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Ryan?”
    “Let me lay it out for you, Mrs. Carter,” Dorne began as he patted the table between us with his meaty hands. “You are the only other person who was in the house when your husband was killed. There are no other possible suspects, and in my experience, when there are no other obvious suspects, it’s usually someone who knows the victim. And by your own testimony, Ryan had no enemies. So, you tell me…did you murder your husband, Mrs. Carter?”
    I leaned back in my chair. So this was how it was going to go down. I was the official suspect. They weren’t going to even look for anyone else. And I couldn’t even remember what had happened, so there was no way I could defend myself against his allegations. There was no other choice. There was nothing else I could say.
    “If I’m not under arrest…” I waited for him to respond. He just shook his head. “Then I’d like to leave now.” I tilted my chin upward and steadied my trembling hands under the table. I wanted him to think I was not afraid, when the truth was, I was terrified.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
     
    Detective Dorne begrudgingly told me I was free to go, but he stopped me as I was exiting the cold interview room and asked if I’d first be willing to submit to a gunpowder residue test first.
    Being pretty sure I didn’t kill my husband was not quite the same as being one hundred percent sure I didn’t. But, if I refused, I would look even more suspicious, so I acquiesced.
    A few minutes later, a scrawny Asian forensic technician approached me with a long Q-tip-looking thing and swabbed my hands, focusing on the area between my thumb and forefinger. He put the Q-tip thingy in a large Ziploc baggie.
    I started to leave again.
    “One last thing. We need your clothes as evidence. But before you change, we need to take some photographs.”
    Again, what choice did I have? I nodded my head slightly. Dorne guided me back into the interview room and asked me to stand in front of the bare wall opposite the door. I pressed my back against the cold, hard surface, feeling very much like a criminal being booked into prison. The same forensic technician produced a large, professional-grade camera and began snapping away. He took pictures of me from the front, back and both sides, never speaking a word. I wondered if he was a mute.
    Then Jones came in with my spare clothes and told me to change. I gave her a look which begged for privacy, but she just shook her head and said she had to stay in the room. Dorne and the silent forensic technician left, and I pulled the bloody shirt over my head and handed it to her. I covered my breasts—I wasn’t wearing a bra—with my left arm and tried to shimmy down my pajama bottoms with only my right hand. Once the pants were free of my body, Jones tucked the shirt and pants into an even larger Ziploc baggie and sealed the top. She handed me my spare clothes and I pulled them on quickly and slid my feet into the cold rubber flip-flops.
    “Now may I go?” I asked with exasperation.
    “You can go,” Jones said, still looking at me with suspicious eyes.
    But I had nowhere to go. My house was still a crime scene and I had no friends in town. At least, none I wanted to know about my current situation. Plus, the only people I knew in Nicholasville were all friends or family of Ryan’s. I realized my only option was to finally call my mother, who lived thirty minutes away in Richmond. Jones had begrudgingly offered me a ride to wherever I needed to go, but I told her I’d walk.
    It was nearly daylight by the time I walked out of the station and onto the vacant streets of my hometown. Well, it was vacant except for the black truck parked in the Pizza Hut parking lot directly across from the police-fire station. The windows were tinted dark so I couldn’t see inside but I got the eerie feeling the person or persons inside were watching me. It was a ridiculous thought, which I brushed aside