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at her white shoes. Nurse Cox was soft spoken and agreeable, which made her one of Felix’s favorite employees. She was a religious woman, and had asked him not to take the Lord’s name in vain the first time he’d done it. Felix had tried to respect that request.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

She held out her right hand. “Someone found this on the floor. They brought it up to the nurses’ station. We weren’t sure what to do with it, so I brought it to you.”

Felix took the ID. He recognized Rick immediately and didn’t bother to look at any more of it. Sometimes Nurse Cox came to him with stuff like this. It was a problem that wasn’t a problem. “Call Rick. Let him know he lost his ID.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“But, the name . . .”

Felix looked at the ID again, and then he understood why Nurse Cox had come to him. The name on the ID was Christopher Bell. That was disconcerting. There weren’t a lot of good reasons, if any, for Rick to have an ID with someone else’s name on it.

“Never mind. I’ll take it from here. Thanks for bringing this to me.”

Nurse Cox did an odd little bow like she often did and scurried off. Felix put his briefcase down without taking his eyes off the ID, trying to decide what to do. He studied the license as if somewhere on it he would find an answer. Going to the police was the obvious choice, though not one he relished. Rick was the only family Ms. Hawthorne had. Felix didn’t care for Rick, but he liked Ms. Hawthorne. It was why he had downgraded her to a shared room instead of simply kicking her out two weeks ago. If Rick was arrested, there’d be nobody left to pay for her care. That would leave Ms. Hawthorne in a tough spot. Felix could keep her around for a while, especially if he didn’t move her back to her private room. But once her account started accruing debt again, even he could only keep her around for so long.

Felix decided he was jumping to conclusions. Rick had a fake ID, and that looked bad, but how bad was it really? What if this was all a misunderstanding? Maybe he would have to go to the police eventually, but he wanted to get more information first.

He took the elevator to the third floor and followed the hall to Ms. Hawthorne’s room. If she was lucid, a quick conversation with her might be all it would take to clear this up.

He knocked on the door. Ms. Hawthorne was all smiles when she opened it, but Felix knew that meant nothing. She was happy to see people whether she recognized them or not.

“Ms. Hawthorne?”

“Yes?”

Felix looked past the old woman and could see her roommate in the distance. “Could you come with me? I need to talk to you for a minute.”

She followed him into the hall. “What is it?”

Felix tried to come up with a good way to explain the reason for his visit. In the end, he simply handed her the ID and waited for a reaction.

Liam Parker

Once the taxi was moving, Liam pulled the notepad out of his pocket and flipped it open. On page after page, he found notes about his life, including his children’s names; their ages; his favorite song; his favorite color; the names of his elementary, middle, and high schools; the names of his ex-wife, his first pet, and childhood friends; the name of the restaurant where he and his ex-wife met; the year they divorced.

It went on and on.

Liam recognized some of the notes as things he had told Rick. The rest Rick might have been able to dig up online.

By the time he finished going through the notepad, the other thing he noticed was that there was no information on the other players—Eric Ricci, the Grunter, Emily Stewart. Just him.

Why was Rick keeping notes about his life? And what did Elise have to do with it?

Hands shaking, he closed the notepad and slid it back into his jacket pocket. This was not where he had expected the murder investigation to take him. Once he had a chance to sift through these newest surprises, he would. But solving the murder had to be his number one priority.

If David was right, though, he might not have to worry about that much longer. But what could he have? How could he have uncovered something so important that Liam had missed? The camera in Elise’s building was on the fritz, so there was no video footage. Elise’s lies only led to more lies, more secrets. David had never been to Ava’s or met Rick. The only witness Liam knew about was Elise’s neighbor, and that certainly hadn’t gotten him anywhere. So what could David have that would clear his name?

Two blocks from The Crown, Liam said to the driver, “You know what? You can let me off here. This will be fine.” He wanted to get a look at the place before he got too close. Just in case . . . In case what? It was the paranoia getting to him. It had to be. If there was anybody Liam could trust, it was David. He knew that. Still, he got out of the cab two blocks early and made the remainder of the trip on foot.

David hadn’t seen him since he’d dyed his hair or bought new clothes. He wouldn’t recognize Liam like this, not right away. It would give him plenty of time to assess the situation.

As Liam got closer to The Crown, he examined every pedestrian who wasn’t on the move. There was a homeless woman sitting on a bench in front of the restaurant, a group of people waiting at a bus stop on the corner, a couple loitering in front of a Starbucks on the other side of the street.

Liam also looked at the cars parked along the curb. Darkness