“Okay, I get it. And I’ve had those messages sent to me before. But just because I use social media a lot doesn’t mean I’d bother doing that.”

Rountree looked skeptical. Maybe all cops looked skeptical all the time. “Are you sure about that?”

“I’m not lying, Detective. I’ve never done anything like that. Hell, I’m not sure I know anybody who would. Aren’t those usually Russian hackers or scam artists? Why are you asking me about that?”

“Why do you think? We discovered that someone hacked into Jennifer Bates’s Facebook account. We’re not sure why they did it, but it means they could have been reading her messages.”

“I had no interest in that. I wanted to stay away from her.”

Rountree paused for the slightest moment before she asked, “Would Amanda know how to do that?”

The gears locked into place in my mind. She’d shown up looking for Amanda, and then she’d started asking about Amanda’s ability to hack into someone’s social media account.

“Amanda? Detective, you’re going to have to speak some kind of English for me to follow all of this. What does this hacking stuff have to do with us? If Amanda wants to look at my social media accounts, she does. Lord knows she has.”

Rountree rubbed her hands together as though she was cold. But I doubted that explained the gesture. She looked like she was working up to something, taking a slow approach to broaching a difficult subject.

“Do you remember how you received a friend request from Jennifer Bates while you were standing in her house the other night?”

“You mean, when I was standing over her dead body? Yes, Detective. I haven’t managed to forget that moment. And I told you another one came through while I was sitting here in the house.”

“Odd, no doubt. And disturbing. And of course, it doesn’t make sense. How could she send you that request while she’s dead on the floor? Right?”

“Good question,” I said.

“Unless someone else had control of her phone or computer or other device. But all the devices were accounted for. Her computer. Her iPad. And you took her phone, as we know. Nothing else was missing from the house. That helped us rule out robbery. Someone had been in the house to kill her, but they hadn’t taken anything valuable.”

“Okay . . .”