“That’s not Stanford. It won’t be the same,” Victoria argued.

“It doesn’t matter. I can go to medical school and Jennifer can still be near her family, who will help us raise the baby.”

What about me? What about us? Victoria shrieked in her head. She stared at Seth. She couldn’t say the words out loud. What weight did an eight-month relationship have versus a baby? And Seth’s issues about his father’s history were heavy on his mind. They always had been.

He’s leaving you. He’s walking out on you. Exactly what Jennifer did to him.

“You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re choosing an unknown over everything we’ve planned together.” She grasped at straws. The look on his face said there was no changing his mind.

“School gets out in six weeks. I’m going back to Arizona for good,” he stated.

Victoria stared at him. His eyes were dead. The life and love that usually shone from them had vanished. How had he changed overnight? Was this the true Seth?

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“How am I not to see you when you’re a TA in my class?”

He winced. “I’ve asked the professor if it’s okay if I’m not present for lectures. I’ll be working out of his office more.”

He’s already made plans how to avoid me.

Her shoulders slumped under the colossal weight. Seth had already emotionally disconnected from her and made the necessary plans to cut her from his life. Her stomach heaved and she swallowed hard. She could cry. She could break down right here in public and make a scene. She wasn’t that type of woman. If this man no longer wanted to be with her, she was going to let him go. She wasn’t going to humble herself as a ploy to keep him from his daughter.

“Why here?” she whispered. “Why did you have to do it in public?”

He shifted in his seat, guilt flooding his face. “I couldn’t do it at one of our places. If we were alone and things got too emotional, I was afraid…”

He was afraid they’d end up in bed.

Their sex life was good. There was no getting around it. Lying in bed with Seth on a rainy afternoon was heaven. They’d spent hours talking and making love. He’d been her first and had opened a whole new world of intimacy and sharing for her. In the beginning, it’d simply been explosive and exciting, but it’d grown into a tender, loving experience.

And now it was over. No more.

If she could get him in bed, maybe…

She rejected the thought; she wasn’t a manipulator. She wasn’t that kind of woman and she wasn’t about to start. She was strong. Seth was done with Seth and Victoria. And her logical brain screamed at her to accept it.

She stood up, shoved her books into her backpack, and pushed in her chair. Slinging her pack over one shoulder, she stared Seth in the eye. “I loved you. I loved you a lot and was committed to the future we’d planned together. Good-bye, Seth.” She strode out of the coffee shop with her chin up and her heart in pieces on the floor.

Never again.

Seth noticed Lorenzo Cavallo had managed to rake his leaves in his yard before he died. Lorenzo’s home looked like every other small Portland home from the fifties. The entire street had one-story white homes with single-car garages. Only the yards were marginally different. Some with bushes, some with trees, some with nothing. A shiny classic Chevrolet stood visible in Lorenzo’s garage. Someone had opened the garage door and the vehicle gleamed against the dreariness of the wet day.

The clouds had been high and gray during Seth’s commute to the office. Enough to make him wonder if the day would actually be dry. But his hopes were dashed as black clouds rolled in. Dr. Campbell had assigned him to visit the Cavallo death, doling out assignments among his deputy examiners and himself. It’d been less than a week, and Seth felt like he belonged in the Portland office. His working interview time was almost up. If he was offered the job, he was taking it. No question. He liked Portland. It was quirky, and the ME’s office ran like a smoothly oiled machine.

A uniform held a log out to him at the front door. He signed and slipped on a pair of sanitary booties, studying the young officer out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t look green or ashen, so hopefully the scene wasn’t a bad one. Detectives Callahan and Lusco had already signed the log. It didn’t feel like ten hours had passed since he’d parted from Callahan at the bar.

Seth moved down the narrow hall of the house toward the voices in the kitchen. He smelled the familiar odor of death. The coppery scent of blood and the stench of released bowels. A wave of sadness washed through him as he stepped into the kitchen and examined the body on the floor.

Lorenzo Cavallo was covered in blood from head to toe. He wore what Seth thought of as old-man underwear. The white stretchy tank top and baggy white undershorts. Neither had been truly white in a long time; instead they were a bad yellowing cream color. Browning blood stained Lorenzo’s silver hair. Detectives Callahan and Lusco leaned against a counter in the tiny kitchen. A female uniformed cop nodded at Seth, and a crime scene tech snapped scene photos.

“Morning, doctor,” Callahan greeted him. “Welcome to the party.” His grim expression belied his words.

“Morning,” Seth answered.

“As soon as you can get us a time of death, we’d appreciate it,” Lusco added.

Portland was no different from Sacramento. The cops always wanted that fact first.