“Hand it over? Do you think you’ll be off the hook, then? The police won’t take anything off our hands; they’ll be all over us like a rash. This isn’t just a break-in; this is news. This”—he made a broad gesture—“will be the talk of the whole country before you know it.” He glanced fearfully at the clock hanging over the counter. “We can discuss it later. Emma and Thom will be home in half an hour. We need to get him out of here.”

She looked at him in confusion. This was moving too fast.

“Now, Helen! We can’t let them see this.”

“OK. I’ll meet them outside and take them to your mother’s.” She tried to get through to him, but there was a wild expression in his eyes. She’d never seen him like this before. As calmly as possible, she continued. “If I hadn’t done anything, he would have killed me. You too, probably. It was a life-or-death situation. Life or death. The police will understand; everyone will understand. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

“But will they believe that in court? What about my customers, the guys in the kitchen? Your boss? Your colleagues? The neighborhood? The teachers at school?”

“Who cares if they believe it? It’s the truth.”

“There’s no such thing as truth, Helen, only perception. And that’s different for everybody. If we report this—everything will change.”

“Everything already has changed.” Helen looked from Werner to the blood spattered on the counter and the white tiles above it. She had chosen those tiles herself shortly after they had bought the house. “Traditional Dutch white”—now stained with the blood of a stranger.

A dead stranger.

She began to feel nauseated. She’d gunned him down and left him for dead. Literally. She had watched in a trance while he succumbed to his injuries. She, Helen Möhring, recovery nurse, had let someone die before her very eyes. It was her job to do everything she could to keep people alive. Yet she had done nothing.

Would the judge believe her if she explained that she’d been in shock? How seriously would the prosecutor take the postmortem report, which would reveal that the robber had suffered for several agonizing minutes before finally expiring?

Werner’s fingers dug hard into her arms. “Helen, listen to me now. Think of us—think of Emma, Thom, and Sara. We have three wonderful children who we can’t keep locked away in a golden cage.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“How do you know that boy doesn’t have friends who will want to settle the score? Brothers, a father, or an uncle out for revenge? An eye for an eye?”

Helen froze. The fear penetrated her physically, like a sharp, icy hand that reached through her back and seized her heart.