Madelaine climbed out. She wore a hip-length shearling jacket over light brown slacks and stylish boots, all so in tune with the Lexus’ upholstery it was hard to tell if she was accessorizing herself to the car or the car was accessorized to her. She was also wearing a smile and sunglasses. They were meant to convey that she was competent, optimistic, and unperturbed by a conspiracy to commit murder. The smile, however, seemed thin and strained, and there was just a trace of twitch at one corner of her lips. The sunglasses, I was willing to bet, covered slightly bloodshot eyes, and if she took them off in the full daylight her eyes would scrunch up in a squint.

Not only had she been seen arriving by the sheriff’s deputy, the big car had a GPS and her cell phone was tracking and recording her every move. If her husband died—or survived some nearly fatal accident—even if I had nothing to do with it—and nothing further to do with Madelaine in any manner—a trail had been laid that would wend its way back to this moment and to me.

“Get back in your car,” I said.

“What?”

“Back. In. Now.”

She looked as hurt and bewildered as she would be if the maître d’ at her favorite restaurant had suddenly denied her reservation. In front of others…who knew her!

“Now,” I said. “Do it.”

“Don’t order me about.”

“Why not?”

“I will not…will not…I won’t let men push me around. You’re not my husband. Times have changed.”

“Fuck it. Do what I say or just get gone.” I was either going to establish control or offend her sufficiently that she went back down the hill and back across the river where she lived and I would simply continue my slow floating fall from nothing to nowhere at all. Both options were fine with me. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.

She paused, confused, bewildered.

I walked past her and around to the passenger side of her hulking SUV and tugged on the door handle. She’d locked it. Which was pointless. Not even the racoons had figured out how to open a car door. “Come on,” I said.

“What?”

I said, “Click,” accompanied by a gesture of pushing the unlock button on an e-key.

She did as I’d ordered. An excessively patriarchal command structure was being established. Oh, dear. But in this case, it was a good thing.

I pulled the door open, got in. I pointed at her and then to the driver’s seat.

She got in.

“Down the hill,” I said.

She started to say something.

I put my finger to my lips, the universal silence sign, and shook my head from side to side to add “no” to it. Then I pointed. Down the hill.