The air conditioning hummed. The sour smell might have been coming from a cut-glass vase filled with red roses, their heads dropped as if in prayer, the water a greenish cloud. Quinn opened a door and entered a walk-in closet, though closet was a misnomer. You could easily have moved a twin bed and a bureau in there and called it a bedroom. As it was, the built-ins put Emily’s own new closet system to shame. One wall boasted a stack of clear-fronted drawers next to double-decked racks for shirts and jackets. The other two walls of the closet contained two rows of hanging rods for pants and more shirts. Emily stared in awe at the neatly organized racks of men’s shoes. High-top black leather sneakers. Cordovan oxfords. Laced boat shoes. Walter Newell probably had more pairs of shoes than Emily had socks.

Quinn moved to the back of the closet and tilted open a built-in clothes hamper. “Something with his scent,” she said, sifting through laundry. She lifted an undershirt from the basket. “This should work.”

Emily followed her back downstairs. In the kitchen, Quinn slid her husband’s undershirt into a large freezer bag. She added the photograph and zipped the bag shut.

“Please, take my advice,” Frank said. “Don’t be alone when you talk to the police. You don’t know what their agenda is.”

“Their agenda,” Quinn said, tossing the freezer bag on the kitchen counter and folding her arms, “is to find Wally.”

Frank screwed up his face, like he did when he was annoyed. “Right now that seems likely,” he said. “But it’s smart to have someone with you. How could it hurt?”

Quinn looked back at him. “And who would that someone be? You?”

Frank shot Emily a subtle eye roll. Yes, she agreed, Quinn was biting the hand that was trying to feed her.

Frank said, “I can. If you like. But—”

Before he could finish, Quinn said, “Emily? Could you come with me?”

“You’d be better off with an attorney,” Emily said.

“I’m better off with a trusted friend,” Quinn shot back.

“You sure you’re okay going with her?” Frank said as he stood with Emily in front of the house, waiting for Quinn to back her car out of the garage. “Because you seem, I don’t know, distracted.”

Freaked out was more like it. She barely knew Quinn, but in the short time they’d spent together she’d felt a connection. They were both in flawed marriages. And for all of Emily’s complaints about Frank, if he’d disappeared one night and the police had found his car abandoned the next morning, she’d have fallen apart.

Emily said, “She needs someone for emotional support. Not just to protect her from the police.”