‘Right, but Janine doesn’t know that. She needs to get rid of the gun, and she grabs a bunch of jewelry to make it look like a robbery. Then what? Throw it all down the canyon? Someone’s bound to find it when the snow melts. Does she get in Jay’s car and drive somewhere? Maybe, but what if someone sees her on the road?’

‘So what do you think she did?’ Maggie asked.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Chances are, Janine already had a plan. She’s not the kind of woman who does anything on the spur of the moment. She probably thought about this for weeks.’

‘Or she’s innocent,’ Maggie pointed out.

‘Yeah. Or she’s innocent.’

It was possible – but Stride didn’t believe it. He’d looked into Janine’s eyes that night and seen the truth. She was guilty. She’d killed her husband.

He got up and wandered through the darkened office to the pop machine, where he bought another can of Coke. He popped it and drank most of it quickly. A noisy furnace vent rattled over his head, but it did little to warm the drafty basement. He leaned against the wall, waiting for the rush of caffeine and sugar.

Stride was almost forty, and on most days, he still felt young. His face had been weathered by the Duluth winters, but he could be boyish when he cracked his quick, easy grin. His hair was jet black, short on the sides, messy and cow-licked on top. He didn’t have perfect features. He would never be a smooth-skinned, blow-dried model. Cindy said she liked his flaws because he didn’t try to hide them. She said you could look at her husband and know exactly who he was: honorable, headstrong, brooding, and bold – a man who would give his life trying to do the right thing and who would feel every failure deep into his bones.

He knew half the people in the city, thanks to his job, but he didn’t invite many people into his life. He had no siblings. His parents were dead. He’d lost his father to the lake when he was a boy, and his mother had passed away ten years ago. Since then, his world had mostly been him and Cindy, but he didn’t need anyone else. He only kept a few close friends other than his wife. His doctor and college buddy Steve Garske. And Maggie.

Stride smiled at the idea of Maggie. As cops, as friends, they were good together. They were as close as two people could be who had never slept together. Which was something that he would never let happen.

He returned to the conference room and sat down.

‘So what do you think, Mags?’

‘She did it,’ Maggie said, ‘but I wish we could find that gun.’