Someone else, somewhere, had seen it in real time, and picked up a phone, and sent the police to that house while it was still unfolding.

Someone inside the machine had, at the last possible moment, turned against it.

I did not yet know who.

But I owed them my safety, and possibly my life.

Chapter 11 — He Was Paid

The next morning, after hours of testimony at the police station, a text arrived from an unknown number: Do not trust anyone in that family.

Not even Diane. By the following afternoon, Raymond was being held without bond, and Christopher had been released on bail, under investigation — and he called me at once.

“My dad is going to take full responsibility for all of it,” he said, desperate.