Ryan didn’t make phone calls. That was what I learned from his cellphone records. His mother called him every few days and they would talk for just about ten minutes. Other than that, he never spoke on the phone. He texted, but not an above average amount. I had heard from him every few days. He texted Marner periodically. I recognized that number. There was one number he had texted extensively in the last two weeks before he died.

Probably the woman he had been dating.

It would have been nice if he had mentioned he was seeing someone. Then I would have kept my mouth shut and I wouldn’t have endured six months of thinking I contributed to his suicide. But Ryan had secrets. That’s what I knew now. We were friends, but that didn’t mean I knew what was in his head or his heart.

I sipped my coffee in my home office and spun in my chair. I could never find an office chair I liked. They were either ugly and comfortable or beautiful torture devices. I had gone for attractive on this one and it did nothing to save my posture or wrists. Someone needed to invent a way to work while being massaged with virtual hands.

The only number on the call record that looked unusual was the very last one. There was an incoming text from a number that didn’t appear anywhere else on the call log. Then Ryan had responded two minutes later. It would have been after he left my house, before the park. I decided to block my number and call it. Ryan had clearly decided to ignore the tiff we’d had and I really didn’t want to dwell on it either. But I had no idea what to believe anymore. Logic kept telling me suicide was the only answer.

With clammy hands I entered the number on the phone record and waited for someone to answer. “DeAngelo,” came a familiar voice.

Sucking in a breath, I ended the call. Ryan’s last text was to DeAngelo. Aside from the one sent twenty-two minutes later to his mother. His very last text.

So did that mean it was DeAngelo Ryan had been meeting in the park? A text didn’t prove that though, and there was no way to ask without gathering suspicion. I just couldn’t find a motivation for DeAngelo to kill a co-worker.

“Ryan, if you’re listening to me, this is a dead end. No pun intended.” My voice rang loud in my quiet house. I usually had music playing in the background while I worked, but today I hadn’t wanted to hear bouncy pop music. I had chosen silence and now it felt heavy, smothering. Clicking on the TV for background noise and company, I thought for a minute.

This was stupid. Maybe I needed to go back to the police station and just be bold.

Instead, what I did on total impulse was call up Hannah and arrange to meet with her. I had taken a guess that she was the number Ryan had been texting so frequently before he died, and when I dialed it, I was right. She was friendly and willing to give me a ten minute meeting. She chose a bar in Lakewood, ten minutes from my house. Not a crowded hipster haven like the one that had cornered the market on twenty-somethings by having retro arcade games. This was actual old school. A genuine corner dive bar that hadn’t been redecorated in at least twenty years because it didn’t need to be. It had its regulars who most likely who would balk at anything pretentious. There was one lonely pool table in the back and dinged-up barstools. The room smelled like grease and a faint hint of smoke, like occasionally the bartender puffed when the place was empty. Two weary looking men were at the bar, though they weren’t sitting together.

Popcorn was set on the bar top every few feet, but I couldn’t imagine digging my hand into a bowl where countless other hands had been buried. Hannah wasn’t there yet, so I just sat down on a stool and ordered a glass of wine. It was the wrong choice. The bartender didn’t say anything but it took her a minute to dig around in the cooler and find a solitary mini bottle of white wine buried in the back. This was clearly a beer bar and I was feeling self-conscious in my floral shirtdress. Not that anyone was paying me any attention.

My mother always told me I had an invisible audience and I was starting to think she was right. I needed to be more confident, especially if I was going to solve a murder. So I sipped my wine and resisted the urge to hide behind my phone screen. Instead, I took in the wall décor. It was mostly a mish-mash of liquor and beer signs, plus some sports memorabilia. LeBron James was staring down at me, sitting on a throne. A picture from BTD, Before The Decision. Before he broke the hearts of Clevelanders and headed for the sun and sand of Miami and a virtually guaranteed championship ring.

They needed an update. The image of him crying on the court after he kept his promise to win with the Cavs. Full circle. But then again, this wasn’t an on-trend bar. Maybe they liked to cling to the underdog days, to the sense of grittiness that was at the heart of Cleveland’s history. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing—respect the past.

My past was starting to feel like quicksand. The more I moved, the more it shifted and sucked me in. I wanted to move forward and heal. Not get pulled into acknowledging that everything I had ever known was an alternate reality. I was starting to understand this about Ryan and his life, not about me. I clearly hadn’t even known him as well as I thought I had. My past was really the version of the truth I had chosen to believe—what was shown to me on the surface.

A woman came in through the back door, alone. She had on a Mötley Crüe tank top and skinny jeans with flip-flops. There were tattoos on both of her arms, and she had jet-black hair and bright-red lipstick. She was beautiful, her face both exotic and friendly. Her arms looked toned but not from working out, just from good genetics. Based on looks alone, she was definitely Ryan’s type. I gave her a smile. “Hannah?”

She smiled back as she approached me. “Yes. You must be Bailey. Nice to meet you.”

I tried to remember if I had seen her at Ryan’s funeral, but there were so many people there and I was so distraught I didn’t think I would have noticed her, especially in a winter coat and hat. “Thanks for meeting me. I’m sure you’re wondering why I called.” I waited until she sat down on the stool next to me. “But Ryan told me he cared about you and I’ve been thinking about him a lot and well, I just wanted you to know that you mattered to him.”

Even though he had never mentioned her before her death. But now he had made it clear he cared about her, and had staunchly defended her.

Her eyes instantly got glassy. Her voice was husky, sexy. “He was a good man. I thought, you know, that maybe for once, somebody was going to love me for me, not for what they could get from me.”

I saw it then—what would have appealed to Ryan. The vulnerability behind her probably usual bravado. I imagined they laughed at the same things, listened to the same music, drank the same beer. But she was a woman who needed protection, and he was the man who could provide it.

Yeah. He would have fallen in love with her and it actually made sense.

A flush crawled over my face, not because I was jealous or angry. But because I was too stupid to see it then. For years I had been trying to force an intimacy that wasn’t there, and even if it were, would never work. Ryan and I were friends and could have never, ever been anything different. We just weren’t alike, not in a way that would ever work for a relationship.

Heavy thoughts for a Monday. I should have ordered something harder. Like a shot of tequila.

“Losing him was hard. You’re right. He was a good man.” If he suddenly popped up behind us though and started eavesdropping I was going to be pissed. I gave him a mental warning to stay away. I wasn’t sure it worked like that, but it was worth a try.

“So you were friends for forever, weren’t you?” Hannah ordered a beer on tap.

“Yes, for about ten years. We’re opposites, so it was kind of an odd friendship, I guess.”

She eyed me curiously. “So you never did anything else?”

I shook my head vehemently. “Oh no. God, no. Not even close.” I was going to say not even a kiss, but technically I might have done that, though it hadn’t been reciprocated.

“That must be nice. I’ve never been friends with a guy who didn’t want to get naked at some point.”

I tried not to be insulted, because I knew she didn’t mean it that way, but it was a bit of a kick in the pants. Though I was determined not to be so freaking sensitive again. Hannah oozed sex appeal. I didn’t. I could change that if I wanted to. I am not exactly an ogre. Some might even call me cute. It was the lingering redhead syndrome. I had spent my whole childhood being called a Ginger and having my smattering of freckles made fun of. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

“The thing is, Ryan and I were friends, but it was more of a brother-sister relationship. You care, but you don’t share everything.” I could see that clearly now. “I did want to ask you though if you knew anything about what he was doing earlier that day he died. Like who he might have been with. Maybe it was you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. I hadn’t seen him in a few days, though we texted.”

I knew from the call log that was the truth.

“But he mentioned he was meeting Jake.”

Jake, as in Marner? Why was Hannah allowed to call him Jake too? What the actual hell? Then a more relevant thought occurred to me. “That morning? Or afternoon?”

“That afternoon. But it sounds like he never made it there.”

So another dead end. “Anything else weird about how he was acting? Was he worried or upset?”

“No, not at all. He was excited about the money though.”

That was news to me. “What money?”

“He said he was getting five grand from an insurance policy.”

Now that was weird. Ryan didn’t have a relative who had died and he hadn’t had any damage to his house or car, so what else could it be? “Did he say what it was from?”

Hannah shook her head. “No.” She grinned. “We were celebrating that night, not talking.”

How magical for them. Nope. Not jealous. Not me. All good here.

“Gotcha.” Hopefully there would be no forthcoming details. I really wanted to ask her about the prescription drugs, but I didn’t see any way to approach that subject without completely offending her. “Five thousand dollars, huh? That’s a lot of money.”

After sipping her beer, Hannah made a face. “Sucks that he got killed and never got to enjoy it.”

Hold it. “Ryan committed suicide.”

She gave me a long look. “Whatever. I don’t believe that for a minute. If you do, that’s fine. But I don’t.”

“I don’t know what I believe.” That was definitely the truth.

My phone buzzed in my purse. I fought the urge to look at it. Business could wait five minutes.

Hannah’s phone chimed in her hand. She did choose to look at it. Her face changed, growing excited, or at the very least distracted. “Sorry, I need to go.” She drained her beer in one long gulp. “Nice to meet you.”

Then she was gone. I realized that she hadn’t paid for her beer, which was fine. I had invited her. It did seem odd she hadn’t even offered. Turning her life around, maybe. But she was used to getting what she wanted from people. That was irrelevant though.

Sighing I pulled my phone out of my purse and glanced at the screen. There was a text from an unknown number.

Mind ur own business or you’ll end up with a bullet in ur head 2.

I was in my house with the doors and windows locked, wishing I had installed a panic room in the basement, when Marner showed up. After checking to make sure it was him, I threw the door open and said, “I’m going to die,” as a greeting.

He frowned, a crease appearing between his eyebrows. “Not today, if I can help it. Now calm down and tell me what happened.”

After he stepped inside I made sure I bolted the door closed. “Look at this.” I shoved my phone at him.

He read it, his expression never changing. “Did you try to text them back?”

“No! Are you nuts? What, like I’m going to engage with a killer? Antagonize them?” I sucked on my vape. I couldn’t help it. I was terrified. I paced back and forth in my bare feet.

“There’s no proof that a killer wrote this.”

He had lost his mind. “So this is a random text from a random stranger? Completely unrelated to anything going on?”

“It’s possible.” Marner was wearing a suit and he peeled his jacket off and draped it over one of my living room chairs. “We can’t jump to conclusions. Let me text them back.”

I scrambled over to him and tried to grab my phone back. “No!”

He looked startled, but he let me take the phone. “Why not?”

“I’m scared.” Maybe cops didn’t get scared, but home stagers did. I could attest to that.

His expression softened. “Come here. It’s okay.” He pulled me over to him.

I resisted, because I was annoyed that he hadn’t indulged me from jump. But he tugged harder and I gave in, letting him draw me against his chest. He smelled woodsy and sexy and I breathed deeply. There it was again. That weird tingling in places that shouldn’t tingle in broad daylight with a man who wouldn’t give me the right to use his first name.

“I don’t think it’s okay,” I bemoaned. “I feel like something weird is happening. Who has my number? It has to be someone I know.” That was a terrible thought. Who had my number?

Hannah. DeAngelo. Clients. The women I had worked with in evidence. Marner. Out of that list, DeAngelo was the only who seemed likely to threaten me. It wasn’t a comforting thought. Maybe Ryan was right—DeAngelo had meant to shoot me.

A shiver rolled down my spine. I glanced up at Marner. “Did you know Ryan got five grand just a few days before he died?”

“What? How?”

“Hannah told me it was from an insurance policy, but that doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Marner stopped rubbing the small of my back, which was disappointing. He set me back a little and frowned at me again. He frowned an unreasonable amount. “Why were you talking to Hannah?”

Oops. Busted. He wasn’t supposed to know about that. I was seriously lousy at this whole investigative crap. “I called her and we met for a drink. It was a five minute conversation, honestly. But the relevant information here is she said that 1) Ryan was murdered and 2) she said he just got an insurance payout.”

Marner seemed to be debating whether he was going to shake me or give me a stern lecture or just hand out the classic silent treatment. His jaw worked and he pressed his hand to his eye briefly, like it was twitching. “Why are you fixating on this? What has changed?”

Ryan appearing in my kitchen and asking me to flash him to check his arousal potential.

I wanted answers. Closure. But I wasn’t getting the answers I wanted. I scrambled for a response to Marner’s question other than “the dead speak to me.” “I think it’s just that now the shock has worn off. That’s all.”

He studied me so intently I almost squirmed. My arms were still loosely around his waist, my e-cigarette dangling. For some reason, I tucked it into his pocket. I wanted both hands free to squeeze him.

“Did you just put your vape in my pocket?”

“Yes. I’ll get it in a minute.” I rested my check on his dress shirt. It was crisp and cool. He wore a suit well. Working man meets GQ.

“I don’t know what to tell you about Ryan, babe. I wish I did.”

“Then tell me why you don’t let me call you Jake.”

He stiffened. Then he tipped my chin up so I was looking at him. “I never knew you wanted to call me Jake.”

We were doing something again, like we had at the ice cream shop. There was a shift in the air between us. “I do,” I said, and my voice was like Hannah’s. Whiskey smooth, sexy. I ran my tongue over my bottom lip.

He dropped his gaze to my movement and his already dark eyes darkened more. “That’s fine by me. And for the record, I’m glad you called me. Any time you’re scared, you can call me.”

“You really don’t think I need to be afraid?”

“No. I don’t. But I do think you should let me kiss you.”

I could say I hadn’t seen that coming, but that would be a lie. Marner had been inching toward this moment and I had been letting him. Encouraging him. Now I was surprised at how much I wanted him to close that gap between us. “I think I will.”

He didn’t hesitate, but he didn’t hurry either. Marner was maddeningly intense, the way he always was. Deliberate, dedicated, diligent. His mouth took mine and for a split second I forgot everything and everyone.

Then I heard Ryan’s voice behind my left ear. “Oh come on. Are you kidding me right now?”

I jerked back and shivered when I felt the cool space as I collided with Ryan’s ghost form. Breathing hard, I put my hand on my chest. I refused to acknowledge Ryan because this had nothing to do with him. It had everything to do with Marner. Jake.

So to smooth over my sudden movement, I said, “I think I should let you do that again sometime.”

“I won’t object to that.”

“Since when has this been going on?” Ryan asked. I refused to look at him, but I was getting a little desperate. He was destroying what was kind of an awesome moment. Marner was cupping my cheek with his callused hand and giving me that stare he was so gifted at delivering.

“Do you want to go out for a cup of coffee?” he asked. “Now? I don’t have any plans tonight.”

“That sounds great.” I thought maybe if we left my house, Ryan would evaporate or whatever he liked to call it.

“You do know that Marner has back hair, don’t you?” Ryan asked.

Shut up, shut up, shut up. Had he always been this obnoxious? Just because Marner was Italian didn’t mean he had back hair.

Yet I found myself studying the nape of his neck for evidence of a carpet of hair descending below his collar. There wasn’t one.

Marner was opening the front door for me. I took juvenile satisfaction in turning and sticking my tongue out at Ryan. He was just giving me crap just to be a jerk.

He ruined my gesture by laughing riotously.