But then he asked about her parents, if they’d been fighting a lot lately. She told him that there had been a lot of their usual bickering until they’d revealed their affairs.

“Affairs?” Clements asked. “Plural?”

“Yeah, they both cheated on each other.”

“Really?”

Marissa didn’t get why Clements was interested in this or what this had to do with finding out who’d killed her mother.

“You know about my mother and Tony, right?”

“Yes, your father told me about that, but I didn’t know he was having an affair as well.”

“Yeah, with my friend Hillary’s mother, Sharon.”

“Sharon what?” Clements had a pad out.

“Wasserman,” Marissa said.

“Do you know how I can get in touch with her?”

Marissa gave him her phone number, then asked, “But why do you care about my father and Sharon?”

“It’s important for us to know everything that was going on in your mother’s life,” Clements said.

Marissa didn’t buy this and felt like Clements was really trying to find a motive for her father killing her mother. She was shocked and looked over at Xan, who she could tell felt the same way she did. It was great the way they could communicate without speaking. They were like an old married couple already.

Clements asked her if her mother had seemed worried or had mentioned anything about her life being in danger, and she said, “No, definitely not. She seemed normal. Well, depressed and upset about the divorce, but normal.”

“And today she didn’t tell you about any plans to see Tony Ferretti? Or express any fears about seeing Tony Ferretti?”

Marissa was shaking her head. “No, there was nothing like that at all.”

“Getting back to your father,” Clements said. “During their arguments, did you ever get the sense that your mother was, well, afraid of your father? Or did she ever tell you she was afraid of him, or tell you that he threatened her in any way, or that she felt threatened?”

“I don’t believe this,” Marissa said. “You’re not seriously asking me this, are you?”

“Did she or didn’t she?” Clements asked.

Slack- jawed, Marissa looked at Xan, then back at Clements and said, “No, she didn’t.”

“Have you ever seen your father hit your mother or threaten to hit her?”

“No, never,” she said firmly. Then she remembered a time when there had been some violence between her parents.

Clements must’ve noticed her change in expression, because he asked, “Did he or didn’t he?”

“No, not really,” Marissa said. “I mean, I think he pushed her once.”

Clements’s eyes widened. “Really? When was this?”

Why had Marissa brought this up when it meant absolutely nothing? What was wrong with her?

“It was nothing,” she said. “It’s just when I was in high school. My parents were arguing one time and my father pushed my mother and she fell. But it was an accident. He wasn’t trying to hurt her or anything.”

“What about more recently?” Clements asked.

“No, and this is crazy. My father didn’t kill my mother, okay? He loved her. I mean, I know they were getting divorced, but he still loved her. He cared about her-very,verymuch.”

Marissa’s voice trailed off as she started crying again. Xan quickly had his arm around her and was holding her tightly. After a few more questions, Clements told her she could go.

Later, in the foyer, when Clements was in another room, Marissa’s father came over to her and asked her how the questioning had gone.

“Fine,” she said. It was hard to maintain eye contact. “I mean, I didn’t really have anything to tell him. He wanted to know if I knew if Mom talked to Tony today, and I said I didn’t think so.”

“Well, I just heard that the police took Tony in for questioning, so hopefully we’ll have a confession soon.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” Marissa said.

She and her father hugged, but she didn’t feel as close to him as she had before.

“You should go lie down, try to get some rest,” he said.

“I can’t stay here tonight,” she said.

“I was thinking about going to a hotel too,” Adam said, “but do we really want to deal with all of the reporters out there? Besides, Clements said the cops’ll be here all night. Until we figure out what’s going on, the house is the safest place we can be.”

“Whatever, I guess I’ll stay,” Marissa said. Then she said to Xan, “If you have to go home, I understand.”

“Are you kidding me?” Xan said. “There’s no way I’m leaving you alone tonight.”

Marissa managed a smile and said, “I have no idea what I would’ve done without you here.”

“I want to thank you too,” her father said, “for taking such good care of my daughter.”

“No thanks necessary,” Xan said. “It’s the least I could’ve done.”

Not surprisingly, Marissa didn’t sleep. Xan held her all night as she stirred, cried, and occasionally wailed. The world had never seemed more random and more insane. In her head, she kept telling herself, My mother’s dead, my mother’s dead, hoping this would help her accept what had happened, but she kept reliving the shock, as if she were still at the movie theater, hearing the news for the first time.

Around dawn, Marissa was still awake, feeling miserable. Xan hadn’t slept at all either, and he’d held her all night. Looking into his beautiful, kind blue eyes, she said, “I’m so lucky I have you,” and he said, “I was just thinking the same thing.” She wanted to feel him inside her so badly, to be closer to him, as close as she could possibly be.

“Make love to me,” she said. “ Please make love to me.”

He did, and even though she was crying throughout, it was still very nice. Afterward, when they were lying on their sides facing each other, Marissa said, “So do you think that Tony guy did it?”

“It must’ve been him, right?” Xan said softly.

“I don’t know,” Marissa said. “That asshole detective kept asking me about my father.”

“That’s just the way cops are,” Xan said. “I mean, I imagine they have to look at these things from every different way, you know?”

“I know, but that’s what scares me. I mean, he’s a cop, he know what he’s doing. Why would he keep harping on it if, I don’t know, there wasn’t some ba sis to it? Why would he waste his time like that? You know what I mean?” “Your father’s an amazing guy,” Xan said. “He’d never do something like that to your mother.” He was running his fingers back and forth along the inside of one of her arms. It felt so good. “I mean, would he?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not saying this is what I think or anything, so don’t take it the wrong way- but it’s true that your parents were having serious problems lately, right?” “Right,” Marissa said, remembering her father gleefully telling her mother that he’d slept with Sharon Wasserman.

“I’m just saying, from where I’m at, just kind of being, like, an outsider to all of this, it seems kind of, I don’t know, coincidental to me.”

“I know,” Marissa said.

“I mean, think about it,” Xan said. “Your parents announce to you that they’re getting divorced, and the same day your mother’s killed? It does make you think, you know? You don’t want to think it, but you still think it.”

That word, “killed,” gave Marissa a jolt. She shifted away and sat up, then said,

“Yeah, but that’s why I think Tony probably did it. Maybe my mom told him she was splitting up with my dad but didn’t want to be with him and he got pissed off and came over here and lost it. The guy’s crazy, a total psycho. You saw what he did to my father, right?”

Xan kissed her softly on the lips- God, she was dying to feel him inside her again. He said, “I know, and you’re probably right, but you said your father went over to the gym the other day and started the fight with Tony. You said he got in that big fight with your mother, too-”

“But I heard my father saying something about how the note that Tony left, the one about him and my mother, looked like the note he got last week, the one that threatened him about the robbery.”