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on the Internet.
    Calista was my first profile. I would’ve bet a case of my favorite pinot noir that in short order I would discover I’d spent my morning with either a con artist or a delusional woman. I would’ve lost that bet. Everything Calista told me about her background checked out—from her birthdate and time, to her history with the foster care system, to her marriage to James Edward Davis. Even to when she legally changed her name from Norma Jeane Mortensen Davis to Calista Faith McQueen, moved to West Ashley, and married a ballplayer named Jose Raphael Fernandez. I felt something cold with little feet crawl up my spine. It was creepy how much the first eighteen years of Calista’s life paralleled the other Norma Jeane’s. 
    Jose’s early life was not the near-perfect parallel to the baseball icon’s that Calista’s had been to Marilyn’s. After a little digging, it was clear that beyond his chosen variation of his name and his profession, Joe’s background bore no similarities whatsoever to Joe DiMaggio’s. This came as a great relief. The crazy was limited in scope, and that’s always easier to deal with. Jose was an only child. His family was of Cuban descent, but had lived in Florida for three generations. His parents had died in a car accident in nineteen 1997.
    I was most intrigued by Calista’s mother, whose name had been Gwen Monroe when Calista—Norma Jeane—was born. The surname Monroe gave me pause. Was this the seed from which the obsession had sprung? Gwen changed her name to Gladys the following week, the same day a woman named Donna Clark at the same address had changed her name to Grace McKee. To go to the trouble of changing their names, these women must have been heavily invested in the whole recreating Marilyn fantasy.
    I found no trace of a man named Mortensen in Gwen’s history. Likely that was just a name she and Donna gave the hospital for the birth certificate to begin building their reincarnation fantasy. As far as I could determine, neither of them had ever been married. Here were the con artists—not Calista, as Blake had suggested. She was their victim. Dressing in outlandish costumes suddenly seemed tame as quirks go. If I’d been raised by crazies like that I might have a few screws loose, too.
    My iPhone quacked like a duck, which meant a client was on the line. I glanced at the screen and answered. “Hey, Calista.”
    “Liz, can you come with me to Charleston?” Calista’s voice sounded thick, like she’d been crying.
    “Right now?”
    “Yes. Please. Harmony’s dead.”
    “I’m sorry—Harmony?”
    “My life coach. Her assistant just found her. She’s been shot. Please.”
    A life coach? “Did the assistant call 911?”
    “I’m sure she must have. She called me because I had an appointment this afternoon. She didn’t want me to arrive at a crime scene.”
    “That sounds like good sense to me. I’m sorry for your loss, but there’s nothing you or I can do, and the police won’t appreciate our being there.”
    “I’m quite sure they will want to talk to me. I’d like you to be there.”
    “Why would they want to talk to you?”
    “Because I’m the one who got her killed.”
    “I’m on my way.” I grabbed my iPhone and my favorite summer Kate Spade tote.
    FIVE

    I pulled my hybrid Escape into Calista’s drive expecting her to be waiting. She wasn’t. I studied the white concrete dome in front of me. It looked out of place next to the palm trees and live oaks, as if it had landed here from someplace on the other side of the galaxy. Wide border beds with lavish gardens surrounded the whole affair. Massive walls of concrete reached out from either side like giant arms enclosing two sets of steps with a fountain between them.
    The opening in the concrete wall between the sections was about six feet wide. When I stepped through it, I was in a small courtyard. Glass block formed the front edge of the fountain, and the gurgle of water soothed