She yanked the elastic holding the bun, and her hair fell around her shoulders. Nate imagined all those shampoo commercials where women let their gorgeous locks fly free. This was nothing like that. She finger-combed it, but clearly it was too snarled to get her fingers all the way through.

"Sorry." She looked at Marisa. "Your hair ever start to hurt when you've had it up all day?"

"All the time." Marisa smiled, though Nate could tell it was forced.

Nate tried again. "So did he ever tell you—?"

"I had no idea what was going on. I thought maybe... I mean, Charles mentioned he was afraid they were going to be audited or something. I had no idea they were involved in fraud. Not the go-to-prison kind, anyway."

As if mortgage fraud were perfectly acceptable. "When did you find out?"

"Same as everybody else. When he was arrested."

"Did he tell you anything about Vinnie's murder?"

"Of course not! You think I'd want to marry him after that?"

Nate sat back, unsure of where to go from here. She hadn't given them any information that would help, and Marisa was right—they weren't getting at all closer to the truth.

Marisa stood and walked to the fireplace mantle. "Is this your son?"

Nate watched as Jessica's face paled a little. "What about him?"

Marisa turned and smiled. "He's adorable. Is he one of the boys playing next door?"

"Every kid in town plays soccer," she said.

Defensive. Interesting.

Marisa lifted one of the photographs and peered at it closely. "Is this his father?"

Jessica's laugh was more snort than giggle. "That's his soccer coach. One of them, anyway. He's a great guy, always hanging out with the boys who don't have fathers." She looked at Nate. "With supervision, of course. I'm not an idiot."

"Of course," Nate said.

"How old is your son?" Marisa asked.

She took a deep breath. "I could lie."

Nate shrugged. "I'm sure there are records, though, and I'm really good at ferreting out the truth." When Jessica said nothing, he said, "Does Charles know?"

She shook her head. "And he doesn't need to."

Marisa set the photograph down and resumed her seat. "You don't think he has a right to know he has a son?"

"I'm not taking Hunter to see him in that place. Ever. And by the time Charles gets out—if he survives Sing Sing with that heart—he'll be too old to play the doting daddy."

"Still," Nate said, "I'd want to know."

"He has other kids. And anyway, I doubt Hunter is the only one he doesn't know about." She turned her attention to Marisa. "You know how he was, right? You were one of his... What did he used to call them? Dalliances?"

"I was not," Marisa said. "Never."