Keegan glanced back down the hallway at his dead neighbor. He could imagine the crime-scene photo enlargements from this very angle, set on an easel where the jury would have to ponder them. He thought of Eve, small and pale behind the big oak table flanked by men his own age. Innocence might make it harder to get a conviction. Money would be even more of an obstacle. But in the cold calculus of legal guilt and innocence, of petty politics and careerism, Eve wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d dig up a motive—any loose words or reports of raised voices would do—and the rest would be taken care of. Prints on the gun. Powder residue. A cooling body slumped in a doorway. All in a big house locked tight with top-of-the-line deadbolts.

His best move seemed obvious. He reached down and picked up the revolver, feeling a twinge in the small of his back. He didn’t even have to raise it to his nose to smell the gunpowder. So innocent, yet so lethal. He flipped it open and tilted it to catch what little light there was. Six brass cartridges, one dimpled by the revolver’s hammer. A single shot was all it took. One twelve-pound pull on the trigger. He tucked the gun into his waistband. He’d have to move fast, but he couldn’t make mistakes.

He slipped farther down the hall to the front foyer, and crept up the curved staircase, careful not to touch the bannister. Only one door was ajar in the second-floor hallway: that would be Eve’s bedroom. He slipped past the other doors and looked inside. The sheets on the king-sized bed were rumpled on one side where she had been sleeping. A few books were scattered on the undisturbed side, along with an unbuckled wristwatch and a manicure set. The window next to the bed was wide open and the drapes pulled back to let the cool night air in.

He found the zippered pouch for his gun on the ornate nightstand, next to a glass of water that was covered with a postcard, and, of all things, an antique silver inkwell with a goose quill. He flattened the pouch, folded it the best he could, and stuffed it into his back pocket. He pulled one hand up into his shirtsleeve and nudged the things on the nightstand together, so there wouldn’t be an obvious space, like a chalk outline, where the gun had lain.

Behind the electric alarm clock on the dresser, not hidden, but tucked away, he found a couple of amber prescription bottles. With his hand still in his sleeve, he picked one of the bottles up. Meprobamate. He’d never heard of it. He set it carefully down and picked up the other. Nembutal. He thought of Marilyn, lying naked in her bedroom, emptied of life—even smaller and less consequential than the body he’d left downstairs.