That single possibility, all by itself, scared me as much as anything ever could right now.

“Find a way to get her home, Jackie. I know that’s asking a lot, but I need her home. I need her home NOW.”

“I’ll do what I can,” she offered. “But, you need to be prepared for this.”

“Prepared?” Incredulity filled my voice. “Okay, then why don’t you tell me how I’m supposed to prepare myself for my wife spending time in jail on a bogus murder charge.”

“I wish I knew, Ro…”

The end of her sentence was truncated by an annoying beep issuing from the earpiece of my phone. Lately, I had been ignoring the call-waiting when it chimed in, due to a recent resurgence of mysterious hang-ups that had been plaguing us off and on for the past few years. Under the circumstances, however, I thought it might be a good idea to answer it this time.

“I’ve got another call coming in. Can you hold for a sec?”

“Listen, I’m almost to my car,” she replied. “Why don’t you go ahead and answer the call. I’ll get back to you when I get to the police station and have a handle on things.”

“Don’t you want me to meet you there?”

“Absolutely not. There’s nothing you can do at this point, and emotionally you’re a bomb looking for a place to explode. You’d do nothing but cause trouble and make things worse. Just stay right there while they’re searching the house, and don’t do anything stupid.”

The insistent beep chimed in again.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean just stay there and don’t do anything,” she instructed, heavily emphasizing the last word. “I need to concentrate on your wife right now, so I don’t need to be worrying about you too.”