Parker remembered nothing. Nico remembered nothing. James remembered nothing. They’d all been there, together, and yet they’d spent the night in an alcohol-induced haze, not noticing the deadly predator lurking nearby. How could they all have been so oblivious? I knew psychopaths didn’t wear name tags and hand out business cards, but surely whoever Hannah had run into when she walked away from the campsite must have been watching her and waiting for his opportunity. I thought of Paige, and how vulnerable she could be as a young woman. One poor decision could lead to terrible consequences.

I sat at the table for a long time after my half-eaten omelet had grown cold, and I’d refilled my wineglass twice. I heard the front door open, and then close softly.

“James?” I called out.

My husband walked into the kitchen. The shadows under his eyes had grown even darker and his complexion was chalky. I knew it wasn’t possible for him to have lost weight since I’d seen him that morning, and yet, he appeared smaller, shrunken somehow.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “How did the interview go?”

James didn’t answer me right away. He also didn’t kiss me, as he normally did. For the second night in a row, he walked straight to the liquor cabinet, retrieved the bottle of Scotch and a lowball glass, and poured himself a generous amount. He took a long drink and closed his eyes.

I waited for James to join me at the table, but he remained standing, leaning back against the kitchen counter. The distance between us seemed larger than the space of the kitchen. One thing I loved about our marriage was the way James and I always came back to one another. If he’d had a bad day at surgery or if I’d struggled with Paige, we’d been able to sit together and talk, to comfort one other. Neither of us had a quick temper. Even on the rare occasions when we fought, we rarely let our anger fester for days at a time. We’d discuss problems calmly, and usually resolved them quickly.

This felt different. I could sense that James was holding something back.

“Well, I’m definitely a suspect,” he finally said. “Forsythe questioned me for hours. He asked the same things over and over again. Whether Hannah and I had fought. If I’d been jealous of other men in her life. How I could have slept through her getting up and walking away from the campsite that night. Natalie finally put an end to it, but it was awful.”

“How did you leave it?”

“He wants me to come back in for further questioning. We said no. Natalie said I had already cooperated fully and didn’t have anything more to say.”

“Is that wise? I thought you were worried that it would look suspicious if you refused.”