I, Richard

years ago. That's all I know. He didn't talk about it and I didn't ask.”

“So why didn't he tell me that? Why'd he pretend-”

“I don't know. Maybe it sounded… more glamorous or something.”

“To have shot your own brother? I don't believe that. The only reason a man would tell a woman that tale would be to keep her from wondering why he never mentioned a family, why he never saw them or heard from them. And why would he do that in the first place, Terry? You know as well as I: if he had another life that they knew about. Right?”

“That's not the case.”

“How do you know?”

“Look. Do you know how much planning it would take to have a double life like the kind you're imagining? Jeez. Do you know how much plain old cash it would take? He didn't have that kind of money, Charlie. All he had was pipe dreams like the rest of us.”

“What sort of pipe dreams?”

“He talked through his hat. You know how he was.”

“Talked about what?”

“I need a cup of coffee.” Terry got up and went to the counter, where he placed an order, dug out his wallet, and waited.

Biding his time, Charlie thought. Establishing his story. For the first time since Eric's death, she wondered if there was anyone whom she could trust and at this thought, she sank back in her seat and felt ill to her soul.

“He talked about Barbados. Grenada. The Bahamas.” Terry set a cappuccino on the table and tore the top off a packet of sugar. “He talked about putting his money there, having a new life, sleeping in a hammock on the beach, drinking pina co-ladas.”

“Dear God, what was going on?” Charlie cried.

“Don't you see? Nothing. He was forty-two. That's what was going on. He was talking, that's all. That's what guys do. They talk about investments. About offshore banking. About fast cars and women with big boobs and yachts and racing in the America's Cup. About hiking in the Himalayas and renting a palazzo in Venice. He was talking, Charlie. That's what guys do when they're forty- two.”

“Do you do that?”

Terry colored brightly. “It's a guy thing.”

“Do you do it?”

“Not all guys are the same.” And as he read the despair on her face, he hastened on with, “Charlie, it was nothing. It was going to blow over.”

“He felt trapped and he'd done something about it.”

“No way.”

“Except something happened to prevent him from going through with what he intended to do and then he was really trapped and then-”

“No! That's not it.”

“What is it, then? What was it?”

He grasped his cappuccino but he didn't drink it. “I don't know,” he said.

“I don't believe you.”

“I'm telling you the truth.” He gazed at her long, hard, and earnestly as if his look carried the power to convince and reassure her. “You need to come to the office,” he said. “We've got to go over his will. And there's probate to be handled… Charlie, I want to help you through this. I'm devastated, too. He was my closest friend. Can't we be there for each other?”

“Like Eric was there for both of us? What does that even mean, Terry?”

He was gone and that was difficult enough for Charlie to cope with. The manner of his going-the suddenness and the inexplicable horror of it-made the coping even more difficult. But now to have to face the fact that the man she'd loved and lost had not even been who she'd thought he was… It was too much to bear and far too much to assimilate. She drove home feeling as if she'd been struck by the plague, a virulent interloper that was forcing her body to suffer what her mind could not begin to face.

Somatizing. Somehow she remembered the term from Psych all those years ago. She couldn't bring herself to embrace the full truth, but her body knew what that full truth was and it reacted accordingly. She wasn't suffering from the flu at all. She was somatizing. And now her body was trying to purge her of Eric's lies, because as she drove home, she was overcome by a nausea so fierce that she didn't think she would make it into her house without vomiting.

She didn't. Once pulled into her driveway, she shoved open the door of the car and stumbled out. On the pristine front lawn, she fell to her knees and spasm after spasm wracked her stomach, forcing its meager contents upward and outward in a humiliating and malodorous plume. She gagged on the taste and the smell of it, and she vomited more, until all that was left was the wretched heaving itself which she couldn't bring under control. Finally, she fell onto her side, panting, sweat heavy on her neck and her eyelids. She stared at the house and she felt the vomit slide across the sloping lawn and graze her cheek. Remember, I'll always love you.

She pulled herself up and staggered to the porch, thankful that like so many upscale suburban neighborhoods in Southern California, her own was deserted at this time of day. The two-income families who were her neighbors wouldn't return to their homes before night, so she hadn't been seen. There was blessing in that.

She didn't notice anything wrong until she got to her front door. There, she had her key extended when she saw the deep gouges around what remained of the lock.

Weakly, she pushed the door open but she had the presence of mind not to enter. From the porch, she could see all she needed to see.

“Jesus H,” the policeman muttered. “Fucking mess.” He'd introduced himself to Charlie as Officer Marco Doyle, and he'd arrived within ten minutes of her phone call with his lights flashing and his siren blaring as if that's what she paid her taxes for. His partner was a dog called Simba, a European import that looked like a cross between a German shepherd and the hound of the Baskervilles. “She's on duty,” Doyle had commented as he stepped inside the house. “Don't pet her.”

Charlie hadn't considered doing so.

Simba remained on the front porch on the alert as Doyle went inside. It was from the living room that he'd made the comment which Charlie, clutching at her cell phone like a life preserver, heard from just inside the entry.

Doyle said, “Simba, come,” and the dog bounded into the house. He directed her to sniff out intruders and while she did so-with Doyle on her heels going from room to room-Charlie examined the destruction.

It was obvious that the intent had been search and not robbery because her possessions were thrown around in a way that suggested someone moving quickly, knowing what he was looking for, and tossing things over his shoulder to get them out of his way when he did not find what he wanted. Each room appeared identical in its pattern of chaos: Everything was moved away from the walls; the contents of drawers and closets were dumped into the center. Pictures had been removed and books had been opened and flung to one side.

“No one here,” Doyle said. “Whoever it was, he moved fast. There're too many scents for her to pick up anything useful, though. You have a party lately?”

A party. “People were here. After a funeral. My husband…” Charlie lowered herself to a chair, her knees going and the rest of her following.

“Oh. Hey. I'm sorry,” Doyle said. “Hell. Rotten luck. Anything missing, can you tell?”

“I don't know. I don't think so. It seems like… I don't know.” Charlie felt so used up that all she could think about was crawling into her bed and sleeping for a year. Sleeping away the nightmare, she thought.

Doyle said that he'd be radioing for the crime scene people. They'd come and fingerprint and take what evidence they could find. Charlie would want to phone her insurance company in the meantime, though. And was there anyone who could help her clean up the mess when the crime scene people were finished?

Yes, Charlie told him cooperatively. She had a friend who would help.

“Need me to call her?”

No, no, Charlie said. She'd place the call. No point in doing so till the crime scene people looked for evidence,