Being alone was not a threat to me.

It was the only thing I’d actually had practice at.

Across the narrow road, my neighbor stood by his mailbox, watching.

Everyone in Ardenwood knew Cormac Ridley as the lonely former sheriff who lived in a weathered farmhouse with one old dog and no visitors.

He was tall, silver at the temples, and quiet in the particular way that makes cruel people nervous — the stillness of a man who has seen a great deal and feels no need to narrate it.

In a year of living across the road from him, I had exchanged perhaps a dozen words with the man.