“Every time I turned her in the night,” I said, my voice dropping, looking down at the broken man on the floor, “she had her hand on that music box, crying over what her sweet little boy had become.”

Agent Harris said nothing more. She hauled Mark up by his collar, pressed him to the wall, and the handcuffs clicked — the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.

They dragged him out the front door, his pathetic screams fading down the street, and the house went, at last, truly quiet.

Chapter 7 — Autumn

Six months passed with the slow grace of a fading storm.

The heavy heat of that summer gave way to a crisp coastal autumn.

I stood on a grassy hill above an ocean I’d never known before, looking down at a modest polished headstone.