Ponder can’t miss the look between Iris and Kyle. “No, he wasn’t, but I had set the security alarm already. If he turned it off, it would have beeped, and that always wakes me up. So he was in the house. He couldn’t have left it.”

“Was he in bed with you when you fell asleep?” Ponder asks again.

Iris shakes her head. She’s staring at Kyle like he’s a stranger. “No, but I just told you he can’t turn off the alarm without waking me.” She seems angry that Ponder isn’t accepting her word for this as a given scientific fact.

“Did you talk to Danielle that evening, sir?”

“Briefly. She called me on the phone she’d given me. She was incoherent. She just said she wanted out, but she wouldn’t tell me what that meant.”

“We’d like to bring you in for further questioning, Mr. Pollitt.”

“I understand. I’d like an attorney to be present. Iris, will you call Kip and have him meet me down at the police station?”

“Kyle, Kyle.” Iris shakes her head. “What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything more,” Kyle says. “Do you need to put handcuffs on me?”

“You’re not under arrest.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” He’s knows better, but right now his brain feels scrambled.

“Kyle…what the hell is this?” Iris’s voice rises.

Kyle meets her stare with his own. “You are everything in the world to me. You and the kids. Know that. I want you to call Kip, and I want you to look out for our kids. Everything will be all right.”

The detectives lead him out the door—it feels like his world has completely dissolved in less than one minute—and Kyle wonders if the life he knew has just vanished forever.

39

Julia

The words Julia doesn’t say to Ned on the drive to school: Well, your drug-ring buddy Marland is blackmailing me into working for him while you skulk off to London and are entirely off the hook, and though you’re my best friend, I’m not going to let you destroy my life.

But she has to outthink both Ned and Marland. Get that video of her father and Danielle walking toward the park. Get it and destroy it. Without being forced to be Marland’s accomplice and middleman to a bunch of prescription-downing Lakehaven kids who represent a revenue stream for him.

She has to act like everything is vaguely normal. Which it isn’t.

“Are you sure you want to go to school?” Julia asks. She’s driving, Ned in the passenger seat.

“I don’t want to sit at home all day with my father,” he says. He stares out the window. He just seems oblivious to her anger at him.

“With people at school, it’s hard for Marland to get close to you.”