He gives me one more look. “If your job is to piss on people whose lives are ruined by a random act of violence, they should give you an award.”

“We have more questions,” Montrose says, now pulling himself back into the show.

“Take your questions and shove ’em up your ass, Detective,” he says. “I’m done.”

A few minutes later, Montrose joins me in my office. My eyes land on his hands. His tremors are almost always more pronounced later in the day. He catches my gaze and shoves them immediately into his pockets. I pretend not to notice.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “I mean, no, not really.”

“He’s a jerk. I know you think he’s great for something he did for you years ago. But I also understand that guy could benefit from a personality transplant. He’s an egomaniacal loser. That’s the worst combination.”

“I’ll give you that,” I say. “But he’s also right about something. He didn’t kill his wife.”

“We don’t know that.”

I point to my computer screen. It’s a preliminary report from the lab. It came in while we were prying into Adam’s personal affairs.

Montrose leans in to get a good look, but the type is too small.

I look up at him. “The semen found in Sophie’s body wasn’t Adam’s.”

He is clearly stunned.

“How do you know that?”

“Blood work from the sample we took. He’s not a secretor. Sophie’s assailant, however, was.”

Montrose tries to read the screen, but he gives up. He really needs new glasses, but he’s too thrifty to pay the copay.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he says. “Then whose is it?”

“Don’t know yet,” I say. “Running that now.”

“So he’s only guilty of being a jerk,” Montrose says.

“I guess so.”

The jerk that pulled me out from under a web of plum tree branches will probably never talk to me again. It has been a day for the ages. I’m ready to get a bottle of wine and go home to my cat.

God, I have such a full life. Ridiculously full.

And I follow through: I get a good bottle of chardonnay from the top shelf at the Safeway on Franklin. It’s not a celebration. I just think a better bottle will help more than my usual bottom-shelf twist-top. When I arrive home, Millicent is there to greet me at the door.

Yes, ridiculously full.

I sit there in my kitchen drinking—from a glass, at least—and staring at my phone. Finally I do what I know I should never do.

I text Adam.

I’m sorry about today.