I’ve just stepped outside for a run when I hear my name. It’s the detectives from Mason County, Lee Husemann and Zach Montrose. I turn in their direction, and in a nanosecond I know that whatever is about to happen to me is not going to be good. Their faces are grim. Their eyes are piercing. Their mouths are straight lines.

I feel a ripple of nausea.

“Connor Moss,” Detective Montrose says, “put your hands where we can see them.”

I lift them in the air. “What’s happening?” I ask, though it is obvious.

Kristen, who is about to leave for work, swings open the front door.

“What’s going on here?” she calls out.

Detective Montrose tells me to put my hands behind my back, and I comply with jittery hesitation.

“I’m a lawyer,” Kristen says.

“We know,” Detective Husemann says, giving a little glance in the direction of her partner.

Kristen persists. “What are you doing here?”

They ignore her.

“Connor Moss,” Detective Husemann says, “we’re placing you under arrest on suspicion of homicide.”

I hear my Miranda rights being read. I think back to the first time that I’d heard those words: after the accident in Southern California. Since then I have never so much as driven five miles over the speed limit. I never cheat on reporting my tips. I actually overpay my taxes. I have spent every second of my life trying to be on the right side of the law. I do all of that because I am sorry for what I’ve done. I’m not bitter that the drunk-driving conviction has hung over me for my entire adult life. It was my fault. I have never—not even one time—not owned up to what I did.

As the cold metal of the handcuffs encircles my wrists, I feel the blood drain from my face. I am physically fit. I run nearly every day. I do a weights circuit twice a week at the gym. I work in a restaurant and know what food is good for you and what isn’t. And yet, as I stand there in a T-shirt and jogging shorts, my wrists locked together, I wonder if I’m going to collapse in front of the detectives and my wife.

“I didn’t do anything,” I say.

“Don’t say another word. I’ll get my purse, and I’ll follow you.”

It’s Kristen. She’s hovering just beyond the detectives. Her words are measured and calm, and her demeanor soothes and steadies me. She knows me. She knows I would never hurt anyone.

They say her name.

Sophie Warner.