Beaufort stood, too, taking his gun out from where it had been tucked into his jeans, and moved behind Carlo toward the kitchen as the voice continued after a second’s pause. “LISTEN!” Brigid shouted. “JERRY IS A KILLER! HE’S AFTER YOU, NOT ME.”

Carlo reached out his hand to pick up the receiver, but Beaufort stepped to his side, said, “Let’s let that one go, too,” and showed Carlo the gun.

She kept on, “DON’T TALK TO HIM, DON’T LET HIM INTO THE HOUSE. CALL MAX AND HAVE HIM WAIT THERE TILL I GET BACK. HE’LL DO IT IF YOU ASK. FLIGHTS ARE DELAYED BUT I’M IN TAMPA AND ON MY WAY.”

The two men stared at the phone as if that would do either of them any good. The voice had stopped, and now a blinking light and the number one indicated a second message had been logged. “Sit down, right there.” Beaufort indicated a nearby kitchen chair with the muzzle of his weapon.

When Carlo did so, slowly, Beaufort asked, “Who’s Max?”

“He’s a sheriff’s deputy and a friend of mine,” Carlo said.

“What does he know?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been in touch with him in a while.”

Beaufort thought. The woman was in Tampa, so he had Carlo to himself for a good while, at least four hours if she was able to get a flight. She would be nervous about Carlo not answering the phone. Would she call someone herself? This Max person? Would someone come busting in the door any moment? In a pretense of ease, of having time he did not have, Beaufort casually leaned his butt against the kitchen counter and asked Carlo, “Do you ever lie?”

Beaufort reassured himself again about being able to read people, like now. Carlo seemed understandably tense. His eyes were narrow and his body felt rigid even from across the room. Carlo said, “We all lie. Hopefully I lie less than some do.”

“Then tell me. What do you fear most?”

“That my wife will kill you.” He sounded sad, like it was a certainty, and one he regretted.

Beaufort didn’t ask why Carlo would fear this more than anything. Such as his own death, or Brigid’s. And why would he, Carlo, care the most about Beaufort, and him dying? He laughed. But the honesty in the man’s voice made the laugh feel pretended. What an odd thing to say.

“I want the document that Santangelo gave you.”

If Carlo didn’t draw a blank on that, he sure gave a convincing performance of it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Which part?”

“Well, I knew Father Santangelo, but he never gave me any document. What kind of document?”