Keegan kept his eye out for house numbers as he climbed the hill. As he passed Number 61, a studio audience burst into laughter. Out front, an unattended garden hose spun a sprinkler in the middle of a sodden lawn. Water streamed along the gutter, pushing cigarette butts and dead leaves down into lesser, lower-lying neighborhoods. At Number 63, an angelic young girl practiced a piano piece framed in a lit bay window. She stared down at her hands as she played. Her brunette hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her smooth brow glowed in the lamp aimed down at her sheet music. Her aura of innocence gave Keegan a twinge of guilt: he’d be committing a felony, illegal purchase of a firearm, much too close to where this young girl lived.

And then there it was: number 65 ½, a small Mexican-style bungalow on the right side of the road—two lit windows, both open, on either side of a blue porch. The house stood on a triangular scrap of land between two larger homes. A tile roof awning slanted down over its doorway. A concrete pathway angled from the curb, through a small cactus garden, to the front steps. Even in the dusky light, nothing about the house looked sinister. Was this really where Lusk had meant to send him?

Keegan hesitated at the curb, getting himself ready for whatever waited behind the door. He’d spent years writing about crime, but he’d always been one healthy step removed. When he’d arrived at a crime scene, notepad in hand, the deed had already been done. The space was cordoned off and teeming with cops. If the coroner had been there, all that remained was a chalk outline on the asphalt. When he’d interviewed the accused, they were safely shackled or behind acrylic windows. Or he’d watched them being questioned from the comfortable side of a two-way mirror. But now there were no cuffs or glass to shield him. He felt edgy, scared even, but he could still hear the girl’s piano in the background—she was practicing scales now—and that benign ladder of pure notes offered a level of comfort. In this middle-class neighborhood of sitcoms and sprinklers, how ruthless could the people behind this door really be? There was even a tan coir mat set out on the front doorstep. WELCOME.

Keegan walked up the path through the front yard, trying to look at ease. The aloes and prickly pears and barrel cactus he passed were arranged in a carpet of red lava rock. A garden for someone who was not inclined towards gardening.

There was no button for a bell, just a lion’s head knocker in the center of the door. Keegan gave it a couple of firm clacks. A dog took up yipping inside the house. A woman’s voice called out from some back room: “Could you get that, sweetie? I’m looking for my keys.”