Ethan stopped breathing for a moment; his heart thumped once, hard, then ceased to beat. It took him a minute to catch his breath. “What are you saying? Have you found something? Do you know something you’re not telling me?”

“No, sir. But my job is to look at all the angles. I appreciate this information, and I’ll keep in touch. As soon as I have something, I’ll let you know.”

And she hung up.

Ethan was suddenly relegated to the role of hysterical husband. He hadn’t even had a chance to tell Graham about Wilde.

But that thought was scrambled, pushed away, making room for the more frightening train that followed.

Was he going to be charged? Was he wrong, and it was all her doing? Joel’s warning paraded into his mind, Bill’s cynicism joined the party. Was there any way Sutton could have hurt herself but made it look like he was to blame? Would she do something so awful? How was he going to cope if she were gone? Would they find a body?

“Oh, God.”

He started through the house, looking out the windows, trying to ascertain if anyone was out there. Then he got a grip on himself and called Graham back.

She didn’t answer. He left her a message.

“You hung up before I was able to tell you everything. I need to talk to you. Right now. I’ve been contacted by someone who claims to know where Sutton is. He wants money. Please ring me back.”

Blackmail, or How Does Your Garden Grow?

BLACKMAIL, OR HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?

Holly had questioned Ellen Jones hard for forty minutes, but she hadn’t budged. She insisted Sutton Montclair was not the person in the video.

It clouded everything Holly knew about this case, which was getting stranger by the second.

She grabbed a bag of Tots and a diet cherry limeade from Sonic and sat in the car, thinking. Ate, made some notes. The loyal friends, the missing money, the doting husband, the professional fall from grace. The note. The baby. None of it was adding up for her. It was like trying to solve a puzzle whose pieces came from different boxes.

Her cell rang, for what felt like the thousandth time today. If this was what being a detective was like...how did they ever get anything done with their phones constantly ringing? She glanced at the caller ID. It was Ethan Montclair again.

“Mr. Montclair? What can I do for you now?”

“Listen, I received a call a little while ago. I left you a message, but you didn’t call me back. I’m assuming you didn’t get it.”

She looked at her call screen, saw the badge alert that indicated she’d received a message. “Ah. So you did. What did you want to tell me?”