“Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

He blinked at what probably sounded like a certain lack of enthusiasm, but led the way without comment, opening the car door for her, closing it, and going round to his side.

“I thought maybe Bill’s tonight?” he suggested tentatively.

“Sure.”

His brows drew together. “Everything okay?”

“Sure!”

He nodded, not entirely convinced, and turned the key in the ignition.

A.J. felt a strong sense of nostalgia as they walked through the front doors of Bill’s Diner, a nostalgia that had nothing to do with Buddy Holly singing “Love’s Made a Fool of You” on the jukebox or the wall display of vintage lunch-boxes. The first meal she and Jake had shared had been at Bill’s. She wondered if they had come full circle.

They hid behind their menus for a while, then Jake laid his down and A.J. followed suit.

“How is the investigation going?”

“We don’t have the ballistics report yet, but the informal consensus is the weapon used to kill Massri was probably the same used to kill the Sutherland woman.”

“Then Maddie’s death is connected to Dicky’s, and not to Peggy Graham’s.”

“If ballistics confirms, yeah, it looks that way.” He drummed his fingers restlessly on the table, caught A.J. watching, and stopped.

“Is Mother going to be arrested again?”

“Not at this time. The weapon still hasn’t been found and she tested clean for gunshot residue particles.” His eyes were very green beneath the dark straight brows. “Also, one of the neighbors reported seeing a blue sports car racing down the alley behind Sutherland’s house around five o’clock, which would have been the approximate time of the shooting.”

“Did the neighbor hear a shot? Because we sure didn’t.”

“No. She just noted the sports car. Very few cars use that alley so it stuck in her mind. But she wouldn’t have heard anything. We found a silencer in the garden near the back gate. It must have been improperly attached to the barrel of the murder weapon.”

Was that a clue? A murderer who wasn’t familiar with how to attach a silencer was certainly not a professional assassin.

“Did the neighbor get a license or see the driver?”

“No. That would have been nice, but no. All the same, it does open the possibility to another suspect.”

“I would hope so! Mother doesn’t have any motive for killing Maddie.”

Jake said patiently, “Motive is pretty much subjective, but that does seem to be the general opinion. No one can see any reason for Sutherland’s death-certainly not for your mother contriving her death.”

“What about the phone call-the single ring when Mother and I were talking in the kitchen?”

“That’s another point in your mother’s favor. There was a phone call. It was placed from a phone booth in Andover. The caller spoke to someone at the house for two minutes and thirty-six seconds.”

The waitress appeared at their table and they gave their orders. When the waitress departed, A.J. asked, “What about outgoing calls?”

“No luck there. The last two phone calls were to a hair place.”

“The Salon!” A.J. exclaimed.

“Right. One was about ten o’clock Sunday morning. The other was at five after three in the afternoon. Roughly two hours before Sutherland was shot.”

“But don’t you see that’s significant?” A.J. demanded. “I told you I thought there was a connection between The Salon and Massri’s death. And now here’s a direct link to Maddie’s death.”

Jake looked pained. “A.J., the first call was to set up hair appointments for all of you. The second call was Maddie asking whether she’d left her glasses at the salon. And before you ask? Yes, she had.”

“Did you-?”

“I did. I went and picked them up myself.”

A.J. racked her brains for a way to bring up what she believed to be the most damning fact: The Salon hair products at Massri’s apartment. “You know,” she said slowly, “Mother brought up a good point.”

He sighed.

“I’m serious. She mentioned that the last time she was at Dicky’s she noticed he had products from The Salon in his bathroom.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No. Listen to me. The Salon only caters to women-and women of a certain age. Since the shampoo and conditioning rinse didn’t belong to Mother, who did they belong to?”

“Shampoo and conditioning rinse,” he repeated without inflection.

A.J. said steadily, “That’s what Mother said.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “I see. Well, first of all, we have only your mother’s word she didn’t bring those things into Massri’s home. She could be making that up now in an effort to throw suspicion off herself.”

A.J. opened her mouth, but he cut her off.

“Or maybe another woman did bring those items into Massri’s apartment. Maybe he was having an affair with another woman and your mother discovered it and killed him.”

A.J. couldn’t seem to unlock her gaze from Jake’s green one. “She didn’t.”

“I’m just telling you how it might look if you went around sharing this brand-new information too freely.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and said, “You won’t even consider the possibility that if there was another woman involved, she might have killed Dicky?”

“We haven’t found any evidence of another woman being involved with Massri.”

“Well you didn’t find evidence that he’d been married to Maddie either.”

His jaw tightened, and she knew that one had hit home.

“Fair enough. But how about this for an explanation? How about Massri bought the products himself?”

“I told you, The Salon caters to women.”

“Hey, for your information, Avon makes bath oil that works great as a bug repellent. I use it camping, although I guess you’ve probably noticed I’m not generally at home to the Avon Lady.”

Feeling deflated, A.J. sat back in the leather booth. She said stubbornly, “I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.”

Seeming to feel he’d already won that round, Jake asked more tolerantly, “You don’t believe what’s a coincidence? That Maddie and Massri bought hair products from the same place? That’s not that amazing of a coincidence, believe me.” She could feel his gaze on her face. He said, “We’ve turned up another possible lead, though.”

At her look of inquiry, he said, “Massri was fired from his position at the SCA. We haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly what happened, but from everything not being said, it sounds potentially serious.”

A.J. said slowly, “So you think it’s a legitimate lead?”

“It’s too soon to tell if it will pan out, but I think it casts reasonable doubt on the case we’re building against Elysia.” He threw her a look from beneath his brows. “Obviously that’s off the record.”

“When isn’t it? Anyway, for the record, Mr. Meagher has already been looking into Massri’s connection with the SCA.”

He gave her a funny look, but whatever he might have said was interrupted by the reappearance of the waitress with their dinners.

They ate for a time in silence that gradually, at least in A.J.’s mind, took on the weight and substance of a funeral pall. With every bite it was clearer and clearer to her that Jake had not invited her out for the pleasure of her company or to discuss the case against her mother. She began to wish that he would just get it over.

The waitress returned to clear away their plates and offer dessert menus.

“Did you want dessert?” Jake asked, frowning over the menu. A.J. nearly laughed. He was clearly desperate not to have this discussion whatever it was.

“No thanks.”

He ordered apple pie and stuffed the menu back in the metal holder.

A.J. waited.

He looked at her and this time he held her gaze. “Look, I owe you an explanation.”

Inhale.

Exhale.

A.J. nodded.

Almost impatiently, he said, “We never specifically said anything about not seeing other people.” He stopped. A.J. nodded. She managed to keep control of her face, but her stomach dropped. Officially she had only been dumped once in her life. That was when Andy had left her for Nick. It had been devastating; devastating enough that just the memory of it could give her dry heaves. Though thankfully not at the moment. The situation was shaping up to be humiliating enough as it was.