"What?" Nat blurted out. "In my car?"

"Did you take those things from the house?"

"Of course not!" Nat responded, getting scared. "This is crazy.

"Is it? Tell me why."

"Look I didn't shoot anyone, much less a state trooper, and when I left the house, Barb was alive and there was nothing in the hole but a will, magazines, and a videotape."

Brooke looked over at her, frowning. "Nat, please don't volunteer additional information."

"So you went to the house, that much is true?" Mundy asked, and his frank brown eyes searched hers, as if he really wanted answers.

Brooke said to Nat, "I'm instructing you not to discuss this."

She kept her mouth shut, but it was killing her. The money and the drugs connected her to a crime she hadn't committed.

Duffy interjected, "If we wanted, we could book you right now for the Oxys. Unless you got a doctor you want us to call."

Nat shuddered. Drug charges. Murder. She would be ruined. She clammed up.

Brooke cleared his throat authoritatively. "It would be imprudent to make an arrest on a drug charge at this juncture, before you had investigated the other crimes."

"Aren't you going to tell me what happened, Ms. Greco?" Mundy asked, but it was Brooke who shook his head.

"No, she isn't. Are we free to go? This is a waste of her time."

Nat flushed red, and Mundy eyed her gravely.

"Let me tell you one thing, before you go. Some people say a murder case is a puzzle, and they talk about pieces we have to put together. Other people call it a game. It's never those things, not to me." Trooper Mundy shook his head. "I'm a simple guy, and to me, it's simple. You know something I don't. To me, it's about a young man, Trooper Matt Shorney, who was killed. We both knew him, Duffy better than me." Mundy gestured behind him, where the other trooper bent his bald head over his notes. "I want to know what happened to him because it's my job. Simple as that. No puzzle, no game.

Just work. If you know what happened, I'm asking you to tell me. The rest. it's all bullshit."

Brooke said, "I repeat, my client won't be making any statements."

But Nat felt touched by Mundy's words. He was right. This was about something more important than her hide. This was about the truth, and about Shorney and Barb. If she could tell the troopers what she knew, maybe they could still find the killer tonight.

"Trooper Mundy," she said, "before he died, Barb's husband told me to tell his wife there was something under the floor. I went there to tell her, and we looked all night, but we couldn't find what he meant."

"That's enough now." Brooke touched her arm, but Nat shook it off.

"Let me talk to him. I know what I'm doing." She faced Mundy, with the black camera lens over his shoulder. "I saw a man shoot Trooper Shorney."

"You really saw him killed?" Mundy recoiled slightly in surprise, and his eyes widened.

Duffy's head snapped up, and Brooke squeezed Nat's arm. "Please don't say any more," he said firmly.

"A man in a black ski mask shot him. He shot once, then he told me to run, and I did."

"Could you see his face?"

"No."

"What could you see? Anything?" Behind Mundy, Trooper Duffy had stopped taking notes and was folding his arms.

"I don't… know," Nat stammered. Gruesome images flashed through her mind. The trooper's hat flying off. The ski mask.

"What do you remember about his build? Tall? Short?"

"Nat, please," Brooke interrupted, but she waved him off again.

"Average."

"What kind of coat did he have on?"

"I don't know. Dark." Nat tried to remember. The only recurrent image was a figure in the rain, behind a gun. "I don't remember.

"Was he white, black, Hispanic?"

"I don't know."

Brooke interrupted again, "Please, what you're doing is against my express legal advice, do you understand?"

"Yes," Nat answered, patting his hand. She could see he'd had the fear of Greco put into him. "Please. It's okay."

"You said the shooter spoke to you?" Mundy asked, regardless. "What did he say? What did it sound like?"

"He said, 'Run, bitch.' He had a normal voice."

"Did he have an accent?" Mundy asked, and behind him, Trooper Duffy's eyelids fluttered, just short of an eye roll.

"No," Nat answered.

"Where did he come from?"

"I don't know. He came out of nowhere, in the rain."

Duffy looked away, but Mundy leaned forward. "What kind of car was he driving?"

"I didn't see a car. He came up behind me, on foot. He shot the trooper over my shoulder. I turned around and saw the gun in his hand." Nat's thoughts raced ahead. "He must have been the one who shot Barb. He must have been the one who put the pills and the money in my car."

Duffy interjected, "You didn't say he had anything in his hand but the gun."

"He didn't.”

“So how did he put twenty grand in your car? And the Oxys?"

Nat felt momentarily confused. "I don't know," she answered, as Mundy fell silent.

Duffy took the lead. "And where'd it come from then, if he didn't have a car?"

"I don't know. I have to think."

"He couldn't run around with that much money, not in the rain. It's quite a bundle."

"I'm not sure how he did it. I have to think." Nat couldn't wrap her mind around it fast enough.

"The cruisers are equipped with an MVR tape, a mobile video recorder," Duffy said with a slight smirk. "But it sure doesn't corroborate your story."

Nat was nonplussed. "That's impossible. I mean, he was there."

"Not according to the camera, he wasn't. The camera shows your back, you facing Matty-I mean, Trooper Shorney-and him going down. It shows no third party, ski mask or no."

Nat tried to understand. "Does the camera show just the drivers-side door?"

"Yes, and the back of your car and your license plate."

"But this man, the killer, wasn't that close. He was on the other side of the car, near the curb. He must have been standing out of the camera range."

"Oh yeah?" Duffy cocked his head. "The camera has audio too, and we didn't hear anybody say, 'Run, bitch.'"

Nat's mouth went bone dry. "He said it. I heard it." Then she remembered. "The rain was so loud, maybe the audio didn't pick it up." She began to feel scared, desperate. "Look, I didn't take money or drugs from Barb's house. I didn't put them in my car. I would never have shot Barb, Trooper Shorney, or anybody." Her words sped up in a panicky way, as Duffy's voice grew colder. "I mean, really, look at me. I'm a law professor. Why would I kill innocent people, or steal drugs and money?"

"I don't know yet, but I've got a couple guesses."

"Like what?"

"For one, you work at a major university. You can sell pills to the students. It's just the kind of candy corn the kids like nowadays.

"That's ridiculous!"

"Is it?" Duffy lifted a sparse eyebrow. "Here's how I see it. Saunders was dealing, on the inside, at the prison. He knew he had a stash under the floor and he wanted his wife to have it. So before he died, he told you the money was under the floor."

"But he didn't." Nat shook her head miserably. Brooke took rapid notes.

"So you go to the house, you tell the wife what her husband said, and she takes you to the hiding place. You shoot her, then take off."

"But I didn't." Nat felt stricken at the very thought. "I wouldn't shoot her for twenty thousand dollars, or for any money."

"Why not? People kill for a helluva lot less." Duffy's eyes hardened. "Or maybe you went there to scare her but you fired. She ends up with two in the chest and you run out with the dough and the Oxys."

Nat's heart began to hammer. Somebody was framing her. Somebody had followed her. Somebody had done all this to shut her down. Who wore the mask? Beside her, Brooke kept taking notes with his shiny pen.