Just beyond the door, a body lay on the carpet, almost exactly where Jay’s body would have been beyond the foyer of Janine’s house. The parallel was eerie. The position of the body was the same. The hole in the man’s forehead was the same.

Stride recognized the dead man on the floor.

It was Howard Marlowe, the ex-juror in the murder trial who’d never given up his obsession with the case.

Beyond the living area where Howard’s body lay, the carpet led to a king-sized four-poster bed and a fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on Lake Superior between heavy drapes. He could only see the end of the bed; the rest was blocked by a tall walnut bureau. A woman stood at the foot of the bed. He didn’t recognize her. Her shoulders were slumped. She looked to be almost fifty years old, and she wore a baggy, untucked T-shirt over blue jeans. Her gray-brown hair was pushed back behind her ears. She stared at the bed, her arms limp at her side.

A revolver was on the carpet where she’d dropped it.

‘Step away from the gun, ma’am,’ Stride told her, but she didn’t move. She didn’t seem to hear him. She was in a daze as he came closer.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘My name is Carol Marlowe,’ she replied.

Stride got close enough to see the rest of the bed, and he understood what had happened. Janine lay among the tangled sheets. Naked. Dead. The two of them – Janine and Howard – had both been shot in the head. Howard’s wife had killed them in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

‘That bitch ruined our lives,’ Carol murmured. ‘She took everything from me.’

There was nothing he could say. Stride kicked the gun on the floor away from her. Maggie came up behind Howard’s wife, who offered no resistance to the handcuffs that Maggie locked around her wrists. Carol was limp as Maggie led her away, but as they reached Howard’s body, she came to life and began to wail and cry. Maggie had to physically restrain her as she fought to get to her dead husband.

‘Howard! Oh, God, Howard! I’m sorry!’

The door closed. The screams continued in the hallway.

Stride and Serena were alone with the bodies. The suite smelled of gunpowder and sex. The patio door was partially open, letting in sweet lake air and the humid reminder of rain.

He checked Janine’s pulse for final confirmation, but she was gone. Her eyes were closed with a strange look of peace. Her nakedness still had beauty, and her skin was as warm as life. He felt an urge to cover her, but there was no modesty in death. She was guilty. She was innocent. She was a heroine. She was the devil. She was all of those things.