Chapter 6: Account Ending 4471

"People who are very good at looking glad to see you," Ellie repeated. "Did he really say that?"

"On the step. After the roses."

"That's not a warning. That's a man who doesn't want you to look."

We were back at her kitchen table, and Clinton's gray car had been gone for an hour.

The roses were in the sink.

Ellie had refused to put them in water.

I had my phone in front of me and a hole in my stomach where breakfast should have been.

"Open the payments," she said. "Don't think about it. Just open them."

"I've opened them a thousand times."

"You've paid them a thousand times. When did you last open one?"

I could not remember.

Seven years ago, Clinton had set up the transfer on my phone one evening while I cooked.

He had typed a name into the box and called it Nordquist Lake Cabin, and it had been Nordquist Lake Cabin on my screen ever since.

I opened the latest payment and tapped it.

A plain white page unrolled with a date, an amount and a small gray line at the bottom that I had never read.

Sent to: Clinton A. Nordquist. Account ending 4471.

I held very still.

"What?" Ellie said.

I turned the phone toward her.

She read it, set down her coffee and walked to the cupboard.

She took a mug off the shelf, a thick blue one with a chipped handle, and she threw it into the empty bread bin, where it broke on the metal bottom.

"Sorry," she said. "That one was ugly anyway."

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