He had to loosen up. If these guys possessed one iota of incriminating evidence, they wouldn’t be wasting time on a casual chat. They’d be reading him his rights. Whatever they’d found to bring them to his doorstep wasn’t usable in court.

Everything was fine. There was no reason to panic.

Pasting on a smile, he rejoined them. “It should cool down in a few minutes. Now tell me how I can help you.”

“I’m the lead detective on the Eve Reilly case.” Lange pulled out a notebook. “I’d like to ask you a few questions related to that.”

His mouth flattened. “May I ask why?”

“We’re following up on several pieces of information. One of them led us to you.”

“Which one?”

Lange ignored him. “Could you tell us where you were last Saturday evening?”

They’d linked him to the tire slashing.

But how?

“Why do you want to know?” Unless he knew what they had on him, he wouldn’t be able to come up with a viable defense.

Lange offered him a smile that contained no trace of humor. “I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”

Checkmate.

Steve picked up his beer and took a sip of the tepid brew. Refusing to answer would add to the suspicions these two already had. But he couldn’t tell them the whole truth, either. There were gaps in the timing between his activities.

If they’d run his credit card history, they’d found the gas receipt from that night, when he’d filled his tank while he was out. If they hadn’t, they would eventually. Lying about that would be crazy.

His skin began to itch, and he scratched his arm. “I was here, with Meg. I did run out for a few minutes to fill up my car at the station down the street, but that was it.”

Not true . . . and Candy would lie for him, tell these cops whatever he asked her to . . . but bringing her into the discussion would cause all kinds of garbage to hit the fan on the home front if Meg found out.

Meg would also lie for him about Saturday night if he pushed her—but that shouldn’t be necessary. A wife didn’t have to testify against her husband. And he’d tell her that later tonight, in case one of these guys cornered her away from the house and began asking questions.

The lead detective never broke eye contact with him. “Can you tell us where you were on your lunch hour on Friday, August 24?”

The day of the fake bomb incident.

He was definitely in their sights.

And he still didn’t know why.

“I’ll be happy to—but you haven’t answered my question yet. Why do you want to know? Am I a suspect in this case?”

“Should you be?”

“Of course not! Why would you think that?”