He didn’t understand everything in her books. But he could tell she made good stories.

But most of all Max remembered the crimes. All the crimes in her books. All the work she did to make them realistic. And scary.

And Max remembered the killing of the man in one of her books. The husband who would hit his wife just because he was bored. He remembered how that man died.

Alcohol and sleeping pills.

Max knew his father liked both of those things.

He also knew his father had turned into someone mean. Mean and fierce.

Like a ghost suddenly stepping inside his body, Max felt his muscles move. His muscles were talking, and soon his brain got the message.

You have to do something.

You have to tell the truth.

Because the unsafe man’s going to take her away.

Forever.

And you’ll be alone.

Max opened his car door and stepped out, his boot plunging deep into the snow.

The moment he was outside the car, the cold air taking him into its arms, Max descended into a fog.

One step out. Then another.

He seemed to float through the snow. To the unsafe man’s car. To the man’s window.

Directly to the mouth of the monster.

He was hardly aware of his movements. Or of the sun. Of the exhaust of the two cars spiraling into the cold morning. He did hear a bird, just in that moment, a bird that didn’t escape the storm, a short cry, lonely and unreturned, then repeated.

It was maybe the saddest sound Max had ever heard. And it took a little of the fury away. Enough for him to get the courage to do what he needed to do. To think straight, at least long enough.

Max rapped on the glass of the unsafe man’s window.

The man rolled it down.

Sixty-Nine

Over Rose’s shoulder, Colin saw the back door of the Suburban open. He’d thought Rose had been alone.

Her son emerged from the car, looked first at the ground, then swiveled his head to them. Pale skin, moppy brown-blond hair. A cute kid, but there was nothing light and airy about the expression he wore.

Rose turned her head, following Colin’s distracted attention.

“Max, oh my god.”

“I didn’t know he was with you,” Colin said.

Colin expected the boy to go to his mother, but he didn’t. He and Rose watched in silence as Max trudged along the snowy country road, around the front of the Jeep, then stood directly next to Colin’s window, looking in. Then the boy knocked on the glass.

Colin lowered his window; a chill seemed to flow off the boy and swept inside the car. The kid just stood there, unblinking.

“Max,” Rose said, “you need to get back in the car. It’s cold out. We’re almost done talking.”

“So you’re Max,” Colin said to the boy, trying to put any cheer he could into his voice. He reached a hand out the open window. Max didn’t take it. “I’m Colin.”