He looks down at the table, then back at me. “Yeah,” he says. “She was wearing a white beach cover-up over her bathing suit. I think she was planning on laying out in the sun or maybe swimming. Water gets warm in that little cove.”

“Did she have on anything else?” I ask.

“Sun hat,” he says. “Got it in Santa Barbara the summer before.”

“Let’s revisit your description of your wife’s attacker,” Montrose says.

Adam thinks a beat. “I never saw the bastard’s face. So if you want me to ID a photo or something, that’s not going to work. It happened so fast, it was a blur.”

“We understand,” I say, though I know Montrose doesn’t. “Can you remember anything more about him? Hair color? What he was wearing?”

“He came at Sophie from behind. She screamed, and I started rowing. I saw that it was a man. Bigger than her.”

“Okay. Fine. What about his clothing? A hat?” I ask.

Adam looks upward. “I don’t remember a hat. He was wearing a red jacket and khakis, I think. I can’t swear to that, but that’s what comes to mind. You try remembering something when you’re in the middle of something like that. It’s not easy.”

No, I think, it isn’t. But I did. I remembered every detail of what Albert Hodge was wearing when I was abducted. Every single thing. How he smelled. The scar on his abdomen from an appendix surgery. The watch that he wore was a Casio digital; the face was white, the band, black leather. He wore a flannel shirt and Levi’s 501s. His jeans smelled of motor oil.

We move on to the food that Teresa Dibley found in the refrigerator. It was at odds with his story that they’d eaten a late supper.

“You said Sophie bought sandwiches for dinner that night,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, “at the local store just before you get to the cabin.”

“And you ate them?”

“Sophie wasn’t that hungry,” Adam says. “She was fighting a cold. But, yes, we ate. Not much.”

I don’t tell him that Sophie’s stomach was empty.

And in that moment it seems like he’s reading my mind. I wonder if I’m telegraphing excuses to him because I know he didn’t hurt his wife, despite my partner’s assessment.

“You know,” he says, “I don’t think she ate after all. She bought sandwiches, and Aubrey and I ate some of one.”

That makes sense, I think. There were two untouched and one that was half eaten in the refrigerator.

“The next morning you made waffles,” Montrose jumps in. “But Sophie didn’t have any? Is that right?”

Adam shifts in his chair. The sweat blooms under his arms have dried. He’s calm. Cool. “Yeah. She wasn’t a morning eater. More a cup-of-coffee kind of girl.”