Until someone had doused the fire, ended her.

Dressed in a fine black wool sweater and a pair of jeans with the denim split open along my moon boot, I put on a sock and a shoe, then went downstairs. The air was cold on my exposed toes despite the house’s heating system. My stomach growled as I walked into the kitchen.

Everything looked normal.

My pulse began to settle. Whatever I’d done last night, it hadn’t rung any alarm bells. I’d probably just sleepwalked outside. Had to be a side effect from the painkillers I’d taken before I crashed.

About to reach for the cereal, I saw a covered plate on the counter, with a note on top that bore my name. I opened it to find French toast. It had gone cold, but I chucked it in the microwave, then drowned it in syrup and ate, following it up with a large banana.

Carefully peeling off the sticker that stated the banana was a product of Ecuador, I placed it on the underside of the fruit bowl, where Pari would find it. She collected fruit stickers in a little book she kept on her bedside table. Since our father never went inside her room, her idiosyncratic collection was safe out in the open. The last thing to go into my stomach was most of a bottle of Coke.

My foot throbbed like it had a red-hot poker shoved inside it.

Gritting my teeth, I considered the pain meds I’d left upstairs, but couldn’t make myself move to get them. My sleepwalking self had clearly put far too much pressure on my foot.

I did have my phone, so I went online to search out the fact sheets about my meds. Sleepwalking or sleep disturbance wasn’t listed as one of the side effects, but then again, I’d also suffered a head injury.

Who could predict the interaction between the two?

As I closed the browser, I wondered how I’d gotten back into bed without leaving a trail. I hadn’t seen anything on the steps. But Shanti did a quick vacuum every morning and the carpet was a dark gray that probably wouldn’t have shown dirt unless I’d left a clump. I’d have to see if she said anything about it.

Wondering if I’d left any other evidence of my nocturnal stroll, I went out the back door. The day was gray, the sun anemic at best. Shanti’s vegetable garden lay undisturbed to the left. Beyond it, I caught glimpses of royal blue, the pool—and its winter cover—mostly hidden by the heavy foliage planted around the mandatory pool fence. Masses of native greenery intermingled with pops of subtropical color.

A few of the hibiscus flowers were still blooming. Purple-red, and orange.

Since I hadn’t woken up wet, I must’ve gone right. I turned that way . . . and soon became aware of a low buzz of noise from the main Cul-de-Sac drive. I was heading around the side of the house in that direction when I spotted a couple of footprints coming off the lawn and onto the concrete path.

My cheeks burned with ice all over again.

A hard scrub with my good foot and the dirty footprints disappeared into dust. As for the security camera footage, I knew how to access that, how to erase it.

There.

“. . . Ishaan Rai!”

I reached the front of our property just in time to hear my father’s name shouted out in a furious female tone. The person who responded to that voice did so with far more calm, because I heard nothing else until I emerged from within the ferns, nīkau palms, and kōwhai trees that shadowed our drive.

Lily was the first person I saw.

Wearing her black work clothing, she stood about ten feet away with her arms folded. I could also see Margaret smoking as she stood at the end of her own drive dressed in a purple miniskirt, her top a mishmash of colors and her wrists loaded with bracelets. Grandma Elei, meanwhile, was looking out from her second-floor bedroom, but the commotion was taking place in front of the Fitzpatrick property.

Both lawyers—dressed for work in crisp suits—were still home for some reason, and both were gesticulating wildly at my father’s house. In front of them stood Constable Sefina Neri. She had her back to me, but I could see the line of her profile. A police cruiser sat at the curb, where another officer in uniform was leaning inside through the window and speaking into the police radio.

Lily walked over when she spotted me.

I raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

“Brett and Veda are saying someone poisoned their dog and demanding a full investigation.”

23

My hand spasmed on the cane, clenching tight. “How do they know the dog didn’t just drop dead?” I managed to ask through the crushed stone in my throat.

“I heard one of them shouting about foam around the mouth.” Lily looked back at the couple, her lips twisted up at one side. “I guess you have to be connected to get the cops to respond. I had a burglary one time and nothing. They get two officers for a dog that probably ate a bad mushroom—you know those two aren’t the kind of dog parents who regularly check their grounds for stuff like that, or even tell their yard service to get rid of anything dangerous.”

Yeah. No.

The police presence had nothing to do with connections. Neri might be a junior member of the homicide team, but she was still part of it. No one would dispatch her to take a report about a dead canine unless they thought it was connected to my mother’s murder.

“Did you hear Veda screaming your dad must’ve done it?”

I thought of our conversation at the dinner table, my father’s sly smile. And I thought of my dirty soles and aching, throbbing foot. “She should know better. He’ll probably sue her for libel.”

“Games of the rich.” Lily glanced at her watch with those dismissive words as Leonid emerged down the street with his twins in their stroller. Also with him was a very large man in a black suit and aviator sunglasses.

“I better get back,” Lily said. “I needed to clear my head after the morning rush, and was just planning to walk up and down the Cul-de-Sac when the cop car pulled up and Veda started ranting.”