He jerked upright, then grabbed his head with a muffled curse. “The front door...it was bolted. I threw the bolt to let you in. She must still be in the house somewhere.”

Graham shook her head. “No one’s here. She has keys to the house. She has access to everything of yours. She probably locked the door behind her to slow us down, or mislead us. But we’re on to her now. We’ll find her, quickly. There’s a BOLO for her car, and her description has been sent to all the law enforcement in the region, plus transit. She won’t elude us for long.”

Ethan sat back, dumbfounded. “Tell me everything.”

“We don’t know everything.” Graham sat now, opposite him, the ever-present notebook out. He thought she’d make a good writer, the way she diligently recorded everything.

“Right now, a man named Hank Tomkins is in custody in New Jersey, and he claims he’s been working with Brookes for the better part of a year trying to make your lives—you and Mrs. Montclair—a living hell.”

“Let me guess. He has something to do with Colin Wilde?”

“Colin Wilde is Hank Tomkins, on orders from Brookes. Apparently she’s the one who’s been driving the online train against Sutton. She’s very good. She fooled me entirely. She’s been working both of you, hard. Trying to turn you against one another. Even Dashiell, your child—”

Ethan shut his eyes at the familiar spike of Dashiell’s name. This time, the spike was poisoned. “Did Ivy hurt our son?”

“There were traces of diphenhydramine in his tissue samples. It takes forever for those tests to be run, they’ve only just come back. When we revisited the case, the lab pushed them to the front of the queue. I’m so sorry.”

“He was murdered.”

“Without a confession, it can still be ruled accidental, but I’ll tell you this, Brookes handed over a bottle of medicine she claims Sutton brought to her and accused you of killing your son. She laid the blame at your feet like a cat with a dead snake, eyes brimming with tears the whole time. Meanwhile, she was filling Sutton’s mind with the idea that you killed Dashiell and were planning to kill her, too. That’s why Sutton ran. Brookes helped her plan the whole thing, even procured false documents for her. She convinced Sutton you were a monster.”

“And the woman in the field? Are we to assume Ivy actually murdered this person and made it look like Sutton to help along this charade?”

“We may have a tentative ID. We’ll need dental or DNA to be sure. She looks like an innocent bystander, lured into Brookes’s web for the sole purpose of filling the temporary role of your dead wife.”