I sat on the edge of the hotel bed and I listened to him lay out exactly what was going to happen, and I did not interrupt, and when he was done I looked out the window at the last of the Texas light going soft and gold over the rooftops.

“What do you need from me?” I asked him.

“Nothing else,” Arthur said.

“You’ve already given me everything.

Just be there at nine.”

Chapter 13 — Eight Fifty-Nine

At a quarter to nine that night, I turned my rental car onto my own street, and I saw the house from half a block away, and for a moment the sight of it stopped my breath.

It was glowing.