From the passenger seat of Mia’s Volvo station wagon, I stared out the window as the city passed by.
Late afternoon. Traffic was heavy, a torrent of cars clogging the freeways.
Downtown looked like a cluster of glass mountains jutting up from the prairie, multistory totems reaching toward a cloudless, pewter sky, offerings to the gods of commercial real estate and phallic architecture.
Lutz had impounded my pickup as part of the investigation, the search warrant requesting permission to locate “additional ammunition for murder weapon.” I would need to arrange alternative transportation since I didn’t see the Dallas Police rushing to release the vehicle.
Mia and I hadn’t spoken since leaving the courthouse. She made several calls as she drove, rescheduling meetings, getting back to clients who’d called, lawyer stuff.
Her office, a brick bungalow from the 1920s, was nestled under a canopy of sycamore trees only a few blocks from the hotel where Rose and I had met earlier in the day. Mia ended her last call and parked in the driveway but didn’t turn off the engine.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Rose’s death.”
I nodded, swallowing a lump of emotion rising in my throat.
“I know she was your ex-wife,” Mia said, “But it’s a big loss. Gotta sting a little.”
A loss that I was still processing, my mind more than a little numb from what had transpired.
“The judge gave you good advice. Don’t get tangled up in the investigation.”
“A little late for that, don’t you think?”
She sighed. “You know what I mean.”
“Where’d you get the money for my bail?”
Mia was a successful attorney but a sole practitioner. Two hundred thousand was a lot of liquidity to just have lying around.
“Line of credit on the office building,” she said. “Sometimes you need to be able to move quickly in situations like these.”
I smiled at her. “Like when your favorite PI is arrested?”
“Seriously, Dylan. Don’t get involved in the investigation. Ramirez’ll be madder than a wet hen.”
“Thanks for posting my bond. I promise not to be a flight risk.”
We exited the Volvo and entered the office through the back door into the kitchen, an area that looked like a showroom for expensive stainless-steel appliances and marble countertops.
The building had been redone by the previous owner. The hardwood floors were the color of coffee, polished to a high gloss, a nice contrast with the bone-white plaster walls.
Mia’s personal office was in the old dining room toward the front of the house. Her assistant, Archie, sat at a desk in the foyer.
Archie was in his mid-twenties but barely looked old enough to drive, despite the gray herringbone suit he wore. He had a thick head of curly auburn hair and a swath of freckles across his cheeks.
Without looking up from his computer, he handed Mia a stack of message slips. Before he could say anything, his desk phone rang.
As he answered, Mia and I tiptoed down the hall toward the back bedroom, which had been turned into a nursery for Mia’s eleven-month-old son, Caleb.
The nanny, a Honduran woman named Luna, sat in an easy chair, watching a video on her phone. She looked up when we entered and pointed to the crib where Caleb was snoring.
Mia and Luna had a whispered conversation in Spanish. Feeding times and naps and the diaper situation. Caleb burned through diapers like a frat boy through a case of beer.
Luna smiled at me and tried to bring me into the discussion. I smiled back and thought about explaining to her once again that I wasn’t the father nor were Mia and I romantically involved. I doubted she’d believe me, as we’d had the same conversation a number of times.
Senorita Mia. She’s a pretty lady. Why don’t you like her?
Because we’re just friends, Luna. And we work together. That’s why.
Like many successful, driven people, Mia didn’t have time to date. Plus, much of her caseload consisted of clients eager to dump salt into whatever raw wound they could find on their soon-to-be ex-spouse, which didn’t exactly foster a healthy view of family life.
On Mia’s thirty-ninth birthday, I’d driven her to a fertility specialist who inseminated her using material from a sperm bank. Nine months later, Caleb Kapoor entered the world to the delight of his mother. And, truth be told, his occasional uncle, yours truly.
I slipped out of the nursery, padded down the hall to the vacant office I used on occasion. There, I sat behind the desk, flicked on the computer, and logged on to the most comprehensive database available to licensed investigators, one that was tied into multiple credit agencies, law enforcement records, and various social media platforms.
Moments later, a relatively complete and accurate portrait of Josh Gannon appeared, a forty-one-year-old white male whose life appeared to have gone off the rails sometime in his late teens, based on the arrest records.
A sad, but unremarkable existence forever damaged by addiction. Nothing unexpected.
Until I clicked on the social media tab and saw the picture of a teenage Josh Gannon standing arm-in-arm with my former wife, Rose Doucette.
1996. A high school football game.
“What are you looking at?” Mia appeared in the doorway.
“Rose and the GSW guy,” I said. “They went to school together.”
“So, you’re all up in it. Like the judge said not to do.”
I didn’t reply, trying to figure out under what possible scenario Rose would think this information was not important to reveal to me.
Mia Kapoor swore, marched off down the hall.