other. 'It's hard, isn't it?' she said. 'They'll never understand. We were the victims here.'
I balked at the word 'victims' but didn't say anything. I was trying to figure out a good segue into asking for Don again.
'I'm sorry, Patrick. I wish we all didn't have to hate each other now.' She spread her arms, her perfect nails flaring. We embraced. She smelled divine--faded perfume, feminine soap, sweat mixed with lotion. Hugging a woman, really hugging her, brought back a flood of sensations--not quite memories, but impressions. Impressions of my wife, of another time. Martinique's muscles were tighter than Ariana's, more compact. I patted her back and let go, but she clutched me another moment. She was trying to hide her face.
I pulled away. She wiped her nose, looked around self-consciously. 'When Don and I got married, I was beautiful.'
'Martinique. You are beautiful.'
'You don't have to say that.'
I knew from experience there was no winning this battle with her. My fingers drummed involuntarily against my forearm.
'You guys all think because you only value us for what we look like, that's what we value in ourselves. It's kind of pathetic how often you're right.' She shook her head, hooked a wisp of hair back over an ear. 'I gained so much weight after we got married. It's hard for me. My mom's huge, and my sister . . .' She drew her fingertips along her lids to remove smeared eyeliner. 'And Don lost interest in me. He lost his regard for me. And now I understand. Once it's lost, it's lost.'
'Is that true?'
She looked at me anxiously. 'You don't think so?'
'I hope not.'
And then, abruptly, he was there at her shoulder, nervously cinching his bathrobe. His bare chest was wide and sported a salt-and-pepper scattering of hair. The muscles of my lower back tightened instinctively, pulling me into a harder defensive posture. The air took on a different charge.
'Martinique,' he said firmly, and she withdrew, padding down the hall, casting a glance at me over her shoulder. He waited for the bedroom door to close, and then his big, handsome head bobbed on his thick neck, his eyes darting to my hands. He looked as nervous as I felt, but he wasn't letting on. 'What do you want, Patrick?'
'Sorry to wake you. I know you're tired from your trip.' I studied him, looking for some poker tell that he hadn't really been out of town but instead tiptoeing around rooftops with camcorders like a perved-out Santa Claus. 'Someone's been surveilling our house. Have you seen anything?'
'As in watching you?' He looked genuinely confused. 'How do you know?'
I held up the unmarked DVD. 'They sent this. And the POV on it seems to be from your roof. Have you had any workers at the house or anything?'
'Patrick, you're starting to concern me.' He put a thick hand on the door, ready to slam if I lunged.
'Let's skip past this part,' I said. 'We both know this script. You push the buttons and I'm supposed to respond.'
'I'm not pushing any buttons, but it sure seems like you're responding.' He started to swing the door closed.
I put my hand out, stopped it. Gently.
I said, 'Look, I'm not storming over here making threats. I'm not calling the cops. I just want to ask you, calmly--'
'The cops now? I don't know what you're trying to set up here, Patrick, but I'm not going for it. I'm gonna shut the door now.'
I removed my hand. Not taking his eyes from mine, he slowly closed the door. I heard the dead bolt clunk, the chain fuss into the catch.
I walked back home. Locked the front door behind me.
Ariana was sitting on the couch. Those dark eyes lifted, looking straight at me. And then she raised her hand, holding two of the DVDs. 'What the hell is this? Are you paying someone to watch our house? To keep an eye on me? Or is this Martinique's doing? She spies on me while you spy on Don? Not even getting into how fucking invasive this is, I thought we were beyond this.'
'Whoa, wait a minute. Those recordings are of me--'
'They're surveillance. So a few clips caught you. How many others are there? What have they been watching me do?'
'I have no idea who's behind those videos.'
I took a quick step forward, and she recoiled in fear. I froze. She'd never flinched from me before, not ever. We stood in the still house for a moment, both of us horrified by her reaction.
She brushed a lock off her forehead and flattened her hand against the air, willing us both to calm down, slow down. 'You're telling me you're not part of this.'
'No. No. Of course not.'
She looked away, took a deep breath. 'Patrick, you're starting to scare me here. You've been like a coiled spring. And now it's as if you've gone off the deep end. You're snooping by their fence, up on our roof spying on them, now you go storming over there. I didn't know what to do. I thought this whole thing was going to blow up on their porch. Don has all those hunting rifles. This is gonna get you killed, and then I'm gonna have to feel guilty.'
'Get me killed?'
'I thought Don was going to shoot you.' She gave a dark little cry, half anger, half relief. 'And if anyone's gonna shoot you right now, it should be me.'
I held up the third DVD. 'You need to see this one.'
Still using the tissue to preserve any prints, I slotted it in, and the blue screen quickly gave way to the shaky view of the back of our house. As the clip ran, Ariana pulled her legs under her, distressed, and pressed a cushion across her thighs. She gasped when the latex glove materialized to grip our doorknob. For the first time, I noted the black sweatshirt covering the brief flash of the intruder's wrist.
The footage ended, and Ariana said hoarsely, 'Why didn't you tell me about this? Why didn't you go to the cops?'
'I didn't want to scare you.' I held up a hand. 'I know. But I just found this one tonight. On our roof. I was coming to tell you, right now. But I wanted to rule Don out first, for obvious reasons.'
She said firmly, 'There's no way this is Don.'
'I agree. But still, the cops aren't going to do any good.'
'What do you mean? Someone came inside our house.'
'It's creepy, but it's not proof of a crime. They'll say they don't have a way to know who did it. They'll say it could've been you.'
'Me? Patrick--'
'They won't be able to do anything. 'Contact us again if there's further trouble. Blah, blah, blah.' '
The doorbell rang. She froze. 'Shit, oh, shit,' she said. 'You might not want to answer that.'
Chapter 8
I opened the door, revealing a vast, pyramidal woman with oval, plastic-frame glasses. Her hair, a touch puffy, was center-parted and feathered. The pooch under her belt said she was a mother, and she had the brisk, no-nonsense demeanor to back it up.
'I'm Detective Sally Richards. This is Detective Valentine. He'll give you his first name if he's feeling social.'
A slender black man stepped out from behind her. His hair was about two inches deep all around--no shape, no notched part, just a uniform rise of dense black curls. His mouth twitched, his mustache undulating. Like her, he wore slacks, a button-up, and a blazer.
Behind me, Ariana said faintly, 'Detectives? I assumed they'd just send a couple patrolmen.'
'Bel Air service.' Richards hoisted her belt, weighed down with a hip-holstered Glock and a flashlight. 'The surveillance tape sounded bizarre, so Dispatch kicked it to us. Plus, we're bored. West L.A. station. There's only so much Starbucks you can drink. Even the doughnuts aren't doughnuts. They're gourmet cupcakes.'
