Played to Death
bite of waffle. Eckhoff held out his card. “If you think of anything else that might help, no matter how trivial - give me a call.”
    “Sure.” Scott took the card, glad he wouldn’t have to call Kevin.
    Kevin and Eckhoff stood. Eckhoff said, “By the way. Kevin tells me that you might know my girlfriend.”
    Scott couldn’t think of any reason that he’d know a cop’s girlfriend. “Who is she?”
    “Liz Nguyen.”
    “ Oh .” Liz was Jamie’s bestie at work. He’d liked Liz. That could explain the Dolce and Gabbana. “Lucky you. Liz is great.”
    “Yep.” Eckhoff looked like he knew he was lucky.
    “Does Kristen Beach still work there?” When Scott and Jamie had been together, Liz and Kristen had come with Jamie to a lot of Scott’s concerts. He’d liked Liz, but he’d loved Kristen.
    “Yes, she does.” Eckhoff grinned. “I’ll give her your regards.”

 
    Jamie
    It was warm Sunday morning, with the warning from the weatherman that it would be hot by mid-day. Pete and I rolled out of bed early, ate cereal for breakfast and drove to Ali and Mel’s to move Kevin’s belongings.
    Liz was already there; she and Mel were carrying boxes from Kevin’s closet to the garage, where Ali’s large pickup truck was backed up. Ali herself was at work; her xeriscaping crew often had to do commercial jobs on weekends while the establishments were closed.
    Pete and I pitched in, and soon we had the truck and Pete’s Jeep full. Fortunately, Kevin didn’t have a huge amount of stuff. In two trips, we had everything moved into the condo. We spent another half-hour getting all the boxes moved into the proper room. As we finished, Liz got a text. She read it and chuckled. “Jon and Kevin just left Scott Deering’s apartment.”
    I groaned. “What a way to start the day. For everyone involved.”
    Liz and Mel left to do other things, and Pete and I stayed to unpack. After the ladies left, we looked around for a minute. Pete said, “I didn’t notice while we were carrying boxes. This is a nice place.”
    “Definitely.” It was a corner unit. Two bedrooms, two and a half baths, a third smaller room that Kevin was going to use as an office. A large open-plan great room; one long, wide balcony opening off both the great room and the master bedroom; another shorter balcony opening off the other bedroom and the office. The kitchen wasn’t huge but it was big enough for Kevin, who didn’t cook much. The master bath featured both a whirlpool tub and a shower stall.
    Kevin and I, along with Jeff and seven others, had inherited $38 million each from a man whose son had killed our mom in a drunk driving crash. We’d gotten the money four weeks ago. It had allowed Kevin to pay off the mortgage on the house that he’d bought a year and a half ago with Abby and to pay cash for this place.
    I hoped he’d be happier here.
    Pete stood with his hands on his hips. “Okay. How do you want to do this?”
    “Why don’t you take the office and living room? Get his computer set up and get his books and stuff out of the boxes. I’d like to get all the boxes out of here today if we could. I’m going to take his bedroom and bathroom first, then the kitchen.”
    “Okay.” Pete disappeared into the office. I heard him begin to pull boxes open.
    I went into Kevin’s bedroom. His new bed stood against the wall to my left, facing out across the balcony toward the east, the green swath of the Los Angeles Country Club in the distance. Nice view. I wondered how long it would remain green under our water restrictions.
    I sorted out the bedroom and bath, then went to the kitchen, where I found Pete looking in the fridge. He said, “It’s empty. Should we go to the store for him?”
    “Yeah.” I’d lived with Kevin long enough to know what he liked. We went to Trader Joe’s and stocked up, making sure to include beer and Cokes. And plenty of raisin bran.
    We made one last trip back to the condo and unpacked the groceries. Pete

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