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Her cute little cottage all but screamed eff you to him too. It was smaller than he would have pictured, but mad cute with the cherry-red door and the wooden mailbox shaped like a barn that also made him want to vomit.

“So I take it you’re still pursuing that story, then? That’s why you’re here?”

Is she disappointed? Relieved? He can’t tell if Simone thought he drove all this way for another reason: to see her, and if she wanted that to be the case.

“Yeah, I am, and check it… so, the police claim Wade died of accidental drowning here, which I don’t buy for one second because they would have found the body—”

Simone interrupts him. “Not necessarily. I told you it’s crazy deep and the vegetation at the bottom… a body could get all tangled in it and never surface unless they dredged it. They were hardly going to the trouble of all that for Wade, I’m guessing.”

“True, true.” He loves the fact that Simone is joining him in turning over the angles and possibilities. He finds it hot, really, so it takes focus to stay on track. “But there’s another reason we know he wouldn’t have gone in this water: He didn’t swim! At all.”

“How do you know that?”

“Remember how I told you I was going to Florida? I went down there to see the dude mentioned in the article—Wade’s best friend, Jedidiah. Such a character. You’d like him. He’s a dead ringer for George Jefferson.” Kwame stops to laugh and shake his head a little mournfully, like he’s missing Sherman Hemsley. “Jedidiah told me Wade had a little sister who drowned in a pond as a baby and it always made him wary of water. ‘He wouldn’t go near anything deeper than a puddle’ is how Jedidiah put it.”

“Oh, that’s awful. But then how did his shoes get here if he wasn’t here?”

“Exactly. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Not that there are going to be clues lying around after all this time, but I just needed to see the place. Be able to describe it. Get some sound.” He nods at the recorder in his gloved palm, the smaller one he carries for quick ambient sound and voice notes.

“You’re not recording us, are you?” There’s a panicked tinge to the question.

“Nah, nah, relax. I got what I needed, walking around earlier. Remember in J-school how Matson would always tell us that you can’t really report a story unless you immerse yourself in the scene?”

“How does the story smell?” Kwame and Simone say at the same time, imitating their professor’s nasally inflections. They share a laugh that’s carried off by the wind, the same brisk breeze that’s making Simone’s eyes water. Or maybe it’s not the bite in the air at all.

“You okay?” Kwame asks.

“Oh yeah, yeah, my eyes are just sensitive.”

“Are you sure that’s it? Because, I don’t know, you seem a little down or something? You know you can talk to me, Simone. About anything.”

When Kwame reaches for her arm, Simone’s allegedly weather-induced tears transform into real ones. Well, one lone tear that makes a single stream down her cheek, taking a streak of mascara with it.

“Shit, Simone. What’s going on?” He wants to hug her, bad, but he doesn’t know what the boundaries are in this situation. They’re about as slippery and as cracked as the frozen expanse of water laid out before them.

“I’m fine.”

This lie is so unconvincing, Kwame almost laughs.

“Girl. You are not fine. How ’bout we go sit in the car where we can crank up the heat and you tell me all about it?”

It’s a risk inviting her to sit in the close, intimate quarters of his car, but one worth taking, especially when she nods and starts to walk toward the lot.

The gas gauge is precariously low, but he still flips on the engine and cranks up the heat to full blast. If they run out of fuel from idling and he’s stuck in this parking lot with Simone forever, so be it.

“So talk to me. What’s really going on with you? When we met up for lunch everything seemed great.”

“It is. Like I said, just life. Everything is about a million times more complicated than I thought it would be when we were younger, you know?”

“I was never good at math, but that number sounds like a lowball.” The reward of her smile warms Kwame more than any hot air blowing from the vents.

“You’re right, it’s much higher. Too high. For some of us, at least. You seem to be doing okay. Kwame Walker has had things all figured out since diapers.”

“Get outta here. You know that’s not true. None of us have anything figured out. Including me. Especially me. So, what’s up?”

“I… I… got into a huge fight with Alex. A few of them, actually. And it’s not like us. I mean, we have arguments, nothing major. But… I don’t know. It’s just been so different lately. I thought we had it down, you know. We’ve been coasting along, I guess… but, like, happy coasting. Or happy enough.” She attempts a weak smile. “And because it’s been easy, or at least easy enough, it’s just hard when it’s… not.”

Kwame doesn’t know much—anything—about marriage, but it does seem to break all kinds of codes to be sharing your relationship woes with your ex-boyfriend. Not that he’s going to judge Simone… or shut down the conversation. If anything, it reminds him how much she always trusted him, that she was his best friend even before she was his girlfriend.