The second time Jonathan looked at the dashboard and saw that he was driving better than fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit, he set the cruise control. It killed him to do it. He wanted to fly, teleport, reverse fucking time to be there before Roy had ever gotten to the house. But he needed to be careful. He might actually burst into flames if he got pulled over.

The traffic light on the road ahead jumped up to yellow. Goddammit.

He glanced into the rearview mirror, but it was more automatic than informative. Everything was panic blurred. He pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator and took the intersection arguably in time, an argument he begged the universe not to make him have right now. He checked the mirror more earnestly for a cop. Nothing.

Rush hour was at full clog. In clear lanes, he would have made it home in less than twenty-five minutes, but at the twenty-five-minute mark, he was only marginally past halfway there. He was hot and nauseated, his mouth dry, his skin thrumming, and he hated every single person on the road in front of him. He needed to scream and pound the steering wheel, but he didn’t know what that could unleash. Once he started, he might not be able to stop.

A clear spot opened up and he changed lanes without signaling and cursed again under his breath. He checked one more time for flashing lights behind him and tried not to count time.

Interior 1 had alerted twice in the first mile that he was out of the restaurant. Speeding was bad. Speeding and weaving through traffic was worse. Speeding and swerving and checking the texts from his home security app was madness. But he did it anyway. He had to know.

He was almost home. Roy hadn’t touched the coat closet yet.

That Interior 1 had been silent for almost forty-five minutes was scarcely good news. If Roy had left the house, the exterior cameras would have reported it back. His phone was convulsing with texts and calls from Donna, but nothing from the cameras. Roy was still inside. But he hadn’t been back into the foyer in a while. What the fuck is he doing in there?

The tires whined in his too-fast turn into the neighborhood. Jonathan eased his foot off the gas. The muscles in his right leg trembled in protest. His throat clicked and spasmed when he tried to swallow nothing down a dry throat.

A neighbor he’d seen before but never spoken to stiff-legged it down the sidewalk in shiny green shorts and a thick white headband that could only have been brand-new. It glowed in the lowering light like a halo that had lost its float. The man pumped his arms unself-consciously high, smiling as he did it, or maybe wincing.