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For the last five years he’d found himself always thinking ahead, always calculating the next step, never fully able to relax and enjoy his blessed life. He’d set up several motion-triggered Canary Flex cameras on the exterior of the house. He didn’t like surprise visitors.

Normally, Grant found serenity in mindless tasks like painting or sanding: a chance to be in his own head and mull things over, let his mind wander. But the next morning, as he brushed on epoxy, his brain churned with fear— What if Newman’s body washed up onshore? What if there were security cameras in the harbor in Hamlin? Capturing video of Newman coming aboard the Suzanne B ?

Jesus, he didn’t want to think about it.

He was startled by a knock at his workshop door.

He put down the brush, went to the door. It was Alec Wood, the deputy police chief in Derryfield, who was also a friend of his and Sarah’s. Alec was tall and slim, around thirty. He was wearing his navy-blue Derryfield Police uniform.

“This an okay time?” Alec was as un-coplike as you could be, soft-spoken and informal. He was good looking, with a strong jaw and a heavy brow that gave him a vaguely threatening look.

“Sure, bud. What’s up?”

Alec had once confided to Grant, after many beers, that he had originally joined the police to write a book about what it was like. He was a writer, once. But then he found he liked police work far more than writing, which was brutally solitary. He never wrote the book.

“Listen,” Alec said, “the FBI called, and they’re on their way here to talk to you.”

“The FBI ? Is this about that no-show passenger again?” Grant hadn’t told Alec about his visit from Lundberg, but of course Alec knew about it. Lundberg would have had to get permission from the police department in Derryfield to come here and ask Grant questions in a missing-persons case.

“It is. They want to talk to you. I didn’t want you to be surprised.”

“Huh,” Grant said. “Why the FBI?”

Alec shrugged. Nonchalantly, he said, “Dunno. It’s an interstate case. There’s that.” He smiled, but he was looking at Grant curiously.

“Bizarre,” Grant said. The word case terrified him. He suddenly felt cold. Goosebumps broke out all over his arms. He shook his head. “Thanks for telling me.”

Alarm bells were going off in his head. He tried to look as unruffled as Alec.

Had the body turned up?

He swallowed. His mouth was dry. His stomach twisted.

They’re on their way . What did that even mean?

“Sure thing,” Alec said. “Listen. I don’t know what’s going on here, and I can tell you’re not about to tell me. But I get the sense you might be in some kind of trouble, and what I want you to know is—look, we’re pals. If you need some help, talk to me.”

Grant nodded. The last thing he could do was tell Alec what was going on. “Thank you. But I’m okay.”

*

After Alec left, Grant returned to the workshop. He opened a closet that was neatly stacked with fiberglass cleaners and marine wax and cans of marine-grade epoxy and polyurethane sealants. At the back of the bottom shelf, behind a row of anti-fouling paints, he found the small black Under Armour gym bag containing a several-inch-thick stack of banknotes, half twenties and half fifties. Just over $48,000.

Forty-five minutes later, returning home from the town’s True Value hardware store, he stopped just before the turn into his long driveway.

Alec’s police cruiser was parked up by the house.

Instinct told him to hide. He quietly pulled off the road and parked the car in a copse of pines, well hidden from the main road and the house. His mind was racing. Why was Alec back already? What if he was there to arrest him? Yes, they were friends, but the law was the law, after all.

It could be worse , he thought. Could be the Russians. They wouldn’t bother with niceties.

The truck idling, he took out his phone, opened the Canary app, and a video window opened. He was watching a live feed of the exterior of his own house, with sound. The Canary Flex cameras’ resolution was good and clear, high-def video, 1080 pixels. One camera was mounted inconspicuously above the front door. It had a wide-angle lens, but Grant could see only Alec, standing on the porch, and part of the driveway.

Why was Alec there again? Waiting for him to return?

Just then, a vehicle on the main road rocketed by him. He caught a glimpse: a black SUV, a Chevy Tahoe with official U.S. government plates. Its tires squealed as it passed out of sight and then slowed. Then Grant heard the familiar crunch of gravel as it turned up his driveway. He glanced at his phone, watched Alec Wood, from his place on the porch, turn back to look at the Tahoe as it approached the house. He appeared surprised.

The Canary cameras had sound, and he was able to hear through the app as someone shouted from inside the Tahoe, “Where is Grant Anderson?”

“Who are you?” he heard Alec’s voice through the Canary app.

“Is Grant Anderson at home?”

The black Tahoe pulled up and stopped beside Alec’s cruiser. Grant watched as two men got out, the driver and a passenger. The driver was bullnecked and bald, maybe in his twenties; the other had graying copper hair and looked significantly older. Even through the security camera app, Grant could see the apple-shaped cicatrix under the older man’s left eye.

He instantly recognized the face.

It was Berzin.

The realization filled him with terror.

Now the three men were speaking more quietly. Grant turned up the volume on his phone, watched the video, listening hard.

“I talked to you before,” Alec Wood was saying. “You said you were FBI. Well, I called the FBI’s Boston office, and they never heard of you. Let me see your ID.”

“We’re not FBI,” the younger man said. “We’re government intelligence.”

“What are we talking about, CIA? NSA?”

Berzin said something Grant couldn’t make out. He heard only “need-to-know.”

“I want to see your credentials, or you’re going to have to leave my town.”

“Right here,” the driver said, his hand out, holding some kind of paper.

In the video feed, Grant watched Alec approach the driver. He looked visibly suspicious, a hand on his weapon. “Your vehicle is a rental. I can see the barcode sticker on the windshield.” Alec said something about running the license plate, then pulled out his weapon and aimed it at the two men.

There was a sudden loud pock . Grant watched on his phone as Alec jerked sideways and then crumpled to the driveway, blood seeping from a wound in his chest into the gravel around him.

Grant gasped, his heart racing. His fingers suddenly shaking, he fumbled with his phone, accidentally dropped it. Picked it up again, increased the volume on the video feed. He watched as Berzin looked down at Alec’s body for a moment and then ran back to his own vehicle, followed by his colleague.

Grant heard the two men’s voices indistinctly. He dropped his phone onto the truck’s front passenger seat, shifted out of Park into Drive, and hit the gas.