“Very good,” he said. “The one thing I’d change is that you said, ‘I’ve been at home’ when you were explaining yourself. But if you were really making the call from home, you probably would’ve said, ‘I’ve been here,’ right?”

I looked at him, surprised at his recall of what I’d said.

“Yeah, I guess I would.”

“Also,” he said, “a word like ‘here’ is more flexible. If you get caught in the lie somehow, you can always say you meant something else by ‘here’ — not your home, say, but a friend’s house.”

“Wow, you’ve really thought about this stuff.”

“In our line of work, it’s an unfortunate necessity. And it’s often the small stuff that catches you up — stuff you say without thinking because it seems so unimportant.”

He waited until I nodded my understanding.

“Okay, we should talk about how you’re going to handle your brother. That’s going to be a more challenging situation.”

But the visit with Ben turned out not to be so challenging after all, at least not in the way Graham meant. Ben was too wrapped up in his own fear and sadness to be interested in what I’d been up to for the last few days. He was just angry that I hadn’t been there for him. He did say the police had told him I had an alibi for the time Justine disappeared. Beyond that, it was all about his situation — whether their fight on Sunday might’ve driven Justine away, where she might’ve gone, whether someone might’ve kidnapped her, whether she was dead.

There was also a lot of focus on how the kids were handling their mother’s absence. The short answer was “not well,” but I didn’t get the short answer.

We both did a lot of crying, Ben from grief, me from guilt. It was awful. Worst of all was glancing up and seeing Tiffany peeking around the banister to watch her father cry. The look on her face was unbearable.

“Denny’s?” I asked, confused.

After leaving Ben’s, I’d gotten in Graham’s car, and he’d kindly left me alone with my misery. I hadn’t paid attention to where we were going. He’d driven most of the way to Wausau, and I hadn’t noticed.

“Sure. Thought we could get a bite to eat.”

As soon as I thought of food, I realized I was starving.

“Okay, yeah.”

We were seated and got our coffees. It occurred to me that Graham might be able to help with Justine, beyond just asking his contacts if they knew anything. He talked about Williams as if he’d known him a while. Maybe he could make some educated guesses on places the bastard would stash someone he’d kidnapped.