Page 29 of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

“Wow.” He’s honestly impressed. The show isn’t a blockbuster likeGame of Thrones, but it’s successful enough to trend on Twitter every time a new season comes out. “That’s amazing.”

“Eh.” Sana shrugs and blows a stray lock of hair off her face. “It’s honestly not that great. I mean, the money is fantastic, and I’m grateful for it, don’t get me wrong,” she says hurriedly. “But...my mom’s this ridiculously driven person. She publishes like four books a year and is super productive and she’s always like, ‘There’s no such thing as a writer’s block, darling. It’s all in your mind. If you want to create art, go ahead and do it.’ ”

Riki nods, mulling her words over quietly. He’d never once considered the challenges that someone raised in an affluent family might face. He’d assumed that if you had money, then surely all your problems were very easily fixed. If not by throwing money at them, then by the sheer privilege of having all the time in the world to spend on tackling said problems.

“I never thought of how tough it might be, growing up with such an accomplished parent,” he admits. “Do you think Stephen King’s kids feel the same way?”

Sana snorts out loud, the pleasant surprise evident in her laugh. When she glances up at Riki, her eyes look more lively than he’s seen them before. “Probably? But his son is actually a very successful writer too. Also, everything I’ve heard about Stephen King makes him sound so down-to-earth. Not at all like my mom. She’s just so obnoxious about it, you know? She’s like, ‘Sana, it’s all mind over matter. Artists and their mental blocks, I swear! It’s all just in your mind.’ ”

Riki cocks his head to one side. “Do you get a lot of blocks when you’re writing material for your podcast?”

“Oh,” Sana says, seemingly a bit taken aback. “Yeah. Yes, I guess so. Yeah, like the words are hard to come by sometimes.” She looks down at her hands for a while. “I can feel it inside me. I want to create something—something wonderful, but...” She sighs. “There’s a block. I can’t explain it, but I know my mom’s wrong. Blocks definitely happen to writers and artists and all other creatives.”

“Yeah, I mean, just because she doesn’t experience them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. That would be like saying just because you’ve never had a migraine, they can’t happen to other people,” Riki says.

“Yes!” Sana cries. “Exactly.”

Their eyes meet, and Riki swears it’s like their minds are connecting. He feels warm and—dare he say it—happy. He can’t remember the last time he felt this way. It’s been months, ever since... well, ever since everything went down with Marshall. The thought of Marshall sours his mind, weighing on his shoulders like a deadweight.

As though sensing the shift in Riki’s mood, Sana says, “What—what do you think that cop found out? It has to be pretty important for her to show up in person, right?”

Riki isn’t sure what to say. What would a real journalist who is completely uninvolved with the case say? It hits him that that’s basically what Sana is—she’s not suspicious of him, of course not, she’s only asking for her podcast. He needs to start thinking of himself as her counterpart and nothing else. Right. He can do that.

“Yeah, we should’ve stuck around,” he says with false confidence. “You know, to ask questions and such.”

“We should’ve,” Sana agrees. “I guess I just didn’t want to be disrespectful, like in case whatever the cop had to say was sensitive and really affected Julia... I thought she might have needed some privacy.”

Riki steals another glance at Sana, surprised. He doesn’t know much about investigative reporting or true crime podcasting, but what he does know is that they tend to get a bad rep for poking around sensitive spaces and brashly ignoring the need for privacy.He’s impressed that despite Sana’s need for information, she’s so respectful of Julia’s privacy. Surely that’s very rare.

Unless...

The little voice in his head whispers,Unless Sana is hiding something too, just like you.

Riki almost snorts out loud at that. Ridiculous. His stupid mind is grasping at straws, clutching at anything or anyone that might take the spotlight away from himself. And yet.

And yet he can’t stop his mind from barreling backward and studying everything that Sana has said. He thinks back to that first morning he went to Vera’s teahouse, just mere days after Marshall’s death. With a start, he recalls now that he bumped into a girl on his way out. He was so spooked by Vera at the time that he didn’t give the girl a second thought. But now, walking down the street with Sana, he looks at her, and the sunlight, streaming at just the right angle, low against the steep San Franciscan hills, hits her just so, turning the edges of her skin and hair golden, making her deep brown eyes a honey shade. She looks so beautiful. And also undoubtedly like the girl he bumped into outside of Vera’s teahouse that morning.

Something turns inside Riki’s chest, something sharp and ugly and full of fear. Who is Sana? What does she know? He thinks back to how Vera insisted that one of them is Marshall’s killer. He dismissed Vera’s ridiculous accusations because that seems to be the sensible thing to do when it comes to Vera, but now he has no idea what to think. He goes over what to say to Sana, and now he’s no longer nervous because she’s so attractive, but nervous because he has no idea what her connection is to Marshall, but there must be a connection there, and when it comes to Marshall, chances are, it’s not going to be anything good.Careful, Riki.

“So, ah,” he begins, taking painstaking care to keep his voice casual, “what did you say the name of your podcast was?”

Sana glances up at him, and he realizes he’s completely failed to sound relaxed. It’s clearly not an innocent, throwaway question, but a loaded one. Oh crap, what does he do now? He needs to think of something quick.

But even as Riki quietly panics, his phone buzzes with a text message. He grabs it, practically yelping out loud with relief. “It’s Vera!”

Sana raises her eyebrows, her eyes still wary. “What did she say?”

Riki swallows before reading the message out loud. “She says ‘Stupid case is over. Marshall die from allergy attack to duck. You are no longer suspect, but you should still come by for tea.’ ”

Sana’s phone beeps and she takes it out of her bag. She reads the message and laughs. “I got the same exact message from Vera. I think she just copied and pasted.”

Relief and confusion surge through Riki’s entire being. Wait, what just happened? Marshall died from an allergic reaction? To a duck? What?

“So that was weird, huh?” Sana says. Her voice is slightly shaky. “A duck. Huh.”

Riki nods slowly, his head spinning. So he was worried about Sana for no reason? But when he looks down at her again and their eyes meet once more, he can see the walls clapping back into place behind her eyes. Her chin lifts, her jaw squaring, and she says, “Oh yeah, my podcast. I’ll tell you if you tell me where your office is. Was it Buzzfeed you said you work at?”

Cold crawls down Riki’s spine. No, despite the strange but seemingly innocent way Marshall died, there is something that Sana is definitely hiding. And maybe, worse than that, she knowsabout him and Marshall. Riki’s throat is so dry that he coughs a little before he speaks. “It’s cool,” he says, trying to emphasize with each word that he’s on the retreat, that she doesn’t have to worry about him, “I just remembered that my friend recommended another podcast to me, so I won’t have a chance to listen to yours for a while yet.”

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