Unhooking the car seat was agony, my fingers fumbling across the release, but finally it popped free and I slid it out of the car. I had to set it down for a second to get the handle into position, and by that time both her eyes had fluttered open and she was staring at me intently.

“Everything’s okay,” I said softly. Please, please go back to sleep. Don’t cry, don’t want to nurse. Just please, please, go back to sleep.

Her brow furrowed. I couldn’t even convince a baby.

Instead, I pulled the awning as far forward as it would go, hefted the weight of the seat, and followed Michael into the station.

Inside, the officer behind the glass, a slight woman with a neat brown bun, looked at us, at Michael and at me, clutching the handle of Grace’s car seat. “Can I help you?”

I could almost see the thoughts behind her assessing gaze: Domestic abuse? No visible trauma. Robbery? They would have called 911.

“Michael?” I asked.

His face was fixed and grim. “I need to report a murder.”

CHAPTER

14

WHILE I WAS still trying to draw breath, to ask a single question, they took Michael into some other room. Scrambling to follow him, I dropped Grace’s carrier on the floor with a thump, but she cried out, and in the seconds it took for me to look down at her, my husband was gone.

We waited. First in the waiting room, where the air conditioning blew too cold and the fluorescent lights were harsh and impersonal. Behind the glassed-in desk, the officer bent back to her work, not glancing up at us. Outside the world was dark, still sleeping, only a few sporadic cars on the road, a set of headlights punctuated by darkness again.

And I didn’t know what Michael had seen, what he had done, who was dead. Was it Brady? Persistent tendrils of fear were choking me, slowing my heart, so that I struggled to breathe.

The chill and silence of the front room were oppressive. A police station in downtown Houston might be hopping at all hours, but early in the morning in this suburban corner of Sugar Land, all the scary things were tucked out of sight.

I couldn’t sit down; my body wouldn’t stay still. I paced around the chairs, arranged in formation to face the glass-fronted window where the front-desk officer sat, and past a display case featuring historical memorabilia, medals and ribbons, and contemporary awards, gleaming chunks of glass and polished wooden plaques. Two years ago I would have been reassured by the sight of a police car, but now that Aimee had framed me, I knew I’d be flagged as “troubled.” Any good policeman, one worthy of an award-winning department, would think twice before trusting me.