“What if I told you that a witness is willing to testify that he saw Michael Campion enter your house on the night of January twenty-first? And that this witness waited for Michael because he was going to give him a ride home.

“But that never happened, Junie, because Michael never left your house.”

“A witness? But that’s impossible,” said the young woman. “It has to be a mistake.”

I was desperate to crack open this one miserable lead, but we were getting no traction at all. I was starting to believe that Jacobi’s anonymous tipster was yet another crank caller – and I was seriously considering waking Jacobi and peppering him with a few choice words – when Junie looked down at the table. Her eyes were moist and her face seemed pinched, actually transformed by grief.

“You’re right, you’re right, and I can’t take this anymore. If you turn that thing off, I’ll tell you what happened.”

I exchanged startled looks with Conklin. Then I snapped out of it. I reached up to the video camera and switched it off. “You can’t go wrong if you tell us the truth,” I said, my heart going ga-lump, ga-lump.

I leaned forward, folded my hands on the table.

And Junie began to tell us everything.

Chapter 6

“IT HAPPENED just like you said,” Junie said, looking up at us with an anguished expression I read as fear and pain.

“Michael died?” I asked her. “He is, in fact, dead?”

“Can I start at the beginning?” Junie asked Conklin.

“Sure,” Rich told her. “Take your time.”

“See, I didn’t know who he was at first,” Junie said. “When Michael called to make the date, he gave me a fake name. So when I opened the door and there he was – oh, my God. The boy in the bubble. He’d come to see me!”