I hesitated, trying to remember what I’d said before. “I think so.” I looked down at my hands tearing the tissue into little pieces. “It’s hard to remember now.”

“The thing is, Gabriel Wilson was found with two bullet wounds. Most people trying to kill themselves don’t shoot twice.”

She looked at me for a long time then. “The bullets that killed Gabe matched the bullet that killed Nate. The same weapon killed them both.”

I didn’t say anything, so she continued.

“We never found the gun used to kill Nate. Do you know where it might’ve gone?”

“Presumably it was with Gabe.”

“Did you kill Gabriel Wilson?”

I drew back, repelled by her words. “Are you seriously asking me that?” I hissed. “How dare you. My son is gravely ill. My husband has been murdered.”

“All the more motive.”

“I’m not a murderer!”

She sat back in the chair. “There were partial footprints along the path near the water. Someone followed him.”

I stood, furious, and walked to the door. “I’ll speak to Lieutenant Dyson about this.”

She stood and faced me. “Please do. In the meantime, I’ll continue doing my job. And trust me”—she narrowed her eyes—“I’ll find out what really happened to Nate.”

She brushed past me, striding down the hall with angry, purposeful steps. But then she stopped and returned, withdrawing something from an inner pocket. It was small and square, wrapped in red and green paper. She handed the box to me.

“We found this in his desk.”

I turned the box over. My name was written in Nate’s familiar slanted scrawl on the gift tag attached.

“If you know anything,” Kia said, her eyes hard, “anything at all, you owe it to Nate to speak up.”

“I know exactly what I owe my husband, Detective Sharpe.”

After she’d left, I unwrapped the box slowly, imagining Nate’s face the day we were married, the way he’d watched me as I turned the corner at city hall. We hadn’t had the money for a fancy wedding or honeymoon, and anyway, I was pregnant. I’d arrived after a busy shift and he’d been waiting for me, patient and handsome in his black suit and striped tie.

“Mo chuisle,” he’d whispered into my hair as he pulled me into his arms. His eyes were soft and warm, like moonlight on my face. “Are you ready?”

And I was.

I opened the box and pulled a delicate necklace from its nest of white silk. All the oxygen left my lungs and tears rushed to my eyes, my knees threatening to give out as I realized exactly what it was.

The pendant tying the delicate sterling silver chain together was a jagged line, up and down, up and down, mimicking the EKG wave of a heartbeat.

Mo chuisle.

My heartbeat.