Before I could protest, she led me toward the stairs.

Maybe I should have been surprised to find the Last Picks in the servants’ dining room, but I wasn’t. Fox looked at me soberly. Millie had a bewildering, red-eyed hopefulness. And Keme glowered at me, apparently under the assumption that I had, as usual, screwed everything up. He wasn’t wrong. They looked like they’d been picking at the cakes Indira had made in a frenzy of worry-baking (we’d gone from five cakes to ten, so she’d been busy while I was gone, and I spotted a pumpkin trifle that, if I’d been feeling better, I would have attacked like a cartoon piranha.)

After planting me in a seat, Indira headed for the kitchen.

“What happened?” Millie asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think he and West might have broken up, but he’s—he’s not in a good place. He didn’t want to talk.”

Millie nodded and immediately started crying again.

Keme doubled down on his glower.

“You did a kind thing,” Fox said.

I thought of the fight I’d picked with Bobby. The argument. My insistence that he shouldn’t let his problems with West blow over. My smile had a lot of sharp edges when I asked, “Did I?”

“Yes, you did. Bobby shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

I nodded.

In a surprisingly kind voice, Fox added, “And whatever happened between Bobby and West, it’s not your fault.”

“It feels like it is.”

“I’m sure it does. But you might ask Bobby, after some time has passed, what he thinks. My guess is that he’ll tell you the same thing the rest of us will: that we all need friends who will tell us the truth. Especially the hard truths.”

Which I agreed with, in theory, although I’d have preferred not to be the one with the hard truths.

Keme broke through my thoughts by saying, “Like, for example, you’re an idiot.”

“What did I do now?” I asked.

Keme looked at Millie, who was wiping her eyes with a napkin.

“Millie,” I said. “It’s okay. Bobby’s going to be all right, and West will be all right. People break up all the time. They’ll get over it.”

“I know,” she said, but she was crying harder. “That’s what makes it so sad.”

I had no idea how to respond to that, but before I had to, Indira returned from the kitchen. Along with the promised eight-cheese pasta, she was carrying one of her sheet pan dinners—chicken thighs roasted with a medley of vegetables (I noticed approvingly an abundance of potatoes). It smelled amazing. It looked amazing. And, best of all, it wasn’t soup. (For whatever reason, autumn brings out people’s latent soup-making tendencies. For, like, three months, I have to be on high alert.)

I didn’t feel hungry, but as soon as I started eating, I was ravenous. Keme made a face. Fox rolled their eyes. Millie was apparently so fascinated (probably like the viewers of Animal Planet) that she forgot about crying.

Indira eyed me and then said to Fox, “It’s flattering, but I was almost positive there were bones in those chicken thighs.”

“Maybe he’ll choke,” Fox said with disturbing optimism.

I paused my chicken-devouring long enough to say, “Change of subject.”

“We still can’t find Ali Rivas,” Millie said. “Keme and I looked everywhere.”

I had to pause again. “What?”

“We checked her apartment, we checked the student union building, we checked EVERYWHERE.”

Fox discreetly held up two fingers and mouthed, Two places.

I wanted to point out that Ali’s disappearance—like so much about her that I’d heard over the last few days—simply didn’t make sense. Instead, I went for “We don’t need to find Ali—”

“Of course we do,” Indira said. “Someone murdered that man, and even though he was a terrible human being, that’s not right.”

Fox nodded. “And it’ll be a loose thread if we don’t. Can you imagine if they ended an episode of Law & Order that way? Oh wait—they did! No, did they?”

“I have no idea what’s happening right now,” I said as I brushed aside parsnip and red onion to get at another piece of perfectly roasted potato. “But this isn’t an episode of Law & Order, and it’s not our responsibility to find whoever killed Gerry.”

“But you LOVE catching killers,” Millie said—unnecessarily, in my opinion.

“No,” I said. “I don’t. I love minding my own business. I love naps. I love—isn’t there a German word for when you lie around in your pajamas all day and eat pretzels?”

Keme gave Fox a look.

“It’s called self-delusion,” Fox explained. “People are capable of tremendous amounts of it. It gets worse the older you get.”

“I’m not delusional,” I began. “I’m perfectly aware—”

And then I stopped.

Because I saw it.

Gerry’s too dark hair and goatee. Gerry’s creams and lotions and cosmetics. What we’d been told: that Gerry had liked going after younger men. Maybe too young.

It was just like my Will Gower story: I’d been so focused on what I thought I knew that I’d made an assumption. The evidence had been right in front of me, but I’d misinterpreted it because I’d thought I’d known what it meant. Which, to be fair, I was in good company—it was a mystery novel classic for a reason.

“I know how we can find the killer,” I said. “And I know how we can lure them out. And I know how we can make it impossible for them to resist. But I’m going to need your help.” I took a breath. “Have you ever heard of somatotropin?”

Chapter 16

The next day passed in a blur. I drove all over town, talking to people, asking questions, requesting records, doing my due diligence to make sure my hunch was right. A large amount of that time—an ungodly amount, to be perfectly frank—I spent at the sheriff’s station. The rest of the Last Picks were busy too—Millie at Chipper, Indira at the fishermen’s market, Fox visiting studios and galleries. Keme was in charge of keeping an eye on Bobby, who seemed determined to avoid me at all costs (he literally turned around one time and walked in the other direction). Not that I blamed him. I was the one who’d goaded him into—into whatever he’d done. He was right to be angry with me.

That evening, I tried to stay busy. The house was painfully quiet. There was no sign of Bobby (and he wasn’t answering his phone), and Indira had long since retired to the coach house. I tried to play Super Smash Bros, but I kept getting killed. (Okay, I probably would have gotten killed even if I hadn’t been so distracted.) I tried to write, but I just sat there, staring at a blank document, cursing my ancestors (specifically, my parents). I tried to read, but my eyes kept falling shut. So I could concentrate. Because I was thinking. With my eyes shut.

A noise woke me, and for a single, disoriented moment, I didn’t know where I was. Then I made out the familiar shapes: the chandelier, the TV, the built-in shelves. The billiard room’s darkness was softened by the ambient glow of LED power lights on various electronics, but it was dark enough. When I checked my phone, the clock said it was past two in the morning. The sound came again—the squeak of rubber soles on the hardwood floor. I fumbled with the lamp and winced as light bloomed.

When I could see again, I was looking at Jen Kang, from the surf camp. She was dressed in black. And she was holding a gun.

I had a certain amount of self-interest invested in the gun, but I forced myself to look at her face, to see the signs. The overdeveloped jaw was the clearest one, but her brow as well, and the acne scars were there too. Her free hand was pressed to her thigh. A big hand. I should have noticed that before.