That morning, she spent two dollars and forty cents on a bus fare, and rode forty minutes west, and walked the last mile and a half.

Part Six: The House on Ellerby Lane

The gate had a guard.

He was maybe twenty-four and he had a clipboard, and Maya stood in front of his window in a stolen canvas jacket with dried blood on the waistband of her trousers and said she was there about the housekeeping position at the Vance residence.

“Name?”

And here she made the mistake that nearly killed her three weeks later, and she made it for the most human reason in the world: she was so tired that lying required energy she did not have.

“Maya Sterling.”