“Debbie, I know you’re scared.” LaSalle was oddly quiet, and he gunned the truck, the blocks disappearing under his tires as he tried to be reasonable enough for both of them. “And I know that you’re hoping things will just turn out all right. That you can ride them out. But you can’t. If you don’t help me, Evan will kill Karen, and probably Tommy and his dad, too.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.” He sighed. “I used to think I could make this go away by playing along, just like you. But it only keeps getting worse. Sooner or later you have to realize it won’t stop. Unless we stop it.”

There was a moment of silence, and he let it hold, afraid to push too hard for fear of shutting her down. Five seconds stretched into ten, ten into fifteen. He could imagine her thinking about it, weighing his words. He fought the urge to tell her to open her fucking eyes, to remind her of the diner parking lot and the dead man in a trunk at the airport parking lot. Then, in the background of the phone, he heard a sudden banging sound and a muffled voice. “What the fuck’s taking so long, Deborah?”

“I’ll be right out.” She sounded shrill as glass. There was a pause like she was waiting to hear Evan walk away. When she came back on, she was barely whispering. “I’ve got to go.”

“Wait!” He yelled. “Debbie, please.” Terrified that he might lose her now that he was so close. “Tell me where you are.”

There was a sniffle, and he pictured her, sitting fully dressed on the toilet of some thin-walled bathroom, the scariest monster she’d ever known stalking outside the door. Her mascara stained and running, a bruise from wherever he’d hit her. The picture killed him. Then he remembered that she was the safest of the people at risk.

“Please.” He whispered the word. “For Tommy.”

He heard a shuddering intake of breath. He waited for her answer, ready to spin the car in any direction. Wherever they were, he’d have the element of surprise. It would put him back in control. All he needed to know was where to go.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

And then hung up the phone.

He held it to his ear for stupefied seconds. She’d abandoned him. The only one who could tell him where Karen was. The only one who could save Tommy’s life. She’d hung up the phone.

Goddamn her.

A honking horn yanked him back to reality, and he spun into a gas station, barely avoiding the front end of a Volvo. He jerked the car into park and looked at the phone. Calling back was a risk to her. It might make Evan nervous, might make him question her loyalty.

Fuck that.

He hit redial, held the phone to his ear.

One ring. Then, “Hi, this is Debbie. Leave your digits and I’ll hit you back.”

She’d turned off her phone.

He was out of options.

He almost threw the mobile through the window. Stopped himself. Dropped the phone on the seat and his head in his hands. For what seemed like long moments he just sat there. Then he put the car in drive and continued up Clark.

By breaking every rule of the road, he’d made amazing time, but it was hard to get excited about the prospect of arriving home. He had no idea where Evan was, no idea how to stop him. All he had was an empty house, a ticking clock, and a head full of useless plans.

He double-parked in front of the apartment and got out. Things were unnervingly normal. Halloween decorations blinked and flashed. Down the block, a couple laughed as they struggled to hoist a pony keg up their front steps.

He took the steps two at a time. Evan had said that he hadn’t hurt her, but there was no way to be sure. No way except to step in and pray not to find her bleeding out on the hardwood floor. The door to their apartment was slightly ajar. He put a hand against it, feeling the touch of the wood, wondering if this was going to be one of those permanent moments. If after this, his life would be divided into the time before he stepped into the apartment and the time after.

He pushed the door open.

The place was a shambles, and it took him a moment to realize that much of it was the mess from the night before. Boxes sat with clothes stacked beside them, and loose pictures were strewn across the floor.

But there were other things wrong. The lamp by the couch was knocked over. The glass top of the coffee table was cracked in spiderwebs.

He stepped in and walked down the hall. The bedroom was empty. So was the spare. There was a broken water glass on the kitchen floor. The back door stood wide open. On the counter was a tuft of brown hair, stained dark at one end, as though it had been ripped out.

But there was no body.

Rage and relief surged through him. Relief at not finding her dead; seething, sun-blind rage at her violation. The animal part of him rose up, made the blood ring in his ears, his vision blur. He forced himself to breathe, one hand gripping the counter as he gulped oxygen. There wasn’t time for this. He had to be able to think. Had to get the anger under control. Had to harness it, to make it a tool he could use.

A weapon.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to count, banishing visions of Evan holding a gun to Karen’s temple. He couldn’t waste time or energy. He needed his faculties at 100 percent. With every breath he pictured his chest filling with cool blue air, and with each exhale forced it all clear, till his lungs were down to their dregs.

Think.

He walked out of the kitchen, down the hall to the bedroom. The bedspreads were tangled from last night, when they’d made love and then dropped off to sleep. Her pillow still had a crinkled indentation. He dropped to the edge of the bed and held his head in his hands.

Think!

He didn’t know where Evan lived.

He didn’t know where Evan was.

He knew the meet would be tonight, but not when. Evan would probably wait for dark, but twilight already bruised the sky outside their bedroom windows.

Debbie wouldn’t help him.

Patrick was dead. Murdered.

Karen was a hostage.

He stood up, kicked the bed frame savagely, the pain ringing up his leg. He was going in circles. He couldn’t afford to keep following the same arguments.

He had to remove himself. Think of it in purely strategic terms.

See the whole situation.

See not just the problem, but the constraints that defined it. Not just the attack, but the weaknesses it was intended to capitalize on. Like those black-and-white drawings of faces and candlesticks, where the negative space was a different picture from the positive.

Ignore the faces. See the negative space.

And then it hit him.

There was another person who knew where the meet would take place.

Danny put the car in park and killed the engine. As his headlights faded, darkness rushed in to fill the void. Outside the passenger window, the house looked as he remembered, red brick with an elaborately shingled roof that peaked like a cathedral. But now he felt like the house was somehow watching. Judging. The rest of the neighborhood blazed with light, silhouetting groups of kids running from porch to porch with winter jackets over Halloween costumes. Richard’s home hunched silent and dark.

The last time Danny had been here, he’d crossed the line from citizen to criminal. The last time, he’d picked a lock and crept in the back door as a thief. Now he had to walk up to the front door and confess.

The prospect made his palms sweat. Not because there would be no going back – he’d already crossed the point of no return – but because he had to face Richard, look him in the eyes, and admit to being the architect of his sorrow. Admit to taking the most important thing in the man’s life.