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fi nger at Kevin. “A lot of good it did.
    Sam is dead. I don’t have a fucking clue where she spent the last two weeks.”

    Rage and frustration, unanswered questions, all familiar to me, yet somehow I didn’t feel either the empathy Kevin expected or the sympathy David deserved. I felt like I’d been ambushed.

    “David, that’s enough. Sit down.” Kevin shoved his pen into the holder and his chair back.

    Kevin didn’t apologize for me. But it wasn’t enough to ease my mind that I’d somehow taken a wrong turn and couldn’t go back.

    David’s shoulders slumped, his face a mask of despair.
    “Don’t suppose you’re going to help me now?”

    His petulant look had zero eff ect. I moved to the window behind Kevin’s desk while he murmured to David and escorted him from the offi
    ce. I tuned them out.
    Saturday
    traffi
    c fl owed smoothly alongside the rain
    rushing into the street drains. Everything lacked color, the sky and clouds, the wet streets and sidewalks, the dirty gush of water thrown over the curb by passing cars. I exhaled, watching the gray smoke from my lungs dissipate into nothing. Th
    e whole lot seemed bleak; a pointless gray, neither black nor blue: the air in the room, the day outside, 47
    my present mood.

    Few people braved the weather and I wished I hadn’t either. Sensible people were snug in their houses, doing normal, rainy day things. Why was I here subjecting myself to more sorrow?

    “Julie?” Kevin’s voice tickled my ear. “I’m sorry.”

    I faced him. “If today is ‘piss off your best friend day’, I didn’t get you a card.”

    His slight smile didn’t reach his eyes.

    “I don’t like this and I don’t appreciate that you’ve suddenly become mute. Tact isn’t my strong suit, you know that.”

    “I know.” He gently moved a hank of hair behind my ear; his thumb skated across my cheek. “But the way you asked the questions was good practice for when I convince you to come to work with me.”

    Great. Now we were back at another subject I’d been avoiding. But I’m not entirely sure it’s just a professional association Kevin wants. I haven’t found the guts to ask him for clarifi cation, so like everything else in my life, I steer clear of the issue.
    “Julie?”

    “Yeah, yeah, I’m listening. But do the words ‘just listen’
    ring any bells with you?”

    Kevin hummed “Jingle Bells.”

    I slugged him.

    “Come on, I’ll admit that you aced the good-cop, 48
    bad-cop routine,” he off ered as a truce.

    I rolled my eyes. “And yet, somehow the point of that eludes me.”

    “And yet,” he said as he tapped my temple, “your pointed, less-than-subtle questions worked because the information he gave you diff ered from what he gave me.”
    Kevin wasn’t blaming me for my rigid bitch act? If he only knew the pretzel state of my internal organs from what I’d heard today. Or how often I wished I’d turned out soft and gentle, cooing wisdom and compassion like my mother. Fate chuckled deep in my subconscious and then my father’s cold voice told me to stop whining. “How so?”
    I said.

    “More emotional. When he hired me he provided the basic details and a retainer.” Kevin scowled and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Th
    is business about a secret is new.”

    “But you knew about Shelley? Why didn’t you tell me?”

    His eyes narrowed. “Would it have made a diff erence if I did?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”

    I broke eye contact and sat down. “It just would have.”

    “Julie . . .”

    “Goddamn it Kevin, this is hard, okay?”

    “I know. I thought you could help. I thought it might help you .”

    Normally Kevin took my moods in stride and didn’t 49
    push. “Is that why I’m here? Because ‘poor Julie’s’ brother was found fl oating in the creek? You need my expert advice on what it’s like not to have answers?”

    He stared at me in silence.

    I shivered in my cashmere sweater. A 2000-gauge wool coat wouldn’t