CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

You should celebrate,” Gabriel said as he pulled out of the prison parking lot.

“Um . . .”

“When we first met, you were trying to reconcile yourself to the fact that your parents were cold-blooded serial killers. You know now that they are not. Your father killed four people, all of whom, I suspect, deserved it, and he did it out of love for you. Your mother is completely innocent. That’s a long way to come, Olivia.” He looked at me. “It is.”

“I know, but . . .”

“Yes, perhaps ‘celebration’ is the wrong word. But you deserve an evening to appreciate what you’ve accomplished, and to relax. So that is what you’re going to do. I insist. We’re going to . . . not celebrate.”

I managed a laugh.

“You know what I mean,” he said. “We’re taking the night off, and you’re going to enjoy it.”

“Yes, sir.”

His fingers tapped the wheel. There’d been an electricity in the car, an excitement after I’d explained. I could be brutally pragmatic and say Gabriel was happy at learning his client really was innocent. He was also happy that resolving this would free us to investigate James’s death and clear Gabriel’s own name. But I’d like to think he was also happy for me, for us, having gone through all this together and finally finding an answer, the second-best possible solution.

He’d made his offer of a celebration in a surge of ebullience. Now, when my reaction wasn’t what he’d hoped, that wave crashed and the energy seemed to suck back into him, like a black hole.

“That sounds good,” I said. “Really good.”

His hands relaxed on the wheel. “Does it?”

“A moment to lift our heads from the cesspool and recognize how far we’ve both come before we dive back in again.”

A soft chuckle. “That doesn’t exactly invoke the mood I was aiming for . . .”

“You know what I mean. Yes, I’d like a not-celebratory evening, please.”

My phone buzzed, and he tensed. “Ricky?”

“Mmm. Hold on.” I texted back. “He’s just checking in.”

He kept his gaze on the road. “If you would rather spend the evening . . .”

“He has homework to catch up on.”

He drove two blocks in silence. Then, “I would understand if you wanted to spend the evening with Ricky. A lot has happened today, and he’s . . . better with that sort of thing. We could do this another time. I mean that. I would understand.”

“You’re the one who had to put up with me through this whole mess. So you’re the one who has to not-celebrate with me, too.”

A flicker of a smile. “All right, then. We will do something special. Not dinner. Something different. Something fun.” He paused, and I could smell smoke as his brain whirred, furiously searching for a fun activity. The longer he struggled, the harder I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing.

“Can I make a suggestion?” I said. “Since it’s my noncelebration?”

He exhaled in relief. “Yes. Please.”

—

We went to the beach. I’d remembered being at Villa Tuscana with Gabriel, before everything went wrong, how we’d walked down the steps and I’d talked about sitting out by the lake with a bottle of wine. That’s what I wanted to do. Not there, of course. But I wanted that feeling again.

We spent the afternoon in the office, working on James’s murder, so we wouldn’t feel guilty about the evening off. Then we bought wine and drove up to my spot. It was a wild place, all driftwood and long grass and thin stretches of sand mingled with eroded, treacherous paths. No one came here—there were better, safer, more scenic places.

I took off my shoes and socks before I even climbed out of the car, and I rolled up my pant legs. Gabriel got out, still in his suit and his loafers.

“Uh, gotta at least take off your shoes,” I said.

“I’ll be fine.”

I didn’t argue. Gabriel had to experience an obstacle for himself, which he did, as soon as we’d walked fifty feet and hit a patch where the path vanished, and water swelled over the sand. Gabriel eyed the lake as if he could intimidate it into retreating. It refused to yield.

As I waded in, Gabriel headed farther up the shore, only to curse as he stepped on boggy ground.

“You’re stubborn, you know that?” I called.

He grumbled under his breath.

“This is a beach, Gabriel,” I said. “No Ferragamos allowed.”

He looked down at his shoes.

I sighed. “All right. Fine. There’s a boardwalk a few miles up. We’ll drive—”

“No, I can do this.”

He started back toward the car. Then he lifted a finger, as if I might think he was making his escape. I walked to a small embankment and perched on the edge, my toes in the water, sinking into the mud below.

“Better?” he said when he returned a few minutes later.

I turned. He hadn’t just taken off his shoes and socks. He’d rolled his trousers and lost the coat and tie, even if the top button on his shirt was still fastened.

“Much better. Now let’s walk. By the way, I want a house right there.” I pointed at the windswept plateau above the lake’s edge. “A tiny house with a huge porch. I’ll come out every morning, with my coffee and my newspaper, and I’ll watch the sun rise.”

“I don’t think you can get newspaper delivery here.”

“You and your practicality.”

He chuckled as I climbed the incline to the grassy rise. I stood on the edge, face lifted as the wind whipped my hair back.

“My porch will be here. And if you mention the high probability of erosion, I will throw this bottle of wine in your general direction.”

“It’s a magical spot. There’s no erosion.”

“Thank you. I’ll sit on my porch with my coffee and my book every morning. I might even, on occasion, bring work. You will not, however, be able to check that I’m doing it, because I will have no cell service.”

He looked at his phone. “Actually, there is—”

“I will find a provider that doesn’t cover this spot, except on Tuesdays, if the wind is blowing north and I hold my phone just right. Otherwise, I am out of contact.”

“That might not be safe.”

“It’d be safer for everyone else. I can’t call for help and get you guys killed by a roving pack of evil elves.”

I moved to the edge of the bank and lowered myself to the ground. “Come and sit on my porch. It’s time to open the wine.”

He climbed up, then looked at the spot beside me.

“Yes,” I said. “There is dirt. The earth is made of it.”

“I was actually checking for bird droppings.”

“There are those, too, in the dirt.”

He sat beside me and pulled the corkscrew out of a pocket. “I thought you wanted a house of ruins?”

“I do. And a pretty little cottage on the beach. And a ramshackle cabin in the woods. Also, a Victorian with English gardens. Oh, and a condo with a view.”

He pulled the cork. “Which are you going to get first, once your trust fund comes in?”

When I didn’t reply, he said, “Wrong subject?”

“I want the freedom money gives me, but I’d rather have earned my own.”

“It is your own.”

“You know what I mean. If anything, it should go to the Tylwyth Teg, for finding me rich parents. Which brings up a whole other category of subjects I’d rather ignore tonight.”

“I always wanted a Victorian house,” he said.

“Like Rose’s?”

“No, I want a haunted one.”

I laughed. “You want pet ghosts?”

“Not haunted by ghosts. Just haunted.” He passed me the wine. “We forgot glasses.”

I drank from the bottle. “Mine now. I have cooties. Little guys, with wings.”

He retrieved the bottle. “I believe I have the same ones.”

“So, your haunted house,” I prompted.

He drank deeply, his eyes tearing at the corners, as if he were slugging hundred-proof moonshine instead of Bordeaux.

“There was this house,” he said. “When I was a boy. We moved a few times, but it was often within walking distance. It was condemned and boarded up. An old Victorian on a street of slums. I thought it was the fanciest house I’d ever seen. It probably reminded me of Rose’s, but it was this big, run-down, rambling place. Inside, though, you could see hints of what it had been. The flooring. The plasterwork. Even some antique furniture. It felt haunted, but in a good way. Memories and history. I would find things inside and imagine the families that had owned them. I used to tell myself that one day, when I was financially well off, I’d go back and fix it up.”

“Is it still there?”

He shook his head. “Long gone. Demolished. I’d never have bought it. Practicalities.” He snuck a look my way. “I can’t avoid them.”

“No one can, not if they have a drop of sense. You’d go back, and you’d see that it’d be a money pit in a bad neighborhood, and you’d feel like you’d lost that dream. Better it was removed due to circumstances beyond your control.”

“Yes, that’s it exactly.” He sipped from the bottle this time. “I would have felt guilty choosing, too. I’d want the condo, and I’d feel like I abandoned the house. Which sounds silly.”

“It’s not about the house. It’s about the dream.”

“Yes.” Another gulp of wine before he passed it back. “The condo was a dream, too. When I was in college, I had to do a joint project. Normally, I could wriggle out of them or do all the work myself, but this guy insisted on working together. We’d go to his father’s, an apartment in the building where I live now. I’d see that view and . . .”

“You wanted it.”

“I did. Part of it was just setting the goal. This is what I’ll have someday. A status symbol. But really, I wanted the view.”

“It’s a million-dollar one.”

“It is.” A crooked smile. “Luckily, when the housing market crashed, I got it for less. But it was nice to achieve that goal earlier than I expected.” He undid the top button on his shirt and leaned back, his hands braced behind him. “I wouldn’t mind a secondary residence. As an investment, of course. That’s the only way I could justify it. But . . .” He took off his shades, the sun having dropped almost below the horizon. “Someplace quieter. The condo is quiet, in its way . . .”

“But it’s still in the heart of a very big city.”

“It is.”

I took a hit from the wine bottle. “So tell me what you’d want. Perfect world. No practicalities.”

“There are always practicalities.”

“Pretend there aren’t.”

When he said, “I don’t think I can,” there was a look in his eyes almost like panic.

“Allow for them, then,” I said. “Just don’t dwell on them. What would you want? Forest, lake, mountain, ocean . . .”

“Meadow,” he said. “Not the most exciting landscape—”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s whatever you want.”

“Meadow, then,” he said. “Grass as far as the eye can see. A stream running through it. Forest around it, blocking everything else. I’d build a house . . .”