And even if he was wrong, if she had known, there was no reason for her to want to have herself killed. Made no sense. He'd heard of it before, of course. People who were depressed enough to want to commit suicide, but couldn't actually do it, sometimes they'd hire a hit man to do it for them. Fools. If you can't kill yourself, there's a good reason. Means you don't want to fucking die. But even though his mum was a functioning alcoholic, she wasn't that depressed. Fair enough, she wasn't happy about not getting to see Sofia, but Carlos doubted she believed Maggie would stay angry with her for long.

Which pointed the finger of suspicion at Maggie. Yeah, it was crazy and he didn't want to consider it, but he had no choice. The facts were that Maggie knew who his mother was; she knew what Carlos did for a living; she had easy access to ten grand in cash; and she called him Charlie. But why would she want his mother dead? Because of what happened with Sofia? Made no sense either.

He turned up the volume, started to sing along with the music.

The answer would come to him. It always did.

Maggie said, "You're sure?"

"She practically admitted it," Carlos said. "Kept saying she was no good to anybody. Just an old drunk who'd be better off dead." It felt natural to lie to his wife. He wasn't sure why he'd never done it before.

"She said that?" Maggie turned off the TV. "Wow. I mean, fucking wow." She put her hand to her head, grabbed a handful of hair, combed it through her fingers. "I can't believe it."

"I know. It's fucked up."

"Wow." The skin around her eyes creased. "It's insane."

"That's my mother."

Maggie shook her head. "Wonder how she found out."

"No idea."

"Maybe it's a test." She bit her lip, let it go. "Maybe she doesn't really want to be… expurgated."

Carlos looked at her, waiting for her to say more.