I took yet another step back. And another.

I couldn’t see behind me. I had no idea if I was about to stumble over a piece of furniture, an ottoman or a coffee table, that would send me flipping backward onto the floor, where I would be completely at the mercy of Kyle and his quickly darkening mood.

“I’m going,” I said. “I have nothing to do with this. It’s all very . . . different from what my life is usually like.”

I lied. I very much had something to do with it. I’d found the body. I’d been in the house. I’d used the door code. I knew the man who was presumably the prime suspect.

And I was in his house with another man, who seemed to be either an avenger or a suspect himself.

Kyle remained in place in the kitchen. I thought—hoped—my words had frozen him. That I’d managed to slip enough steel and defiance into what I’d said about leaving that he’d decided to just let me go, to give up on any notion of fighting.

But then he surprised me.

He wrapped his hand around the bourbon bottle and smoothly, confidently, as though he’d been practicing the move his entire life, flipped the bottle into the air, causing it to spin end over end. When the bottle came down, Kyle expertly grabbed it by its neck. Without hesitating at all, he swung the bottle, smashing it against the granite that had so recently supported his weight and leaving him with a jagged, spiked weapon that looked more threatening than a gun or a knife.

“Stop,” he said, looking right at me as bourbon leaked from the bottle onto his shoes. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who could have so smoothly executed such a move. But people were full of surprises.

So I stopped.

He moved closer, putting me within easy jabbing range of the end of the bottle. My eyes zoomed in on those points. The glass glinted in the sunlight coming over my shoulder. Kyle’s fingers looked thick and rough as they gripped the neck.

I felt even colder. Almost enough to shiver.

I couldn’t remember a time in my life when someone had threatened me to such an extent.

“I don’t think you know how bad this can turn out for me,” he said. “When they start asking someone for DNA, it isn’t because they think he’s a good citizen.”

“You were in the house. You dated. Of course your DNA is in there. Just tell the cops that. They’ll understand.”

“I already told them that. Do you think they listen?” He stood still, the bottle in the space between us. “Damn. Do you think . . . Is it possible they think this was a sex crime? Someone raped her and then . . . ?”