He believed a widow cut off from her checking account and locked out of her home would have no choice but to give in before December twelfth.

He didn’t know about the copper key box buried under the garage flagstone.

He didn’t know Vance was already putting the ledger documents together for the bank board meeting.

I sat on a folding chair in Sophie’s little kitchen, looking at my two packed suitcases.

At five in the morning the streetlights on Elm Street were still buzzing in the cold mist.

I parked Sophie’s car two blocks away so Dean wouldn’t hear a strange engine idling past his bedroom window.