion arguers, both of them, throwing barbs so sharp they sometimes paused midstream to appreciate each other’s virtuosity.

And then, one Saturday, while Beth was down for a nap, Ari bombed their battlefield. Lana stood there in that bright housewife’s kitchen, surrounded by new appliances, as Ari calmly announced that the life they’d built, the family Lana was building for them, no longer suited him. When she tried to argue, he brushed her aside. He looked at Lana like she was a soft, embarrassing wound. And then he walked away.

She had never forgotten that moment, the way it rendered her both disposable and desperate, a stock whose value had plummeted to zero. She ran from it as fast as she could, remedied first with wine and tears, then, more successfully, with work. She would never put herself in a position to be at someone else’s mercy again. She would provide for Beth and protect herself. It wasn’t about status or vanity. It was about survival.