If I’d had my cuffs and my weapon, our tussle would have come to an end. Instead, Robbie rose from the floor with the blind confidence of someone who knows they’re doomed no matter what. It couldn’t have been easy, spending two decades congratulating himself on concealing a crime only to be exposed by a woman he still thought of as an inconsequential kid. He was about to be stripped of everything that mattered—his reputation, his job, his family—and as far as he was concerned, I alone was to blame. I was fighting a man who had nothing more to lose.

In Cheryl’s tidy beige living room, we stood sweaty and panting, circling each other like hunter and prey. I brought up my fists and assumed the fighting stance I’d practiced in the safety of a studio. Robbie just laughed. His hands hung by his sides, weighted down by fists.

“Did you really think no one would find out?” I asked. “Even after you drugged Crissy? Even if you’d succeeded in killing her?”

Robbie gritted his teeth and said nothing.

“Your mother just watched you assault me. Her reaction to my questions corroborates my theory about your involvement in Brett’s death. She’s a witness to it all—and your kid’s asleep in the next room. Come on, Robbie. Think this through.”

But Robbie wasn’t interested in being reasoned with. He swung at me but missed as I evaded his fist and caught his wrist with my left hand. With the fingers of my right bundled into the head of a snake, I struck at the hollow of his throat and kneed him in the groin. He doubled over, gasping for air, and my lips curled into a smile. I was feeling good, as nimble and alert as during my best moments in class, on those green-flag days when conditions are perfect and everything falls into place. I imagined it was Bram I was fighting, and that I had just one chance left. I was high on my success, luxuriating in the pure, clean power of my limbs. Maybe I’m okay after all, I thought. Maybe I’m better than ever.

The blow came from the left, an open-palmed strike that spun my head halfway around and obliterated my balance. My limbs unspooled like balls of yarn and I collapsed onto the carpet. There was a high-pitched ringing in my ear that made me think of those drive-in mosquitos, and I tasted the sharp tang of blood where I’d bitten a chunk out of my tongue.

Crouching to lean over me, Robbie laughed again, spittle flying. The sound left me cold. He said, “I wasn’t going to kill him, all I wanted was his stash. But I’m not sorry I did.”

I drove my right knee between his thighs a second time, rolled out from underneath him, and scrambled to my feet. I turned toward the kitchen—I needed a weapon, something to help me finish this—but Robbie caught me by the neck and hauled me back.