Their bedroom door was closed, but they heard movement in the living room. Cat was up. She was a restless sleeper, and they often found her awake in the middle of the night. She’d suffered from nightmares for most of her life. When she couldn’t sleep, she turned on the television, or ate cold pizza from the refrigerator, or sat in silence on the back porch. Hearing her footsteps, Jonny looked at the door, wanting to check on her.

Serena got out of bed. She slid her nightgown over her head and then slipped a T-shirt over her bare chest. She stepped into shorts. She opened the bedroom door a crack, saw Cat sprawled on the living room floor in front of the television, and closed the door again. She draped herself across the end of the bed at Jonny’s feet.

‘So what happens next?’ she asked.

His face showed his frustration. ‘The gun has torpedoed the entire case against Janine. Archie’s filing an emergency motion for her release. The county attorney thinks he may get it. If the gun didn’t have a history, it probably wouldn’t be enough to convince a judge, but the fact that it was used in a violent crime prior to Jay’s death – and now in another murder years later – changes everything.’

‘I hate to admit it, but I agree with Archie,’ Serena said. ‘It looks like Janine never had that gun at all.’

Jonny shook his head. He was stubborn. ‘Not necessarily. The buyer in Chicago was a man, but street guns change hands all the time. Janine probably bought the gun later. Or Jay bought it for himself, and then Janine used it.’

‘And then what? You don’t murder your husband and sell the gun on the street. You get rid of it.’

‘She may have tried to get rid of it, but somebody else found it.’

‘Or somebody else shot Jay,’ Serena told him. ‘You may not like it, but that’s reality.’

He was quiet. Then he said: ‘I’m going down to Shakopee. I want to talk to Janine.’

‘She won’t tell you anything. The gun is her ticket out. She’s not going to jeopardize that.’

‘I know, but even if she won’t talk, I want to see her face when I ask her about it. Believe me, I know Cindy. I’ll know if she’s hiding something.’

Serena gave him a sad smile. ‘Cindy?’

He closed his eyes, realizing what he’d said. ‘Sorry. Janine. Freudian slip.’

She knew that the discovery of the gun had awakened ghosts for him. The murder of Jay Ferris, and the conviction of Janine Snow, didn’t exist in a vacuum. She could do the math. Jay Ferris had been killed in January. One January later, Jonny lost his wife. In between were some of the hardest days of their lives.

‘This must bring back some tough memories,’ she said.