Her eyes swept across the room.
The overturned dining chair.
The untouched steak.
Elaine standing beside the table.
Grant crouched beneath the counter.
Me, pressed against the marble with one hand held to my chest.
Mara’s expression hardened.
“Step away from her, Grant.”
Grant stood.
His panic disappeared beneath the mask he wore for strangers.
It happened so quickly it would have impressed me once.
“Detective,” he said, almost warmly.
“Thank God you’re here.
My wife is having some kind of episode.
She burned herself and now she’s acting irrationally.”
Elaine jumped in immediately.
“That’s exactly what happened.
She was upset about dinner.
Grant was trying to calm her down.”
Dennis said nothing.
Mara looked at me.
Then at Grant.
“Move away from the counter.”
“Of course.”
He raised both hands and stepped aside.
One officer moved between us.
The other asked Elaine and Dennis to remain where they were.
Grant kept talking.
That was always his mistake when he became afraid.
He talked.
“She’s been under a lot of stress,” he said.
“I’ve tried to get her help.
Ask my parents.
They’ll tell you.”
Elaine nodded rapidly.
“She has terrible moods.”
Mara’s gaze never left Grant.
“Did you touch your wife tonight?”
Grant hesitated.
Less than a second.
But cameras are patient with seconds.
“I stopped her from hurting herself.”
“How?”
“I grabbed her arm.”
“Did you touch her hair?”
His eyes flicked toward me.
“Maybe.
I don’t remember.
She was struggling.”
Mara nodded once.
“Interesting.”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
“Why?”
She took out her phone.
The screen was angled away from him.
I knew what she was seeing because I had built the interface myself.
