“We don’t know what it means for you,” answered Ava.

“That’s no help at all,” Emily stated.

“It means be careful.” Zander finally opened his mouth. “Watch your surroundings. Stay with other people. Don’t take risks.”

Annoyance flashed. “That’s the everyday norm in a woman’s life. And that didn’t help Lindsay.” Her voice cracked. “She was killed in her own fucking bed with her husband next to her.”

Ava leaned in, catching Emily’s attention. “Awareness is your best defense. I’m sorry how shitty that answer is, but short of locking you up until we catch our killers, it’s the best I can tell you. This isn’t a movie or TV—we don’t have extra law enforcement to watch you twenty-four-seven, but we can ask county to frequently drive by your home and suggest they stop at the diner for meal breaks. Show a presence.”

Rage simmered under Ava’s words. She hated their powerlessness as much as Zander did.

“Stick around,” Zander said. “Either stay at the diner where people are present, or you can hang out here at the station.”

“You should have told me to bring a book.” Emily looked from him to Ava, resignation heavy in her eyes. “Now. What did you want to talk to me about?”

Ava slipped a thin folder out of her bag and flipped it open. “I want to go over what you saw at the Fitch home again. These are Zander’s notes from your interview that day.”

“Go ahead.”

“You said you called Lindsay three times before going to her home,” Ava began.

“And Sean once,” added Emily.

“And when you got to the house, you rang the doorbell and then called Lindsay’s phone from the front porch because no one answered the door.”

“Correct. Their cars were there, so I figured someone had to be home.”

“That’s when you opened the door because it was unlocked.” Ava kept her attention lowered to Zander’s notes.

“The unlocked door surprised me.”

“You went right in?” Ava asked. “It didn’t take a minute to work up your nerve to enter?”

Emily thought. “It took a few seconds. I didn’t like the idea of walking right in, so I called their names a few times as I opened the door a bit.”

“What happened next?”

“When I stepped in, I smelled the blood.” She glanced at Zander, and he kept his face impassive as he watched and listened.

So far Emily’s body language and replies had appeared normal to him. No jitters, no touching her hair, no rubbing her nose. No little tension movements. In his previous encounters with her, he’d learned she wasn’t a mover. When she talked, she didn’t shift her weight or gesture with her hands or frequently touch her face or hair. She generally held still, and this conversation was consistent. Zander had observed and heard more anxiety when they discussed how she could keep herself safe.

“I walked in and saw the blood trail that went from the bedroom to the kitchen and then out the back door. I checked the bedroom first—”

“Was the bedroom light on?” Ava cut in.

Emily paused. “It was.”

“How long were you in the bedroom before you went into the backyard?”

“Only a few moments.” Emily squeezed her eyes shut as if she could make her visual memories disappear. “I touched Lindsay’s neck for a pulse even though I knew she was dead.” She blew out a breath and opened her eyes. “I immediately followed the blood out back, hoping to find Sean still alive.”

“Would you say you were in the bedroom less than a minute?”

“Easily.”

Unease crawled up Zander’s spine. Ava was systematically tracking the time between Emily’s phone call on the front porch and her call to 911.

Where are the extra twenty minutes?

“What did you do when you saw Sean?” Ava asked.

“I went closer. I felt his wrist for a pulse.” Emily had shifted to an empty monotone, struggling to keep her emotions in check.

“Did it take you a few minutes to work up the nerve to touch him?”

Emily vehemently shook her head. “No. I knew waiting could mean the difference between life and death. I checked immediately. No pulse.”

“And then?”

“I called 911.”

“Why didn’t you call 911 right after finding Lindsay?”

Emily scratched near her temple. “I remember I had my phone out—I was about to, but I followed the blood instead.” She swallowed audibly. “She was dead—there was no urgency for an ambulance. No one could bring her back,” she whispered.

“Sean was dead too,” Ava said in a kind voice. “But you called right after checking for a pulse?”

“I did. An ambulance wasn’t needed, but the police were.”

“From outside? Or did you go back in the house to call?”

“Outside.”

Ava shuffled through the papers on her lap, and Zander watched Emily out of the corner of his eye. Her shoulders sagged, and anguish was evident in her downturned mouth.

He hoped to God Emily had a good explanation for the time inconsistencies. He shifted forward, leaning his elbows on his knees, wishing he could hide his tension behind a table. Ava was silent as she studied the next papers in her file, and the silence in the room grew heavy. Long periods of silence were meant to create unease for the interviewee, but Zander seemed to be the only uneasy one. He studied Ava, noting the lines on her forehead and the slight tightening of her lower lip. She was frustrated.

Ava hopes for a good explanation too.

And she had alleged that Zander’s emotions were affecting his work.

Ava was also rooting for Emily.

“Emily. I have a copy of your phone records for that day.” She handed a page to Emily, who accepted it with a stunned look.

“Why didn’t you ask to see my phone if you had questions?”

“This is more official.”

“You mean it has calls that can’t be deleted,” Emily snapped. She angrily scanned the sheet, running a finger down the entries. “One, two, three calls to Lindsay, my call to Sean, and then one more to Lindsay’s phone. Exactly as I told you. What’s the issue here?”

“The issue is the twenty minutes between your last call from the porch to Lindsay and the call to 911.”

Emily froze and stared at the paper. She finally looked up, determination in her gaze. “I can explain.”

“Please do.”

Zander held his breath as he watched a war of guilt and frustration play out on Emily’s face.

“After I found Sean, I sat on the back porch before calling—I didn’t realize I had sat for that long, though.” Emily rubbed at an eye. “Jeez—I must have really been out of it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ava.

“Shock. Disbelief. Confusion. It took me a while to get myself together.”

Ava cocked her head. “That doesn’t sound like you . . . I can see you’re levelheaded. You were the one who stopped the deputies from making a bigger mess at the scene and reported the mark on Sean’s forehead.”

“Trust me. After finding Lindsay and Sean, I was anything but levelheaded.” Emily closed her eyes. “But I was also shook up from something else I saw.”

Zander’s breath caught. “Something else? What?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have, but . . .” She buried her face in her hands. “I didn’t understand. It didn’t make any sense. It still doesn’t!”

“Emily—” Ava started.

“Give me a minute,” she said. Her chest moved as she took several deep breaths, her gaze scanning every corner of the room, avoiding Zander and Ava. “I found my father’s pocket watch in Lindsay’s backyard,” she said quietly.

Now I don’t understand.

Zander lifted a brow at Ava, who gave a minuscule shake of her head. “Emily,” he asked. “what does finding that watch mean to you? I don’t see the significance.”

Other than that you shouldn’t have removed possible evidence from the scene.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. Her eyes were haunted. “It disappeared the night he was killed. He had always kept it in his pocket, but it vanished when . . . And its loss added to my mother’s upset—it was a prized possession of his.”

Zander’s mind spun. “How did it end up in the Fitches’ backyard?”

Her hands lifted and fell to her lap, her eyes shiny with tears.

“Zander.” Ava moved closer to him, her blue eyes warning. “She took evidence from a murder scene.”

He no longer cared that Ava wanted to handle the interview.

“I was completely shocked,” Emily added. “I’d stepped on it as I backed away from Sean. When I looked down, I knew what it was.”

“Then what?” he asked as Ava frowned at him.

“I picked it up and opened it, convinced I was seeing things. But it had his initials inside.” She blew out a breath. “I sat on the porch steps and just stared at it. I couldn’t think . . .”

“You sat for nearly twenty minutes in a murder scene?” Ava’s vocal pitch rose. Emily gave no sign she noticed.