They stood on the sidewalk in front of the school. Mendez flipped his Ray-Bans down against the bright sun.

“We had such a nice life a week ago,” she said. “Suddenly everything is wrong.”

She was on the verge of tears—out of proportion to what had gone on in the conference room. Although, Mendez thought, Janet Crane was almost enough to make him cry.

“You’ve had a lot to deal with,” he said. “I spoke to your husband yesterday. I understand he was out of town when the kids found the body.”

“Yes,” she said, suspicion creeping into her expression. “You talked to Steve? Why?”

“The murder victim, Lisa Warwick, volunteered at the Thomas Center as a court advocate. She and your husband had worked together frequently. We thought she might have confided in him if someone had been giving her a hard time. Did you know her?”

“Yes,” she said. “I met her a couple of times.”

“Is that all?” Mendez asked, feigning surprise. “They never met at your home to talk about a case?”

“Steve doesn’t bring his work home with him.”

“Hmmm. Well, I suppose that’s good, but it makes for a lot of late nights at the office, doesn’t it?”

“Steve’s very dedicated,” she said, her voice cool.

“To his work,” Mendez said. “Does it bother you that he gives up so much time to the Thomas Center?”

“It’s a worthy cause.”

She looked away, pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses from on top of her head and settled them in place to hide the stress in her cornflower blue eyes.

“You volunteer as well?” Mendez asked.

“No. I’m busy with other things.”

Like holding herself together, he thought. We had such a nice life a week ago.

“Mrs. Morgan,” he started, “there’s no delicate way of asking this question. Was your husband involved with Lisa Warwick? Romantically?”

“No!” she said, too quickly, hugging herself tight.

“We’ve looked at Ms. Warwick’s phone records. There are a lot of calls to your husband’s office. A lot of after-hours calls.”

“You said yourself, they worked on a lot of cases together.”

Mendez didn’t press for more. Browbeating Sara Morgan into saying it aloud would only have been cruel. Her husband was unfaithful to her. She was suffering enough keeping the secret to herself.

“One other thing,” he said. “Do you happen to remember where your husband was last week, Thursday, late in the day?”

“He was in town,” she said. “I remember that. I teach an art class every other Thursday evening. He was home when I got back.”

“What about from, say, five to seven?”

“He rarely gets home before seven. I leave for my class at six.”

Which meant she couldn’t account for his whereabouts during the time period Karly Vickers went missing.

He waited for Sara Morgan to ask why he wanted to know, but she had had enough.