Keegan stood in the brickwork front entryway while Eve found her key in the back pocket of her capri slacks. A moth circled and bumped one of the coachman lamps. She unlocked the deadbolt and pushed the door open a crack.

“Shall I bring Italian wine tomorrow?” she said. “Or is there something else you’d prefer?” She must have caught some unintended reaction in his expression because she said, “I hope you don’t mind me coming by again. He won’t be back until Friday.”

“Italian is good,” Keegan said. “Maybe I can run by the Farmers’ Market and we can make some—” but before he could finish the sentence, she stepped forward, kissed him on the lips and rushed inside, closing the door behind her.

KEEGAN WOKE WITH a start even before the dog began barking. He had no idea what had jolted him from sleep.

Nora bounded into the kitchen. Keegan followed her, trying to clear his head of the last vestiges of the dream he’d been having. He switched on the kitchen light and found Nora barking at the screen door. He’d left the back and front doors wide open. Nora clawed at the aluminum frame of the screen and then backed away. She tipped her head up and sniffed at the night air coming in and then set to barking again.

Keegan picked the dog up, to quiet her, but she fought him and kept twisting her head to look at the screen door. “Shhhh,” he told her. “It’s okay.” He backed up a few steps and switched off the light, so no one could see him from outside. He crept back to the screen door and listened for anything moving outside in the garden. He could see nothing beyond the back steps, which were lit dimly by the outside lamp.

He carried Nora back to the bedroom, which was hot and stuffy, closed up for more than a week. He set her down and blocked the doorway with his leg until he could get the door shut without her slipping past him.

In the kitchen, he turned off the outdoor lamp and waited, listening, before he opened the screen door. The garden was empty. He slipped out to the edge of the lawn and looked down at Ormsby’s place. The grass was cool and brittle under his bare feet. A light came on in a downstairs window, and then switched off again.

Keegan crouched low and crept past the rose bushes, until he could see Ormsby’s back gate. There was no sedan in the gravel drive tonight, and the back gate was still closed.

He slipped back towards the kitchen door so he’d have a better view of Ormsby’s house. Light glinted as a French door along the side of the house opened and closed. A shadow slipped between the house and the dark garden hedges. The shape finally emerged from the shadows and rushed across the lawn towards the back gate. It was Eve. He was certain. But she moved with a strange excess of energy, like she was flushed with panic.