“I do,” Archie said, knowing where she was going. “A boy and a girl.”

Green pulled off a blue latex glove with a snap. “Good,” she said. Archie got the subtext: Don’t fuck this up.

“How old is she?” Archie asked the ME.

Green looked down at the dead girl, pulling off her other glove. “Early twenties,” she said.

The girl hadn’t lied to Archie after all.

“She’s all yours, gentlemen,” Green said, hoisting up her ME’s kit. Then, with a nod, she headed up the dock back toward the house, passing Sanchez, who was still on the phone.

A breeze blew over the lake, rippling the water. Leaves blew off the trees and settled on the lake’s bleak surface, floating for a few moments, and then silently slipping beneath the surface.

Archie stared at the island. If he squinted, he could just make out the boathouse near where he had spent much of the night unconscious. Maybe his blonde hadn’t been Gretchen after all.

“Where did you say you found that blond hair?” Henry asked.

“Let’s just say I had clear chain of custody,” Archie said.

Chapter 27

CHAPTER

27

Jack Reynolds answered the door dressed like he was going yachting—white pants, a white V-neck sweater with navy piping at the neck, and white canvas deck shoes, no socks.

Archie threw a glance at Henry, who was dressed entirely in black, and hoped this would go better than he was anticipating.

The island was tranquil and muted. The stacks of rented chairs and piles of torches were gone. The bars had been disassembled and loaded into trucks and carted off. The propane heaters that Archie had seen collected together in the yard that morning were now just faint impressions in the grass. It hadn’t taken them long to get rid of any evidence that the bacchanalia had occurred. Even the dead leaves had been bagged and hauled away. This was how it went if you had a hundred people working for you. The last time Archie could remember having a party, it had taken Debbie and him three days to do the dishes.

Jack didn’t invite them in.

“Nice outfit, skipper,” Henry said.

“Did you come to return my Ralph Lauren?” Jack asked Archie.

Just three hundred yards away, back on the mainland, Archie’s Major Case team was working the crime scene at the Cape Cod. The dock had been cordoned off with crime tape. Crime scene techs were combing the yard. He had divers looking in the lake around the dock. The road was lined with law enforcement vehicles. There was no way that Jack didn’t know that. This was a man who employed men with earpieces. He had surveillance cameras in trees.