Are you a beginning fiction writer? Pay attention to the dialogue and pace of this story. I know what I’m talking about.

Thomas Bradbury was a monster, a violent sociopath. He could kick an adorable puppy just for rubbing up against him. He could hit a pedestrian with his Boxster on a deserted country road and roar away into the night as he whistled a show tune. He could snip the brake cables on a fancy bicycle after the rider had popped into a bagel shop for a quick carbo fix. Then watch the guy plummet down a hill into a crash that might maim or kill him. He could and had done such things without a twinge of remorse. Thomas had been born without a conscience. And he would continue to spread mayhem until someone killed him or had him locked away in a dungeon.

He hadn’t planned this particular incident. But experts who study sociopaths might disagree. They might argue such people are always on the lookout for ways to wreak havoc. Havoc that allows them to lean back, put their feet up on the couch, and savor the results.

That’s what Thomas was doing this soft spring evening. He was trolling in a beat up Chevy pickup that didn’t stand out in the North Carolina piedmont. He kept the truck locked up in a garage and rarely took it out before 11:00 P.M. Usually on Friday and Saturday nights when the streets near the university were awash with twenty and thirty something’s. Most bent on hooking up and sucking down enough booze and drugs to dampen doubts about their coolness, looks, or both.

The COME ON INN. He’d seen it before, and once poked his nose in for a look see. But this time? Whoa. Packed. And the paved parking lot was crammed full of compacts and hybrids that assured him the place wasn’t infested with bikers and rednecks. Assholes who might look at his pretty face and pound the shit out of him. “Just ’cause he might be a faggot.”

The hulking dude at the door checked his ID, but barely. Thomas didn’t look like trouble. He was southern polite and not smarmy. The guy wouldn’t remember him.

As he eased his way into the sea of bodies, he thought, “So thick you couldn’t stir ’em with a stick. That’s what Daddy woulda said.” The band wasn’t too loud, and the lead singer sounded almost as good as Travis Tritt. Looked like him, too.

His first order of business was getting a drink. If you weren’t holding one or waiting on one, you’d stick out. As he squeezed up to the bar, he spotted the first cast member in his play. Tall and fit, maybe a rugby player in college who still played on a club team. Thought he was hot shit with the ladies; he wasn’t. As he blathered on, the rolled eyes of the three hotties inching away made that clear. Well, Thomas had just the ticket for him. But he needed to get the dude’s cell number. Well, the guy was smart enough to see he’d lost his audience: “Any of you ladies get interested in buying a BMW or a Mercedes, I’m your man.” He handed each one an embossed business card. Now wasn’t that convenient.

Thomas watched one of the women work her way towards the ladies room, so he worked his way towards the men’s room. There was a wastebasket right between the two doors. He didn’t see her chuck the card, but when he glanced in the thing, there it was. Nobody saw him pluck it out and slip it in a pocket.

So far so good. But his next cast member had to be chosen carefully. She had to be hot. She had to be stationary. She had to be flirty and chatty. And she had to be wedged in by a bunch of people who’d give him cover for his maneuver.

For more than an hour he cruised the joint. A nod here, a smile there. Moving. Looking. But it just wasn’t happening. That was cool. Thomas was patient. He’d be back. Soon.

Jimmy Backus wasn’t stupid, but none of his buddies would say he was a towering intellect. Fine by him; he knew he was more than sharp enough for stuff that counted.

When he was fifteen, his mother and father had prodded him into going to Exeter. Wasn’t wild about that idea, but he loved and respected them and finally caved. He spent three years there squeaking by academically and dwarfing the competition at lacrosse.

The Princeton coach was drooling over him. As a center middie Backus would win most face offs, score tons of goals, be a terror on defense, and put the Tigers back in contention for a national championship. But, the prissy admissions people told him to forget it. Jimmy didn’t have the chops to make it through four years in a school where the ghost of Einstein shambled down its hallowed halls.

UNC, Maryland, Duke, Virginia? Whole other story. At those institutions lots of the jocks had to be lead around with a rope. That’s what tutors were for. And Backus wouldn’t need tutors if he chose the right major and made good course selections. Hell, he’d have been happy anywhere he could make All American and have hotties tiptoeing into his dorm room at 2 a.m.

Backus finally chose UNC, mostly because his relatives thought the sun rose and set on Chapel Hill. Besides, couldn’t be any worse than the elitists he’d put up with at Exeter. Jesus, how many stiffs who thought their shit didn’t stink could you stuff into one little town? His roommate, a brother out of the slums of Baltimore, summed it up after their first two nights together. “Jimmy, you ever been in a place where all the black people talk like white people?”

Backus smirked. “Darnell, where I come from, even the white people don’t talk like white people.”

“You my nigga!”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Backus had first met Jake Thompson and Calvin Tubbs when he was fourteen and they were a couple of years out of college. His family had recently moved to Warsaw, North Carolina where his father had taken over a furniture company that was on the skids. Daddy didn’t need the job; he didn’t need to work at all. Was born into railroad money. But he was gifted at breathing life into dying businesses, and he’d do about anything to help poor Appalachian folks keep their jobs.

When Jake and Calvin pulled up into the dusty parking lot, Big Time was holding the back of Backus’s shirt while the boy was yelling, “Get up, you redneck cocksucker so I can kick your fat ass again.”

Big Time was doing his best not to laugh as he looked down on a very drunk Georgie Parkinson lying in the dirt and laboring to get upright and preserve what little was left of his dignity. Georgie was nine years older than Backus and outweighed him by a good thirty pounds.

“Calm down, son. Old Georgie’s out of gas. You gave him a proper whipping,” said Big Time.

“You hear what he called Miss Purvis, Big Time? Racist motherfucker. She’s the nicest little lady in the world. And this piece of white trash shit goes and calls her a nigger bitch.”

By this time Jake and Calvin had lumbered out of one of the SUV’s recently purchased by the county sheriffs department. Jake was white. Tall and lean. Calvin was black and just as tall but heavier built. The former and had been a strong side safety in college. The latter a linebacker. They’d played together on the same team. Neither was quite good enough to go pro. They’d been best friends since first grade.

Big Time, black and bigger than Jake and Calvin rolled together, was still holding on to the back of Backus’s shirt. He lifted him up just enough so the boy had to stand tiptoed to keep from choking. Then he rotated the kid a little so he was facing the two cops.

“Jimmy Backus, I’d like you to meet Deputies Thompson and Tubbs from our sheriffs department.”

Suddenly the boy’s anger and vitriol crumpled. “Deputies, I am very sorry about all this. You gonna arrest me?”

Now all three of them, Big Time, Jake, and Calvin, were trying to hold it together so as not to embarrass the boy. Jake spoke first.

“Well, Jimmy, I’m not sure an arrest would be the best solution to the problem we got here. Think I got a better idea. You like to hear it?”

“Yessir.”

“Well, how ’bout we start off by having Big Time tell us what happened. He’s pretty good at being objective ’bout things.”

“Yessir.”

By this time Georgie had made it up to his knees. Getting up on his feet? That’d be a while longer. Big Time had released Backus’s shirt and was now standing with his feet wide apart and his massive arms folded across his chest. He gave Jake a solemn nod.

“Thank you, Deputy Thompson. Well, I did not witness the unfolding of this entire incident, but I did see most of it. And, as you know, being the owner of this establishment, I frown upon any physical altercations that might occur either inside or outside the premises.”

Calvin pretended to sneeze to keep from guffawing.

“Bless you, Deputy Tubbs. At any rate, I had walked outside to get a breath of air when I saw young Mr. Backus, whom I recently hired to wash windows for me, in conversation with Miss Purvis. She’s my aunt and likes to visit me here from time to time. The two of them seem to have formed a bond. One which I find rather endearing.

“Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Parkinson emerge from the back of his pickup. He was zipping up his fly after, I assume, having urinated on his right rear tire. As is often the case with Georgie, he was in a state of extreme inebriation.”

“How did you know he was drunk, Big Time?”asked Jake.

“With every step he stumbled and appeared on the verge of toppling over. That, along with the garbled words he hurled at Jimmy and Miss Purvis left little doubt in my mind.”

“And what were those words?”

“They were highly offensive, Deputy. I would prefer not to repeat them.”

“That’s fine. However, can you verify that he referred to Miss Purvis with the term Jimmy quoted when Deputy Tubbs and I arrived?”

“He did use that term, Deputy Thompson.”

“And then what happened?”

“I kicked his fat country ass, is what happened,” yelled Jimmy.

After giving the boy a withering glare, Jake turned back to Big Time with his eyebrows raised.

“Yes, Deputy Thompson, that is essentially what happened.”

“And Miss Purvis? Is she still here?”

“No, she is not. Under the circumstances I thought it wise to have one of my staff drive her home.”

“Sounds like a good decision. All right, I believe Deputy Tubbs and I can handle things from here. Big Time, perhaps you could escort Jimmy back inside where he can continue his window washing duties.”

“You not gonna arrest me?” asked Jimmy.

“No, Jimmy, we’re not gonna arrest you. But I suspect Big Time will have a few things to say to you when you get inside.”

“I most certainly will,” said Big Time as he put an enormous hand on the boy’s back and nudged him towards the door of the roadhouse.

By this time Georgie Parkinson was just about up off his knees and in a standing position when Calvin placed a boot on Georgie’s chest and shoved him down onto his back.

“What you do that for, Calvin?”

Calvin leaned down with his hands on his knees so his face was a foot above Georgie’s. “Thing is, Georgie, you’re getting to that point in life where, you don’t make some big changes, you gonna end up in a world of hurt. Look at what went down today. A teenager, young one at that, gave you a beating. And for what, Georgie? Because you had to go insult a nice older lady who wouldn’t hurt a flea. I mean, what the hell kinda shit is that, Georgie? Really, what the hell kinda shit is that?”

For just a moment, Georgie’s eyes went from foggy to clear. Then he nodded every so slightly and laid his head back down onto the dust and gravel. By the time Jake and Calvin had closed the doors to the SUV, he was snoring loudly.

Jimmy Backus was now two years out of UNC where he had made All American in lacrosse like everyone knew he would. But when he first arrived at the school, he was not thinking about academics. He was thinking about his sport, and he was thinking about partying. Then something happened. Gregory Hogan happened.

Hogan had played defense for Hopkins, and he’d been every bit as good at his position as Backus would be at midfield. What a lot of people didn’t know was Hogan had majored in mathematical statistics and wasn’t far from getting his doctorate in that field at Chapel Hill.

Backus had just started putting his stuff away in his dorm room when he heard the grating Boston accent behind him:

“Backus, get your shit on. You and me are going for a run.”

“What?”

“You deaf?”

“No offense, bud, but you can go fuck …” Backus said as he turned to see a version of himself, only 30% bigger, leaning against the door jamb with his hands folded behind his neck.

“Whoa! My bad, coach, give me a sec and I’ll be right with you.”

“Shake it up. I got stuff to do.”

“Missed you on the recruiting trip. Recognize you from the assistant coaches picture,” he said as he slipped on a pair of shorts and running shoes. No shirt.

“You want to jog a little or do hill sprints for an hour and get a real workout?”

“Cocky prick, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. I’d go with ‘confident’ but ‘cocky’s’ good. Maybe I should grab that portable defibrillator they got down the hall, coach. I gotta do mouth to mouth on you, good chance you won’t make it.”

“Asshole.”

“Appreciate you making me feel right at home the first day, coach.”

For a warm up they jogged out to Morgan Creek Trail and found the steep stretch that would be ideal for wind sprints.

“Up and down for an hour, three quarter speed, coach? That work for you?”

“Let’s do it.”

Hogan set the pace, and it wasn’t three quarter speed. Backus let the big man pull away from him for about twenty yards, and then fluidly kept that distance for the first three ups and downs. Backus had grown up in North Carolina and knew how the heat and humidity in August could suck the strength out of even a fit skinny guy. Hogan was fit, but he was far from skinny.

Backus knew his own fitness was superb. He loved exhausting himself charging up sand dunes on the barrier islands in the summer. He’d go until he had to roll back down to the beach because he could no longer stay upright. Then he’d crawl into the surf to revive himself. Then he’d do the whole thing again. And again. He might not have had the moves or the shots of his opponents, but nobody was gonna out hustle him. Nobody. Not ever.

As a midfielder Backus had become adept at judging when the guys defending him were starting to lose steam. Labored breaths. Shortened strides as the lactic acid clogged their thighs. Chins that were rock still on long runs early in the game starting to bobble up and down in the second half. That’s when he’d break out the trash talk.

“We gettin’ a little pooped there, sweet cheeks?” he’d say to the guy slashing at him as he loped down the field casually cradling the ball.

“Suck my dick, bitch.”

“Not even if I could find it, honey bunch.” Then he’d turn on the after burners, head for the crease and pass the ball to a nimble attack man as three guys collapsed on him. So the little guy scored the goal. Fine. He just wanted to win.

After the fourth ascent the signs that Hogan was tiring weren’t subtle, they were obvious.

“Come on, coach. Let’s pack this in and go get us some refreshments.”

“Maybe you’re not such a pussy after all, Backus,” said Hogan as he bent over and puked.

“Maybe, maybe not. I just want to be able to play a full four years for arguably the best defenseman to ever hold a stick.”

“You’re not gonna try and kiss me are ya, Backus?”

“Nope. One of the barmaids down at Kildare’s can take care of that. Big, handsome Irish dude? Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Be there in a half hour.”

Backus and Hogan were crammed into a booth way back near the kitchen. Between the cooking clanging and banging and the voices of kids back from the summer, they wouldn’t get overheard. In fact, they had to learn forward over the 20 ounce pints to hear each other.

“You know I didn’t get you out there to test your conditioning.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“Any idea what I was up to?”

“Coach, lots of knives in the drawer sharper than me. Gonna have to give me a clue.”

“See, Backus, that’s the thing. You’re a lot smarter than you think, or at least than you let on.”

“Interesting. Most folks wouldn’t agree with that. They’d say old Jimmy is a fine athlete and a charmer but the intellectual load in his trunk could use a few pounds.”

“And you think they’re right?”

“Not sure. Been developing a theory on that.”

“What?”

“You know that book, Undaunted Courage? The one Steven Ambrose wrote?”

“I do. Read it a couple of times.”

“I believe Jefferson was a genius, and one of the ways his genius shone through was him choosing Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition. This is gonna sound arrogant as shit, but I think I’m kinda like old Meriwether.

“First off, Meriwether was a tough son of a bitch. Could walk thirty miles a day. Not bothered by extreme cold or heat. Not afraid to brawl if it was necessary.”

“Okay, you got that covered.”

“Couldn’t spell for shit.”

Hogan smiled and chuckled. Not something he did often.

“A natural leader.”

“Yup.”

“Meriwether was good at learning practical stuff fast. He had to learn how to fix boat stuff. He had to learn how to patch up men who got hurt so they wouldn’t die or be a drag on the others. He had to learn celestial navigation. He had to learn a good bit of botany so his men didn’t eat poisonous stuff and did eat stuff that’d give them nourishment and energy.”

“You think you could learn all that stuff?”

“Probably not as fast as him, but I could learn it. Point is I WOULD learn it because if I didn’t my guys could die. That shit was practical. Most of the stuff that’s been thrown at me in school, especially at Exeter, was not practical. So when it came to studying it? Hell, I mostly phoned it in. But I think that’s why we’re having this confab.”

“Why?”

“You don’t want me to phone it in anymore.”

“Backus, it looks like I didn’t puke my guts out for nothing today.”

“You want another pint, coach?” Backus wore just a hint of a smile as he waved at a hottie carrying a tray of empties.

Thomas had now done his thing three times. He’d spread it out over a couple of months, and he’d done each one at a different venue. His drill had been consistent. The place had been packed. He’d found a guy who needed help with the ladies. He’d gotten the guy’s cell number. He’d found the right woman. And he’d slipped a mild roofy into the woman’s drink and then made a pitch to the guy.

Making the pitch was tricky. Nobody was going to answer a call from a throwaway cell, so texting the guy was his best choice. Each time it went something like this:

“Redhead at end of bar. Into u man.”

“Who the fuck are u?”

“Right now? Your BFF.”

“Eat shit asshole!”

“Up to u dude.”

All three times Thomas had chosen a vantage point in the bar where he could see what happened next. Macho assholes. So predictable. All that bluster, but each one had made a move on the lady Thomas had picked out for him. And each had left the joint with her hanging onto him, giggling, and not quite tumbling out the door.

So? Success. Right? Sort of. But had he really unleashed the mayhem he wanted to? Hard to know. After each episode he’d checked the one local paper that was still standing. And he’d scoured all the news sources on his iPhone apps. Nothing. Nothing at all. That didn’t mean that date rape hadn’t occurred, that some woman’s life had not been thrown into chaos, that she would not forever lug around the misery of a violation. But not knowing? He couldn’t abide that. So Thomas would have to up the ante.

The semester had ended and commencement had come and gone. Backus had made it through his first year with a solid 3.0. He was still living on the campus because the Tar Heels had reached the quarters of the tournament. Looked like a better than even chance they’d get to the finals. Backus was lounging way off on the side of the steps leading up to Davis Library. He was wearing a pair of cycling shades, blue and white running shorts, and a t-shirt with yellowish sweat stains on the armpits. He was reading CATCHER IN THE RYE.

“You think you would have stuck up for Holden Caulfield, or would you have been one of his tormentors?”

“Sweetheart, I would have definitely stuck up for old Holden,” Backus said without looking up.

“Well, James Backus, I have every reason to believe you would have done just that.”

Backus whipped his head up as his shades tumbled and ended up dangling from one ear. Now he was staring at a pair of café au lait calves worthy of a runway model. Above the calves was a raspberry colored sundress on a lithe torso. And above that a face shimmering with mirth. A stream of giggles tumbled out of her mouth. A cupped hand tried to staunch the flow.

“Wish I had my camera. All my friends who think you’re such a hottie would love to see this.”

Backus was now on his feet and pulling the shades off his ear. “Ma’am, I apologize. I’ve forgotten your name, but I know you’re Miss Purvis’s granddaughter. She would box my ears she heard me talk like a wiseass to any lady, never mind someone who was kin.”

“My, my. That was an abrupt transformation. And how do you know who I am?”

“Maybe three or four years ago. I was washing windows for your uncle Big Time. I saw you from a distance at the roadhouse. Made a comment to one of my coworkers about your stunning beauty. Your cousin Junior. He made it clear things would end badly if I ever showed you anything but respect and courtesy.”

“Junior can be a tad overprotective.”

“Yes, ma’am. I would agree.”

“James, I believe I’m only six or seven years your senior. Perhaps you should call me Safrina rather than ‘ma’am.’”

“All right … Safrina. Most folks call me Jimmy. Momma calls me James. I like the way she says it. Sounds good coming from you, too.”

“Then we’ll go with James.”

“Okay. Ah … my attire leaves something to be desired, but it would be my pleasure to buy you a lemonade or other soft drink. You give me a few minutes, I could change and we could go over to the Atrium.”

“James, you look just fine.”

“Well, I was kinda thinking about what Miss Purvis might say.”

“You should change.”

Twenty minutes later when Backus and Safrina walked into the Atrium, Thomas Bradbury was sitting at a table sipping on an iced coffee with his earphones on pretending to listen to toons on his iPad. In fact, he was tinkering with an app designed for the hearing impaired for use at plays and concerts. Thomas had excellent hearing. He was using the device to eavesdrop on conversations, and it was working like a charm.

Well now, this was interesting. A light skinned African American woman in her mid twenties sitting down with a guy a bit younger who was clearly a jock. Broad shouldered with some swagger. Not a boyfriend. Being too gentlemanly for that. More like she was the teacher and he was the student. But there was an out of the classroom easiness in they way they were chatting.

She was gorgeous. Thomas wasn’t smitten. He didn’t have the emotional engine for romantic feelings. But the woman was lighting him up. The fluid grace of a dancer. Skin a little darker than suede. Close cropped hair most women wouldn’t dare consider. Elegant. Just what he’d been prowling for.

Backus and Safrina were seated face to face at a round little table the French call a gueridon. Backus had a large Diet Coke in front of him. Safrina was sipping on a coffee drink that Backus had had trouble pronouncing when he went up to order it.

“I know all about your lacrosse life here. Mostly because of the girls in the course I teach. They find a way to insert you into the conversation every time we meet. But the rest of your life here at school? What’s going on with that?”

Blushing more than he’d like to, Backus said, “Sorry you have to listen to the comments from the girls. I mean, I like women, don’t get me wrong, but that rock star stuff? It’s a bit … “

“Tiresome?”

“Yeah, it kinda is. Anyway, let’s see if I can answer your question. So, I knew what the situation would be before I came here. That playing lacrosse at this level would take up a lot of my time and energy. But damn … “

“A bear, isn’t it!”

“It is. How do you know that?”

“I have a lot of guy friends who were jocks in college. But the way I really know? I went to USC on a volleyball scholarship. It’s an all year long proposition.”

“What part’d you hate the most?”

“Getting waked up at O dark thirty to go run and lift weights.”

“Up top,” Backus chortled as the two high fived each other.

Thomas had heard and seen enough. He leisurely packed up his stuff and strolled out into the May sunshine.

Finding out where she lived was easy. Out on the Eno River. He followed her there in his truck late one afternoon. She drove a nondescript Nissan maybe 15 years old and in need of a paint job it would never get.

The house was a turn of the century wood frame too big and too well maintained to be hers. Not like the dumps you see around universities. The ones landlords chop up into cramped rooms and rent out at extortionate rates. Nope. Probably a faculty home where the owner was on sabbatical and and had hired her to house sit while he trudged across New Guinea.

Thomas needed to check the place out. He liked the way technology was galloping along, but it made it tough on thieves. With just a tap on his iPhone, an owner could check if the garage door was open or the heat was on. He could even be in the Louvre and get an invasion alert while he gazed at the Mona Lisa. All good. Thomas loved a challenge.

Getting around the alarms and such would be easier if he went in on the second story. His rock climbing skills would take care of that. What would be harder was waiting for her to be out of the place at night. A dark night, and not a rainy one where he’d leave traces of water and mud.

He knew she was a homebody during the week. But on Friday nights she went dancing with a bunch of friends at a low class bar on the outskirts of Chapel Hill. When the place closed at 2am, she’d go back to the house or somewhere else to party. Luck was on his side. A moonless night with some thick cloud cover had just arrived.

He dressed in black sweatpants and a black hoody. Then he burned the end of a cork to blacken his face. A pair of black running shoes with electrical tape over the reflectors and a black pair of surgical gloves completed the outfit. He stuck a knife, a screwdriver, and a tiny flashlight in a backpack. That was black, too.

He considered taking the pickup, but going on foot would be safer. Five miles was nothing. If he dodged the headlights, anybody five feet away wouldn’t see him.

An ancient oak and a sturdy gutter pipe made scooting up to the second floor a breeze. He was about to use the knife on a window to slide the latch. No need. There was one cracked a couple inches to let in air wafting out of the northwest.

He shoved the window up enough to slither through, but he hung from the sill awhile to make sure a pit bull wasn’t waiting to rip him apart. Thirty seconds. A soft whistle. Another fifteen seconds. Nothing. In he went.

It was pitch dark as he crouched on the hardwood floor. He switched on the Maglite that threw out a thin shaft of light. He made the shaft thinner by covering the lens with his thumb.

Then a horrendous rumbling blasted out of nowhere. He scooted over to a window. Shit. One of those goddam monster trucks with umpteen lights had barreled into the driveway. Had she come home with a hillbilly lothario? He was about to slide back out the window when the truck rumbled again. Backing up. Then it roared off into the night. “Fucking redneck.” Shithead was probably gonna stick up a 7-Eleven with his sawed off.

Thomas lay down to let his pulse slow. Deep breaths. Stretch out those arms and legs. Easy does it. That’s how you kept from getting hauled off in cuffs. After five minutes he popped up onto his feet. Noiselessly. A tip of the hat to his disciplined workouts.

He didn’t need the Maglite to find where she slept. His nose took care of that. Girl smells. He tiptoed into the room and saw she wasn’t neat, but not a slob. Bed half made. No bras and panties strewn about. A practical number of tomboy outfits in a closet that hinted of mothballs. A Dell laptop on an antique maple table over by a window. Don’t fire that sumbitch up. Electronic footprints were way worse than the real ones. No sign of a gun or mace or a switchblade. Excellent.

Then the front door groaned.

“You want some coffee? A beer?”

“Nah, I’m good. Ah … how ’bout a glass of water?”

Another feminine voice. Maybe a little older. Was she gay? Dude, whogives a shit? Focus on getting out of here without being heard. Crawl under the bed and be still as a statue.

As he slid underneath, he thought he might sneeze from dust. There wasn’t any. But there was something that rolled. Really? Jesus Christ.

He could hear everything but their words drifting up through the ceiling. Actually, a few words and phrases broke up their murmuring: “No shit!” “WHAT an asshole.” “I am telling you the god’s honest truth, lady.” After a while, Thomas forgot about his predicament and remembered how much he liked gossip. Sorta sucked to be left out of the conversation.

He’d just dozed off when the front door groaned again. Nothing for two minutes until a toilet flushed. Un-girl like trudging up the stairs. Bright light from the hall. Kaboom as the mattress springs almost crushed him before they pushed her body back up a precious few inches. Thirty seconds later, snoring. The kind that makes wives ban their husbands to the guest room.

When the snoring slowed to a rhythm, Thomas had little trouble getting out of there. Just did the reverse of what he’d done getting in.

As he cantered down the side of the road, he had a little chitchat with himself:

“Y’all have a good time in there, Tommy?”

“I did.”

“You gonna keep doing shit like that ’til you get caught?”

“What the fuck you care?”

“That’s the point, Tommy. I don’t.”

After Thomas got back from his “surveillance,” he thought, “Hell, just for shits and giggles, I’ll try lying on top of a bed instead of squeezing under one.” When he woke up thirteen hours later, he felt calm. Like maybe he’d been meditating. No second thoughts of having done something crazy and stupid. Nope. Just thirsty and hungry and ready to go for a run. He stripped down to his gym shorts, devoured two bananas, sucked in a quart of water, and headed out into bright sunshine and a gentle breeze.

He was thinking he’d put in ten miles, but he went fifteen, and faster than usual. The heat and humidity had him sweating like a hog. He’d forgot to bring his water bottle, so the dehydration should have cramped him up. It didn’t. Why? Had to be that captivating woman. He just couldn’t get her off his mind.

When she heard the click, she squinted at the greenish display at the foot of her bed. It was the clock resting on the oak bureau. The thing had been in the family since slavery days.

There was a tiny shift in the air flow from the bedroom door. Like all seasoned athletes, she knew her body. Pulse, blood pressure, respiration. They were creeping up. Hum. might be time to kick some serious ass, if it came to that.

Dressed in an old pair of sweats and a t-shirt, she crawled out of the bed on the side away from the door. It had been cracked open when she’d drifted off after midnight. She groped for the metal bat. Dusty and cold and smooth to the touch. Perfect grip size.

Was that a creaking on the floor below? Where the hell was the iPhone? Fuck. On the counter down in the kitchen. How many friends had said, “Keep it with you at night. Always.”?

Another creak. She hated guns. But now? Different now. She’d have no problem crushing his skull with the bat. But it would be way better to put a tight group in his chest with a nine. Maybe next time. Calm down. Think.

No more stealth from this guy. Now he was clumping up the stairs. Was he singing? Jesus. The asshole was humming “Sweet Adeline.”

Should she slide silently on her socks over to the door and whack him in the teeth as he it pushed open? Nooo. Wait. Let him tip his hand.

“Safrina, bringing a bat to a gunfight’s kinda silly, doncha think?” Not the voice she expected. White guy. Educated. Maybe a car salesman or real estate agent who worked the high end.

“Oh, you know my name. Isn’t that nice. Well, how about a shotgun, bitch? Think that’d even things up?”

“It would. Most definitely would. But if you had one, Safrina, I’d already be a clump of hamburger.”

“Come closer. I don’t wanta miss your teensy little dick.”

“Oooh. Trash talk. Now that lights me up, darlin. Really does.”

It sounded like a baby had coughed as the round slammed into the wall inches above her head. Her fear had morphed into rage. Either she was gonna kill this cocksucker, or she’d be a corpse.

She scooched her butt up against the wall and bent her legs so her feet were up on the bed frame. Gave it a little nudge. A hint of a rumble. Sweet. It’d roll cross the floor like a dry ice puck.

“You still with us, Safrina?”

He heard the rattling roar before his shins erupted in a pain that almost deflated his lungs. Then a ferocious blow to his shoulder. He heard the collar bone crack. More pain. Enough to keep him conscious. Then three more blows. But each missed, thudding into the mattress where he now lay face down. Above him was a feral shrieking punctuated with a string of “white faggot motherfucker!” As the bat went up for the swing that would kill him, he aimed the revolver at her groin. Another poofing sound. The screaming stopped. She flopped on top of him, all damp from sweat and blood.

For more than two minutes, he couldn’t budge. Nor did he want to. Just the thought of heaving her off him was exhausting. And then hobbling away before the cops came? Nah. Go ahead fellas, cuff me. Prosecutor and my lawyer can sort out this little misunderstanding. Sorry y’all had to come out here in the middle of the night.

But the reptile in him prevailed. Ten minutes later, lord knows how, he had tumbled into the river where the dogs couldn’t pick up his scent. He stuck his head under the surface and flowed along for a bit. When he came up, he could see the strobes flashing and hear the cracklings of radio voices. All but two of the voices seemed to be trying to sound calm and in charge. The two that weren’t sliced through the chaos with an anger so strident he shivered from his toes to his throat.

His shivering from the coldness of the water was nothing compared to that.