Chapter 5: The Dock at Night

At half past ten I took my shoes off and went out to the end of the dock.

The house was finally dark.

Colin had fallen asleep with his phone on his chest, and Gail's door had been shut since nine.

The lake was black and flat, and the only light on it came from one porch across the water.

Headlights swung into the gravel drive behind me.

A truck door shut, and a flashlight beam came bobbing down the lawn.

"Evening, Mrs. Rask," Nate said. "A neighbor called my aunt about noise. I told her it was a kid with a kazoo."

"It was two kids and a kazoo," I said. "They went to bed an hour ago."

"Good."

He stopped at the edge of the dock and turned off the flashlight.

"I came to change the lockbox code, if that's all right with you. Right now your husband's the only other person who has it."

I took the card he held out.

It had four numbers on it in pencil, and a line under them that said: Only you.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't mention it."

He stayed where he was, and I didn't tell him to go.

"Do you always carry a plate into a fight?" he asked.

"I carried two. They were for my parents."

"I saw." His mouth moved at one corner. "I thought the woman in the visor was going to faint."

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