About fifteen feet away, two droplights hung from the ceiling, providing a circle of illumination. Blake kneeled on the floor, looking even more disheveled than he had at our house. His hands were raised and clenched behind his neck, so he looked like a prisoner facing a firing squad. Behind him, a shadowy figure loomed, one I couldn’t make out in any detail at all.

“Blake? What is this?” I asked.

“It’s history,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s the past refusing to die.”

I waited for the other person to step forward, to resolve into someone I could recognize. But they remained still and silent.

“I’m calling the police,” I said, reaching for my phone with one hand while hanging on to the bat with the other.

The figure behind Blake shifted and came forward. It reached up and angled one of the droplights so it shone on his face. A gaunt face, pale. With brown eyes that caught the light and seemed to glow with some combination of anger and manic energy.

“Put the phone away, Ryan,” the man said. “And the bat.”

My head cocked at the sound of my name. Had I heard him correctly?

I kept quiet, watching him, studying him.

But I shifted my weight, lifting the bat.

“I don’t . . .”

“You don’t know me, do you?” he asked.

“I’m sorry. I . . .”

He angled the light so more hit his face. And he smiled. I saw the missing tooth, the brown eyes. The short hair.

This man had come to our back door and harassed Amanda.

But it wasn’t just that. Something about his face scratched at my memory. I knew him. I’d seen him before. It had been years, but I knew him.

“Come on, Ryan,” Blake said from his spot on the floor.

“Yeah, come on, Ryan,” the man said. “The last time you saw me, I was driving toward my own doom. Surely you remember that night, don’t you?”

It all came back, like a torrent of rushing water. Ferncroft. Sigil and Shield. The night Maggie and Emily Steiner collided with a drunk driver.

The man grinned wider, the missing tooth a cavelike gaping hole.

“Hello, Aaron,” I said. “Long time no see.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY

Aaron shifted his weight from one foot to the other. When he did, the gun in his free hand, black and sleek, caught the glow from the light above. Aaron pressed it against the side of Blake’s head, forcing him to slump ever so slightly as the force increased. Blake winced.

“Easy, Aaron,” I said. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Nobody does.”

“Oh, you don’t? All of a sudden you care about other people in a way you never did before.”

“Aaron, look . . .”

“Look?”