After the rebuke from her husband over the murder in the park, Zoe made a quick decision and decided not to ask him about her murder investigation of the masked woman and man.

“Anything else?” said Conner with an irritated sigh.

“Babe, I don’t want to end this call on a sour note,” said Zoe. “Honestly, I wasn’t chasing after a crime. I literally went out for a run and it was all there in front of me.”

“Maybe I overreacted. It’s just that last year, you were so out of control, constantly obsessing. Theorizing, phoning tips into police, going to crime scenes.”

There was a long silence.

“Zoe?”

“I promise, this week I wasn’t obsessing. I swear,” said Zoe.

“Okay. Let’s call it a night. I’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

“Are we good?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow night, regular time,” said Conner. “Did you remember to call the locksmith about fixing the lock on the front door?”

“Ooops. I’ll do it tomorrow. I promise.”

“C’mon, Zoe. Please take care of it, the door is getting worse,” said Conner. “Sometimes you think it’s locked and it isn’t, and sometimes you can’t unlock it. That’s not good security in New York. What if there was a fire and we couldn’t get out because the door wouldn’t open?”

“I promise. First thing tomorrow, I’ll call the locksmith. Okay? Love you.”

“Me too,” said her husband just before he hung up.

When the call was over, Zoe replenished her empty bourbon glass and FaceTimed with Sean.

“Hey. What’s up?” said Sean, noticing the strange expression on her face. “Why do you look all weirded out? Did you ask Conner about helping with the masked woman?”

Zoe shook her head. “I couldn’t. I barely mentioned the story about the murder in the park last night and he totally kitchen-sinked me and pulled out all the old dirty laundry.”

“Like what?”

“How I get obsessed with things and he could have gotten fired last year. That I should see a therapist. All the usual stuff.”

“Oh.”

“After that icy conversation, no way could I bring up the masked woman. If I told him about the binoculars and the murder plot, he would have reserved a room for me at a mental hospital.”

“Sometimes you get a little carried away,” said Sean, barely audible.

“You’re agreeing with him?” said Zoe. “I thought you had my back. You know the murder plot is real. You saw it too.”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean? We both followed them.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Sean, “but I never actually saw the texts about the murder. You told me about the texts when we were FaceTiming but I didn’t see them myself.”

“But you saw the woman and the man in the park,” said Zoe. “We followed them onto the subway.”