She held up her hand to silence him. “The statute of limitation is five years.” Keller took in their pathetic expressions. “My office has a good relationship with the University of Michigan’s police force. If they get a report—so much as a rumor—that you’ve been anything but a perfect gentleman, I’m going to pay you a visit. And you will find out the consequences of lying to me today.”

The boy started to speak.

“Don’t,” she said. “If I get wind that you were even rude to a girl … Do you understand?”

The boy nodded.

She looked at the father. “He dodged a bullet today. That happens once.”

“Understood,” the father said, looking like a beaten man.

“A perfect gentleman,” Keller said sternly.

“A perfect gentleman,” the father repeated.

It wasn’t justice for Maggie Pine, but maybe it would save the next girl. With no witnesses and a dead victim, Keller decided it would have to do.

CHAPTER 35

MATT PINE

Matt slept nearly the entire flight. He’d spent several hours at the Cancún airport, killing time by dispatching texts to his friends, and eating terrible Americanized Mexican food at an overcrowded chain restaurant in the center of the departure gates. The margaritas were good, though, and the waitress packed him a giant slushy tequilaed mess in a Styrofoam to-go cup for the plane. That ensured that he was out cold until he hit the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, and again on his connection to Omaha.

He cracked his neck as the plane taxied to the gate.

As he waited for the passengers to deplane, the usual jackasses had marched from the rear of the plane and stood in the aisle out of turn. He imagined for a moment his mother saying Rude! under her breath. After helping the old woman in the seat in front of him pull down her carry-on, Matt sauntered out.

Adair, Nebraska, was about an hour and a half’s drive from Omaha. His aunt had offered to pick him up, but he declined. Aunt Cindy meant well, but she was a bit much. It’d be expensive, but he’d take an Uber (they had Ubers in Nebraska, right?) and maybe Cindy could lend him his grandfather’s old station wagon.

At eight o’clock the Eppley Airfield terminal was quiet. It was a haze of fluorescent lights and tired-looking TSA workers. He followed the signs to ground transport, plodding past the kiosk for Omaha Steaks and down the escalator with the rest of the herd. Some familiar faces from the plane—the guy with the bad tattoos, the old lady he helped with the bag, the pretty young woman who kept stealing looks at him—were standing by the luggage turnstile. And then he saw it. The curly-haired man with bloodshot eyes. Matt ambled over to him.

“You look like shit,” Ganesh said after the two man-hugged.

“What are you doing here?”