They are focusing on me.

I shouldn’t be surprised. But I guess I am.

“The noise was loud,” Lee says. “The boy heard it. Said it sounded like his door at home slamming shut.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” I tell her. “Are either of you even listening to me?”

Suddenly I feel like I’m in quicksand, sinking out of view. Going down while the two Mason County cops look at me from above. I’m going lower and lower. They are hunched over me now. As I sink under the weight of their questions, I realize that there is no way that I can truly control what’s happening around me. I’m not at work, where I can lie to my director and do what I want. I can’t tell my team to ignore what the higher-ups are dictating and do what I think is best. Not that I ever tell anyone to do anything unethical. Not really. Cutting corners to get things done faster isn’t wrong. Here, I’m at the bottom.

“We’re just doing our jobs, Adam,” Lee says.

“Sure doesn’t feel that way to me. I saw someone hit my wife, grab her, and carry her off, and you’re ignoring all of that.”

“No one is ignoring anything,” Detective Montrose says. “We just want to know how things were going with you and your wife. Maybe Sophie got mad and took off. My wife did that to me. Went to her sister’s for a weekend and let me stew at home with a bottle of gin.”

Lee keeps me in her gaze, but I can see her body stiffen a little. She didn’t know what her partner was talking about. I imagine that if they tire of Sophie’s case on their drive back to Shelton, the stability of his marriage will wind its way into their conversation.

“My wife and I are solid,” I say. “Even if you want to fully discount what I told you I saw, then fine. Do so. Have whatever’s happening to her right now on your hands. I told you what I saw. There’s no drama, and there’s no way she would have run off. We were happy.”

A car pulls into the parking area adjacent to the Wisteria.

“Your in-laws?” Lee asks.

I shake my head. “No. They won’t be here for another hour.”

I stand there for a beat. Silent. Me in my quicksand. Aubrey is suddenly back in my arms. I can tell that she doesn’t know what’s really going on. I’m unsure too.

“I saw what I saw,” I finally say. My words hang awkwardly in the air.

“Of course,” Lee says.

“What’s next?” I ask.

Detective Montrose glances past me over the darkening shore of Hood Canal as an enormous cumulus cloud shutters the sun. He doesn’t say anything. Neither does Lee. I wonder if their silence is a police tactic of some kind or if they simply don’t have an answer.

“Are you staying here tonight?” Lee asks.

“Where else would I go?”