“Put Jaclyn on the phone,” Clay said.

“I want to hear her side before you wreck everything.”

“She isn’t here,” I said.

“The police told her to stay at the house until an investigator calls.”

“Then I’ll call her myself,” Clay said, and the line went dead.

Dr.

Reed was standing outside room two hundred eight, holding a blue plastic folder against her lab coat.

She waved me into the small quiet room across the hall, where two vinyl armchairs sat beneath a framed print of white pines.