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“Did she receive a lipstick this year?” Josie asked.

“Nah, she hadn’t gotten one for two years. At least, that’s what she told me. Maybe that’s why she was willing to do the interview. I don’t fucking know.”

“Mr. West,” said Josie. “Lipsticks aside, was your mother having issues with anyone?”

“No,” he said. “Everyone loved her.”

Twenty-Four

He unwound the nylon cord from the woman’s neck and tucked it into his right-hand pocket. Squatting, he slipped his arms beneath her body and lifted her. It was a short walk to her bedroom. He hefted the woman onto the bed and climbed on after her, straightening her arms and legs. Then he straddled her and smoothed the hair away from her face. It was beautifully distorted and he was about to add to it.

The lipstick was in his pocket. He took his time uncapping it and twisting until the red tip protruded.

“This is your fault,” he told her. “You did this to me.”

Carefully, he began applying the lipstick to her lips.

“You made me this way,” he said. “All I wanted was for you to love me.”

Once her lips were painted, he capped the lipstick and put it back in his pocket. “You should have given me what I wanted.”

He took a deep breath and put one hand on the bed next to her head, bracing himself so he could bring his face down to hers. Using his free hand, he slowly swept his thumb across her mouth, savoring the way it smeared onto her cheek.

“This is what you deserve,” he whispered, and because the words were meant for a different woman, he added, “One day I’ll give you what you deserve.”

Twenty-Five

Josie’s foot pressed on the brakes as her SUV crested one of the many hills of Vincent Williams Cemetery. The roads that snaked throughout it were so narrow that only one vehicle could pass at a time. She knew the cemetery well since her late husband, Ray Quinn, their former colleague, Finn Mettner, and Noah’s mother were all buried here. Still, she was always wary of hitting someone head-on if she went too fast over a crest, especially on days like today when the sun shone from a cloudless sky, causing a glare from the silver hood of her vehicle. Once the next valley of headstones came into view—no other vehicles on the road, luckily—she sped back up to the whopping twenty miles per hour allowed on the premises.

In the passenger’s seat, Noah scanned the rows of grave markers, searching for any evidence of Dean West.

After cresting another hill, Josie spotted a tall man with sandy hair wandering through the grave markers to the left. His head was bent toward a white sheet of paper. Every couple of seconds, he looked up from it to study his surroundings. Josie pulled as far onto the shoulder of the road as she could and turned off the ignition. Dean looked up as they got out of the SUV and gave them a half-hearted wave. As they drew closer, Josie could see the strain on his face. The lines bracketing his mouth looked deeper than they had the last time she had seen him. There were bags under his red-rimmed eyes. Even his hair looked uncombed.

He held the paper out to them. On it was a diagram of some sort. “We have to buy a plot so we can put Mom in the ground even though she’s all burned up. Carter said she wanted to be buried, not cremated. I guess there’s enough of her— Oh God.” He lifted his face to the sun and squeezed his eyes closed before croaking out, “Enough of her left.”

Josie and Noah watched as he sucked in several deep breaths before opening his eyes again and scanning the cemetery. “I have to pick this plot soon. I can’t even figure out where the hell any of these unused ones are. What difference does it make? Aren’t they all the same?”

“Picking out a plot is a very surreal and shitty feeling,” Noah said before pointing in the direction Dean had come from. “My mom is buried over there.”

Dean’s face slackened a little. His light brown eyes filled with sympathy and what looked like relief that someone could relate. Not just someone but a son who knew what it was like to lose his mother. Josie had the distinct feeling that had she shared about the loss of a loved one, Dean wouldn’t have been quite as receptive.

“I’m sorry, man,” he told Noah.

“Back at you. Do you mind?” Noah gestured toward the paper and Dean handed it over readily. “These maps are confusing on a good day, but when your head is all messed up from losing your mom, it’s almost impossible to tell up from down. You’re in a fog.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “Yes! That’s what I told my wife. She doesn’t get it but she never lost a parent.”

Noah scanned the paper and then looked around them. Seeming to find some point of reference, he beckoned Dean to follow him. Josie hung behind, letting her husband take the lead since Dean had latched onto their unfortunate commonality so fast.

“You’re right about one thing,” Noah said as they walked. “All of them are pretty much the same. They just look like a patch of grass, right?”

“Yeah.”

Noah stopped between two rows of headstones. “When I had to do this, my sister and older brother helped.”

Josie knew this was Noah’s clever way of asking why Carter wasn’t doing this with him. Dean pushed his sandy hair back from his face. There was a nice steady breeze in the cemetery, but Josie saw a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Carter was supposed to do this with us but he said he was too upset, that he couldn’t handle this part. I’m the baby, you know? But sometimes it feels like I’m the older brother.”

Noah put a hand to his chest. “I’m the baby, too, but I was also the only one of my siblings who lived in Denton, near our mom, when she passed. A lot of stuff fell on me. Almost everything, actually.”