“What was that noise?” Miller asked in the front room.

“The house is old,” Evelyn said. “The wind settles in the rafters.”

“Let me take a look around, just to be sure,” Miller said.

I opened the back door just wide enough to slip through.

The damp night air hit my face, smelling of wet leaves and pine.

I stepped onto the muddy grass and pulled the door shut behind me.

I ran through the darkness, keeping low beneath the overgrown blackberry bushes.

My boots sank into the soft earth.

I reached my car, which I had hidden behind a cluster of old pine trees down the road.

I unlocked the door with the key fob, slipped inside, and threw the ledger onto the passenger seat.

I did not turn on the headlights.

I started the engine, shifted into drive, and let the car roll down the dirt slope in the dark.

Only when I hit the paved state route did I switch the lights on.

The beams cut through the thick fog rising from the ditches.

I glanced down at the black ledger sitting next to me.