Jason couldn’t argue with that. It’s why he’d kept his mouth shut all morning long. Because he was the husband, and the husband started the process automatically suspect. Meaning every time he spoke, the police would not be listening for proof of his innocence, but rather for any gaffe indicating his guilt. “You seem to know a lot about how the system works,” he told the kid.

“Am I wrong?”

“Probably not.”

“Okay, so going with the old adage that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, the cops are our mutual enemies, and we’re now friends.”

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“Aidan Brewster. Neighbor, auto mechanic, innocent party. What more do you need to know?”

Jason frowned. He should be quicker than this, seeing the obvious flaw in such a statement. But he could feel the stress and the fatigue catching up with him now. He had not slept in nearly thirty hours, first watching Ree, then going off to work, then returning to the scene at home. His heart had literally stopped beating in the space of time it had taken him to discover the empty master bedroom and walk the twelve feet to Ree’s room, his hand curling around the doorknob, twisting, pushing, so deeply unsure of what he might find inside. Then, when he’d spotted his daughter’s sprawled shape, sound asleep under the covers, he had staggered backward, only to realize in the next instant that Ree’s presence raised more questions than it answered. All of a sudden, after five years of almost leading a normal life, of almost feeling like a real person, it was over, done, finished, in the blink of an eye.

He had returned to the abyss, in a space he knew better than anyone, even better than convicted felon Aidan Brewster.

“So,” the kid was saying now, snapping, “did you ever hit your wife?”

Jason stared at him.

“Might as well answer,” his neighbor said. “If the police didn’t get to drill you this morning, they’ll get to it soon enough.”

“I didn’t hit my wife,” Jason said softly, mostly because he needed to hear himself say the words, to remind himself that that much, at least, was true. Forget February vacation. Forget it ever happened.

“Marital difficulties?”

“We worked alternate schedules. We never saw each other enough to fight.”

“Ah, so extramarital activities, then. You, her, both?”

“Not me,” Jason said.

“But she had a little something, something going on?”

Jason shrugged. “Isn’t the husband always the last to know?”

“Think she ran off with him?”

“She never would have left Ree.”

“So she was having an affair, and she knew you’d never let her take her daughter with her.”

Jason blinked his eyes, feeling his exhaustion again. “Wait a minute …”