He’s twice my size, easily. I’d need my gun to fight back, the one I’ve hidden under the mattress in my bedroom, on the other side of where Caleb is sitting. I’d have to get around him to make it. Impossible.

As if Caleb can sense my thoughts, he stands up, grabs the knife, and moves in front of the door to the bedroom. His expression is chilly and flat, as if he’s thinking instead of feeling every move he makes. Floating above himself.

My diaphragm contracts with dread, my whole body stiffened to wire. I glance at Cricket. She’s so smart and even more intuitive. I can see that she senses something’s off in the way she keeps her eyes on me. Her position hasn’t changed. She’s still sitting by the coffee table, but her gaze is fixed and alert. She’s telling me she’s on duty. That I’m not alone.

“Why don’t I light a fire?” I suggest, trying to buy time. “It’s cold in here.”

“Sure,” he says stiffly, pointing to the woodstove with the tip of his knife. “Just don’t try anything.”

His warning makes me think he’s read my body language correctly. I want to bolt, to scream, to attack him and take my chances. Instead I kneel by the woodbox and take out the box of matches, narrow splints of kindling, newspaper. “What do you want?” I ask, aware that my voice sounds oddly hollow. “Why did you come?”

His mouth tightens almost microscopically. “I think I should be asking you the same, Anna.”

I glance toward the blade he’s holding lightly in his right hand, nearly grazing his thigh. He’s not brandishing it, not behaving erratically. If anything, he’s too calm, more than certain he has the upper hand here. Because he does. “What do you mean?”

“You’re the one who came after me. I was leaving you alone. I was showing respect.” The word rings out strangely, with heat and contour.

It means something. It’s a key. My thinking is still slow and unreliable, perforated with fear. But I’ve been here before. Talked to dozens of murderers and psychopaths. Done complicated profiling, written oceans of case notes. I’ve also stood in Caleb’s room, his laboratory. Somehow I have to use what I know to piece it all together. The origin story that’s driving everything. Old and powerful. Propulsive. What he’s done and still means to do. What’s happening now, in this room.

“I respect you, Caleb,” I say. “We’ve been friends a long time.”

“That’s right. We have.” He leans against the doorjamb, his black sweater and black jeans like an unbroken slash against the white paint. “Except you’re not the same, Anna. You used to understand me. I thought you did, anyway.”