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house and various locations including Boyle Heights, finally ringing the cherries on a store en route to LAPD Headquarters. An account in the name of Sandy Chambers. The membership photo showed Bill’s wrecked shell of a wife, wan-faced and slight beneath the industrial lights, her shoulders hunched as if she were trying to fold in on herself and disappear. She’d managed a smile, but it looked separate from her face, something pasted on.
    Starting several quarters back to coincide with the date that the batch of prepaid phones had shipped, Evan scanned Chambers’s purchase records. Cases of Heineken, Trojan condoms, deck furniture, jumbo food purchases, a digital camera. And there, seven disposable phones, bought February 13 along with a set of oven mitts and a pack of soft-bristle toothbrushes.
    There was no denying that taken as a whole the facts had a certain heft to them, but the evidence could be configured a variety of ways, telling a variety of stories. When Evan got involved, there was a single outcome, and that outcome demanded certainty before the fact. He lifted his melted drink and wiped the condensation ring with his sleeve, leaving the desk surface spotless.
    Morena’s cell phone rattled on the desk, indicating an incoming text.
    TMRW NITE. 10. HAVE HER READY.
    Evan stared at the words, waiting for his disgust to abate, for his anger to settle into something calm and unbroken. Then he texted back.
    I’LL BE WAITING.

 
    5
    Other Things
    Evan returned his highball glass to the kitchen, washed and dried it, and put it away. The refrigerator contained an array of items, neatly spaced on the clear shelves. He drank a bottle of water as he coated an ahi steak with coriander, paprika, and cayenne pepper and seared it in a pan. When it was ready, he garnished it with a sprig of parsley from the living wall and set the plate down on the island counter, centering it between knife and fork. The fish flaked perfectly beneath the blade. He paused with the bite halfway to his mouth.
    The Band-Aid box, visible through the thin plastic of the drugstore bag, glared back at him. Kermit’s big green head, that watermelon-wedge smile.
    Evan exhaled. Put down his laden fork.
    Picking up the bag, he headed out.
    *   *   *
    He could hear the ruckus the moment he stepped from the elevator. Blaring TV, a boy’s high-pitched voice, Mia’s admonishments muffled through the door of 12B. The Honorable Pat Johnson stuck his turtle head out of condo 12F, swinging a lazy gaze to Evan as he passed. “I suppose she has her hands full,” the judge said charitably, and withdrew.
    Evan’s first two knocks went unheard. He knocked louder, and then the door was flung open.
    Mia, hair aswirl, kitchen towel stuffed quarterback style down her sweatpants, stood holding a steaming pot. Behind her, Peter ran laps around the coffee table, up over the couch, and around the kitchen, stirring up a wake of Legos, action figures, and comic books. A manic Daffy Duck cartoon provided an inadvertent score. Stray crayon marks marred the walls from waist level down. Pursuing an imaginary adversary, Peter waved a lightsaber, which emitted a futuristic wail piercing enough to vibrate one’s teeth. He had a coaster over one eye, pirate fashion, secured with what appeared to be duct tape. A bowl of mac and cheese was inexplicably overturned on the counter.
    Evan held up the bag for Mia to see.
    Hands full, she gestured with her elbows. “Can you just … uh—come in. For one sec. Please. I’m just—” Her head snapped around as her son zoomed past. “Tell me that’s not duct tape.”
    Peter halted in his tracks. “If I set a place, can Evan Smoak stay for dinner?”
    *   *   *
    Evan sat before a bowl of spaghetti with red sauce and a fruit-punch juice box with a bendy straw.
    “I’m so sorry,” Mia said. “I forgot to pick up anything else at the grocery store—”
    “This is fine,” Evan said. “Really.”
    Across from him