I wish I could keep him with me, close to my side. But that’s impossible. “I’m sorry, honey. I have… something I need to do.”

“Can I go with you?”

“I… I’m afraid not.”

His lower lip trembles slightly. Nico hasn’t cried in public in a long time, but I’m worried it’s about to happen.

“I’m so sorry,” I say quickly. “But I’ll be home when you get back from school. I promise.”

“Can I play with Spencer?” he asks hopefully.

Spencer’s eyes light up at the suggestion. “Can we, Mama?”

Janice looks like she’s about to have a stroke. I’m not thrilled about the idea either after what Janice said to the police about my husband, although I’d allow it just to make Nico feel better. But that doesn’t seem like a possibility.

“Spencer,” Janice says sharply. “I told you after Nicolas was suspended from school for fighting that you were not to spend time with him ever again.”

Wait, what?

I barely have time to be furious with Janice for talking like that right in front of Nico. Because what she just said can’t be right. Nico went over to Spencer’s house the day before the beach trip. And a few times since then as well. At least that’s what he told me…

“Nico,” I say sharply, “I thought Mrs. Archer said you could play in the backyard with Spencer?”

“I said no such thing!” she barks. “Did I, Spencer?”

Spencer nods in agreement, eager to please, and that’s when a look of guilt comes over my son’s face. Janice never told him he could play in their backyard. And considering how vigilant she is, there’s no way he was playing there with Spencer without her knowledge. So that means…

“Nico, come over here.” I tug him by the arm until we are several yards away, and he dutifully follows. I drop my voice enough that Janice won’t hear me. “Where have you been going when you leave the house?”

“Nowhere,” he says quickly. “I’ve just been playing out on the street. Alone.”

Except if that’s all he was doing, why did he lie about it?

“I just wanted to be alone,” he adds. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

I don’t believe him. There’s something more to this story that he’s not telling me. But at that moment, the school bus arrives, and this time, Nico is only too eager to climb aboard. I watch as the bus carries my children away, wondering if I will ever get answers to the questions swirling around my head.

FORTY-SEVEN

Even though I knew it was coming, it’s unsettling that the first thing that happens when we get to the police station is that they put me and Enzo in separate rooms.

Of course they want to separate us. They don’t want us to be able to coordinate our stories. It makes sense, but at the same time, it gets me panicky. The fact that they feel a need to separate us makes me think that they’re not just questioning us as next-door neighbors of the victim. They are considering us actual suspects.

I sit in the poorly lit interrogation room, squirming in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. I imagine my husband sitting in a similar room somewhere else in the station, and I wonder what he’s thinking. He has barely spoken to me since the phone call I made this morning. I didn’t tell him that I admitted to Ramirez that he came home with blood on his hands.

My other piece of evidence that we might be in trouble is that Detective Willard himself is the one who saunters into the room to talk to me. He didn’t send one of his minions. He wants to talk to me himself. Personally.

That’s not good.

“Mrs. Accardi.” He drops into the seat across from me. He has bags under his eyes, and the lighting in the room almost makes them look like bruises. “Thanks for coming by.”

“No problem.” I try to sound as much as I can like a woman who isn’t scared that she and her husband are being accused of murder. “We just want to find out who did this to Jonathan. It’s so awful. He seemed like a really nice guy.”

“Don’t worry,” Willard says. “We’re going to find out who did this.”

Why does it sound like a threat?

“Am I a suspect?” I ask.

“No,” he says without hesitation. Despite everything, I feel a flash of relief. “You were at work until thirty minutes before the body was found. Mrs. Archer saw your car pull up to the house, and she said you were in the Lowells’ house for only a couple of minutes. And this was after she had already called 911 because of concern of a disturbance. So no, you are not a suspect.” He adds, “I can see why you would be concerned though, given your… history.”

I shouldn’t be even the slightest bit surprised that he knows about my criminal history. I would have lost respect for any police officer in this situation who didn’t. But it always feels like a slap in the face when someone brings it up. “Yes,” I say tightly.

“Mrs. Accardi,” he says, “what do you know about your husband’s relationship with Mrs. Lowell?”

“The Lowells are our neighbors, obviously.” I lift a shoulder, trying not to let my nerves show. “He was helping her with her backyard in exchange for referrals. They were friendly.”

“Did you ever suspect anything more?”

“No. Never.”

He flashes me a conspiratorial smile. “Never? Not even a little bit? Especially when he was over there all the time? I mean, Suzette Lowell is a very attractive woman.”

My jaw tightens. “I said never.”

“I see.”

This detective is not going to trip me up. I’m too smart for that. He is not dealing with a rookie.

“Mrs. Accardi,” he says. “Did you know that your husband recently purchased a gun?”

My mouth falls open. “A… a gun?”

“That’s right.” He is watching my expression. “He withdrew a thousand dollars from your joint bank account and then used some of that money to purchase a firearm. Illegally. But we have contacts.”

“I…”

My heart is slamming in my chest. It’s hard to imagine it could be true, but I can’t deny the money was missing from our account. Enzo claimed it was to replace broken equipment. But if that’s all it was, why wouldn’t he have told me about it?

But then again, so what if he bought a gun? I mean, I’m not thrilled about it, and I’m most definitely wondering where it is right now and what he intended to do with it. But Jonathan Lowell was not shot. He was stabbed. So whether Enzo bought a gun or not, it’s not the murder weapon.

“Also,” Willard adds, “did you know that he checked into a motel with Suzette Lowell four nights ago?”

Now I feel like I’m going to choke. I suspected when Enzo told me he had just gone out for a drive that he wasn’t being honest. But this information floors me. I desperately want to believe that the detective is making it up just to shake me up, but everything he is saying fits. The missing money, Enzo’s disappearance…

Willard doesn’t even wait for me to answer his question. He got all the information he needed from the look on my face.

“Mrs. Accardi,” he goes on. “You and your husband… Your financial situation is not great, is it?”