Love, Lines, and Alibis

Prologue

PROLOGUE

W hen I finally made it home that February evening, I was freezing. I was tired. I was hungry. And I probably smelled—and by that, I don’t mean that I could still sense my lover’s fragrance on my skin, but an actual unpleasant odor caused by too many days of unwashed frenzied activity. I sweat when I’m nervous.

I went straight to the shower, turned on the faucet, waited patiently, then remembered what had happened a few days previously—right before all this mess had started—and made a turn for the kitchen. I filled every big pot I could find with water and set them to boil. And, since a watched pot does indeed not boil, I rummaged through the refrigerator and the cabinets for something that could appease my stomach rumbles. I settled for a jar of hearts of palm dipped in almond butter. It wasn’t slices of avocado on cassava flour crackers—that would be my actual favorite snack but I was out of both valuable ingredients, since I hadn’t exactly been able to shop for groceries or anything else—but it did calm my hunger momentarily. I was still craving a lentil burger with sweet potato fries though.

I chugged two big glasses of water and realized I had been parched only after I drank. I couldn’t remember the last time I had paid attention to my proper hydration, and it had been one of my mantras since the move to California. That’s what you learn when you are a Los Angeles transplant: use sunscreen daily, keep a tatty cardigan in the car all year round, and carry a reusable bottle of filtered water everywhere.

Some of the water on the stove started boiling then and I transferred it to the bathroom, carefully. I’ve read all the statistics about fatal accidents caused by silly home mishaps. It would have been extremely unfortunate to have endured—and survived—the previous seventy-two hours only to burn myself when it was finally all over.

I poured the hot water into the black-tiled bathtub and added some cold water so as not to scald myself. I slipped out of the satin strappy dress and dipped my whole body in the warm water. That had to have been fated. I had rented a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with a big bathtub I’d always considered ridiculously disproportionate for the space, and it had to have been for the purpose of living that moment. I finally relaxed. I submerged my head fully in the water, having a very cinematic experience. I was the flawed and tired hero having made their Odyssean way home and finally been able to rest. I half smiled, reached out of the bathtub for a nearby notebook—I keep them scattered all around the place as you would expect for someone in my line of work—and started scribbling.

I guess if I’m going to tell you the story of how I found myself inside a hot bathtub after days of unwashed undertaking and with a broken water heater—and after one dead body and two failed murder attempts against me—I should go back to the morning it all started.