Somewhere in that cabin, no doubt, were the physical trappings of the life Richard Cole had bought with what he had done: the leather furniture, the lakeside view, the comfortable spoils of a crime he had believed perfect.

He had taken two lives and the freedom of a third and the childhood of a fourth, and he had converted all of it into a pleasant existence by the water, and he had sat in it for five years drinking good bourbon and believing himself both wealthy and safe.

It is worth saying plainly that none of it was ever really his.

The money had belonged to Elena and to Chloe.