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with intent. There’ll be an affidavit from the police and I’ll waive having the complaint read. That’s it.”
    “Don’t they have to say why they arrested him?”
    Chauncey shrugged. “The prosecutor will promise that he has a strong case in order to get a high bail. But they won’t present anything today. The police didn’t have a warrant last night, but you let them in the house — which is consent — so I won’t argue unlawful arrest. They had probable cause. I can take care of this end, and then we’ll get to our real work, back in my office. With luck, I’ll be there with Dan by noon.”
    We shook hands, and when he headed back to the courthouse I went to my car. I wasn’t in a rush this time, but still I raced home, my heart beating so hard that I felt like I’d just gulped a pot of espresso. I always kept the passports in the second drawer of my bedside table, which happened to be a Shaker medicine chest that I’d uncovered in a flea market for $16, refurbished, and put on a gold-leaf stand that I’d had made. Okay, the gold-leaf part was wildly extravagant, but the result, incredibly creative, appeared in a feature in House Beautiful . What more could an interior decorator want? It got me a couple of movie moguls’ wives as clients, and all of a sudden I was a celebrity decorator, with my own column in a glossy L.A. shelter magazine called Abode . Not too many readers, but definitely the right ones. When a normal client wondered if I was too upscale now for her budget, I just lowered my voice and murmured, “Don’t worry about that night table. I bought the darn thing for sixteen bucks.”
    As I dashed upstairs to the bedroom, I had a sudden dread that the documents would be gone. Inexplicably vanished. I’d yank the drawer open and find nothing.
    But when I pulled it open, all the important documents lay in their usual place. The world had turned upside down, but the papers hadn’t moved. I got out Dan’s passport and flipped through it, staring at his photo for a minute. Dan, my Dan. The man I knew better than anyone on earth. Glancing at the stamps on the pages reminded me of the exotic trips Dan and I had taken together — Paris, Panama, Machu Picchu. But no place had ever seemed stranger or more foreign than where we were right now. Forget passing through customs — I felt like I’d slipped through a worm-hole to another dimension.
    Trying to stay grounded, I reached for Chauncey Howell’s business card, called his office number, and asked his secretary how soon I could come over.
    “A couple of hours would be fine,” she said. “I can’t imagine that Chauncey will be back earlier. I checked, and he won’t need the passport until then.”
    How efficient of her. But how could I get through the next two hours? I thought of calling Molly Archer, my best friend since college. Sophisticated, smart, and inexplicably single, Molly had played all the important roles in my life: maid of honor at my wedding, godmother to Grant, only person to advise me that I looked awful in yellow sweaters. We always told each other everything, but for the first time ever, I couldn’t imagine what I’d say after hello. Hey, Dan might have killed somebody, do you want to do lunch? No, better to keep this to myself for a while. Talking made it too real.
    I planted myself on the edge of my bed, trying to make sense of what obviously made no sense at all. Part of me still believed that in another week, this would just be a funny story to tell over margaritas and Mexican food. But my more rational side knew that everything had changed. In twelve hours, I’d gained a whole new vocabulary. Murder in the second degree. Murder with intent. Where did these words come from, anyway? Chauncey’s legal phrases seemed to belong to someone else’s life, not mine. I was a normal suburban mom-slash-decorator who worried about kids, carpools, and carpets, not dead actresses. I took yoga classes, jogged when I could,