A few minutes later I got a text from Kelly.

Had my phone off. Can we meet in person? Twist Coffee on Sunrise?

I texted back that I’d be there in five minutes.

As I drove, I thought about Beau. The way he had sidled up to her so naturally last night. And more than that—the way Kelly’s face had gone pale when she first saw the dog, outside my house.

Jed’s dog. She recognized Beau. And he recognized her.

I pulled to the curb and saw her, sitting by herself on the patio of the coffeehouse. Her body looked tiny in her chair, and I thought of the dresses we’d seen in Harrington’s place. We’d assumed they were his sister’s, but each was a small. Kelly’s size.

I got out of my truck and walked over. Her face was gray, and her cheeks were wet with tears.

“Hey,” I said.

My head was swimming with crazy thoughts. I mean, I’d shot a man at the school. A man we all thought that nobody knew.

“Before you say anything,” she said, “can you let me explain?”

“Sure,” I said. Standing there. Going over in my head how I’d shared things with her. Personal things that I hadn’t told anyone. Stories about Lena and Jonas.

“Will you sit down?”

“No,” I said.

“I dated Jed, okay?” She held her hands up, palms out.

“Jesus,” I said.

“I figured you knew,” she said. “Not the rest of the cops. But you. I figured that’s why you were hesitating getting involved with me.”

“Kelly,” I said, leaning against a metal railing that separated the patio from the street. “You lied to the police. To the school. To me.”

She touched my arm. “A teacher was dead, P.T. Kids would’ve been shot if you didn’t stop him.”

“I did stop him,” I said. “But do you know how much time we spent trying to figure out why the hell he went there?”

“It wasn’t fair,” she said. “Don’t you see? I would’ve been that woman who some guy shot up a school for. I didn’t know he was capable of violence.”

“So why did he show up?” I asked.

“How should I know?” she said. “We dated for five weeks. That was nine months ago. He was the first person I met in Mason Falls.”

“And you hadn’t seen him in nine months?”

“No, I’d seen him,” she said. “But we were over. Long over.”

There was something wrong. Kelly was trying harder to convince me about her lack of relationship with Harrington than her lack of connection to a crime. Did she think she was salvaging something that we had?

“So why’d he shoot Leaf Tanner?” I asked. “Jed had no history of violence.”

“I don’t know.”

“Did they know each other?”

“No.”

“Were you and Leaf involved?”

“No, I promise.”

I thought of the guys at the GBI who now held this investigation. And I’d gone out with Kelly. Jesus, I’d look like a rook.