My phone pinged with a new text message. It was from Kent, informing me he’d landed in Tokyo and would call me tomorrow to let me know how the meeting with Akiko went. I leaned back in my desk chair and tried not to resent Laurel for deciding to leave me right as our company was considering opening a Tokyo office.

If it weren’t for my fear of missing a counseling session, I’d be the one landing in Japan right now. Other than me, Kent was the only other partner who was qualified to negotiate large deals like this. But it didn’t make sense to send Kent.

He was in his early fifties and didn’t drink. He wasn’t going to make the right impression on Akiko Hattori, the twenty-four-year-old founder of CXV Studios, one of the top five mobile app developers in Japan.

Japan had the largest market in the world for mobile apps, but their culture was not as Westernized as many believed. The Halo messaging app, and a few of its spin-offs, had only done mildly well there. It was clear we needed to partner with a Japanese developer to cater the products to their market.

Sending Kent to hobnob with a female tech genius half his age was a mistake I would probably regret.

I shot back a text thanking Kent for keeping me up to date. As I set the phone down on the glass desktop next to my laptop, a head of pixie-cut brown and lilac hair peeked through the crack in my office door.

My executive assistant, Jade, pursed her bright-red lips the way she always did when she had bad or annoying news to deliver. “Sorry for the interruption. I just picked up this call on my headset on the way back from the café. It’s Miranda. Do you want me to transfer it?”

I let out an exasperated sigh and nodded. “Send it through. And bring me a Deschutes, will you?”

Jade nodded. “I also have some more messages from that guy at The Oregonian. Should I delete them?”

I clenched my jaw as I thought of all the professional journalists and amateur sleuths who had been calling for the past month, trying to get a statement from me on the two-year anniversary of Junior’s death, fishing for information on the status of the investigation.

“Delete them all, as usual,” I replied.

Jade nodded as she touched the button on her headset, sending Miranda’s call through to my desk phone, then she pulled my office door shut.

I squinted at the ringing silver phone. I really didn’t want to talk to Miranda right now.

Miranda worked in our San Francisco office. She and our California legal team had been communicating with me via Skype and phone for the past nine months as we worked to establish a charitable arm of Halo Enterprises, the Halo Foundation. She had also not-so-subtly been hinting at how much she wanted to fuck me.

I didn’t want to talk to her, but now that I had recommitted to spending more time at the office, I couldn’t keep running away from the aspects of this business that made me uncomfortable. Like the constant, unwanted attention from female colleagues.

“Did you get the bottle of bourbon I sent?” were the first words out of her mouth.

Something about her deep, Demi Moore voice irked me. It was a disconcerting juxtaposition, like a loud, sparkly dress, torn around the edges. It probably explained how she’d gotten hired by Kent last year, while I was busy following other leads.

I supposed there wasn’t really anything wrong with Miranda’s voice. Or her large breasts she liked to display with low-cut blouses. Or her black hair that flowed down, almost long enough to touch her plump, Kardashian ass.

I just didn’t like her.

I glanced at the $300 bottle of bourbon on my desk. “Yeah, I got it. That was a nice gesture. Thanks.”

Her laugh sounded like the laugh of a sixty-year-old woman who’d smoked for forty years.

“Well, I figured you’d probably want something to celebrate with when I tell you that we finally hashed out the business and financial plan and submitted Form 1023 to the IRS last week. We have officially applied for 501(c)3 status. The hard part is over.”

“Wow. That’s great news,” I replied, making a mental note to share this with Laurel.

“It’s not great. It’s spectacular! The application is the hardest process and we’ve cleared it. Plus, since we used the lawyer your brother recommended, we’re practically guaranteed tax-exempt status.”

“Right. It’s really good news. I’ll have to call John and thank him.”

The uneasy pause that followed was broken with a gasp. “Oh, my God! I totally forgot. I got the invitation to the company Halloween costume party. Is this in addition to the Christmas party or in lieu of?”

“We probably won’t be doing a Christmas party anymore. Less than half the staff celebrates. We figured a Halloween costume party made more sense.”

“Will you be going?” she asked eagerly. “I know it’s like eight weeks off, but I want time to plan.”

My stomach gurgled with unease. “Of course I’m going. The Halloween party was my idea. I’d be setting a bad example if I didn’t attend.”

She chuckled. “Are you dressing up?”

“In a costume? I don’t know. I guess that depends if my wife wants to dress up. That’s assuming she can come. She got a new job, and her hours are…” Why the fuck was I talking about Laurel to this bitch? “I should get going. Keep me up to date on that 1023.”

“Will do, Jack,” she replied, putting a bit too much emphasis on my name.

I hit the speakerphone button to end the call just as Jade walked in with my bottle of Deschutes beer. I thanked her, then I called Laurel from my cell.

“Hey, what’s up?” she said, sounding somewhat out of breath.

“Just thinking about you. What are you doing?”

“I’m just making the bed.”

I shook my head as I stood up. “Maybe you should just come home and make my bed.”

She snorted. “Very tempting offer, but I know you never leave the bed unmade.”

I wet my lips as I suddenly felt thirsty. “We can mess it up so you can make it again. We can play the sex robot game. I’ll let you program me to do whatever you want.”

She laughed, but it didn’t sound like real laughter. She was probably keenly aware that I was trying to use sex to get her to come home.

“We’ve had one counseling session that ended in me fucking you in your truck,” she replied. “We’re supposed to be finding new ways to communicate, but we haven’t even tried any of the communication exercises Bonnie assigned on Friday.”

“That’s not true,” I corrected her. “I told you that same day how much I appreciated you.”

“Pfft! I think your words were, ‘Thank God for this pussy,’ as I lowered myself onto your dick.”

I laughed, though I probably shouldn’t have. “All right, all right. Let the gratitude exercise begin… Thank you for loving me.” I tried not to, but I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry, it’s just so fucking ridiculous.”

“Here’s my gratitude. Thank you, Jack, for not taking this seriously.”

“Come on, pixie, you know it’s bullshit. We don’t need someone to tell us how to appreciate each other.”

“No, Jack, it’s not bullshit. It’s marital counseling, and it’s helped millions of couples save their failing marriages. But apparently, ours is not worth saving.”

“Our marriage is not failing. We lost a child!”

“I know that! You don’t have to keep reminding me,” she said, and I could already hear her beginning to cry.

Laurel only wanted to talk about the good times, when Junior was alive. She never wanted to talk about that night. In my opinion, this was her way of pretending that what we saw when we stepped inside that bathroom two years ago wasn’t real. She wanted to pretend that Junior and Beth weren’t brutally murdered. Like they just floated up to heaven on a cloud of fairy dust.

I didn’t want to hide from the truth. I never wanted to forget what I saw in that bathroom. I didn’t want to forget that kind of evil existed.

It was my job to protect my family, and I had failed. So now it was my job to protect Laurel, and anyone else who might fall victim to my son’s murderer.

I knew Laurel wasn’t strong enough to fight this kind of evil, which was why I had to be strong enough for both of us. I had to keep the investigation fresh in the mind of the detectives who were working the case. I had to help them in any way I could.

I wished I could get Laurel to understand my point of view on this, rather than constantly dismissing it as an unhealthy obsession.

I paused to take a breath as I made a split-second decision I would probably regret. “Fine. You don’t want to talk about this right now. That’s cool. I just called to tell you that I won’t be able to attend the next session on Friday. I have to go to Tokyo and I don’t know if the trip’s going to take a few days or a few weeks.”

She let out a congested laugh. “Great. Already backing out?”

I shook my head at her predictable response. She was the one who complained — in that god-awful letter she wrote me — about how Kent and the other partners thought I was neglecting my work. Here I was, taking work seriously again, and she automatically assumed the worst.

“That’s not what this is,” I replied. “I have a job to do and I need to prepare for the possibility that I won’t be here for this week’s session. Would you rather I be honest with you or just not show up?”

“I don’t care what you do, Jack.” Then she hung up.

I shook my head as I slid the phone into the pocket of my slacks. I probably should have at least apologized for not being able to make it to the counseling session, but she hadn’t exactly given me an opportunity to do that. I’d let her cool off and she’d come to her senses and call me back later.

Or… I could call in reinforcements. Someone who could mediate this separation with diplomacy, maybe even a little humor. Not a professional mediator. It had to be someone who knew Laurel and me better than a random counselor or lawyer.

I knew just who to call.