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looked at her I always felt as if I were face-to-face
     with a fruit bat. Today she was all decked out in a beige, rayony pantsuit and strappy sandals, looking as if she’d been dragged
     away from a brunch in Santa Barbara. I hated being catty at a time like this, but I noticed that she had packed on some pounds
     since the last time I had paid close attention to her thighs. My problem was that I just didn’t
like
Leslie. As a freelancer I was fairly immune to her bullying, but whenever possible she harassed me about deadlines and my
     travel expenses. Her husband had made a killing in the stock market a few years back and then cashed out, and the only reason
     she worked, people claimed, was that she loved being in charge and telling people what to do.
    “Start from the beginning,” she demanded as she parked herself on one of the kitchen bar stools. The look she shot me registered
     irritation, as if I must be partly to blame for the mess. Cat took her through everything that had happened. While they talked,
     I excused myself and headed off to the powder room that was tucked under the hall stairs. I took my time, washing my hands,
     splashing water on my face, and putting on some blush and lip gloss I found in a basket in the cabinet under the sink. I stared
     at my reflection in the mirror. I looked about as bad as I felt, tired and drained and wigged out from the whole experience.
     How had the morning turned out this way? What could possibly have killed Heidi? And where was K.C. now? I wondered.
    When I emerged from the bathroom I found that two young and very blond women from the PR agency had arrived, and they launched
     into a long discussion with Cat and Leslie about how to handle the inevitable press scrutiny, eventually including on speaker
     phone the head of the agency, who was safely out of town for the weekend. Lunch was ordered. We had drawn the drapes in the
     dining room, but I took a peek out occasionally. The ambulance had departed, but now there were other vehicles parked outside,
     including a van from the ME’s, and people were traipsing in and out of the apartment below. There were gawkers outside, too,
     an ever-changing cluster on the sidewalk. So far no TV news trucks.
    At about twelve-thirty, Jeff turned up—alone, having dropped off Tyler, he said, with friends in the city. He had his hip
     fashion photographer thing going—green cargo pants, white T-shirt, V-neck camel sweater—but he looked extremely distressed
     and white as a ghost. He and Cat hugged, and she clung to him even when he was ready to let go. He wanted to know everything,
     from start to finish, and she took him off to the kitchen.
    Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. He was without qualification an absolute hunk. About six feet one and amazingly buff, he had hazel eyes,
     a full, sensuous mouth with a small cleft in the middle of his lower lip, and slightly wavy brown hair worn longish, just
     lower than his chin, and generally tucked behind his ears.
    As a photographer he specialized in fashion, and as far as I knew after several years on his own, his career was in high gear.
     He didn’t have Cat’s level of success, but then again he was six years younger than her. As for their marriage, it appeared
     solid, despite predictions to the contrary from people who thought she couldn’t last with a guy who had never read a novel
     all the way through. But Cat had had her fill of moody Wall Street millionaires and prickly Renaissance men. What she desired,
     she’d told me, was a guy who did one thing extremely well and wanted to spend the rest of his time with her, who was easy
     to be with and never made her walk on eggshells, who liked massaging the kinks out of the back of her neck—and who knew how
     to make the sex so good that the neighbors would wonder some nights if they should phone the police. Jeff was that man. Though
     I liked him enough, things had always been slightly awkward between the two of us. Maybe because I found