“Now I’m asking you.”

“Asking me what? If my wife and daughter lied to you?”

“Or weren’t being entirely truthful.”

“What’s the difference?”

Clements was smiling sarcastically, like he was enjoying the exchange, but Adam stayed deadpan.

“They didn’t tell anyone the code,” Adam said. “No one told anyone the code.”

“Sorry to play devil’s advocate, Dr. Bloom, but unless Houdini robbed your house, somebody got ahold of that code.”

“Maybe it was stolen,” Adam said, “from the alarm company. Maybe they hacked into the system or something.”

“We’ll explore that possibility,” Clements said, “but nobody stole a set of keys from the alarm company. Did you or anyone in your family loan a set of keys to anyone?”

“I already told you, we only have three sets of keys to the house and one spare set, and the spare set is still where it always is.”

“Maybe someone got access to the keys. A worker in the house?”

Adam thought for a moment, then said, “We had some painting done a few weeks ago, but those guys had nothing to do with this.”

“Your wife gave me the name of the painters, the electrician, your maid, your gardener. Can you think of anyone else we should check out?”

“No,” Adam said.

“I noticed the keys to the back door weren’t Medecos or ones that couldn’t be easily duplicated,” Clements said, “What I mean is they looked like normal keys.”

“Yeah?” Adam asked. “So?” His eyelids were heavy, and he felt like he could pass out at any moment.

“So it’s possible somebody could’ve duplicated the keys at some point,” Clements said.

“It’s possible,” Adam said, “but no one knows where we keep the spare keys.”

Clements turned a page, then said, “Your wife told me you’d been planning to go away to Florida for several days, right?”

“That’s right,” Adam said, “to visit my mother.”

“You canceled the trip because of a storm?”

“That’s right. We heard there was a tropical storm off the coast down there. They said it could turn into a hurricane and might hit Florida, so I thought we might as well go some other time.”

“When did you decide not to go?”

Adam thought about it for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck again, then said, “Two days ago.”

“Who knew you changed your plans?”

“Nobody,” Adam said. “I mean, I had to notify a few patients, to reschedule appointments, and I guess Dana and Marissa told a few people, but we didn’t take an ad out in the paper.”

Clements, not amused, asked, “Do you ever have any patients who are prone to violence?”

Adam immediately thought of Vincent, a patient he’d been seeing for about a month who’d told him about how he’d beaten up some guy during a bar fight a few weeks ago. There was also Delano, a guy in his forties, who had stabbed his brother- nonfatally-when he was a child.

“Yes,” Adam said, “I have a few.”

“Has anyone threatened you lately?”

“No,” Adam said. “Actually I’ve rarely if ever had any situations like that. I’m a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. If I have a patient who shows signs of that kind of volatility I’ll refer him elsewhere.”

“So I guess you’re pretty good at that, huh?” Clements said. “Telling if somebody’s volatile or not?”

Adam wasn’t sure why Clements was asking this- whether there was any point to it or he was just trying to be a wiseass.

“I think I am pretty good at it, yes,” Adam said.

“Then maybe you’re in the wrong profession,” Clements said, “maybe you should be doing my job.” He smirked, then asked, “Does your daughter have friends over?”

“Of course,” Adam said. “She lives here.”

“Is there any drug or alcohol use in the house?”

“Excuse me?”

Adam didn’t like where this was going.

“Sanchez had multiple priors on drug charges. Perhaps your daughter was an acquaintance of Sanchez’s, or a client of his.”

“There’s no way she knew that guy, okay?”

“Maybe she has a friend, or a friend of a friend, or someone she may have invited into the house, someone who knew the place, who could’ve-”

“My daughter had nothing to do with this.”

“Dr. Bloom, I’m only-”

“And she has no friends who’d steal a key or rob a house. Her friends are all normal, nice kids, just like her.”

“I noticed the bong in her room, Dr. Bloom.”

Again this felt like more than “routine questioning.”

“What’re you trying to say?” Adam asked.

“I’m trying to figure out how the intruders got into your house.”

“Yeah, that’s funny, because it sounds like you’re trying to say something else. My daughter had nothing to do with this, okay, so let’s leave her out of it.”

Clements seemed unconvinced, but he asked, “What about your relatives?” “What about them?”

“Any animosity in the family? Anybody with a grudge?”

Adam thought about Dana and her brother, Mark, the manic- depressive. They were on bad terms and hadn’t spoken in years, but Mark lived in Milwaukee and obviously had nothing to do with any of this, so Adam didn’t see the point in even mentioning it.

“No,” he said. “Nothing like that. This had nothing to do with my family. Zero. Zilch. Nada.”

Clements closed his pad- finally-and said, “That should do it for now. But I want you to think about who could’ve gotten ahold of the keys and the code to the alarm. Right now this does seem to have all the makings of some kind of inside job. Not only did the person, persons, have access to the house, they also seemed to know the house very well. I mean, they knew you didn’t have a chain on the back door and they could enter that way, so it seems like at least one of the perps had been in the house before. Maybe he was a repairman or a plumber, a mover, he delivered a rug, something like that. So if you can think of any times when someone could’ve had access to the key and the alarm code, can you let me know as soon as possible?”

“I’ll let you know right away,” Adam said, standing up.

“I’m gonna have to talk to your wife and daughter again now,” Clements said.

“Are you kidding me?” Adam said.

“It won’t take long, but I need to talk to them.”

“Why can’t it wait till-”

“Because it can’t, all right?” His tone left no room for discussion.

Adam and the detective went out to the living room, where Dana and Marissa were sitting on the couch, across from Sharon and Jennifer. Being around Sharon, especially when Dana was in the same room, was always awkward for Adam to say the least.

About five years ago, when Adam and Dana were having serious marital problems, Sharon and her husband, Mike, were also having trouble in their marriage. Sharon called Adam one day at work and asked if she could come by his office for some advice. Adam said that would be fine and arranged to see her at seven o’clock, his last appointment of the day, when the other therapists were out of the office. Adam gave Sharon some informal marital counseling, and then he hinted that things weren’t going so well in his own marriage. He knew exactly what he was doing- exposing his own vulnerability as a way of letting Sharon know that he was interested in her- and he already knew that she was attracted to him, because she had been flirty with him for years. They commiserated with each other about their marriages for a while, and then Sharon confessed that she’d often fantasized about “something happening” between her and Adam. Adam, who counseled people having affairs practically every day, knew that getting involved with Sharon would be a huge mistake and could create a rift in his own marriage that would be impossible to repair. But knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things. He was as human as anyone else and had been flattered by the interest from another woman and simply couldn’t resist her.

They only had sex that one time, on the therapy couch. There were no ethical issues because he wasn’t actually treating Sharon, but he didn’t want to get into a full- blown affair with her or deal with the pain and drama that would inevitably follow, so he wisely told her- and she agreed- that they had to consider this a one- time thing and go on with their lives. She wound up working things out with her husband, and Dana and Adam went into counseling and managed to improve their marriage- well, for the most part. Adam still felt there were serious underlying problems in their relationship, mainly a lack of closeness, and he considered confessing the affair to Dana. Normally he advised his patients to confess infidelity because he believed it was the only way to truly heal and reestablish closeness and trust in a marriage. But in this case, because he didn’t feel any emotional involvement with Sharon, he decided that confessing the affair would only hurt Dana and do more harm than good. So instead he worked on exploring his reasons for the affair and developed strategies for becoming a better husband. While he regretted what he’d done, he refused to blame Dana or himself. Marriage had ups and downs, and his minor lapse had hardly been atypical. He had done the best he could under the circumstances, and if he got into in a similar situation in the future he would try to make a better decision.