For obvious reasons, I don’t have cameras in my house, with two exceptions. I have a cam in the guest bedroom closet and one built into the air-conditioning vent of the pantry. The pantry cam is motion activated and angled to catch the full view of anyone who opens that cabinet. The video feed is wired, not wireless, and therefore not dependent on the reliability of an internet connection or the security risks of one. The wiring, which was put in place when we renovated our kitchen six years ago, runs along the back of the cabinet and to a small flash drive that will hold 420 hours of footage. Since the camera is only activated by motion, there is no chance of filling up the drive, but if that unlikely possibility ever occurred, it would simply overwrite the oldest file. I insert the flash drive into my computer’s USB and wait for the folder to load.
It is, as predicted, not full. In fact, there are only six and a half hours of footage, across hundreds of video files. I start at the most recent, and immediately hit pay dirt.
On the video, Lillian appears, wearing the same white T-shirt and yoga pants she was found in. Her hair is in a ponytail and her movements are jerky, almost manic. As she gropes in the cabinet, she reaches for one bottle, then another. She stiffens, and this is probably when she spots the special-edition box. She stands on her tiptoes to reach the back, and pulls out the box. She examines it, and I can seethe moment where she considers returning it. The war of right versus wrong. Marriage vows versus disrespect. The anger—hell hath no fury like a woman scorned—wins out, and she uses the edge of her fingernail to break the seal. Then she opens the lid, pulls out the bottle and twists the cap, and takes a small sip.
It’s unnerving, the smile that passes over her features. A long, knowing grin, one dipped in revenge, but my wife thinks she’s stomping on a planned tradition, a keepsake. She has no idea of what she really holds in the box tucked under her arm—the financial infrastructure of one of the world’s most dangerous bodies of organized crime. She puts the bottle back into the box, and I want to smash my fist into that smile, to destroy the computer screen, to break her face and not stop punching until there are no more bones left to move, no more life left to open those light-brown eyes.
She opens her purse, puts the box inside, and then is locking the cabinet and returning the key. Fifteen seconds later, she’s out of the pantry and the video goes dark.
I rewind the clip and watch it again. The video is time-stamped at 11:02 a.m. on the day of her disappearance and death.
My cell phone rings, and it’s Lillian’s drunk of a mother. I silence the ringer, unable to take another round of her sobs and nonsense questions. No, I do not know why Lillian did it. No, I do not know if she was alone. No, I do not need you to come here and grieve with me. No, I do not want to talk with your latest boyfriend and answer his questions. No, Jacob is not okay and doesn’t want to talk to you either.
Her mother seems convinced that it’s a suicide, but I’m not sold on that. Originally, I hadn’t seen a motive for murder either, but maybe her holding the key was it.
I start the video again, and on this take, I focus on Lillian’s facial expressions and demeanor. It looks like Sam was right, and she was off her medicine. In the video, she goes through an entire range of emotions when it comes to selecting the bottle. This was a potential risk thatI should have calculated when she got wind of the affair. Relationship heirlooms would have been at risk, and my wife has always had a fondness for being drunk, a fondness that spikes dramatically when things go south.
I thought I was being smart, putting it in a firesafe box in a pantry that a robber would never look twice at, locked by a key that no one other than us knew about. I should have put it in the guest-bedroom closet, with the other sensitive items, but I always reasoned that if something happened—if the organization, or the feds, or someone I had not anticipated came here and threatened me—I could give up the guest-bedroom stash and still have Colorado.
There is no recovery from a loss of Colorado. That loss is one with dozens of side effects, ones I have never calculated, because if Colorado is lost, I am dead, so the fallout is irrelevant.
Four years ago, when this sixty-four-digit encryption key was created, the bourbon box had actually been the backup plan—in case option one fell through. Option one was the number handwritten on the back of a framed family photo of Lillian, Jacob, and me—a photo I gave my grandmother, who added it to her mountain of frames on top of the baby grand piano in the corner of her Oklahoma City farmhouse. I’d expected that to be a safe location. Then five months ago, a tornado—a freakin’ tornado—picked up the entire house and spun it into a thousand pieces. Somewhere, a relief worker probably found and bagged the picture frame, oblivious to the lottery ticket that they were throwing away.
I should have found a new location, but Sam and I were working on an apartment-complex deal, and Luis was leaning heavily on me to research and invest in lean hog futures. Pigs. That’s what distracted me from what should have been my number-one priority—backup plans for backup plans. Pigs ... and then the slow and eventual destruction of my marriage.
I call Sam, ready to hear whatever he has to say about Lillian’s state of mind that morning.
“Hey.” His voice is low, as if he is with clients, but that has never stopped him from answering. It is one of the nice things about Sam, if I had to make a list of the nice things. Excellent communication. Always on time, if not early. Always has me finish first, regardless of whether he does.
“You said you spoke to Lillian the morning that she died and that she seemed off her meds. I need to know everything about that morning.”
“I can meet you. Just tell me where.”
“The coffee shop in Brentwood, by the farmers’ market. Meet me in the parking lot. I’ll be in the car.”
“Sure. I’m ... uh ... twenty minutes away. Okay?”
“Yeah.” I end the call, then play the video again. She put the liquor in her purse and then ... I look at the timeline of her calls. Three and a half hours later, she calls the taxi and then the abuse hotline and then her office, then somehow ends up in Malibu, dead in the surf. Her bag was there too—I remember the detective mentioning it. I hadn’t cared because I hadn’t been aware of the missing bottle at that time. Now it could be the most important thing in my life. Was the bottle still in the purse, in the evidence locker?
I replace the drive and tuck the cords back in, returning the cabinet to its normal operation and the key to the can, though there is no longer anything of value inside. You still need to put things back in their place; otherwise your home, your marriage, your life is just one continually crumbling edifice.
I take my key from the hook and call up the stairs to Jacob, who is playing music at a level that is unhealthy for his ears. I wait, then head to the garage. I have thirteen minutes to make it to the coffee shop parking lot to meet Sam.
On the way, I call the detective to ask about the purse, but he doesn’t answer. I leave a message and make sure that I sound broken and weak, a man in mourning. The stress is easy to inject into my voice. The grief ... I’m still working on the grief. For now, all I feel for her is hatred, and this new development has poured kerosene on that fire.
CHAPTER 57
LILLIAN
I’m in a strange house and standing in the middle of a skinny hall, trying to place my surroundings. At the end of the hall is a mirror, and it’s odd to look at it and not see my own reflection. The walls are a pale blue, and the other end of the hall opens to a living room with midcentury-modern, white furniture and a large dalmatian, who launches off the couch and begins barking at me. I watch him with interest, and when I crouch and hold out my hand, he trots over and sniffs it, then barks again.Interesting.
A woman yells at him to shut up and I straighten and turn toward the sound, following the hall to an open doorway. Pausing on the threshold, I look in to see a small office, one with stacks of books and papers on every surface. Behind the L-shaped desk is a woman I don’t know. I move closer, watching her with interest. She has almost translucent white skin and black hair, which is pulled into a low braid and contained with a thin red headband, which gives her a young look, though she is probably five or six years older than me. She’s wearing round tortoiseshell glasses and a pair of jean overalls with a red tank top, her shoulders hunched forward as she types away at a keyboard, her attention on the computer screen before her.
The dog has followed me in and is still barking at me, and the woman yells at him again. I point to the door, and surprisingly, he obeys, walking into the hall and sitting and staring at me as if waiting for his next command.
I do a slow spin of the room, wondering why I am here. I’ve never been in a strange place before, at least not as a dead woman. The woman sighs in frustration, and I circle the desk to see what she’s working on. It is an email, something about code enforcement and a backyard deck. I perk up at the same time that she does, both of us hearing the slam of a door and a male voice calling out a name.Caroline.
“I’m in here,” she calls.