IT WAS DARK, and live crickets were chorusing when Emily found Frank sitting in his parked car in the police parking lot. The dome light was on and the windows were rolled up. Frank sat hunched over in the front seat, his cell to his ear. Waiting? Listening. Because a moment later he straightened and turned, talking animatedly and jabbing a finger to make his points to whoever was on the other end. She caught his gaze through the windshield. He held up a finger. Then shifted to face away from her.

Finally, Emily heard a click—the doors unlocking. Frank’s window rolled down. “Sorry,” Frank said. “I didn’t mean to abandon you. I just wish you hadn’t told them about the ice bags.”

“I wish you hadn’t dumped them at the 7-Eleven,” Emily shot back.

“I didn’t. I was buying time so we could destroy the bags and return those boxes to the storage unit.” A police cruiser screamed out of the parking lot. “I think you’re right. The ice bags. The boxes. The rug in your car, too? They were planted to implicate you. Or me. Or both of us.”

Frank reached across and pushed open the passenger door. “Come on, get in. It won’t take long before they realize there’s no bags in that dumpster. They’ll be back to search our house and cars. We need to make sure that this time there’s nothing for them to find.”

Emily hesitated. “Who were you talking to on the phone just now?” she asked.

“Ryan. I wanted to give him a heads-up in case you and I both get pulled in again. We might need separate attorneys. I asked him to make some calls.” He made it sound so routine, like lining up a plumber for a stopped-up drain.

Watch yourself. Stanley’s warning came back to her. She said, “You’re sure you can trust Ryan? He’s the one who connected us to Quinn Newell in the first place. Then he told me he was helping Quinn because you had asked him to. He left the ball game early. He could have come back and helped Quinn kill her husband and hide his body.”

Frank didn’t respond right away. “Emily, Ryan is the least of our worries right now. I don’t think you realize how much trouble you could end up in. What if it turns out that everything in that storage unit is stolen?”

That was just what it was starting to look like. Emily swallowed hard. “But we’re returning everything we can to the libraries they were taken from.”

“What do you want to bet that your client will cut a deal in return for testifying against you?”

A breeze had kicked up and Emily’s hair whipped about her face as she stared at the open car door. Frank was right about Mrs. Murphy. She’d put her own self-interest first.