“Do you think any of the radio stations will carry it?” I said. “Or should I call Evelyn, get her to watch, maybe tape it?”

Jack was already steering onto the off-ramp.

“Where—?”

“Place with TVs. Lots of ’em.”

Before us was a wall of television screens, all tuned to the nearest TNC affiliate. Between us and those screens was another wall—one of flesh and bone—as we stood in the midst of a mob seven or eight people deep, all crowded into the department store’s home electronics department. Even the staff was there, in the first row, having weaseled through the crowd on the pretense of “monitoring the volume levels.”

The store was already warm, and the added crush of bodies wasn’t helping. Nor was the overpowering cologne on the young man to my left. I supposed the strong musky scent was intended to provoke some hormonal response, to make him irresistible to women, but it reminded me of the raccoon’s nest I’d cleaned from the boathouse this summer.

“This is a special TNC broadcast—” a man’s voice intoned.

As the crowd hushed, I lifted onto my tiptoes and leaned right to see past the head of a mountainous man in front of me. The announcer seemed to be explaining how the letter had been delivered, but I caught only a smattering of words through the whispers of the couple to my right. The text version of the newsman’s words scrolled across the screen, and if I could just lean a little more to the right, I’d be able to—The man stepped squarely in front of me.

A hand reached around my waist and Jack tugged me over, squeezing me in front of him for a perfect view.

“Thanks,” I whispered. “Can you still see the—?”

“Don’t need to.”

I knew he wasn’t just saying that to be polite. He would have been content to continue on to see Little Joe, and get the update later. We were here for me.

After five minutes of recapping the delivery of this letter, and the contents of the one from the day before, the newscaster finally revealed the main prize—lifting a sheet of paper with such care and gravitas that you’d think it was the original Declaration of Independence.

“‘Dear Mr. and Mrs. Citizen,’” he read. “‘I will keep this brief. You already know that your law-enforcement agencies cannot protect you, so there is no need for me to spell out the danger faced by each of you, and your loved ones. My demand is simple. In return for a one-time cash payment, I will end the killings. I don’t ask for a lot. It is perhaps the cheapest insurance policy you will ever buy. The cost: one dollar.