“Keep it like that,” Margaret said.

“I’ll meet you at the bank branch on Main Street tomorrow at ten.

We’ll go through the transaction logs together.”

“Thank you, Margaret,” I said, and set the receiver back in its cradle.

I made my way down the dark hallway to the screen door of the back porch.

The damp chill of the autumn night pressed through the wire mesh, bringing the smell of wet earth and falling maple leaves from the trees lining Lakeview Drive.

Three hundred feet across the trimmed lawn, light spilled from the second-floor windows of the guest house over the three-car garage.