She couldn’t recall ever quoting Oscar Wilde, and she’d never said she could commit the perfect crime. It would be a stupid and outrageously offensive thing to say. She checked a cluster of slivered moon-shaped nail marks on his muscular left shoulder.

“He made a mistake. He had to have made at least one mistake. I know you can figure it out. You always say you can figure out anything.”

She never said that, either.

“Maybe it’s your voice and the way you express yourself. Your lack of pretense. You’re beautiful.”

He clenched his fists in his lap.

“Now that I see you in person, I can tell it isn’t from some makeup artist or perfect camera angle.”

His blue-green eyes fastened to her face.

“A little bit like Katharine Hepburn, only you’re blonde and not as tall.”

His clenched hands trembled, as if he was trying with all his might not to do something with them.

“You look very good in slacks, same as her. Actually, she wore trousers, didn’t she? Is there a difference? I don’t mean anything inappropriate. I’m not coming on to you. I wish you would hug me. I need you to hug me!”

“I can’t hug you. You understand why I can’t?” she said.

“You always say you’re very sweet with dead people. That you’re considerate and touch them as if they’re alive, talk to them as if they can feel and hear you. That people can still be attractive and desirable when they’re dead, and that’s why necrophilia’s not as hard to understand as the public thinks, especially if the body’s still warm. If you can touch dead people, why can’t you touch me? Why can’t you hug me?”

She’d never said she touched dead bodies as if they were alive, or talked to them as if they could feel and hear her. She’d never said dead bodies were desirable or that necrophilia was understandable. What the hell was he talking about?

“Did the person who attacked you try to choke you?” she asked.

The fingernail marks on the back of his neck were vertical. Perfectly vertical.

“At one point he had his hands around my neck, and he kept digging in his nails as I rolled around and managed to get myself free,” Oscar said. “Because I’m strong. I don’t know what would have happened if I weren’t so strong.”

“You said the spying started when you got involved with Terri. How did you meet her?”

“Online. She was one of my students, had been for a while. I know. You can’t talk about it.”

“I’m sorry?”