I stopped swimming and stood up in the water. The stairs! Of course! Carlos had run down the stairs of the airport tower ahead of me. He had been going fast, holding onto the rail, and I had shined the light down through the center of the stairwell, so that he could see as he went. I closed my eyes now, trying to picture the stairs in the office building where Wendell Smythe had been killed. The stairs there also ran clockwise as they went down. I remembered my pursuit of the person running down those stairs ahead of me on the day of Wendell’s murder. I remembered hearing the sounds of running feet below me, but when I looked down the center of the stairwell, I had seen nothing.

The person I was chasing had been left-handed, I realized! He—or she—had been running down the left side of the stairs, holding onto the left rail. I grew angry at myself for not thinking of this before. I thought back to the coroner’s report. Wendell had been injected into the left upper arm, the angle of the needle posterior to anterior. Just the way a left-handed person would do it.

I felt sure Alan Bennet was right-handed. Thinking back to the day we met, I remembered that was the hand he used to carry my printer as he walked me to Wendell’s office.

I thought of all the suspects, wondering what was the quickest way to find out who was left-handed and who was right-handed. I closed my eyes, picturing them each in turn, trying to think of some action I had seen them perform and which hand they had been using. All that would come to my mind was Nick, the day I met him, carefully making his pecan tarts.

Nick was left-handed.

“It was Nick,” I whispered to myself urgently.

Then I heard an odd sound, like a splash. I opened my eyes and spun around, stunned to see Nick sitting on the edge of the pool. He had taken off his shoes and socks and was resting his feet in the water.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he said in his deep male voice.

I swallowed hard, my mind racing, my heart pounding.

“W-what?” I managed to gasp.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he repeated calmly. “Wendell used to say that sometimes when he wondered what I was thinking.”

He looked at me, his eyes too dark to read.

“I wonder now what you are thinking,” he said softly.

I took a step back in the water, trying not to let fear show in my face.

“Why are you here?” I rasped. “I thought you went to the hospital.”

He shook his head.

“My sister wanted to talk with Mrs. Smythe. I told her to drive. I decided to stay here, with you.”

“I see.”