Rachel reached out and took my elbow, her grip firm through my sweater.

Mark turned around one last time, his forehead wet, his eyes wide as he tried to pull his shirt collar flat with his bound hands.

“This isn’t over, Diane,” he called out over the roof of the car.

“Ten minutes is up, Mr.

Whitaker,” Officer Hale said, stepping between us and opening the rear door of the cruiser.

I stood on my driveway and watched in silence as Mark and Vanessa shoved their flat-screen television back into their sedan while the cruiser’s red lights reflected off my front windows.

Marcus came back at twenty past four with a metal box under one arm and the correct strike plate in a paper sleeve, the right one this time.