"You're right. You're right, and I'm an idiot! Of course, he's taken it with him," declared Julia. "Dammit, Lizzie. Why do you have to be so brilliant?"

Lizzie waited for Julia to say more, but she didn't. She sensed her friend alongside her on the sex offender's bed, the warmth of Julia's breath branding her neck, and she sensed some subtle, inchoate shift occurring between them. She did not dare to move or speak. And then, with no warning, the door opened and Lizzie found herself blinded by the overhead light. As her eyes adjusted, the form of Rex Benbow appeared across the room. He sported a plaid hunting cap and had a knapsack draped over one shoulder. Lizzie was afraid to glance at Julia—afraid that her friend might draw her knife.

"You girls should go home," said Rex Benbow. The sex offender didn't sound angry, just fatigued. "I don't want any trouble."

"We saw the front door open," said Julia, her tone calm and composed. "You really shouldn't leave your door open like that."

"Please," said Benbow. "You can't be here."

Lizzie waited for Julia's next move. The sounds of the television drifted down the corridor, punctuated suddenly by the old woman's voice: "What's going on, Rex? Is someone with you?"

"Nothing, Grandma," called out Benbow. "Only the radio."

He stepped away from the doorframe and looked desperately at the girls. Julia stood up. "I think we've overstayed our welcome, Lizzie," she said, and then she led Lizzie into the foyer and down the Benbows' front steps. Overhead, a low ceiling of clouds kept the night cool and damp. The girls retreated to Lizzie's porch without speaking, and, in the sharp autumn air, Lizzie found herself wondering whether the sensation she'd felt on the bed—the tingle that something had shifted—was real or imagined.

"What are you thinking?" Julia finally asked.

Lizzie didn't dare answer honestly. "I'm glad you didn't stab him," she said.

Chagrin spread across Julia's features, but Lizzie was never certain whether Julia had been disappointed with her response or with the evening as a whole.

"Did you see that knapsack?" Julia demanded. "You were so right about him taking things with him. Next time we'll sneak in while he's at home—maybe when he's sleeping."

*           *          *

After breakfast the following Saturday, Bill Sucram took his daughters to meet the sex offender. Lizzie had listened to her parents argue about Bill's idea into the early hours of the morning—her ear plastered to the wall separating her bedroom from theirs—and at one point her mother snapped, "Fuck forgiveness! They should cut his cock off," but by the time Myra Sucram summoned her daughters downstairs for vegan French toast and strips of soy bacon, she had acquiesced to the inevitable. "Your father has an outing planned for you girls," she said with apparent cheer, as though her husband were taking her daughters apple picking or Christmas shopping. Myra's soft, beleaguered face betrayed no hint of her prior anger. "I do hope you don't already have plans, Lizzie."