Niki had tried to contact him, of course. As her unopened messages piled up, he deleted his email account, canceled his internet and then his phone contract. On his trip back to Minneapolis to sign off on the sale of his house, he could have explained things to her, but he didn’t. It was cowardly, he knew that, but if he had met with Niki face-to-face, she would have tried to persuade him to come back, and he didn’t want to hear her voice—he didn’t have the strength. Niki had been his last link to his old self, something that needed to be severed.

Although if he was honest with himself, she had been much more than that. There had been something between them that neither had ever put into words, as if talking about it, exposing it, would have opened a crack in the earth beneath their feet. She would be happier without him—surely she was by now.

A car pulled into the lot, the driver glancing toward Max. It was the electric company employee he had spoken with before. She must have recognized Max, because she smiled to herself as though she had just won a bet. Then she got out of her car and walked into the building.

CHAPTER 7

Pip was a cute little guy. The man had seen pictures, but those pictures didn’t quite capture the innocence of the boy’s eyes. He wore pajamas with stars and moons on them and walked in bare feet. Pip didn’t look frightened so much as curious. The man waited for Pip to say something, and when he didn’t, the man said. “My name’s Spud. I’m a friend of your mom’s. She asked me to stay with you while she runs some errands.”

“Where’s Linda?” the boy asked.

“Linda is sick today, so your mom called me.” He walked to Pip and squatted down. “Are you hungry?”

Pip shook his head.

“Thirsty?”

Again no.

“I need you to stay down here for a little while—is that okay?”

Pip nodded, but didn’t speak, keeping his eyes on Spud as he made his way back upstairs. Once there, the man checked the dot on the computer screen to see that Sandy was driving a direct path to the bank. He unmuted his phone and whispered a few words of encouragement. “You’re doing great, Sandy.” Through the app he saw her nod.

He muted his earpiece and walked out to the garage, which held a well-ordered bench under a pegboard filled with tools, each outlined in black ink to show its proper place. In a cupboard, he found some telephone wire. He untangled it and gave it a tug to test its strength. He was about to close the cupboard when he saw a spool of wire, the kind a person might use to hang a picture. That would work even better. He unrolled a length and cut it with a tin snips.

He picked up two small paintbrushes with plastic handles and tied an end of the cable to each. He gave the wire a tug, and just that easy, he’d made a garrote—so simple and yet so lethal. Looking at the weapon nearly made him nauseous. He folded the garrote into the pocket of his hoodie and went back into the house.