Olivia glances at the digital clock on her bedside table. It’s 3.31 a.m. Her mind has been going around in circles, an endless loop of horror and disbelief. Paul calling from work that day, saying he was going to see his aunt. Had he been lying? Her thinking nothing of it, watching a movie on her own that night – choosing something she knew he wasn’t interested in seeing. Him creeping in late, after she was already asleep – she has no idea what time he came home. This is what trust does. You don’t notice these things, you don’t question them, because you think you have no reason to. Now she wishes she’d been less trusting; she wishes she’d paid attention.

What was he wearing when he came home? She has no idea, because she was asleep. Was he still in his office clothes? She certainly didn’t notice anything like bloodstains on his clothes the next day – she would have noticed that, and remembered, no matter how trusting she’d been. If he killed Amanda, he must have got rid of his clothes somehow.

She gets up, turns on the bedside table lamp, and starts searching through his closet, clawing through his chest of drawers. All his suits seem to be accounted for. But Paul has a lot of clothes, especially old jeans and T-shirts. She can’t think of anything that isn’t there. He keeps clothes at the cabin, too. Something might be missing, and she wouldn’t necessarily know.

He must have been seeing Amanda. She remembers watching all the men fawning over her at the party in the park. Some of the neighbours had got a permit to barbecue. They’d all chipped in twenty bucks per family for hot dogs and hamburgers and soda and beer, and most of them had brought a salad or some kind of dish. There was a bouncy castle for the younger kids and some balloons, but most of the teenagers didn’t bother showing up. Olivia was tidying up the ketchup and mustard dispensers, occasionally throwing a glance at the semicircle of people talking and laughing in the white plastic chairs that had been rounded up for the occasion. She watched the new woman, Amanda something, who had recently moved in on their street. She was absolutely gorgeous and completely aware of it. Why was she bothering to flirt with their much older husbands? She had a hot-looking husband sitting right beside her.

None of the women liked her.

Glenda had come up and stood beside Olivia, following her gaze, watching in apparent disbelief as Amanda let her hand – with her long, red nails – rest on Keith’s forearm. ‘Who the hell does she think she is?’ Glenda said.

Then Becky came up on the other side of Olivia, and the three of them stood watching their husbands, clearly in thrall to this new woman.

They should all have been more on their guard, Olivia thinks, coming back to the present. Perhaps Becky’s instincts were right after all, and Paul and Amanda had become lovers. Did they meet at the cabin that night? Did Paul beat her to death with their hammer? And then stuff her body in her boot and sink her car? And then scrub everything clean and come home and behave as if nothing had happened? What other explanation can there be?

Olivia gets out of bed and pads down the hall quietly, past the spare room, careful not to wake Glenda, who she can hear snoring lightly through the partly open door. She reaches her son’s room and quietly pushes his door ajar. She watches him sleep, completely unaware of her. For the moment at least, he’s peaceful.

She moves closer and looks down at him. His young face is angular, and constantly changing these days. He’s growing some whiskers. It’s a face she adores. She would do anything to protect him. She wants to sit down on his bed beside him and stroke his hair, the way she used to when he was little. But Raleigh doesn’t want his mother stroking his hair any more, not like when he was very young. He doesn’t want her hugs and kisses any more; he’s almost grown up. And he keeps things from her – he never did that when he was little. He told her everything. But now he has secrets. Raleigh is keeping things from her. Like his father. They both have secrets.

She’s the only one in the house who has nothing to hide.

Chapter Thirty-one

BECKY HARRIS STANDS staring down at the morning newspaper in her hands. The headline screams in large print ARREST IN AMANDA PIERCE MURDER. Her first thought is, They’ve arrested Robert. She feels an intense relief. And then, as she reads, Oh no.

She can’t believe it. She thinks of Olivia. She can imagine what she’s going through because Becky’s been imagining herself going through the very same thing.

She takes the paper to the kitchen. She’s alone in the house; Larry has already gone to work.

The evidence – as much as the article reveals – sounds damning. Blood found in the Sharpes’ cabin, now thought to be the scene of the murder. A missing hammer, the possible murder weapon, yet to be recovered. And the car with her body in it found not far from there, on a route familiar to Paul Sharpe. Stunned and incredulous, Becky thinks back to that time she saw Paul with Amanda in her car. Was she right? Were they lovers after all? Was he jealous of the affair she was having with Larry? Maybe that’s why he told her to break it off with Larry, rather than any altruistic concern about Larry getting into trouble at work.

She hadn’t thought Paul was capable of hurting anyone. But she hadn’t thought Larry was either. She imagines how it must have been. They argued at his cabin and he struck her. Maybe the hammer was lying close by, and he acted impulsively. He was probably horrified at what he’d done, probably regretted it immediately. But then – he covered it up. He put her body in the boot of the car and sank it. What must life have been like for him since it happened? Especially since the body was found. It must have been a living hell.

There will be a trial. Larry will have to testify about his affair with Amanda – his sordid meetings with her in that awful hotel. The thought of all of this out in the open sickens her. How horrible it will be for her and the kids.

But it will be far worse for Olivia and Raleigh.

She rereads the newspaper article. Things look very bad for Paul. But at least she knows now that her own husband, despite all his failings, didn’t kill Amanda Pierce. She really hadn’t been sure.

Carmine Torres is shocked by what she reads in the newspaper on Tuesday morning. They’ve arrested Paul Sharpe for the murder of Amanda Pierce.

She thinks of the poor woman she spoke to at the door – Paul Sharpe’s wife – and how ill she looked that day. Maybe she knew. Maybe it wasn’t only her son she’d been worried about.

Paul Sharpe has lawyered up, but Webb still hopes to get somewhere with him when they question him this morning, with his lawyer by his side. His lawyer hadn’t been available the night before, but now that Paul Sharpe has had a night in a cell to think about his situation, maybe he will be more cooperative.

As he enters the room, he sees Sharpe sitting, no longer cuffed, beside his attorney. He looks as if he hasn’t slept at all. He has to be scared shitless. Good. Maybe he’s ready to talk.

Sitting next to Sharpe is Emilio Gallo, a well-known criminal lawyer from a respected firm. Webb has dealt with him before. He’s good. Expensive. Gallo will stop at nothing to help a client, as long as it’s legal. His dark, nicely tailored suit, pressed shirt and smart silk tie contrast starkly with the rumpled jeans and wrinkled shirt of his client. Sharpe is tired and scruffy and Webb can smell the sweat and fear coming off him. Gallo is well rested and well groomed, smelling faintly of expensive aftershave.