“I’m going to see if I can farm out the tapes. Another night of staring at empty hallways and closed doors is going to drive us crazy. What are your plans?”

“I’m going to avoid getting any more instructions from anybody,” Hannah said. “I’ve been thinking it over, and the advice I’ve been getting from Mike, and Lonnie, and Rick, and Bill just isn’t very helpful. It’d be fine if I had a whole team of detectives to send out for this and that, but I don’t. I can’t run their investigation, so I’m going to concentrate on my investigation. I’m just going to trust my instincts about what to do next and hope I end up catching Ronni’s killer.”

She hadn’t been home for more than five minutes when the phone rang. Hannah said a few choice words she’d never utter around her young nieces and plucked it from the cradle. “Yes?”

“Hannah!” It was Mike’s voice and he sounded worried. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you every hour since midnight!”

He’d called her at midnight. Again. Mike wasn’t concerned that she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since Ronni was murdered. He’d probably wanted her to meet him in the garage again with a thermos of coffee and cookies so that he could give her more instructions on investigative procedure.

“So where were you?” Mike asked, sounding more than a little irritated.

Here was the acid test, and it wasn’t even difficult. “I spent the night at Norman’s,” she said.

“At Norman’s?”

“Yes.”

“I should have known somebody would tell you, but I didn’t think you’d run to Norman on the rebound.”

You should have known somebody would tell me what? Hannah felt like asking, but she didn’t. It was better to let Mike hang himself with his own rope.

“It didn’t mean anything, Hannah. It was just…convenient, you know? She was right there across the hall from me and…these things happen. You’re an adult. You know that.”

So that’s what an adult was. She had to remember to share that little gem of knowledge with her sisters.

“Well, anyway…now we’re even, and we can start over. I’ll call you tonight, okay? I’ve got to get off the phone now. Herb’s going to call and tell me where to meet him. He said he needs to talk to me about something important. Talk to you later, Hannah.”