“That rules out Ned. He was born in Ghana. His accent’s faint, but it’s there.”

With fondness in her voice that warmed me like broth in my belly, McIntyre said, “Getting closer, kid. One more thing, nearly forgot. Carson called.”

I never used to be an anxious person. If my parents were an hour late coming home from date night, I didn’t assume they’d been in a terrible accident, I just squeezed out a few extra minutes of TV. When McIntyre said Carson’s name, though, my stomach dropped. They’d met before, but Carson and Mac weren’t in the habit of gabbing on the phone. Given the way he felt about me going back to work, I’d partitioned off my fiancé from the force. If he called her, something was up.

“Apparently,” she said, “he’s concerned about your health.”

“My health?”

“Your mental health. He thinks I should pull you from the case and send you straight home to Daddy.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Look, you’ve been nothing but honest with me,” Mac said. “But you know I was a tad uncertain when you came to me about this job.”

Again my gut twisted. “I was, too. That’s why I volunteered to be screened. I’m not going to lie, Maureen, I’ve had a few iffy moments out here.” What would she say when she found out about Flynn’s gunshot wound? I tried not to think about it. “But I talked to Tim.”

“Ah. That’s good.” She paused. “Isn’t it?”

“It is. You were right, as usual. He was amazing. Is amazing.” I said it with a smile. “I think I can do this, I really do. Carson doesn’t have a clue what’s happening right now. He doesn’t want me here, and whatever he said to you is just his way of trying to pull me back.”

On the other end of the line I heard a door click shut. “I haven’t told you this,” McIntyre said, “but I dated someone like Carson once. Controlling. Paranoid. I’d be at work and get these phone calls accusing me of cheating. In the same breath he’d tell me I wasn’t good enough for him.”

McIntyre didn’t gush about her personal life. She’d never once mentioned an ex. Controlling and paranoid. These were the words my friend selected to describe my fiancé. I’d never thought of Carson like that, but the endless questions about Tim, the accusations against him, the ceaseless efforts to convince me I was defenseless . . . it added up.

“What did you do about it?” I didn’t feel totally comfortable asking, but McIntyre had brought it up for a reason.

“I left,” she said. “It wasn’t as simple as it sounds. I broke the rules. Me leaving him was the ultimate act of disobedience, and he wasn’t about to sit back and wish me well. But that’s a longer story, and you’ve got work to do.”

“Right, yeah,” I droned absently, mulling over what she’d said.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I will say this. You might want to step back and analyze the situation before the wedding day rolls around.”