Can she do that to Glenda? Keith probably wasn’t even seeing Amanda. But he was seeing someone. Olivia looks at her own husband, who must surely still be a suspect, and knows that they must.

‘If you go to the police,’ she says, ‘you’ll have to tell them how you know. You’ll have to tell them that Raleigh broke into their house, too – and looked in his computer.’

‘I won’t. I won’t tell them how I know.’

‘That’s so naive, Paul. If they seize Keith’s computer and find he was seeing Amanda, Keith will be a suspect in a murder investigation. Everything will come out.’

‘We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Paul says bluntly.

As she settles under the covers and tries to sleep, she can’t stop thinking that if Keith did kill Amanda, then he was willing to let his best friend take the fall, and say nothing at all. She feels a deep chill, and she doesn’t know if that chill will ever go away. She pulls the covers more tightly around her and lies in the dark, eyes wide open.

It’s late. Carmine is reading in bed when she hears the knock at the door. How odd. She hears it again. There’s definitely someone there. She gets up and slips on her terry robe, wrapping the tie around her waist as she descends the stairs. When she gets to the bottom, she flicks on the light switch. She peers out the window and then hesitantly opens the door a crack.

‘Hi,’ she says, smiling uncertainly.

‘Sorry to bother you so late, but your lights were still on.’

‘No problem. What can I do for you?’

‘Can we talk?’

‘Okay,’ she says. She steps back and opens the door wide. Then she turns her back to her guest, closing the door. Everything changes in a fraction of a second. There’s a sudden movement behind her and then she feels something around her neck pulling tightly. It happens too fast for her to scream. She can’t breathe and the pain in her throat is excruciating. She can feel her eyes bulging, her vision blurring as she tries desperately to grab at the cord around her neck. But her knees are buckling and now she’s being pushed forward, her own weight working against her as she leans into the cord around her neck. She realizes with surprise that she’s dying. No one thinks this is how they’re going to die. And then everything goes black.

Chapter Thirty-five

GLENDA IS SURPRISED to find Olivia on her doorstep the next morning.

‘What is it?’ Glenda asks quickly. ‘What’s happened?’ Olivia always calls first, she doesn’t just show up unannounced like this. She’d texted her yesterday when Paul was released and told her not to come over. Her husband has been released without charge – why does she seem so distraught?

‘Are you alone?’ Olivia asks nervously.

‘Yes, they’ve gone already. Come in,’ Glenda says.

‘There’s something I have to talk to you about,’ Olivia says, not meeting her eye.

Glenda starts to feel apprehensive. ‘Okay.’

They sit down in the kitchen. ‘Do you want coffee?’ Glenda asks.

‘No.’

‘Olivia, what is it? You’re freaking me out.’

‘The detectives matched Raleigh’s fingerprints to some found in the Pierces’ house,’ Olivia says. ‘He’s been charged with breaking and entering.’

‘Oh, no,’ Glenda says.

‘But that’s not why I’m here,’ Olivia says. ‘Raleigh told us some things yesterday.’ She hesitates and then comes out with it. ‘He told us that he broke into your house. The night you and Keith were over for dinner.’

Glenda is shocked. Her mood changes abruptly. ‘Why would he do that?’ she asks.

‘I’m so, so sorry, Glenda.’

Everything about Olivia is begging for forgiveness. She looks abject. But Glenda feels betrayed, violated. She had no idea that Raleigh might have broken into their house. That’s different. All the smooth, glib assurances fall away. Now what she’s thinking is, How dare he? She doesn’t say, Oh, that’s okay, Olivia. I know how upsetting this must be for you. Please don’t worry about it. She doesn’t try to make it better. She doesn’t say anything. She folds her arms in front of her chest, not even aware of how defensive she looks.

‘I don’t know why he did it,’ Olivia says. ‘Just teenage stupidity, I guess – you said it yourself. Teenagers do stupid things.’

They’re sitting at the kitchen table, across from one another. It feels awkward, although they’ve sat here together a hundred times. ‘Okay, thanks for telling me,’ Glenda says finally. ‘I guess there’s no real harm done, is there?’ She says it rather grudgingly, and she’s pretty sure Olivia knows how she really feels.

But there’s something in Olivia’s face, and Glenda knows that there’s more coming. What is Olivia afraid to tell her? Because she looks frightened to death. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ Glenda says.

Olivia nods. Her face is pale, her lips are quivering, and she looks so sorry that Glenda almost forgives her in advance. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, Glenda thinks.

‘You know Raleigh was snooping around on people’s computers,’ Olivia begins.

Glenda’s sure there’s nothing on their computers they need to worry about. She and Keith share the same home computer. What is Olivia getting at?

‘He found some emails on your computer …’

‘What emails?’ Glenda asks sharply.

‘Emails that show that Keith’s been having an affair.’

Glenda feels like she’s been kicked in the stomach. For a moment she can hardly breathe. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Raleigh’s lying. There are no such emails. Why would he say such a thing?’

‘I don’t think he’s lying,’ Olivia says carefully.

‘You know he’s a liar,’ Glenda snaps back. ‘He told you he was at the movies when he was out breaking into houses. Why do you even believe him?’

‘Why would he lie about it?’ Olivia says. ‘He’s not saying it to get himself out of trouble. Why would he make it up?’

‘I don’t know,’ Glenda says, at a loss. ‘But I use that computer all the time. And I even admit – I do look through Keith’s emails sometimes. And it’s all work stuff. There’s nothing there to any other woman. If there were, I’d know.’

Olivia looks even more uncomfortable and says, ‘Raleigh says they were hidden. You have to know what to look for. And Raleigh knows.’

Suddenly Glenda knows it must be true. Hidden files. How could she have been so stupid, so blind? She shakes her head, she can’t even speak. She wants to kill him.

‘I’m so sorry, Glenda. But I thought you should know.’

Finally Glenda finds her voice. ‘Who is it? Is it anyone we know?’

Now Olivia shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. Raleigh says it was a made-up name.’

‘That son of a bitch,’ Glenda says.

‘Do you think,’ Olivia says, venturing cautiously, as if over thin ice, ‘that he might have been seeing Amanda?’