He lunged for a duffel bag stuffed with cash and passports, and grabbed for his car keys with shaking hands, and he did not make it to the door.

Chapter 24 — State Police

The front windows of the cabin came in all at once, in a shower of glass and blinding light, and the night filled with shouting.

“State police!

Get on the ground!

Hands where we can see them, now!” Tactical officers poured through the shattered frames and the broken doorway, and Richard Cole, who had traded two lives for money and had believed himself untouchable for five years, threw his hands into the air and dropped to his knees on the floor of the cabin he had bought with a dead woman’s inheritance, and was taken into custody.

There is a temptation, in a story like this one, to linger on that moment, to savor the fear on the face of a man who caused so much suffering, and it is an understandable temptation.