Chapter 12: Alibi

The Lake County jail in Waukegan gave a wife five minutes on Saturday morning.

The door was steel, with a window the size of a postcard.

Rowan sat on the other side in an orange jumpsuit, unshaven for the first time since I'd known him.

The grey was coming in thick along his chin.

His lawyer had stepped out to the corridor, at my request, which cost me a favor I hadn't known I owned.

"Tell me what you aren't saying," I said.

"Nothing that kills anyone."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

I put my hand flat on the cold window.

"You told them nothing. You told me to say nothing.

"A woman is dead in your house with your father's gun, and you won't say you were in bed with your wife."

"Yes."

"Why?"

He looked at my hand and then at me.

"Because the minute you swear to it, they ask what kind of marriage this is," he said. "And Lionel answers."

"Lionel holds the contract."

"And paragraph nine. A marriage in good faith, for a year.

"You swear you were in my bed, and the next question is why a contract wife who isn't allowed there was in it at all."

"So what?"

"So he reads it out and calls it a sham.

"The trust takes my votes, the board takes the company, and the Terminal's books go back in the dark."

"And you rot in here."

"I'll rot in here knowing you weren't made a liar," said Rowan. "It's a fair trade."

I stared at him through the glass.

I had arrested three hundred men in my life, and not one of them had ever tried to protect me from the arrest.

"You idiot," I said, and my voice shook.

"Probably."

"Did you kill her?"

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