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unsteady on his feet. How the heck could a guy like that bull’s-eye the target of a woman’s head from that far away? And in one shot?”

    Matt stared at me for a good ten seconds. The half of his face I could see had gone completely pale.

    “Matt? Are you okay? Maybe you better sit down . . .”

    My ex-husband nodded and took a seat at the table. “You’re right, Clare . . . You’re absolutely right. And it backs up my own ideas.”

    “ What ideas? I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

    “I don’t think that bullet was meant for the stripper. I think that bullet was meant for Breanne.”

    “Breanne?” Now I needed to sit down. “You want to explain your theory?”

    As I sank, he rose and went right back to pacing.

    “Think about it, Clare. My engagement to Breanne is public knowledge. She’s picked me up here in the evenings countless times. I started my evening here earlier, and when we came back from the White Horse, Breanne’s look-alike was on my arm. If someone had been waiting in the night, staking out the Blend to get to Breanne, they would have seen this girl. Do you follow?”

    “Yes, but—”

    “Hazel Boggs was a dead ringer for my fiancée. From a distance, she fooled both of us. I think she fooled the shooter, too. I think Breanne was the target, not this poor girl from West Virginia. In fact, I don’t think it. I know it!”

    Matt’s face was flushed, his eyes bright. A vein throbbed visibly in his neck. Despite the guy’s physical-fitness level, I was starting to worry he might have a stroke.

    “Okay, Matt, okay. I hear you. Just please calm down.” I pulled a chair out from the table and shook it. “Now would you sit already.”

    For a long moment, my ex-husband stared at me (glared, really, since he could obviously tell I was skeptical of his sudden Breanne-in-peril theory). But then with a grunt he sank down beside me again, put his elbows on the table, and dropped his head in his hands.

    “I think you’re overwrought,” I told him carefully. “You’ve had a lot of alcohol, then a terrible shock, then enough caffeine to jump-start a Hummer. Forget about helping me and the guys downstairs tonight, okay? You need to go upstairs and get some rest—”

    “Don’t talk to me like a psych patient, Clare. I’m not crazy.”

    “I didn’t say you were.”

    “Just hear me out. This theory of mine didn’t come out of nowhere. Something happened last Friday morning that you don’t know about.”

    “Oh?”

    “An SUV hopped the sidewalk and nearly ran Breanne down. Then it fled the scene.”

    “What?!”

    “It happened just down the street from her apartment building.”

    “You were with her?”

    “No.” He massaged his eyes. “I’d finished my workout early, so I’d been walking toward her from the health club up the street. Bree was on her cell phone, totally distracted. But I saw the vehicle jump the curb behind her and come right for her. If I hadn’t lunged for her, slammed her into a doorway, she could have been flattened.”

    “Did you tell the police?”

    “Of course! But nothing came of it. There are thousands of black SUVs in Manhattan, and this one had mud splattered across its license plate, so I couldn’t give the cops anything more than a pathetically general description. The whole thing happened in seconds, the side windows were darkly tinted, and there was a sunscreen blocking most of the front windshield. I couldn’t even see whether it was a man or woman driving.”

    “Weren’t there any other witnesses?”

    Matt nodded. “An elderly couple saw the whole thing, but neither could ID the vehicle any better than I could.”

    “Mud on the license, huh? That does sound a bit suspicious, like someone planned it.”

    “Why do you think I’m bringing it up?! At the time, I thought it was a freak accident, easily forgotten, no actual harm done, you know? Just a scare. But after tonight’s shooting ...”

    I got