“What? No—”

“But you did have plans to meet her that night, at her apartment. That’s why she waited up for you. She let you into her building.”

“This is crazy. I never left my house that night.”

“What about this text message you wrote?” Mac pulls a folded printout from his pocket and opens it up to read aloud. “On Friday, at six thirty p.m., Taryn sent you this text: ‘I’m pregnant.’ Two minutes later she sends you another one: ‘You know it’s yours.’”

Dorian stares back, silent. Stunned.

“And then three minutes later she texts you a third time,” Mac continues, relentless. “At six thirty-five she writes: ‘I’m going to tell Maggie.’ And that’s when you finally respond.”

“No, that’s not true. I didn’t answer her! I never responded at all.”

“It’s right here in black and white, Professor. What you wrote to Taryn. Six thirty-seven p.m., you texted: ‘Tonite, your place. Wait for me.’” Mac looks at Dorian. “Friday night, as you promised, you drove to her apartment, didn’t you? And you took care of the problem.”

To Frankie’s surprise, Dorian suddenly bolts forward in his chair, his face florid with outrage. “This is bullshit! You’re lying. Is this how you get innocent people to confess? You make up crap like this and expect us to sign whatever statement you put in front of us?”

“You can’t argue with your own text message.”

“I never wrote any such text.”

“It was sent from your cell phone.”

“This isn’t going to work, what you’re doing.” Dorian’s voice is now rock steady, his gaze unflinching. He reaches into his desk, pulls out his phone, and slides it across to Mac. “See for yourself. There’s no such message on my phone.”

Mac scrolls through the texts and gives a snort. “It’s not here because you’ve deleted the entire conversation. But you know it never really goes away, don’t you? You may have erased it, but those messages are still on the server.” He slides the phone back to Dorian. “Now tell us where you were last Friday night.”

“At home. In bed with my wife.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true. Ask Maggie. She has no reason to lie.”

“Does she know about your affair?”

The question seems to knock the wind out of him. Defeated, Dorian slumps back in his chair. “No,” he says softly.

“When she finds out, I doubt she’ll be in any mood to vouch for you. So you might as well tell us the truth.”

“I have told you the truth.” He stares straight at Mac. “I didn’t write that text. And I sure as hell didn’t hurt Taryn.”

Frankie knows that her partner is ready to clap on the handcuffs, but she is feeling the first stirring of doubt. She sits studying Dorian, bothered by his responses to their questions. How can anyone deny something as undeniable as a text message? With all the evidence they have, he must know it is futile for him to lie.

If he is lying.

She stands up. “We’ll be speaking with you again, Professor.”

Mac shoots her an astonished look. After a few grudging seconds he, too, rises to his feet. He is silent as they walk out of Dorian’s office, still silent as they head down the stairwell. Only when they push outside the building does Mac finally blurt: “What the hell, Frankie, we have him. We’ve got enough.”

“I’m not sure we do.”

“You really believe his bullshit? ‘I didn’t write that text!’ Yeah, and the dog ate his homework.”

“His cell phone never pinged near Taryn Moore’s apartment that night. We can’t prove he was in the area.”

“He’s not stupid. He left his phone at home when he killed her.”

“No, I think he’s very smart.” They climb into the car, where she sits thinking for a moment.

“What’s it going to take to convince you?” says Mac.

She starts the engine. “Let’s go talk to the wife.”

CHAPTER 41

JACK

Pick up, Maggie. Please pick up.

He sat at his desk, his heart racing as he listened to Maggie’s cell phone ring. Three times. Four.

Then she answered. “Hey, I was just about to call you.”

Had she already heard from the police? Was that why she was going to call him? He couldn’t suppress the squeak of panic in his voice when he said, “Maggie, I need to tell you something.”

“Why don’t you tell me over dinner? I feel like going out tonight anyway. Someplace nice. What do you think?”

She sounded so cheerful and warm, wanting to meet for dinner. So husband-and-wife normal. After tonight, nothing would ever be normal again.

“Listen, Maggie. There are two detectives coming to see you right now. They’re going to ask you—”

“Detectives? Jack, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m at the office. They were just here, and now they’re heading to the clinic to talk to you.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“They’re going to ask you about last Friday night. Where I was, where you were.”

“Last Friday? I’m not following you. What happened?”

He paused to steady his breathing. “You know that student who died last week, Taryn Moore? The police don’t think it was a suicide. They think she was murdered.”

“Oh my God.”

“And they’re talking to people who knew her. Asking everyone to account for where they were the night she died.”

“Why are they coming to see me? I hardly knew her.”

“Look, let’s meet. I don’t want to do this over the phone.”

“Why do they want to talk to me?”

“Because I did know her, and they want to confirm where I was. So when they ask you about Friday night, just tell them the truth. Tell them exactly what we did, that we had dinner with your dad and then we went to bed. They need to know we were together that night. All night.”

“Last Friday? But we weren’t together all night.”

He paused. In the silence, he could hear his blood roaring in his ears. “What? But we were.”

“Around midnight, I got called into the hospital for a patient who had chest pains. I didn’t get home until around four in the morning. Didn’t you hear me climb back into bed?”

“No.” Because he was zonked out on Ativan.

“Then you must have slept through the whole thing.”

Midnight till four a.m. That was a four-hour window he couldn’t account for. Four hours during which he could have gotten dressed, could have driven into the city. It was more than enough time for him to have killed Taryn, gone back home, and jumped back into bed.

“The police don’t have to know that,” he said. “You don’t even have to mention it.”

“Why wouldn’t I tell them the truth?”

“It will just complicate things.”

“Jack, all they have to do is look in my patient’s hospital chart to know I was there. They’ll see that I wrote a note around three in the morning.”

He tried to steady his voice, but panic was making his breaths come fast. Any minute now, the police would be knocking at her office door. And they’d almost certainly tell her about Taryn and him. About how he had betrayed his wife.

She cannot hear it from them.

“Maggie, I need you to drop whatever you’re doing. Leave the clinic right now. Meet me at . . .”

They couldn’t meet at home or any other place the police would certainly look. They had already subpoenaed Taryn’s phone records; what if they were listening to this call right now?

“Maggie,” he said. “My phone may be tapped.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain everything. But I need to talk to you before they do.”

A long pause followed as she processed his words. “Jack, you’re scaring me.”

“Just do this for me. Please. Meet me at . . .” He thought about it for a moment. “Meet me at the spot where I proposed to you. And leave now.”

He hung up. He had no words of reassurance to offer her, no promise that everything would turn out fine, because everything was not fine.

And it was about to get a lot worse.

As he stood before Renoir’s Dance at Bougival, he wished he had chosen some other place to meet, but this was the only locale that had popped into his head during the phone call. Twelve years ago, this gallery in the MFA was where he had dropped to his knees and presented Maggie with a diamond engagement ring. This was where they had kissed and promised that they would spend the rest of their lives together. Now he stared at the Renoir and prayed this wouldn’t be the end of them. That Maggie wouldn’t throw him out and divorce him. That their baby wouldn’t come into the world without him at Maggie’s side. Despite what he was about to confess to her, there had to be some way to keep them all together.

He just couldn’t think of what he could say to make that happen.

Twenty minutes later, Maggie walked into the gallery, bundled in her shearling coat and cashmere scarf. “What are we doing here, Jack?” she asked.