Paul had put down a deposit of twenty million dollars but complained bitterly about the unfairness of life, because he was number fifteen on the list and not number one. His obsessions, Annalisa noted, were getting more and more out of control, and just the other day, he’d thrown a crystal vase at Maria because she’d failed to immediately inform him of the arrival of two fish. Each fish cost over a hundred thousand dollars, and had been specially shipped from Japan. But Maria hadn’t known and had left the fish sitting in their containers for five critical hours, during which time they might have died. Maria quit, and Annalisa paid her two hundred thousand dollars — a year’s salary — not to press charges against Paul. Annalisa hired two new housekeepers instead of one, which seemed to mollify Paul, who insisted the second housekeeper be on fish duty twenty-four hours a day. This was disturbing but paled in comparison to Paul’s attitude toward Sam.

“He did it,” Paul said one evening at dinner. “That little bastard. Sam Gooch.”

“Don’t be crazy,” Annalisa said.

“I know he did it,” Paul said.

“How?”

“He gave me a look. In the elevator.”

“A thirteen-year-old boy gave you a look. And you know he did it,”

Annalisa said, exasperated.

“I’m having him followed.”

Annalisa put down her fork. “Let it go,” she said firmly.

“He cost me twenty-six million dollars.”

“You ended up making a hundred million dollars that day anyway.

What’s twenty-six million compared to that?”

“Twenty-six percent,” Paul replied.

Annalisa assumed Paul was exaggerating when he said he was having Sam followed, but a few nights later, as she was preparing for bed, she discovered Paul reading a detailed document that didn’t appear to be the charts and graphs he normally perused before going to sleep. “What’s that?” she demanded.

Paul looked up. “It’s the report on Sam Gooch. From the private detective.”

Annalisa snatched it out of his hands and began reading aloud. “ ‘The suspect was at the basketball court on Sixth Avenue ... Suspect attended field trip to the Museum of Science and Technology ... Suspect went into 742 Park and remained inside for three hours, at which time suspect exited, taking the Lexington Avenue subway to Fourteenth Street ...’ Oh, Paul,” she said. Disgusted, she ripped the report into pieces and threw it away.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Paul said when she returned to bed.

“I wish you hadn’t, either,” she said, and turned off the light.

Now, every time she thought about Paul, a knot formed in her stomach. There appeared to be an inverse relationship between the amount of money he made and his mental stability. The more money he made, the more unstable he became, and with Sandy Brewer absorbed in the preparations for his trial, there was no one to keep Paul in check.

Putting aside the seating chart, Annalisa went upstairs to change. The depositions for Sandy’s upcoming trial had begun, and being among several people who had seen the cross, Annalisa and Paul were on the list.

Paul had done his deposition the day before and, following the advice of his lawyer, claimed to have no recollection of seeing the cross, or of any discussions about it, or of Billy Litchfield’s potential involvement.

Indeed, he claimed to have no recollection of Billy Litchfield at all, other than a belief that Billy might have been an acquaintance of his wife’s.

Sandy Brewer had been at the deposition and was relieved by Paul’s faulty memory. But Paul didn’t know as much as Annalisa did, and to make matters worse, the lawyer had informed her that Connie Brewer would be at her deposition that afternoon. It would be the first time she’d seen Connie in months.

Annalisa selected a white gabardine pantsuit of which Billy would have approved. When she thought of him now, it was always with a slight bitterness. His death had been both pointless and unnecessary.

The deposition was held in a conference room in the offices of the Brewers’ law firm. Sandy wasn’t there, but Connie was sitting between two members of the Brewers’ legal team. At the head of the table was the counsel for the state. Connie looked frightened and wan.

“Let’s begin, Mrs. Rice,” said the state counsel. He wore a misshapen suit and had boils on his skin. “Did you ever see the Cross of Bloody Mary?”

Annalisa looked over at Connie, who was staring down at her hands.

“I don’t know,” Annalisa replied.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Connie showed me a cross, yes. But I can’t say if it was the Cross of Bloody Mary or not.”

“How did she describe it?”

“She said it belonged to a queen. But it might have come from anywhere. I thought it was costume jewelry.”

“Did you ever have a discussion with Billy Litchfield about the cross?”

“No, I did not,” Annalisa said firmly, lying. Billy had died for the stupid cross. Wasn’t that enough?

The questioning continued for another hour, and then Annalisa was dismissed. Connie walked with her to the elevator. “Thank you for doing this,” Connie murmured.

“Oh, Connie,” Annalisa said, and hugged her. “It’s the least I can do.

How are you? Can’t we have lunch?”

“Maybe,” Connie said hesitantly. “When all this is over.”

“It’ll be over soon. And everything will be okay.”

“I don’t know about that,” Connie said. “The FCC has barred Sandy from trading because he’s under investigation, so we have no money coming in. I’ve put our apartment on the market. The lawyers’ fees are huge. Even if Sandy does get off, I’m not sure I want to live in New York anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Annalisa said.

Connie shrugged. “It’s just a place. I’m thinking we should move to a state where no one knows us. Like Montana.”

That evening when Paul got home, Annalisa tried to tell him about her day. Going into his office, she found him standing before his giant aquarium, staring at his fish. “Connie says they’re going to have to sell their apartment,” she said.

“Really?” Paul said. “What do they want for it?”

She looked at him in astonishment. “I didn’t ask. For some reason, it didn’t seem appropriate.”

“Maybe we could buy it,” Paul said. “It’s bigger than this place. And they’re desperate, so we could probably get it for a good price. Real estate is going down. They’ll have to sell quickly.”

Annalisa stared at Paul, the knot in her stomach tightening in fear.

“Paul,” she said cautiously. “I don’t want to move.”

“Maybe not,” Paul said, keeping his eyes on his fish. “But I’m the one with the money. Ultimately, it’s my decision.”

Annalisa stiffened. Moving slowly, as if Paul were unbalanced and could no longer be trusted to react like a normal person, she edged toward the door. She paused and said softly, “Whatever you say, Paul,” quietly closing the heavy double doors behind her.

The next morning, Lola Fabrikant woke at noon, groggy and slightly hungover. She wrenched herself out of bed, took a painkiller, then went into the tiny bathroom to examine her face. Despite the amount of alcohol she’d consumed the night before at a birthday party for a famous rapper, her skin looked as fresh as if she’d just returned from a spa. In the last couple of months, she’d learned that no matter what she put in her body, or what she subjected it to, the effects never showed on her face.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of her apartment. The tiny bathroom was grimy, scattered with makeup and various creams and po-tions; a bra and panty set from La Perla was crumpled on the floor next to the toilet, where she’d tossed them as a reminder to hand-wash. But she never seemed to get around to domestic chores these days, and so her apartment was becoming, as James Gooch said, a pigsty. “Find me a cleaning woman, then,” she’d retorted, adding that the condition of her apartment didn’t seem to prevent him from wanting to be there.

She stepped into the plastic-molded shower, which was so small she banged her elbow reaching up to shampoo her hair, reminding her again of how much she hated the place. Even Thayer Core had managed to get a bigger apartment in a better location, which he never ceased to point out. Ever since he’d taken the job with Mindy Gooch, Thayer had become a bore and was obsessed with getting ahead, even though he was only, as Lola pointed out, a glorified assistant, despite the fact that he had a business card claiming he was an associate. She still saw him but only late at night. After a long evening of clubbing, she’d realize she was going home to an empty apartment and, feeling unbearably lonely, would call him, insisting that he let her spend the night. He usually did but made her leave with him at eight-thirty in the morning, claiming he no longer trusted her alone in his apartment, and now that he had a decent place, he wanted to keep it that way.

Running conditioner through her hair, she bolstered herself with the thought that soon she, too, would have a larger apartment. That afternoon, she had an audition for a reality show. The Sex and the City movie had been a huge success, and now some producers wanted to do a reality-show version. They’d read her sex column and, contacting her through her Facebook page, asked her to audition, saying she’d be a perfect real-life Samantha. Lola agreed and couldn’t imagine how she wouldn’t get the part. For the past week, she’d been envisioning herself on the cover of Star magazine, like one of those girls from The Hills.

She’d be more famous than Schiffer Diamond — and wouldn’t that show Philip and Enid Merle? The first thing she’d do with her money would be to buy an apartment in One Fifth. Even if it was a tiny one-bedroom, it wouldn’t matter. She’d haunt Philip and Enid and Schiffer Diamond for the rest of their lives.