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here.”
    â€œGold digger.”
    â€œMy next ambition. No zit-faced teenage girl could get through the security in this place.”
    â€œProbably not.” As she stepped outside, Lila looked over at the boarded-up window. “It wouldn’t be a snap, would it, to get past security. But . . . if they let someone in, had someone over, or another tenant, or a really experienced burglar planned it. Except the police didn’t say anything about burglary.”
    â€œHe pushed her out the window, then shot himself. I’m sorry for Ashton, Lila, but that’s what happened over there.”
    â€œHe’s so sure it couldn’t have been that way. Not thinking about it,” she said, and wiped her hands in the air. “I’m going to have breakfast with you, even though you’ve dumped me for some rich bastard.”
    â€œHe’ll be handsome, too. And probably Latin.”
    â€œFunny, I was seeing portly and bald.” She popped some berries into her mouth. “Goes to show. Anyway, I’m not thinking about any of it right now. I have to work today. I’ll put in a solid writing day, then I’ll call the rich and handsome Ashton Archer. If he wants to look, he can look. Then, well, there’s nothing else I can do, right?”
    â€œThere’s nothing you can do. The police will do what they do, and Ashton will have to accept what happened. It’s hard. I lost a friend—well, more a periphery friend—in college to suicide.”
    â€œYou never told me that.”
    â€œWe weren’t tight, but we were friendly. Liked each other, but not tight enough for me to know how troubled she was, I guess. Her boyfriend dumped her—that couldn’t have been all of it, but I guess it was the trigger. She took sleeping pills. She was only nineteen.”
    â€œAwful.” For a moment Lila felt it, that terrible despair. “I don’t want Zit-face to have the crush anymore. Just the zits.”
    â€œYeah. Love, even when it’s not real, can be deadly. We’ll leave that part out. Do you want me to come back, be here when Ashton comes?”
    â€œNo, you don’t have to do that. But if you’re not ready to go home, you can stay as long as you need.”
    â€œI’m okay with it now. I can handle some teenager. And my guess is she got what she wanted, and will go play cat burglar somewhere else.” But she sighed heavily. “I really liked those shoes, damn it. I hope she trips in them and breaks her ankle.”
    â€œHarsh.”
    â€œSo’s stealing another woman’s Manolos.”
    She couldn’t argue with that, so Lila drank her coffee.

Four
    S he felt settled again once she got back to work, back into her story. Werewolf wars and cheerleader politics both took some careful navigation. They kept her busy and involved into mid-afternoon, when Thomas demanded some playtime.
    She broke off with Kaylee’s beloved cousin hanging on the thin line between life and death after an ambush. A good place to stop, she decided, and getting back to see what happened would motivate her on the next round.
    She played ball-on-a-string with the cat until she could distract him with one of his motion-activated toys, then tended the little terrace garden, harvested some tomatoes, cut herself a little bouquet of zinnias.
    And she’d put it off long enough, she told herself. She picked up her phone, scrolled to Ash’s contact number. It made it all real again. The beautiful blonde begging for mercy. The way her legs kicked the air on the horrible fall, the sudden, brutal impact of flesh and bones on the concrete below.
    It was real, Lila thought. It would always be real. Tucking it away didn’t change that, so she might as well face it head-on.

    A sh worked with the music banging. He’d started off with Tchaikovsky, certain it would fit the mood, but the soaring notes only bogged him down. He