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Grant tied the boat to the dock and once again scrubbed down the deck with bleach. He finished with a spray of the alcohol solution. No trace of blood, as far as he could discern. Just to be sure, he hosed down the deck again and washed it again with boat soap, and then the bleach, and then the alcohol.

If there was an investigation, the alcohol and the bleach wouldn’t be suspicious, he thought. They’d be part of the close of any normal fishing excursion.

Smelling of bleach, he put away the deck chairs and locked up the pilothouse. He said hello to a fisherman on the pier he knew, then made his way to the row of parked cars. There was only one Porsche parked there, a black 911. It was a very good car, the sort of car he once used to drive but hadn’t for a long time.

He unlocked his truck. On the floor in front of the passenger’s seat, he set down a plastic bag containing the striped bass he’d caught. After his struggle with Newman, he’d forced himself to catch a fish, even though all he wanted to do was get home. But he had to be able to explain the time he’d spent on the water.

As he drove home, he noticed that the leaves had turned a spectacular array of colors, from brilliant red to blazing orange to bright yellow and deep russet. This was why leaf peepers drove from miles away to see New Hampshire’s trees. But he wasn’t enjoying the foliage. His entire body was crackling with tension.

From the truck, he called Lyle. “The guy never showed,” he said. “I waited a good long time, and he never appeared. So, hope you don’t mind, I took the boat out to catch some.”

“No problem, but . . . that’s weird,” Lyle said, sneezing, sounding congested. “He even prepaid and everything. That’s really bizarre. Well, sorry for the trouble.”

*

There was a CREAKY old joke in the boatbuilding business: How do you make a million dollars building boats? Start with two million.

Grant Anderson was an excellent craftsman of wooden boats but not a great businessman. Which was ironic, since he used to be a finance guy. One problem was that he took only cash, and a lot of people preferred to pay with a credit card. Another was that he underpriced his work; he knew that. He felt lucky to have any work at all.

He’d arrived in Derryfield five years ago looking for a carpentry job and managed to get hired by Old Man Casey, a boatbuilder looking for an assistant. John Casey had spent his life building boats but had grown tired of sanding and painting and scraping and sweeping floors.

Grant swept and sanded and scraped and painted and, along the way, learned how to build boats. Old Man Casey wasn’t much of a teacher, but he would answer questions.

Grant had invited Sarah over for dinner again, and he wished he hadn’t. But he had to keep on living a normal life, as if nothing had happened. In the afternoon, he had filleted the striped bass and marinated it in olive oil and garlic and lemon juice, and now he was searing it on the charcoal grill behind the house. Fish this fresh, especially striper, was always delicious. But he had no appetite.

He kept seeing the dead man’s face, the slack mouth, the ruined throat. He kept replaying that terrifying moment when the bang stick at the end of the speargun had struck Newman’s jaw and fired off a round. He couldn’t forget the feeling of the man’s hot blood running down his fingers as he lifted the body toward the side of the boat and slid it overboard.

He was almost certain no one had seen him with Frederick Newman, but he couldn’t be sure. There was a possibility someone had seen them together, at the marina or out on the water. He was almost certain no one had seen him slide the body overboard—he had been out on the water a good distance from anyone—but there was always that nagging possibility.

There was too much he didn’t know, that was what was tormenting him.

Was it the traffic cam? Derryfield had recently installed its first traffic camera. Maybe an image of his face had gone out. Maybe that was how he’d been discovered after so long. After he’d been so careful. Had he been sloppy?

A lot of people were looking for him, he knew—they’d been looking for five years. But in this small town in New Hampshire, away from any big city, he was hiding in plain sight. Live like you’re supposed to be here , he’d once read. He was Grant Anderson, carpenter and boatbuilder and good citizen of Derryfield, New Hampshire.

He flipped the fish over to get some grill marks on the other side and moved the serving platter closer. He was thinking about his go-bag, his “bug-out bag,” as it was called in the books he’d read, on a shelf in the workshop. He’d have to check through it tonight, make sure everything was still good. He kept another bag in his truck; he should check that one over, too.

And he wondered if tonight would be the night he told Sarah.

And if so, how much should he tell her?

The striper had come out perfectly. Grant could tell by looking at it. Sarah had set the table and put out a salad and some boiled tiny new potatoes.

Tonight, she looked tired, but still as pretty as she’d been when he first met her at the Starlite Diner in Derryfield five years earlier. She was playing a bouncy, upbeat Taylor Swift song—“Shake It Off”—loud, on his speaker system, but Grant wasn’t feeling it.

“How’s Mr. Madigan’s boat coming along?” They sat at the kitchen table.

Distracted, he didn’t respond. She put down her knife and looked up for a moment. “Earth to Grant? You there?”

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, not sure—this last batch of epoxy isn’t curing right.”

“So what happens next?”

“I’ll check it out again before I go to bed. May have to reapply.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Shouldn’t be. I told Madigan November sometime. I’ll make it.”

“This is delicious, Grant. What did you do with this?”

“The usual. Caught it this morning, so . . .”

“Well, it’s great.”

He had to maintain a normal facade, keep Sarah from having suspicions, and tonight it was taking considerable effort. “Report cards coming along?”

“They’re called ‘progress reports,’ and they’re taking forever.” She put butter on her potatoes. “Plus, I had an annoying email to deal with.”

“Oh?”

“Atticus’s mom. Remember Atticus?

“Yeah, sure. The kid who’s always wearing Star Wars T-shirts?”

“That could describe half the class. They all wear Star Wars T-shirts. Anyway, his mother is worried because he keeps telling her he doesn’t want to go to school. This kid Atticus is the happiest kid, I swear. Like, the happiest kid in the class.”

“So why does he not want to go to school?

“He tells her that kids have been saying mean things to him.”

“Like?”

“‘Underwear Head.’”

He forced himself to smile, to push his preoccupation aside. He wasn’t going to tell her yet, he’d decided. Not until he had to. Which could be any day . . . but not yet. He didn’t have to do it yet.

“That’s mean, I guess?” he said after a pause. “Have they been saying actual mean things to him?”

“Not in my earshot. Maybe during recess?”

He’d stopped listening. He was thinking: Had Frederick Newman sent a picture of him or a text to his colleagues? To let them know they’d finally found him? If so, both he and Sarah were dead.

That thought was terrifying. He had to get his head back into the conversation.

“Huh.” He was barely paying attention to what she was saying.

“Why aren’t you eating, Grant? You haven’t touched your fish. It’s delicious.”

“Yeah, thanks. What were you saying?”

“You’re not even listening to me. I mean, what is with you? You invite me over for dinner, and you’re somewhere else.”

“Sorry, I’m preoccupied.”

“Something wrong?”

Grant shook his head.

“Why am I not surprised? You’re not there. I feel like I don’t even know who you are sometimes.”

He took another tasteless bite of fish.

“You’re doing that thing you always do—there’s stuff you’re not telling me, you’re always preoccupied. I can’t live like this.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

“I mean, you’re a great guy and everything, but I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this.”

“I know,” he said again. “I understand.”

“But do you? I feel like I have a lot to offer.”

“You do. You’re incredible—”

“Oh, yeah? You never talk about your past. I don’t know a damned thing about you. You never open up to me.”

“I know, I—”

“I can’t live like this.”

“I get it.”

“Something’s missing,” she said. “I just don’t get you.”

He stood up. “I want you to have something.” He went to the cupboard under the kitchen sink and found, behind the Drano, a large Ziploc bag. He handed it to Sarah.

“What’s this? A bunch of . . . cash?” She knew he accepted only cash for his work and kept a lot in the boat shed.

“Yes. And a burner phone.”

“What the hell, Grant . . . ?”

“If anything happens to me, if I have to take off suddenly, this is how you can reach me. I’ve programmed in a mobile phone number for me.”

“‘Take off suddenly’—what’s going on ? Where are you going?”

He shook his head. “Maybe nowhere. Maybe nothing will happen.” How do you even start? Grant wondered. The less she knew, the better. The safer, for her. “This isn’t the time to get into it. I just need you to trust me for now.”

“That’s not good enough,” Sarah said. “I want to know what you’re talking about.”

Grant paused. “Soon,” he said.