Rivers agreed.

“I figured he’d finally told her about us, or she’d found out somehow and they’d had a big fight. She attacked him!”

“Rather than the other way around?” Mendoza prodded.

“James would never hit a woman.”

“You know that?” Rivers asked.

“Well . . . no . . .” She lifted a hand, as if the truth were obvious.

Rivers leaned back in his chair. “So what happened to Megan?”

“How would I know?”

Rivers said, “If you were to guess.”

“I couldn’t. And I’m not going to. And don’t you guys work in facts? Not what-ifs? All I know is what I heard, that she left James’s house after the attack all pissed off, and drove like a maniac, almost hitting a snowplow or something. Supposedly, she was going to drive to see her sister who lives in Seattle or Tacoma, I think, but she never made it.”

“Who’d you hear that from?” Mendoza asked as, deep in his pocket, Rivers’s phone vibrated. He ignored it.

“Everybody who works for James. Bobby, Leon, Zena . . . you know—work gossip.”

Mendoza made a note. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Megan?” Sophia frowned, her eyebrows drawing into a knot of concentration. “I’m not sure.”

“Was it that day?” Mendoza pressed.

“I don’t remember . . . I think . . . I think I saw her in town . . .” She was working so hard to recall, her eyebrows knitted. “Megan works in that clinic off Main, right? The McKay Clinic?”

Mendoza nodded. “The McEwen Clinic.”

“I saw her there, not inside but out,” she said slowly. “She was in the parking lot, getting into her car. It was snowing. Hard. But I saw her. At least I’m pretty sure it was her.”

Rivers didn’t believe there was any doubt. Sophia seemed like the kind of person who knew exactly what was going on. Especially when it was a woman involved with a man she was interested in.

Mendoza asked, “When was that?”

“A few days ago? Oh, wait. I remember now! Tuesday afternoon. I was on the way to yoga, over in the basement of the Presbyterian church? We meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, at six, that’s why I’m always rushing as most days I don’t get off work until five-thirty. Sometimes I’m late and miss the first stretches. I hate that.”

“And you didn’t see Megan on Wednesday or Thursday?”

“No.” Another quick sip from her drink, and it seemed as if her hands were shaking a little. What was it she was hiding?

“She wasn’t at the hotel?”

“Not that I saw.”

“Or with James?”