He rang the bell again, hoping he had the correct door; he’d picked the unit closest to where Alice’s car was parked. An exterior stairway led up to the entryway, above a garage. It was low tide, and the air was filled with the smell of rot. Harry pulled his phone out just as the door swung inward.

“Harry,” Alice said. Her neck was smeared with blood. “Harry,” she said again. “Call the police.”

He stared at the phone in his hand. How had it gotten there? Then he dialed 911 for the second time in a week. He gave the dispatcher the address, but wasn’t able to tell her what had happened. She kept insisting he find out, but he hung up, and stepped into the dim condo. Alice had retreated, and was now sitting on a white leather sofa, holding her hands out to either side. She looked like she was meditating.

“Where’s John?” Harry asked.

“He’s in the kitchen, Harry.”

Harry took another tentative step into the living room. His eyes began to adjust; to his left was a lit alcove kitchen. Harry took another step and looked toward it. He could see the upturned feet of a body lying on the linoleum.

“What happened?”

“He was crazy, Harry. He asked me to come here, and I came, and he wasn’t making any sense. He kept telling me how he had to kill all the people who were threatening him, and then he tried to . . . I had to protect myself. Is he dead, do you think?”

Harry forced himself to take two more steps toward the alcove. Recessed fluorescents in the ceiling lit the scene. John was on his back, one hand sprawled in the spreading pool of blood, the other resting gently on his chest. The smell of the blood—like tidal mud—reached Harry’s nostrils, and he took three quick steps back out the condo’s door and vomited over the railing. In the distance he heard the sound of sirens.

“Is he dead, Harry?” Alice’s voice was closer, and Harry’s body jerked, involuntarily, the way it sometimes did when he was falling asleep and thought he was actually falling.

He turned back, wiping at his mouth. Alice was in the doorway, her hands still held out from her body, her palms up.

“He looks dead.”

“He killed Bill, you know. He killed your father. He just told me.”

“Why did he do it?” Harry asked.

“He didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it was about me. He was protecting me, I think, and that’s why he killed the two girls as well.”

“What two girls?”

“He said their names. Grace, the girl who was murdered, and then he mentioned another girl. Her sister.”

“Caitlin’s her sister. Where is she? What did he say?”

“I can’t—”

“What did he say about Caitlin?”