“I’m fine, Mom. I just wanted to tell you about something that happened this morning.”

Karen pointed to Henry, her face half-happy and half-surprised. “It’s not . . . I mean . . . it’s too soon, isn’t it?”

“I’m not pregnant, Mom. Okay? Just listen.”

“Okay,” Karen said, but I could tell she was stung by Amanda’s orders. “I just wanted to hear some happy news, and I’m afraid that’s not what you’re about to give me.”

Bill turned his body to face us, reluctantly peeling his eyes away from the TV screen, which had shifted to a commercial for credit-card-debt relief.

“Do you remember Ryan’s friend Blake? He was in our wedding.”

Bill nodded. “The short guy who drank and talked a lot.”

“That’s him,” I said. “He was my best man.”

“Isn’t he the one who hurt Henry?” Karen asked. “Didn’t he drop him?”

“He didn’t drop him, Karen,” I said.

Amanda placed a calming hand on my knee. “He didn’t drop Henry, Mom. No one has dropped Henry.”

“Well, he did something. You have to be careful who holds the baby, Amanda. You heard your father. Children are vulnerable.”

“I don’t want to talk about that, Mom. Can we just talk about something else?” Amanda sounded like a kindergarten teacher trying to keep her unruly charges under control. “Look, as it turns out, Blake knew this woman who was murdered. Jennifer. They were”—her hand waved in the air as she decided which word to use—“friends of some kind. I’m not sure how close they were.”

Her parents were both rapt. Lips parted, eyes wide. They had suddenly found themselves a couple of degrees away from a murder victim.

Amanda went on. “So the police want to question Blake, because they want to question everyone who knew Jennifer. That’s logical, right? If there’s a murder, they want to talk to everyone who knew the victim.”

Bill nodded, and so did Karen. They’d watched enough Law & Order to get that.

“In fact,” Amanda said, “they came to our house because they wanted to know if we had seen Blake.”

For a moment, I wondered if she was going to mention my connection to Jennifer. How would that play with my conspiracy-minded in-laws? Me getting secret messages from a woman who ended up dead. I already knew not only would they not like or understand it, but they’d zero in on it for the rest of our lives. I’d always be the son-in-law who’d brought a trail of murder into their lives.

“They came to your house?” Bill asked. “Looking for this Blake guy?”

“Right. And we don’t know where he is. But we’re a little worried because we heard on the radio that a suspect in this murder was killed by the police. We don’t know if it was Blake or not.”