“I have to talk to her,” Carpington said. “I have to find out why she’d do this to me.” He grabbed the one print, folded it in half, and shoved it inside his suit jacket.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I have more. But I think you’re wasting your time.”

“What do you mean? Has she left? Did she actually go away? It was only yesterday that she was talking about this.”

“No,” I said. “Stefanie’s dead.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but there were no words. He got up suddenly, shoved his way past me to get to the hallway. By the time I was out of my chair and had my head out the door, I could see him running down the hall for the doors to the parking lot.

when i got to the door, I spotted Carpington getting into a dark blue or black Cadillac. I ran to my Civic, got in, and debated my next move. I’d rattled Carpington’s cage, to be sure, and it seemed worth knowing what he’d do next. I’d set something in motion by letting him know I knew about his affair with Stefanie, and by telling him she was dead, and I wanted to see where it went.

He didn’t immediately race out of the parking lot, as I’d expected. I could see him in the car, punching numbers into a cell phone, waiting for someone to answer, then talking rapidly, waving his one free arm around inside the car. He talked for two, maybe three minutes, then threw the phone down. The brake lights came on, the Cadillac was put into drive and squealed out of the lot.

The Caddy had a lot more pickup than the Civic, which wheezed in pursuit. There weren’t many cars on the road this late at night, and I didn’t want to follow so closely that he’d notice me, and that was exactly how it was working out. The Caddy’s taillights receded into the distance as Carpington floored it.

He was heading in the direction of Valley Forest Estates. He approached the subdivision from the south side, down by the creek, and I watched as the red lights sped into an area where the homes were in the earlier stages of construction.