‘So they came and talked to you, did they?’ he says, with an edge to his voice. ‘Why am I not surprised?’ He pours himself a drink and turns to look at her, leaning against the kitchen counter.

‘No, they didn’t come here. Becky told me.’

‘Ah, Becky,’ he says bitterly, and takes a deep gulp.

‘What the hell is going on, Paul?’ Olivia asks desperately.

‘I’ll tell you what’s going on, if you’re sure you want to know.’ He takes another sip of his drink. ‘Larry Harris had something going on with Amanda Pierce for ages. I finally confronted him about it but he denied it. So I told Amanda to back off. Then she disappeared. I didn’t mention it to the police at the time, because I honestly didn’t think it was relevant. And nobody asked. Everybody thought she’d just left her husband. But now … apparently Becky saw me talking to Amanda and stuck her nose in and told the police. So I had to tell them everything.’ He snorts. ‘I’ll bet she’s sorry she ever mentioned it.’ He lifts his head and looks tiredly at Olivia. ‘Now they’re all over me. Asking me for an alibi.’ He raises his glass high and tosses back the rest of his Scotch.

‘Asking you for an alibi,’ Olivia echoes.

‘Oh, I imagine they’re asking Larry, too,’ Paul says.

She has to ask. ‘Tell me the truth,’ Olivia says. She can feel her voice catching. ‘Were you having an affair with Amanda or not?’

He looks at her and something in his demeanour changes. The bristling anger falls away. ‘Hell no, Olivia. I wasn’t sleeping with her, I swear. I’ve never cheated on you. I wouldn’t. You know that.’

‘Then why didn’t you tell me about this? Why all the secrets? You spoke to the police yesterday and you didn’t even tell me!’

He hangs his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

She waits.

He says, ‘I didn’t tell you at the time about Larry, because I wanted to keep it just between him and me. I know you and Becky are friends. I didn’t want to put you in that position, of knowing and wondering whether you should tell her. I thought if I told Amanda to back off, she’d stop carrying on with Larry. I didn’t think their fling was important to her.’

‘How do you know she was seeing Larry?’

‘I’d suspected it for weeks, but then I caught her giving him a blow job in his office.’

Olivia is shocked. She wonders if Becky knows the details.

Paul continues. ‘I told the detectives everything. It wasn’t so much that I was worried about Larry’s marriage – it’s not really my business. But I was worried that he was getting careless – and that somebody other than me would see them at the office and he’d lose his job. I didn’t want that to happen.’

Olivia can feel the tightness in her shoulders slowly starting to relax. ‘But why didn’t you tell me yesterday, after you’d spoken to the police? Why did you keep that from me?’

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. I just didn’t know what to do. I should have told you. I’m telling you now.’ He sighs and adds uneasily, ‘They asked me if I had an alibi for the weekend Amanda went missing.’

‘What did you tell them?’ Olivia asks.

‘I told them the truth. That I was home all weekend. I told them that we probably stayed in and watched something on Netflix. That’s what we usually do. When was the last time we went out on a Friday or Saturday night?’

She thinks back to that weekend. Then she says, ‘No, you went to your aunt’s that Friday, remember?’

He freezes. ‘Shit. You’re right. I forgot.’

‘You called me from the office and said you thought you’d better go see her.’

‘Yes,’ Paul says. ‘Fuck.’

She remembers that evening. Paul had gone to his aunt’s and she’d stayed home and watched a movie by herself. ‘You’d better tell them,’ Olivia says anxiously.

He nods. ‘I will. They’re probably going to want to ask you, too.’

‘Ask me?’

‘About where I was that weekend.’

‘Why does it matter where you were?’ Olivia says, frustrated with the situation. ‘You weren’t involved with Amanda. Larry was.’

Paul snorts. ‘I don’t think the police know who to believe.’ After a moment, he says, ‘Can we call it even?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know – you didn’t tell me about those letters …’

She’d forgotten all about the letters; they’ve been pushed from her mind by everything else that has been going on. She approaches him, puts her hands on his chest. ‘Yes.’ She can smell the Scotch on his breath.

‘When did you say Raleigh was getting home again?’ he says, wrapping his arms around her and giving her a kiss.

‘Not for a while yet,’ Olivia says. ‘Why don’t you pour me a drink?’ As he pours her one, Olivia says, ‘You don’t think Larry could have had anything to do with—’

‘No, of course not,’ Paul says.

Chapter Twenty

BECKY WANDERS RESTLESSLY around the house Friday evening, waiting for Larry to get home from work. The way they left things the night before, he won’t be in a good mood when he gets home. He said he’d probably be late; he always has a lot to catch up on after a business trip.

Last night she slept in the guest room. She’s not sure how the two of them are going to move forward. Maybe they won’t. Maybe their marriage is over and all that remains is to find some way to tell the kids and figure out how to divide the spoils. In spite of her staunch denial to Olivia, she spends a lot of time wondering if Larry’s insistence that nothing of consequence had happened between him and Amanda could possibly be true.

It’s been a long day – a long week since they’d found Amanda Pierce’s body – and Webb is feeling it. His eyes are burning and his limbs are tired. He’s frustrated with the lack of progress on the case. But a picture has begun to emerge. They’d spoken to others at Fanshaw Pharmaceuticals, when they’d finished with Paul Sharpe, and had formed a clearer idea of who Amanda Pierce really was. Webb wondered how much of the talk about her was true. But Larry has admitted to the incident in his office. So some of it is true, at least.

Now, Moen is driving them back from the Deerfields Resort where Larry had attended a conference the weekend that Amanda was murdered. Webb stares out the window at the darkening scenery, reflecting on what they’ve learned.

Larry Harris was certainly at the conference from Friday night until Sunday afternoon. Lots of people on staff confirmed that. He checked in at 3 p.m. on Friday. But after that, there’s a gap. The bar staff and waitstaff remember him, but none of them can remember with any certainty seeing him at the reception before 9 p.m. They agreed that he was one of the last to leave the event and make his way up to his room at the end of the night, at around 11. There had been no sit-down meal, where someone might have remembered him; just drinks and mingling in the ballroom. He could have arrived late to the reception, giving him several hours to meet – and perhaps kill – Amanda Pierce. Most damning of all, her car had been dumped in a lake not far from the resort.