Dogs, they may drink from your toilet and pee on your carpet, but they will not cheat on you with your friends. Unless they are from Saltillo, Mexico. Then who can be sure.-Rosita, the mother of Jack Rivera and the ex-wife of Senator Rivera, who was was from Saltillo, Mexico The phone rang again. In all honesty, I didn't think it would have the nerve. In even more honesty, I thought I had taken it off the hook. I hadn't gotten to sleep until nearly two a.m. and every fiber ached where Lavonn had hit me with her knees and fists. I opened one eye to stare at the clock and refrained from swearing even though it was officially morning and I knew who was on the phone. The police station grapevine was a thousand miles long and news traveled at the speed of light. I answered on the fourth ring.

"Listen, I didn't do anything wrong," I said, and covered my eyes with my hand.

"Chrissy." The voice on the other end of the line was a mix between a jackhammer and a road-grader.

"Mom?" I snapped my eyes open and sat up straight. Harlequin trotted in, tags jingling, lips wet from slurping water from the toilet bowl. He was a big believer in hydrating. "How are you?"

"Why didn't you tell me Elaine's getting married?"

My throat felt as if it had been corked up tight. The previous night had been scary as h.e.l.l: The sight of Jackson's bleeding body tilted against the foyer wall, Lavonn's oddly dilated eyes, the gun, the angst, the anger. But there are few things that can compete with my mother's righteous rage. Harley plopped his head on my foot and swore undying devotion with his eyes.

"What?" I said. It was the best I could do at seven o'clock in the morning. Maybe with a couple more hours of sleep I could have come up with "Whatever do you mean," in a dynamite antebellum lisp, but I wasn't up to that sort of clever wordplay just then. And besides, it would probably have been nothing short of verbal suicide. My parents love Laney. Well, maybe not my father. As far as I know, Dad only loves two things. One of them is his easy chair, the other is produced in Milwaukee. Neither of those things would be available at Laney's wedding. I hoped to say the same of my parents.

"Elaine's getting married and you didn't think I should know?" Mom asked.

"Know? No. I mean, yes. Didn't I tell you?" Harley was drooling on the coverlet. "I was sure I told you."

"Where's the ceremony?"

"Where?"

"Yes. Where?"

Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d, maybe I could convince Laney to perform her unG.o.dly act of matrimonial stupidity in Las Vegas. Or Disneyland. Or Timbuktu. Anywhere that wouldn't lead my sordid kindred to L.A. "I'm not sure."

"What do you mean you're not sure? You two haven't had an argument or something, have you?"

Silence hung in the air like smog. For a moment I thought I saw a glimpse of an out and almost made a mad dash for it, but mothers can be sneaky and I thought I smelled a trap. "Why do you ask?" I asked.

Silence stretched on again, then, "Because I spoke to Pastor b.u.t.terfield."

So I'd been right about the trap. It had been yawning right in front of my feet, but I'd managed to escape it. Still, I winced. "Laney's dad?"

"He said you're Elaine's maid of honor."

"Oh." I nodded, sure she was watching me. Some people can see through a thousand miles of telephone wire. It's called mother-vision.

"Is that true?" Her tone was slick, as if she didn't care.

There it was. That sneakiness. I mean, of course it was true. Would a pastor lie about his own daughter's wedding? And more important, could I pull off a lie involving a pastor's daughter?

No. Even I wasn't that good.

"Well ..." I yawned. It was entirely fake. I hadn't been this wide-awake since my brothers put red ants in my underwear drawer. "It's just a little ceremony." A couple hundred of her closest friends and most of the Hollywood community. "I didn't think you'd be interested."

"Not interested? Elaine is like a daughter to me!"

The daughter she had never had. The daughter every mother longed for. I had never wished more that I could hate the little bride-to-be. But Brainy Laney's like spaghetti, long and slim and impossible to dislike.

"Give me her address. I'll send her a gift ..." She paused. It was a lengthy pause, and about twelve months pregnant. "... since she doesn't care enough to invite me."

That's when the war began inside me. Because although I wanted with stark desperation for Mom to send a gift instead of delivering it in person, I couldn't bear to allow anyone to believe that Laney was callous enough to neglect to send an invitation to her maid of honor's mother.

"Chrissy?"

"Yes?"

"She didn't invite us, right?"

And suddenly I couldn't come up with a single lie. Me, a tuba-player, a woman, a psychologist. Nothing.

"Chrissy!"

"I-"

And then my cell rang. I couldn't believe it. It was like a trumpet call from the heavens. Like Gabriel's ethereal fanfare.

Sliding past Harley, I reached for the purse I had dropped on the floor. "Listen, Mom, I'd like to chat, but I have another call."

"I don't care if it's Saint Peter, himself. I want to know-"

"Oh, look. It's Rivera."

She was just inhaling for another blast, when she paused. "Gerald?"

I closed my eyes and covered them with my palm. There was some sort of proverb about a frying pan and a fire. Which was preferable?

"So you two are still dating?" she asked.

"I've really got to go. This could be important."

"Important?" Her tone had sharpened to a needle point jabbing my eye. "Important how? Is it serious between you two?"

Yes, it was serious. As serious as a body tipped against the wall and bleeding onto the rosewood floor, but I had a feeling that wasn't exactly what she meant, and I didn't share the specifics. "I think it is," I said, and for that one statement I knew I could burn in h.e.l.l. Or worse yet, be cornered by an irate mother insisting that I had misled her into believing there might be wedding bells in her only daughter's future.

Maybe it was that thought that made me stammer an apologetic good-bye. Maybe it was some long-dormant sense of masochism that made me snap open my cell phone.

"What the h.e.l.l were you thinking?" Rivera snarled.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my gritty lids. "Whatever happened to early morning pleasantries such as 'good day' or 'top of the-'"

"You knew he had shot someone before you went skipping over to Glendale, didn't you?"

"Actually, I drove. I've never been good at skipping. Something about the rhythm of hopping and-"

"Why the f.u.c.k would you get involved with him?"

"Who? Micky?" I asked.

For a moment there was a silence. "Was there another shooter?"

"Well, there was Lavonn," I said, and froze. To this day, I still don't know why I would say such a thing. In the past there has been some evidence to suggest that I'm not completely brain-dead. Not a lot, but- "She shot at you?"

"Not at me exactly."

"Who exactly did she shoot at?" His voice had taken on that patient-father tone I had come to detest.

Laney appeared in my doorway wearing an oversized T-shirt and baggy sweatpants. Her hair was mussed, her face bare of makeup. She was beauty personified. It almost made me wish I had kept the gun, just in case I caught a glimpse of my own face before applying my usual half a gallon of foundation. But cops are funny about letting could-be psychopaths walk away bearing arms.

"Rivera?" She mouthed the name.

I nodded.

"How's it going?" Mouthed again.

"Excellent." My answer was silent, accompanied by a confident nod.

She grinned at my lie. "I'll wait to hear the story," she said, and headed for the bathroom.

It was impossible for me to guess how she knew there was a story. Laney hadn't returned home yet when I'd left for Glendale. I had privately hoped she was still honing wedding plans at midnight or maybe out knocking over 7-Elevens ... anything besides sharing a bed with Solberg. But it's impossible to say for sure. Brainy Laney's spooky in a lot of ways.

"McMullen." Rivera's patience sounded a little strained now, which, oddly enough, made me feel better.

"Yeah?"

"Who did she shoot at?"

"I'm not sure she had decided exactly."

He mumbled something then. It might have been a swearword. h.e.l.l, it might have been several.

I waited, staring at my legs. They were pasty white and kind of jiggly. I gave the right one a poke.

"... fallen for someone with a couple of brain cells?"

My attention snapped up. "What?"

"I suppose you didn't even consider letting me know where you were going."

"Actually I tried ..." I began, then remembered his words. "What were you saying? Something about falling?"

"What did you try?" he asked. Impatience had slipped into p.i.s.sed. It wasn't a long slide.

"I called you," I said, and scowled, remembering the night before. The panic I had felt at the sound of the voice on the phone. "He's dead," "He's dead," Micky had said and the first person that had popped into my mind had been Rivera. What did that mean? "Your line was busy." Micky had said and the first person that had popped into my mind had been Rivera. What did that mean? "Your line was busy."

"When?"

"About two minutes after I turned you down."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

I stood up. "Why are you so p.i.s.sy? Did the next woman reject you, too?"

For a moment there was silence, then, "Oh, for G.o.d's sake, you don't seriously think I was propositioning someone, do you?"

"You propositioned me." I could feel anger and doubt acc.u.mulate like tartar inside me.

"I'd just put in a ten-hour day. You seriously think I was trying to get you in the sack?"

"Me and probably a half-dozen others."

He snorted. "Jesus, McMullen, if I put my mind to it you'd be flat on your back before you could even remember remember the word 'no.'" the word 'no.'"

I curled up a lip. "I prefer being on top."

"I'll keep that in ..." He stopped himself, drew a deep breath. I swear I could hear him grind his teeth. "Are you okay or what?"

I narrowed my eyes. Mothers weren't the only ones who could be sneaky. Men were right up there with the champs. "Who were you talking to, Rivera?"

"What?"

"Last night, after we hung up. Who'd you call?"

"Are you seriously asking this?"

"Are you seriously evading the subject?"

There was a pause. I opened my mouth to blast him, but he spoke first. "Mama."

I closed my mouth, scowled. Harlequin had trotted after Laney. She had that effect on males. "You were talking to your mother?"

"Si."

"At that hour?"

His laugh was more of a heavy exhalation. "I know that wildcats like you have to get to bed before nine, but Latina women are known to stay up well past dusk."

My hackles rose. There had been more than a few Latina women in his past. h.e.l.l, there had probably been Chihuahuas Chihuahuas in his past. in his past.

"What did she say?"

"Mama?"

"Yeah."

"She said you're a nut job."

"It wasn't her, was it?" I don't know what's wrong with me. Really, I don't. I'm not usually the jealous type. The nutty type, yes. The h.o.r.n.y type, absolutely. The weird, "I want to sleep with you but I won't" type. But not the jealous type.