“You’re the only person who can say what happened that night, the only one who can back up my story. And you were always the only one who knows who he was before. You’re the only one who can put it all together. Before, it was just his word against yours. And . . .”

“I know. Who would believe me?”

She chewed her bottom lip. “It’s not your fault. He made it this way. He moved everything around the way he wanted it.”

Roy nodded.

Marcelline patted the table with her fingertips and looked up at him from under her study of the tabletop. “I have an idea.”

Roy held his breath.

“You can get in and take the painting—”

“He’ll kill me!”

“He won’t. He won’t know until it’s all over. And then he won’t be able to do anything about it. Meet him tomorrow like you were going to. Stay cool. Act normal. Ask him for twenty bucks and get out of there. Then later, or the next day even, break a window, take the painting. In and out. I’ll pay you.”

“It’ll be on camera! Just like the video you showed me! He’ll know it was me.”

“You’ll be gone before he can do anything about it. Do you think he’ll say anything? He can’t.”

The panic was back in Roy, climbing his throat. But so was the shining want of something that someone was offering. She was selling him a way to not feel so awful. A way to not have to ever see John again. Roy wanted to do what she said. He wanted to make this end with her not hating him, with him not hating himself.

She kept going. “If I do it, if it’s me on the video, he’ll know I’m alive. Then you’re a danger to him, for real. You have nothing. Do you think he’ll ever let you have anything? You have no way of getting out of here, Roy. Where I am, I can’t even help you. But if you get the painting, he’ll never be able to say anything about it. What could he do? You’ll be gone.

“I can get rid of the painting. I know how. I don’t know if I can get my life back. I don’t know if you can get your life back either. But maybe we can have something else. Something good. And we can take it away from him.”

There it was. He could make the worst thing he ever did right. Or righter. Something good.

He said yes. He’d never owned much of a no.

She told him where John’s house was. She showed him the video again so that he’d know just where to find the painting. It was right inside the door. Five steps, max.