Ryan left just after sunrise.

I stood on the front porch of his parents’ house and watched his car disappear down the long driveway, the taillights briefly flashing red before the trees swallowed them. Ten days. Maybe twelve if the project ran long, the way it usually did. He had kissed me goodbye at the door—distracted, already thinking about the flight—and told me to “be good for Dad.” The words had sounded ordinary when he said them. Standing there alone in the quiet morning air, they felt different.

Richard Bennett was already in the kitchen when I went back inside.

He stood at the stove in a dark gray sweater...