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don’t let things rest, Cade,” she said.
    â€œI know you don’t,” he said.
    Jonathan put his arm around Morgan. “Cade, I want to see that gun.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Jonathan. It’s evidence in a homicide case.”
    â€œWell, then I’m going with McCormick to show him where mine is. I’ll take Morgan with me.”
    â€œYou can’t go, Jonathan,” Cade said.
    Jonathan gaped at him. “What do you mean, I can’t go?”
    â€œI need you here,” he said. “We may need to ask you more questions.”
    â€œYou know where to find me,” Jonathan told him. “You can call me at home and ask me.”
    â€œJonathan, you’re not going anywhere.”
    â€œWhy not?” Jonathan asked again. “Cade, what’re you saying?”
    Cade stood eye to eye with him, unmoving. “I’m saying that if you try to leave, I’ll have to arrest you.”
    He went back into the warehouse, and Jonathan stood there, his mouth open—feeling as if nothing in his world made sense any more.
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    I t wasn’t long before McCormick was back at the warehouse with the news. The door to the toolshed was wide open, and Jonathan Cleary’s speargun wasn’t there.
    That wasn’t what Cade wanted to hear. He had hoped McCormick would tell him that the gun was right where Jonathan kept it. He’d already heard back from Billy Caldwell, who was at the station with the other three spearfishermen. He’d found each of their guns and brought them in with them. Another officer had checked with every sports store in town. Only one sold spearguns, mostly through catalog orders. He hadn’t sold any Blue Water Magnums.
    Jonathan’s was still the only one they knew of on the island.
    â€œWant me to read him his rights?” McCormick asked.
    Cade couldn’t conceive of locking up his friend. He tried to think through the possibilities. Someone had taken the gun out of the shed and used it to kill Thelma and Wayne. Then they had left it at the scene so the police would find it. Maybe they wanted it to look like Jonathan had done it.
    Or maybe there was someone else on the island who had one, or one of the transient seamen, or a psychotic tourist. . . .
    Maybe Jonathan had just misplaced his gun. . . .
    Or maybe the most obvious possibility was the truth—that Jonathan had gotten so angry at them that he had acted in a fit of rage, hardly knowing what he was doing. . . .
    But Cade had known Jonathan for years, had grown up with him, played baseball and football with him. They had gone to college together, and Cade had been best man in Jonathan’s wedding. He knew his friend to be a good person, one who didn’t have murder in his heart. Could some set of circumstances have conspired to push Jonathan into a lethal rage?
    If there was a possibility, even a remote one, that Jonathan might have done this, Cade had to lock him up. He had no choice.
    For the first time since his uncle, the mayor, had appointed him chief of police, he wished he had found another vocation.
    â€œTell me what to do, and I’ll do it,” McCormick said.
    â€œI’ll take care of it,” Cade said. He looked across the warehouse to the open door. Through it, he could see Blair, sitting out on that bench, looking so strong and angry, when inside he knew she was falling apart. And sweet Morgan, still clinging to her husband, shivering from the shock. She would accuse Cade of using Jonathan as a scapegoat. She would claim that he was trying to look effective by making an arrest—any arrest—so the people of the town wouldn’t panic. Would she be right?
    But Jonathan owned the murder weapon, and he’d had that fight with his in-laws earlier that day. He was a hothead, always had been. He flew off the handle at the slightest thing. Maybe today he’d gotten too angry . . . gone too far . . .
    If he could just get