“She was stealing!”

“I told you why!” He shakes his head. “She did not take much from us. Suzette thought she was stealing too, and that is what she was talking to me about that night in the backyard. I had to convince her there was no stealing so Martha would not lose her job.”

I can see in his dark eyes that every word of what he’s saying is true, and I feel a stab of guilt. Martha wasn’t staring at me because she meant me harm. She was staring at me because she thought I was her only hope for escape and she was working up the nerve to ask for my help. What has become of me that I wasn’t able to see that?

“So,” I say quietly, “you’re telling me the gun was for her?”

“She needed it until I could get her away from him, and after she left, she needed it even more. He was coming for her, Millie. I had to help. She’s hundreds of miles away right now, but he could still find her.”

“Okay, okay.” I grip the steering wheel tighter. “I understand what you did. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same, but… why didn’t you tell me? You know you can talk to me about stuff like that. I mean, we used to be a team. Right?”

We used to help women in trouble all the time. It was how we got to know each other. It’s the reason we fell in love in the first place. I could have helped—I would have wanted to help. Why did he leave me out this time?

He’s silent, measuring his next words. “I was worried about you.”

“Worried?”

“You have so much stress. Your blood pressure…”

“Oh my God.” I hit the steering wheel with the palm of my hand. “So you would rather I wake up during the night, wondering where the hell you are? Do you think that was good for my blood pressure?”

He lets out a long sigh, dropping his head back against the headrest. “I messed up. I was stupid.”

“Yes. You were.”

“But… you believe me?”

“Yes,” I say. “I do.”

For the first time since leaving the police station, he manages the tiniest of smiles. Okay, this looks bad. Janice’s eyewitness testimony puts Enzo squarely at the scene of the crime. But Ramirez is right—my husband wouldn’t kill a man over nothing. If he says he didn’t do it, then I believe him.

Although deep down, I still get the feeling there is something he is hiding from me.

FORTY-NINE

When I reach our cul-de-sac, there’s a black Dodge Charger parked in front of our house. Before I even look through the windshield at the driver, I recognize it as Benito Ramirez’s car. Sure enough, the second he sees us pull into the driveway, he steps out of the car, clutching a cup of coffee.

He waves to me as I get out of the car. Even though it’s hot out, he’s wearing a black suit jacket and a tie loosely knotted around his neck. When I first met him over a decade ago, his close-cropped hair was salt and pepper, but now it’s mostly salt.

“Millie.” He comes over to me to give me the obligatory hug and kiss. “Good to see you. You look good.”

“Thank you,” I say, even though I’m sure I look exhausted.

When Enzo comes out of the car, Ramirez says to him, “And you look like shit, my friend.”

“Thank you,” Enzo says. “I feel like it.”

Ramirez jerks his hand in the direction of our house. “Come on. Let’s go inside. I’ve got a few more reasons for you to feel like shit. You need to hear this.”

Oh God. What now?

We lead Ramirez into the house. Under other circumstances, I would have felt compelled to give him the grand tour, but none of us are in the mood for that. Still, he looks around and nods approvingly. “Nice place you got here. Better than the Bronx.”

“I’m sorry we left,” I say.

“How are the kids?”

“Very good,” Enzo says, which I suppose isn’t an outright lie.

We settle down in the living room, and I can’t stop shaking, wondering what the hell Ramirez is going to tell us. I offer him coffee, even though he’s already holding a cup, and he smiles at me sympathetically.

“Okay, let’s cut to the chase.” He drops his cup of coffee on my coffee table and leans forward on his elbows. “Luckily, I got a contact here on the island, and I did a little digging. You two were right to be worried. Willard is a tough cop, and he thinks you killed Jonathan Lowell, Enzo. He’s busy building his case right now.”

“Based on what?” I say.

“Well,” Ramirez says. “Not to be crude, Enzo, but he thinks you were doing Suzette Lowell. He thinks the two of you conspired to off her husband to get his insurance money. She recently increased the insurance payout, and we’re talking a lot of money right now.”

“That is ridiculous,” Enzo mutters.

“That lady across the street,” Ramirez says, “is singing like a bird for the police. Not just that, she took pictures.”

“Pictures?” I gasp.

“Uh-huh. Nothing outright incriminating, but lots of them at different times, standing a little too close, if you know what I mean.”

Suzette was so right. Janice is such a busybody.

Enzo groans. “We were just talking.”

Ramirez arches an eyebrow. “About what?”

“Nothing. Gardening stuff. Problems with her cleaning lady. The weather. It did not matter—she always had an excuse for me to stay. I get the feeling… I do not know… She did not seem happy in her marriage.”

“Do you think the husband was beating her up?”

“No. I did not get that sense.”

“Was she flirting with you?”

Enzo casts a worried look in my direction, then throws up his arms. “Yes. She was. Of course she was. But was nothing. Harmless.”

“So here’s the deal,” Ramirez says. “Your neighbor has pictures of you and Suzette Lowell that are very suggestive. A motel about an hour away has a record of you checking in with a woman just a few days ago. You buy a gun using cash. Suzette Lowell ups her husband’s life insurance policy. Then the neighbor sees you going into the Lowells’ house, and the next thing we know, Jonathan Lowell is dead.”

Enzo grits his teeth. “I was in the backyard the whole time. Suzette wanted to plant a garden, so I was getting the soil ready.”

“So you expect me to believe that not only did you not hear what happened in the house, but the actual killer went in and out the back door without you seeing.”

“I had equipment going… Very hard to hear… And I was back and forth from my own yard.”