Kit shifts on the green chair. Thinks of a tall woman. Taller than McGowan.

McGowan says, “Like I said, the strength—”

“Yeah, but women are just as strong as men these days,” Natasha says. “We beat the crap out of the boys’ team every time we play them.”

Coach Wanda makes to scold Natasha for the language, perhaps. Then she seems to find nothing to disagree with. She looks to McGowan for her response.

Natasha speaks again first.

“I mean, you could be limiting your search, right? If you rule out women. That’s, like, half the town, half the world. You could be looking all over for a man and the killer could be standing right next to you. You could be asking the killer if she knows any man as big as you and here, that woman is even bigger.”

Kit shifts again. Is Natasha just flat-out suggesting Daphne?

McGowan holds Natasha’s gaze before finally nodding her agreement.

“All right,” she says. “Any of you girls see Tammy Jones interacting with any women who might’ve been about my size or bigger?”

“Yes.”

It isn’t one girl who says it. It’s like seven at once. Kit is one of them. Because it’s true. In summer leagues, in the fall, too, the ballers come in contact with all types of coaches and former players. Sports-medicine people, parents, more. A player as good as Tammy Jones even had a few scouts.

“Well,” McGowan says, pulling out a notepad and a pen from her blue police jacket pocket. “Let’s start with you.”

She looks to Beck Nelson, who sits first in line, next to Coach Wanda.

“Well, don’t just sit there like a ninny,” Wanda says. “Talk to the woman. And tell her everything that comes to mind. All of you, talk.”

And Beck does.

They all do.

And as Detective McGowan writes, Kit senses that commonality again. As if the woman is not jotting down important notes about a horrific case but rather writing in her journal, like Kit does, doing all she can to stave off what feels like the inevitable.

Yes, she thinks. McGowan writes the same way she does. Under different circumstances, this might bring Kit comfort. But today, under the same lights that illuminated her game-winning shot, and not twenty feet from the rim she silently spoke with, it worries her to think the person in charge of ending this nightmare could be as rattled as her.

Is this it? Is this woman their hope? Their defense? Is this woman whose hand shakes as she writes, whose eyes have seen Tammy Jones’s incurvated face, is she going to stop what’s coming?

Kit looks down the row to Natasha. Recalls Natasha saying the story was just a story. She believes her. Believes Natasha believes that anyway. Mostly. But how much of that was Natasha worrying about her imperfect friend? How much of what anybody says to Kit right now includes the fact that she called 911 when her mind ran away with itself? Like she needs protecting…