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CHAPTER FOUR

THE AKANAS

Amy emerges from the Starbucks bathroom to find her husband holding his venti black coffee—always black, for efficiency more than taste. The drive from LA to Santa Clara is a long one, desolate, mostly small agricultural towns with few bathroom-stop options, so she decided against a drink of her own. They walk back to the Volvo and she notices a driblet of coffee trickling down Ken’s hand.

The barista overfilled. Amy hates the vexing errant drip that’s impossible to stop once the lid’s seal is compromised. You’d think Starbucks would have solved that problem by now.

“You should have them give you another cup,” Amy says.

Ken opens the car door. “It’s okay. I have napkins.”

Amy doesn’t push it. They don’t call her husband No Drama Akana for nothing. To his face, it’s Your Honor—chief judge at the LA Superior Court—but Ken has heard the nickname, and Amy thinks he secretly likes it. And it fits. Ken is unflappable. Maddeningly so at times.

Ken buckles his seat belt, waits for her to secure hers, checks his mirrors. Then they’re off. He keeps the radio on low, an easy-listening station, just loud enough to drown out the silence between them. Silence that has grown only more pronounced since their daughter Libby left for college, leaving their house feeling cold and empty.

Back in law school, Amy and Ken—he went by Kenny then—would talk late into the night. About the law. About their dreams. About their future lives together. It stayed that way as they progressed in their careers, got married, and had two children.

Timmy’s cancer didn’t just kill their beautiful little boy, it ravaged his parents. These days, the only thing that brings Ken happiness is Libby. And when she left for college, he and Amy became one of those couples who have nothing to talk about. Ken doesn’t even consult with Amy about his cases anymore. Since becoming a judge, he says it’s inappropriate to discuss his docket. That’s an excuse. Ken hasn’t cared about her opinion on the law, or much else, for that matter, since she stopped working. It’s not like she wanted to give up her career. But after Timmy’s diagnosis, one of them had to be available for the endless medical appointments, post-op care. It wasn’t even a choice; she had to be there for her son.

Now, Amy has nothing.

She shouldn’t think this way. She has the memories. And, of course, she still has Libby. Their golden girl. So smart, so hardworking, an effervescent smile always blooming on her face.

Amy looks at the GPS on the dash. “Two more hours.” She blows out a breath. “We’ll be cutting it close for the dinner.”

“Beautiful day, at least,” Ken says. He sips from his paper cup, and Amy can’t help but fixate on the bead of brown liquid bleeding down his hand.

Then comes the familiar silence. It lasts nearly the entire drive.

Amy finally sees a sign for another Starbucks—cultural landmarks in America. “Can we make a bathroom stop?”

“We’re almost there, you can’t make it?”

She shakes her head.

He takes the exit and both head inside. Checking his phone, Ken frowns. “I got a campus safety alert.”

“I saw it, texted Libby,” Amy says. “She’s fine.”

Ken nods. He’s been on edge since his last case—the biggest of his career—dominated the news. An A-list movie star named Rock Nelson charged with beating up his starlet girlfriend. A case that made the Johnny Depp–Amber Heard trial seem tame, complete with TMZ cameras in Ken’s face and crazed fans outside the courthouse holding up JUSTICE FOR ROCK signs. And, of course, the online vitriol.

After the pit stop, they return to the car. Ken says, “Are you kidding me?”

“What?” Amy asks.

“We’ve got a flat.”

Amy walks over to the driver’s side, bends down to look at the tire. It is indeed flat. But that’s not the eerie part.

Three of the four tires are flat.

Libby sits on her dorm room bed, hugging her knees. “Just don’t ask my dad about the case, okay?”

“I got it. You already told me,” her roommate Deepa says. “But can I just say it’s so cool your dad is No Drama Akana.” She points her thumbs to her shirt, which has a cartoon caricature of Libby’s father dressed as a Hawaiian warrior, standing in a Superman pose.

“Change your shirt,” Libby says. “He’ll hate it. And it’s kinda racist.”

Libby shouldn’t be dreading her parents’ visit. But the truth is, spending time with them is draining. It has been since Timmy’s diagnosis, when Libby took it on herself to become the perfect child. One who got straight As, who won public service awards, who was the star of the track team. One who didn’t drink or smoke or curse or complain. Anything to allow her parents to focus singularly on her little brother. But nothing she did could purge their devastation, nothing she did would save Timmy.

She thought Perfect Libby might die with her little brother. But the movie had already been cast, and there was no changing it now. She even has a catchphrase: Everything’s amazing!

And for a time, in the euphoria of those first days on campus, everything was amazing.

Amazing new friends. Amazing campus. Even amazing classes.

But now she can’t sleep.

She can barely keep food down.

She needs to get it together before this dumb capstone dinner.

Everything’s amazing!

“Oh my god,” Deepa says, eyeing her phone. She bolts upright on her bed.

“What is it?”

“It’s Natasha. They found her.”

Relief floods Libby, but she can’t let Deepa know why. “About time.” Libby’s voice, remarkably, remains steady. “She’s going to be in so much trouble…”

“No, she’s not,” Deepa says. “She’s dead.”