This was the judgmental detective she remembered from Saturday. He’d clearly had some preexisting idea of what a “real” girlfriend should know about a man. Her exact words were, “He’d been distant lately. Worried. Distracted.” She had offered the observation as evidence that something was terribly wrong. Instead, this overaged frat boy had reached a final opinion, writing her off as some thirsty chick whose man wasn’t that into her.

“Just go ahead and tell me,” she said now. “He drowned out there in the ocean. I already heard. He’s the guy who was in the paper this morning. I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me that from the beginning.”

For the first time since she had encountered Detective Decker, he seemed like an actual person. He looked pained.

“That’s why we haven’t made a formal announcement yet about the body pulled from the water yesterday. I wanted to make sure you were notified first, not just about his identity but also about the actual cause of death.” And then he delivered the news. Alex’s body was the one found at Star Island, but he had been killed by a small-caliber bullet to the base of his skull.

The wail that broke from her throat surprised even her. It was raw and visceral, unleashing a new flood of sobs that felt like the riptide she had imagined Alex trapped in. She was surprised when she felt the detective’s hand on her back, patting her gently in a steady rhythm to help slow her breath.

“Why is this so much worse?” she managed between gulps of air.

“Not my place to say, but maybe because it’s unnatural—which means someone out there is responsible? And that’s why I have to ask you another question, even though it might be painful. You said that when you reported Alex missing, he had seemed distant.”

“And worried,” she emphasized.

“Do you think it was possible he was seeing another woman?”

“No, he would never.” She could only imagine how many times this detective heard naive people claim the same faith in their partners.

Decker pulled a phone from his shirt pocket, fiddled with it, and then showed her a photograph on the screen. “Any chance you’ve seen this woman before?”

The photograph had been cropped, a second person visible only because of an arm wrapped loosely around the woman’s tank-topped shoulder. The woman’s smile was broad, her teeth shiny and white. Her long hair cascaded in waves to her toned biceps. And Jocelyn knew for a fact that the bright sandy blond was the woman’s natural color.

“Oh my god. I know her. That’s that woman I told Alex about.”

“Her name is Hope Miller,” Decker said.

“No.” It came out almost as a scream, because Jocelyn was so certain. “No, that wasn’t it. She told me . . . Lynn, I think. Or Linda.”

“Lindsay?” Decker asked.