“You folks lost?” Duckworth asked.

“You know how to get to the park where the falls is?” the man asked. “Wife and I are looking for the spot where Olivia Fisher was killed.”

A woman in the passenger seat leaned forward and held up what looked like a newspaper clipping. “We’re checking all the spots related to the town’s mass killing last year.”

The man smiled. “We’re true crime nuts. You know the way?”

Duckworth said, “Hang a right here, then the next right, and just keep on going.”

The driver looked puzzled. “Won’t that put us on the road back to Albany?”

“Yup,” Duckworth said. He put the passenger window back up, took his foot off the brake, and drove off.

He parked half a block down from Knight’s. Before entering the premises, he inspected the alley next to the building. Brian Gaffney’s last memory before his two-day blackout was of this location. It was no more than six feet wide, which allowed room to step around a line of trash cans. At the back end it opened out onto a small parking lot.

Duckworth walked the length of it, glancing down at the cracked and broken asphalt. Nothing caught his eye, and he didn’t know what he was expecting to find. Then he cast his eyes skyward, hoping he might see a security camera mounted to the wall of the bar, or the building next to it, which was a dry-cleaning operation. No such luck.

He came back out onto the street. It was early May—nearly a year since the catastrophic events that had taken so many lives in Promise Falls—and each day seemed just a little longer than the last. The town was planning a special event later in the month to commemorate those who’d lost their lives, and Duckworth had been asked to be a guest of honor.

He wanted nothing to do with it.

He pulled on the door to Knight’s and went inside. It wouldn’t be fair to call this place a dive. Although a little rough around the edges, it was a decent neighborhood bar. It had the usual trappings. The neon signs for Bud Lite and Jack Daniels and Michelob. There were tables scattered about the room, booths down the right side, and the bar itself over on the left, half a dozen people perched on stools, watching a ball game playing on the TV hanging off the wall above a set of shelves stocked with liquor bottles.

The place was about half full, and Duckworth guessed it would be close to packed as more people got off work. Knight’s didn’t just serve booze. Four guys sitting in a booth were feasting on a plate of chicken wings. The smells of fried food and grease wafted up Duckworth’s nostrils and he found himself instantly starving.

Chicken wings, he told himself, were usually served with celery and carrot sticks. That made them a balanced meal, yes? But he knew that when he got home in another couple of hours, Maureen would have pulled something together for them for dinner. Something that was not battered or deep-fried or dripping in sauce.