“Detective?”

Waters looked up. A patrolwoman in sheriff’s beige, tie tucked neatly. “Yes?”

“Got a call for you. Another Daniel Hayes.”

Waters sighed. He’d been talking to four, five a day, all calling to confess to killing Laney Thayer. Some of them were pretty entertaining, spinning soft-core fantasies they’d obviously put some time into. None of them had passed the bullshit test. He glanced at his watch. “All right.”

She nodded, rounded the corner of the cubicles. He heard her say, “Just one moment,” and then his phone rang. He collected the photos, rapped them against the edge of the desk, then picked up the handset and tucked it between his shoulder and chin. “This is Waters.”

“Hi. Umm. This is.” A pause, then, “This is Daniel Hayes.” Waters slid the pictures back into the folder. “Uh-huh?” “You’re handling the . . . Laney? Her investigation?”

“That’s right.” He set the folder in his inbox, opened a drawer, swept pens and Post-its inside.

“Was that you at my house yesterday?”

The world snapped into focus. Waters sat up straight, looked around. Was this a cop prank?

“That was you, wasn’t it? On the intercom?”

Waters switched the phone to his other ear, said, “Yes, that was me, Mr. Hayes. Why did you run away?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it.” There was a ragged indrawn breath, the sound of a man trying for conviction, and in the next sentence he had it. “I did not kill my wife.”

Waters was wishing this was a movie, that he could signal for someone to trace the call. “I believe you, Daniel.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do.” Waters pitched his voice earnest. “I’ve spoken to a lot of people. Your friends and coworkers. Daniel, they all say that you and Laney were very much in love.”

There was a choked sound. “If you believe that, then why are you chasing me?”

“Daniel, you have to understand my position. I believe you. But my bosses? They’re riding me. In a case like this, the husband is the first person we look at. So when you disappeared on us, you didn’t leave us any choice.”

“How do you even know that someone else—”

“Come on. Don’t insult my intelligence. We found skid marks for miles before that barricade.”

“Maybe she was driving fast—”

“The marks weren’t just hers, Daniel. She was running from someone. You say it wasn’t you, I believe you.” He projected calm, kept his speech slow and even. “I know that there must be an explanation. But I need your help to find it. For both our sakes.” He held a beat. “Come talk to me, Daniel. Let’s figure this thing out together.”

There was a long pause, then a chuckle. “You said my name four, five times. That’s, what, a technique to establish a bond? Make me believe we’re friends?”

Heat bloomed across Waters’s forehead. He rocked a pen back and forth between his index and middle finger, whapping alternate ends against the desk. “You’re right. That’s what I was doing. But you do need to come in.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re in trouble. You’ve got a lot to answer for. You left the state just after your wife was murdered. You fled deputies in Maine, then led them on a high-speed chase. You ran from us at your house.”

“Those skid marks. You can tell what kind of car it was from them, right?”

“We can tell a lot from them.”

“So what kind was it?”

Waters leaned back, wondered what the guy was playing at. “We can’t get a make and model from tire marks.”

“You said—”

“But it was a truck. An SUV.”

“I drive a BMW, an M5. Not an SUV.”

Then I guess you’re innocent. “You see? That’s exactly the kind of thing that will help us clear you.” There was a long pause. Waters forced himself not to speak, just sat there thinking, Come on, fish, bite.

“If I come in, you’ll arrest me.”

“I’m not going to lie to you. That’s possible. But if you don’t come in, it’s a guarantee. Don’t you get it? You’re the bad guy now. Even if you didn’t have anything to do with her death.” He switched tacks. “Besides. If you didn’t do it, then someone else did.”

“Maybe she just lost control.” A little desperate.

“No chance. Someone was chasing her, someone who wanted to kill her. You want to see photos of the skid marks? Want to look at the barricade, the way it’s torn up? Want to touch the air bag sample we cut out, her blood on it?” He let it sink in, then continued a little softer. “Now, if someone had done that to my wife, I would do anything, anything, to get them. Get her the justice she deserves. You do want whoever did this caught, don’t you?

“Have you . . . Have you looked at other suspects?”

“We’re looking at everything, Daniel.” Noticing the guy called himself a suspect. “With a celebrity, there’s always the possibility of a stalker. But I’ll be honest with you. Nine times out of ten, when a wife is murdered, the husband is involved. And then there’s . . .” He trailed off, waited for the guy to prompt him.

“What?”

“Well, the day she died, she bought a five-hundred-thousanddollar necklace.”

“What?”

“Monday, November 2, just before noon, at Harry Winston. I didn’t even know necklaces could cost that much, but apparently they can, because she bought one. Damn near emptied your bank account. Now, why would she do that, Daniel?”

“I don’t know.”

“She ever do anything like that before?”

“I . . .”

“See, there are a lot of ways to interpret that, but none good. Maybe she was scared, and wanted that for running money. Or maybe you two were getting divorced, and she figured that was a safe way to make sure that she had possession of the cash. Or maybe you forced her to do it, threatened her somehow.”

“Why would I—”

“I don’t know.” Bulldozing the guy, not wanting to let him think. “I don’t know. But that’s just one of the questions bugging me. Another is, you know someone broke into your lawyer’s house?”

There was a pause, and then Daniel asked, “What do you mean?” There was something strange in his voice, like he was choosing his words carefully.

“It’s true. Held her at gunpoint.”