A single overhead bulb threw a little light in the corners. He peered through each shadow, searching for her.

The room was empty.

He could feel anger building in his chest, like heat racing down his arms into clenched fists. He turned and went back to the small living room, where his father waited for him.

“She was here, wasn’t she?” Michael O’Connell asked. “Earlier. To talk to you. I just didn’t get here in time, and then she told you to lie to me, right?”

The older man shrugged. “You still not making any sense.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I am telling you the truth. I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“If you don’t tell me what happened, what she told you when she got here, where she went, I will hurt you, old man. I am not joking about this. I can do it and I will do it, and trust me, I will deliver a world of pain, and I won’t give a damn about you any more than I ever have. So, tell me, when she called on you, what did you tell her?”

“You’re either crazier than I remember or stupider. Right now, I can’t tell which.” The old man lifted his bottle to his lips and leaned back in his seat.

Michael O’Connell stepped forward and in a single violent swipe knocked the beer bottle from his father’s hand. It slammed against the wall, breaking into pieces. The father barely reacted, although his eyes lingered on the broken bottle, before he turned back and stared at his son.

“It was always a question, wasn’t it? Which one of us was gonna grow up meaner?”

“Screw you, old man. Tell me what I want to know.”

“Get me another beer first.”

Michael O’Connell reached down and grasped his father by the shirt, half-pulling him out of his seat. In the same moment, the father’s right hand shot out and seized the son around the collar, twisting his sweater so that it choked him. Their faces were only inches apart, their eyes locked together. Then O’Connell thrust his father back, and the old man released his son.

Michael O’Connell walked over to the television set. He stared at it for an instant.

“This how you spend your nights? Getting drunk and watching the tube?”

The father didn’t answer.

“Too much of the old idiot box is bad for you. Didn’t you know that?”

Michael O’Connell waited for a second, so that the mocking words would settle in, then he drew back his foot and delivered a karate-style kick to the television, sending it crashing down, the screen shattering.

“Bastard. You’re gonna pay for that.”

“Am I? What else do I have to break to get you to tell me what happened when she called you? How long was she here? What did she promise you? What did you tell her you would do?”

Before his father could reply, he walked over to a bookcase and swept a shelf of knickknacks and photographs to the floor.

“That was just some of your mother’s leftovers. Don’t mean nothing to me.”

“You want me to look around until I find something that does? What did she tell you?”

“Kid,” the old man said through tightly pursed lips, “whatever it is this bit of tail is to you, I don’t know. And what she’s got you into, I don’t know either. You in some kind of trouble? Money trouble?”

Michael O’Connell looked at his father. “What are you talking about?”

“Who’s looking for you, kid? Because I think they’re gonna find you just about any minute, and when they do, they aren’t gonna be nice about it. But maybe you know that already.”

“All right,” Michael O’Connell said slowly. “Last chance before I come over there and start to pay you back for all the times you beat me when I was a kid. Did a girl named Ashley call you today? Did she say she wanted your help in breaking up with me? Did she say she was on her way to talk to you?”

The older man continued to eye his son through narrow, rage-filled eyes. But through the sheet of fury that seemed to be just a second or two away from breaking free, he managed to clench his lips and spit out, “No. No, God damn it. No Ashley. No girl. No nothing like what you just said. And that’s the goddamn truth, whether you want to believe it or not.”

“You’re lying. You old bastard, you’re lying.”

The old man shook his head and laughed, which infuriated Michael O’Connell even more. He felt as if he were on a ledge, trying to keep his balance. What he wanted, more than anything else, was to feel his fists smashing against the old man’s face. But he took a deep breath and told himself that he still needed to know what was happening, because there was some reason he’d been called here. He just couldn’t see what it was.

“She said…”

“I don’t know what she said. But Miss whoever-the-hell-she-is hasn’t called here or shown up at the side door.”

Michael O’Connell took a step back. “I don’t…” His mind was rapidly churning. He could not see why Ashley would send him on a trip to his home unless she had something in mind. What she expected to gain seemed just beyond his reach.

“Who you in trouble with?” the old man asked again.

“Nobody. What do you mean?” Michael spat back, angry at having the train of his thoughts interrupted.

“What is it? Drugs? You pull some kind of low-rent robbery with some guys and then stiff them on the cut? What are you doing that would have guys with money looking for you? You steal something from them?”

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.” He was confused by the smug look on his father’s face. He realized, in that second, that the old man should be a lot angrier about the shattered television set. The reason he’s not angry is because he knows a new one is heading his way, Michael O’Connell thought.

“Who’ve you been fucking around with, kid? Because there’s someone real pissed with you.”

“Who told you that?”

The older man shrugged. “I ain’t saying. I just know.”

Michael O’Connell straightened up. Nothing makes sense, he thought. Or maybe it does.

“Old man, I will hurt you. You should understand that. You are old and weak and I will cause you great pain. Now tell me what you’re talking about!” he shouted across the room. He took two quick strides, so that he was again looming over his father, who remained in his chair, grinning, wondering whether he’d managed to keep his son in the house long enough for the mysterious Mr. Smith to make the correct arrangements, whatever they might be.

Less than a half mile away from the O’Connell house, on an adjacent street, Hope spotted several beaten old cars and pickup trucks sporting Harley-Davidson wings on stickers, all pulled to the side of the roadway, parked haphazardly. She could see some lights coming from a worn and battered ranch-style home set back from the street and could hear loud voices and hard-rock music. She realized someone was having some sort of get-together. Beer and pizza, she guessed, with a methamphetamine dessert. She stopped her rental car a few feet behind one of the parked cars, so she appeared to be just another visitor.

As quickly as she could, she pulled on the black coveralls that Sally had purchased. She jammed a navy blue balaclava-style face mask and hat into her pocket. Then she slipped on surgical gloves, and a pair of leather gloves over those. She wrapped several strands of black electrician’s tape around her wrists and her ankles, so that no flesh was exposed between the coveralls and her gloves and shoes.

She threw the backpack with the gun over her shoulder and started to jog in the direction of the O’Connell house, her outfit helping her to blend into the night. She had the cell phone in her hand, and she dialed Scott.

“Okay. I’m here. A couple of hundred yards away. What am I looking for?”

“The boy drives a five-year-old red Toyota, with Massachusetts plates,” Scott said. “The father has a black pickup truck, which is parked halfway beneath a carport. The only exterior light is by the side door. That is your entry point.”