His hands gave one last little squeeze of her arms, convulsively, and then he let go and dropped in a heap right in front of her.

One side of his head, above the ear, had been blown away.

Lying prone on the floor, Danica raised her eyes.

A man with a gun stood at the foot of the basement stairs. Not a cop. Not anyone she had seen before now. He was her age, give or take. Dark eyes and dark hair. Lean build. He lowered the gun, tucked it in his waistband and crossed to where she lay. He knelt and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

She found it hard to answer. Hard to say anything at all. She knew the term sensory overload; some rational part of her brain was repeating it now, again and again. The rest of her thoughts were simply spinning, getting away from her—dry leaves in a windstorm.

“You’re safe,” the man said. “The police will be here in a few minutes.”

He reached behind her, got a hold of the duct tape around her wrists and tore it across from one edge. He peeled it from her skin and threw it aside.

She got her hands under her, pushed herself upward and got into a sitting position on the floor. She felt her mind begin to settle.

The man stepped back and sat on one of the treads at the bottom of the stairs, giving her space.

She looked around. Took in the basement. The bald man, dead on the floor beside her. Carl, back by the furnace, his eyes open and staring at nothing.

Somewhere far away, the keening of a siren. A couple minutes out, maybe.

“Do you know what this is about?” the man asked.

She turned and looked at him. She thought of Carl in the bedroom closet, trying to tell her something. The memory was hard to make sense of now. Part of the overload.

She shook her head.

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“Danica. Ellis. Danica Ellis.”

He was staring at her more intensely now, as if looking for something in her features.

“I’ve never seen you before,” he said. “I’ve never even heard of you.”

Before she could respond to that, he said, “I’m Sam Dryden. Have you ever heard that name? Have you seen my face? Even in a picture?”

She shook her head again.

He kept his eyes on her a moment longer, then looked down at his hands in his lap.

“I don’t get it,” he said softly, maybe to himself.

Danica sat forward. “Who are you?” she said. “I mean—are you from next door, or—”

She realized the man’s posture had suddenly changed. He was still looking down, but not at his hands anymore. His focus had gone to the spill of papers at the foot of the stairs, next to the torn-open envelope.