She was awakened at just past five by a soft, tentative rapping on the door. She opened her eyes, emerging from a dream in which she was swatting at a bee’s nest with a tennis racket, and, for a moment, had no idea where she was. Then she was up, and moving toward the door, worried suddenly that something else—something bad—had happened.

She cracked the venetian blind and peered out into the hazy light of morning. She thought there’d be a police officer there, but instead, it was the old man from the hospital, the one who’d arrived with Harry’s stepmother. He saw her through the window, grinned, and waved, but with a little too much eagerness. Her stomach buckled. Something must have happened to Harry. She cracked the door, aware that she was wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt.

“Hello?” she said.

“Caitlin McGowan?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sorry to show up like this . . . Harry sent me. He’s, uh . . .”

“Is he okay?”

“Fine, fine, we think, but he very much wants to see you, and so, I came. I’m John, by the way. I work with Harry at the bookstore.”

“Oh, right,” Caitlin said, and opened the door a little bit more as the man inched forward. Did he want to come into the room? “I’ll go straight there as soon as I get dressed,” she said.

“Oh, right,” he said, moving back a little. “I’ll let you do your thing. You don’t need a ride?”

“No, I know where it is. I’ll be right there.”

Caitlin almost shut the door, but not wanting to be rude, she opened it a little bit wider, and said, “Thank you, John, for coming to get me. I appreciate it.”

He was still smiling, but his eyes were darting quickly from Caitlin’s face to the frame of the door and back, almost as though he were measuring something. “Okay, then,” she said, all her instincts telling her to slam the door. Instead, she began to push it gently shut, but before it closed, the man shoved against the door and caused her to stagger back, surprised, as he swung something at her and hit her in the throat. She took a ragged, painful breath, and he stepped inside and swung again. She reared back, and something hard clipped her nose. Next thing she knew she was on her back, the world swimming before her eyes.

She heard the door of the motel room shut, and then he was crouching above her. He touched her face, and she flinched. He said, “Did he see me?”

“I don’t . . . Who?”

Like a slightly exasperated teacher, he said, slowly, “Did Harry see me last night? Did he tell you who it was he saw?”

Blood was flowing from Caitlin’s nose and pooling into her mouth. She tried to scream and began to choke.