I leave it at that, with wonder. It’s as much as he’s getting from me. We both know what I meant by it.

Sam shakes his head, incredulous. “You really do have a death wish, don’t you?”

“Oh, stop. I’m telling you now, aren’t I?” I pause, chewing on a lip. “This also seems like as good a time as any to tell you I’m pregnant.”

“Congratulations.” He says it with so much disgust, I actually flinch. “You don’t need that man to help you raise a baby, you know. The Charlie I used to know didn’t need anybody. She could do pretty much anything on her own.”

“Everything but get herself pregnant.” My wisecrack lands like a belly flop, and Sam looks away. “Come on, Sam. You know this baby was made out of love.”

“That may be so, but Paul is still a murder suspect. Billy Barnes didn’t see him on Wednesday morning.”

Billy Barnes. The man Paul claimed to have passed on his early-morning run. The alibi isn’t holding up. The revelation is like getting punched; I’m breathless from the shock. My gaze pulls to Sam, his face set in hard lines as he watches it all sink in.

“Did you plant that Kingsport reporter?” I say, suddenly livid. “Did you get her to start that rumor?”

Sam doesn’t seem the least bit offended at the accusation. “Here’s what you don’t get, what you’ve never gotten—that I’m not the only one with suspicions. In fact, I’d be willing to wager that most people with a functioning brain are seeing the same thing I’m seeing—a man who stood to gain more money than he could ever make in one lifetime with his rich wife gone. Sure, okay, I’ll admit he got away with it the first time, but two female bodies under the same dock? That’s too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.”

“You just told me you were looking at Jax for Sienna’s murder.”

“Okay, but ask yourself this—why is your husband running all over creation avoiding questioning? What has he got to hide?”

I look out over the lake, refusing to give Sam a reaction, even though his words strike a gong in my chest. All morning I’ve been thinking something similar.

“Did he tell you about the police report Katherine filed two weeks before she drowned?” My gaze whips to Sam, and he pauses, taking in my expression, which I couldn’t clamp down on fast enough. “He didn’t, did he? Somebody’d skinned a skunk and smeared it all over the leather interior of her car. She didn’t think much of it, either, at the time. Just needed a police report to make a claim on the insurance. The stank pretty much totaled it.”