Before he could close the truck door, he heard a voice over the howl of the wind, whispering in his ear.

“No, Daddy.”

Clark spun around. “Mary?”

He looked for her spirit in the darkness, but he was alone. His mind was playing games with him. Even so, the memory of his daughter’s voice, which was as clear and familiar as if she had been standing next to him, softened the fury in his heart. Clark stood for a long moment, hesitating. The storm was close and violent. The brittle air felt as if it would snap.

He wondered if Mary had come back to stop him. To tell him that what he was doing was wrong.

He threw the bat back into the truck, where it banged against the far door. He pulled himself up into the driver’s seat and held tightly to the steering wheel. The gales rattled the pickup. He took out his wallet and removed the photograph he kept of himself and Mary on the beach. The picture had been taken two summers ago. After staring at it silently and remembering the perfect Sunday afternoon they had spent together, he craned his neck back until his skull bumped against the head rest. His mouth hung open, gulping air. The tears he had been waiting for finally came. They were a silent army, marching out of his eyes, streaking his stubbled chin. He didn’t move or react, or feel his shoulders clench with sobs. It was just his grief letting go in a calm rain.

When it was over, Clark straightened up and wiped his face. He couldn’t do what he had been planning. He couldn’t kill in cold blood. He reached for the key, wanting to be away from this terrible place. He hoped that Donna was waiting for him at home. Maybe she was right. Maybe something could be salvaged between them. There had been an old yearning in her eyes at the bar, like an ember in a fire that could be coaxed back to life with a warm breath.

Before he could start the engine of his truck, however, he saw a ripple of movement on the front porch of the house across the tracks.

The door opened like the lips of a black monster, and someone tall and skinny sneaked out into the night. It was Finn, nearly invisible in dark clothes. He took each step awkwardly, like a sick man. He stopped at the bottom step, and his head swiveled, surveying the neighborhood. Clark held his breath as Finn’s eyes lingered on his pickup, but the darkness protected him. When Finn thought he was alone, he crept beside the towering lilacs in the front yard and made his way stealthily to his RAV.

Clark knew exactly what Finn was doing. It was the watching hour. It didn’t matter that a sweet girl had died. It didn’t matter that his face had been exposed to the city as a suspect. He was off to find another window, another girl.