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blood. Cam reached into his pocket for a hand kerchief. "Here," he said, waving the small white square in front of James'
    s face, in a gesture that looked much like a surrender.
    James MacDonald hadn't done anything threatening; there was no reason to bring him into the station in handcuffs. Cam would
    Jodi Picoult
    sit him down, offer him coffee, try to get him talking. He wouldn't arrest him just yet.
    "Chief," Zandy Monroe said, "the door's stuck." At the sergeant's voice, James MacDonald whirled around to see Zandy tuggi ng at the passenger door of the pickup truck. When it wouldn't budge, Zand y slipped two fingers into the partially unrolled window and tried to reac h the woman's neck to get a pulse.
    With a feral cry, James MacDonald ripped out of Cam's grasp and ran to the other side of the truck. He pulled the sergeant away from the door, throwin g him backward with the bodily force that a tall, strong man learns to keep in check. "Don't you touch her," he screamed at Zandy, his fists clenched, his teeth obscenely white against mottled skin. He turned back to the door and wrenched it open, and that was when Cam saw the door hadn't been stuck
    , but locked; that James MacDonald had ripped it from its bearings. He caug ht the body of his wife as it slumped up against him; pressed his cheek aga inst hers. He spoke against the white curve of her neck. "Don't you touch h er," he whispered.
    Cam's eyes met Zandy's over the hood of the truck. He started to walk arou nd to the passenger side as Zandy moved closer to James MacDonald. But Jam es did not resist as Cam pulled him out of the cab of the truck. "Mr. MacD
    onald, I'm going to have to put you under arrest." He snapped handcuffs ov er the man's wrists. "Uh, Sergeant," he said, nodding at the body in the t ruck, "you want to take care of this?"
    James began to strain against the handcuffs. "No," he whispered to Cam. "Yo u can't."
    Cam had to lean close to hear him. "We've got to go inside, Mr. MacDonald.
    "
    "Please don't leave her alone with him."
    Out of the corner of his eye, Cam saw Allie step out of the crowd. She was shivering as she walked up to them, and she did not look Cam in the eye. "I
    'm Allie MacDonald," she said. "I'm Cam's wife." She laid her hand on James
    's arm. "I can stay with Maggie, if you'd like." James looked her over, and then nodded his head. Cam let his breath out in a long sigh, and motioned for Zandy to hold James's
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    arm. Then Cam steered Allie away from the truck. "You don't really want to do this," he said. "You could be implicated as a witness when he goes to tr ial."
    "Oh, Cam," Allie whispered. "You're not really going to arrest him, are you
    ?"
    Cam grabbed her upper arms. "He killed a woman, Allie."
    "But he came to you for protection."
    Cam snorted. "That's a little like locking the barn after the horse has run out.
    "
    Allie squared her shoulders. "I'd just listen to his story, if I were you. It's o bvious that he loved her."
    Cam bowed his head. "Still," he said, "that isn't going to bring her back to lif e."
    yames MacDonald glanced one last time at the still and lovely body of his wife in the front seat of his truck and remembered his wedding day eleven years earlier, during which everything had gone wrong.
    Maggie had picked Memorial Day weekend, hoping to stand outside for the ce remony, but the balmy weather that was forecast had dissolved into torrent ial rain. Wanting privacy, they'd opted for a justice of the peace, and ha d made an appointment. But they showed up at the man's door only to be tol d by his wife that he'd come down with the stomach flu, and so Jamie had d riven from Cummington to the next town to the next, trying to find someone who hadn't gone away for the holiday and who would be willing to marry th em.
    By the time Jamie and Maggie were standing in the front parlor of a justice of the peace in Great Barrington, the cuffs of Jamie's trousers were soaked from puddles and Maggie's bouquet of violets