“Yes, Chris,” she said. “We’ve imposed on him enough. If we push any harder, he might not send it.”

I was silent as we walked into the elevator and then exited the building a few moments later.

“Are you sure—” I started, but she put up a hand.

“We have to trust him,” she said. “And you have to trust me. He said he would send me the video tonight, and I promise, I’ll give it to you.”

• • •

The next morning, I got up and drove to the police station. Emma and I had agreed to meet there at 9:00 a.m. I was thirty minutes early, and I sat outside the station, gripping the steering wheel, my nerves making it hard for me to sit still.

If she didn’t come, I was going to drive to her house and push the buzzer until she answered.

I didn’t have to. At ten minutes to the hour, I saw a car pulling into the station parking lot and immediately recognized Emma in the driver’s seat. She pulled into a space and sat there for a few minutes, a couple of cars down from me. There weren’t many cars in the parking lot, and I watched as she scanned them until she saw me, sitting in my own car. She flinched, and I raised a hand and waved.

We both got out of our cars, and she walked toward me, her purse on her shoulder.

“Did he send it to you?” I asked.

She nodded. I could see that her eyes were red and puffy, as if she’d been crying.

“I can’t go in there,” she said, reaching into her purse and pulling out a jump drive. “Here’s the video. And by the way, even though he was there, it doesn’t mean that he actually killed her,” she snapped. “I want to be very clear about that.”

I frowned. “I never said it did.” A thought crossed my mind, and I stopped walking. “Did you call him?”

“What?”

“Did you call Ryan? Did you tell him what we were doing?”

“No,” she said, and when she saw my expression, she shook her head vehemently. “I didn’t call him. I promise.”

I walked into the station and asked for Detective Puhl. A few minutes later, she walked out the back of the station, looking incredibly put-together for so early in the morning.

She sighed when she saw me.

“What’s this about?” she asked.

“I have something I need to show you,” I said. “It’s about Ryan Hooks.”

A few minutes later, we were both standing behind Puhl’s desk. She’d inserted the jump drive and was pulling up the file.

“There, that’s the one,” I said.