He's gonna kill me, he's gonna curb me then he's gonna break my neck and then the Plan'll die because sure as shit Dawn'll have an abortion before I'm cold in the earth.

"What the hell's up with you?"

Jeremy's vision cleared and he found himself face-to-face with the tire of one of the parked cars. And the guy was talking to him instead of kicking the shit out of him. Good sign.

He knew he should lie still and look like he was beaten down and wait for a chance, but then he thought again of how this guy had played him and the rage rushed back full force.

"You motherf—"

He tried to roll and rise but pain shot through his knee like someone had a knife in it and the foot pressed harder, grinding his cheek against the concrete.

"Easy, there. What I ever do to you?"

"I know who you are, you lousy—"

"And just who is that?"

"I don't know your real name but I know it ain't Joe Henry and it ain't John Robertson—"

The pressure against his neck increased.

"Whoa! Let's back it up there. Where'd you hear the name John Robertson?"

"What difference it make? I know it's fake. I know you and your friends been doggin my ass for months now, tryin to kill the Bloodline, but it ain't gonna work."

More pressure. Jeremy thought his jaw was going to break.

"Months? You need some heavy medication, dude. I don't know anything about a Bloodline and I never heard of you until last week."

"Bullshit!" He had to speak through forcibly clenched teeth.

But the guy's voice carried a ring of truth. Something in his tone said he hadn't heard of Jeremy before. So what was the deal? Was he just a detective like he said?

"Then why you been doggin my ass? Why you been messin with my life?"

"It's what I do."

He realized then that the guy wasn't going to kill him, because if that was what all this was about, he'd have picked up the tire iron and be doing to Jeremy's skull what Jeremy had been planning for his. If he just lay still and shut up, he'd live to fight another day.

But then he thought of how this jerk had suckered him into looking bad in front of Dawn and his mouth started running.

"Better kill me now, asshole, because there ain't no place you can hide from me. It's me or you, so you might as well end this right here and right now, otherwise—"

Jeremy hadn't thought the pressure on his neck could get any worse, but it did, and for an awful second he thought he'd gone too far, pushed too hard, and the guy was really going to do it.

But then the pressure eased… very slowly… as if it took every smidgen of the guy's will not to do as Jeremy had suggested. He heard a laugh—as forced sounding as any laugh Jeremy had ever heard.

"You mean kill you? You're not worth the hassle."

And then the pressure was gone and he heard fading footsteps. He looked up and saw the guy walking away with his back to him, just leaving him here, and not even looking over his shoulder—not once.

What's he think I am? Cow shit he can just scrape off his shoe and walk away from? No way.

He saw the tire iron less than half a dozen feet away. Yeah. No funny stuff this time, no surprise moves. This time he'll wish—for the last two seconds of his life—that he'd finished him when he had the chance.

Jeremy pushed himself up from the pavement and—

His knee—a bolt of lightning shot through it again. He'd forgotten about his goddamn knee.

He wasn't going nowhere.

As he rubbed the swollen joint he stared at the tire iron he'd never reach and at the retreating figure of the mystery man who still hadn't looked back. He wanted to scream.

And then he heard running footsteps and Dawn's voice coming up behind him.

"Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Did he hurt you?"

He felt like such a jerk. How the hell was he going to spin this?

11

Jack noticed his hand still shaking as he went to fit the car key in the ignition.

He'd forced himself to walk away from a living, breathing Jeremy Bolton—an act that ranked near the top of his Hardest-Things-I've-Ever-Done list—and leave the scene.

Alibi or no alibi, Jack was sure now that he'd killed Gerhard.

Every fiber of his self-preservation instinct had screamed to kill the son of a bitch and end it there, but a higher center had warned that he was too exposed, that some concerned citizen might have seen all or part of the attack from a window or across the street and called 911. Witness accounts of who was the aggressor would depend on when they'd tuned in. If they missed Bolton swinging for the fence with his tire iron, then Jack would be listed as the assaulter instead of the assaultee. But even if not, Jack wanted no part in a police report.

The cautious end of his brain had also reminded him of the agency behind Creighton that would come looking for him.

So he'd walked away, fighting head-to-toe adrenaline shakes as he forced himself to maintain a cool saunter. No worry about Bolton sneaking up behind him on that knee—his sneaking days were over for a while. When Jack had reached the corner, he'd trotted for his car. He'd parked it well out of sight of Work.

He turned the key and pulled out, moving away from the area.

When he'd left Work he'd spotted Jeremy out of the corner of his eye, crossing the street as he came his way. The fact that he hadn't called out, and the way he was holding his right arm tight against his side, told Jack that something was up, something not good.

So he'd listened to Bolton coming up behind him—those cowboy boots weren't built for stealth—and made his move when he heard a sudden increase in footsteps.

Jack had been surprised at first at how fast Bolton folded, but thinking about it now he realized he should have expected it. Bolton had been locked up since his late teens. Whatever street smarts he might have had were long atrophied. And life at Creighton had weakened them further. While the place's maximum security lockup wasn't exactly a country club, it was a long, long way from hard time. Even if Bolton had worked out—and it looked like he had—strength wasn't enough in a fight. His oDNA might make him mean but it didn't make him fast or tough or smart. He'd folded like a cheap lawn chair.

But that wasn't the most striking thing about the encounter.

/ don't know your real name but I know it ain't Joe Henry and it ain't John Robertson. . .

The words echoed silently through the car. How had Bolton heard the name John Robertson? Certainly not from Jack, so that left only two other possibilities: Levy and Vecca.

But right now he was worried more about Christy.

After putting about a mile between himself and Bolton he tried Christy's numbers again, and again got no answer. He didn't feel right leaving town without at least going over to check on her place. No reason anymore to stay away—his role as Bolton's new video gamer friend was dead.

He had Christy's address but these streets were confusing as hell. She lived on 68th Drive, but that ran parallel and next to 68th Road which ran next to 68th Avenue. Finally he found it—a decent-size, older, well-kept, stucco-walled house with high-peaked gables and an attached two-car garage. Worth a gorgeous penny.

No lights on inside. Not encouraging. He pulled into the driveway, got out, and went to the front door. He rang the bell three times and used the brass knocker between rings.

No answer.

A vision of Christy lying dead or close to it inside began to form.

One more place to check. He'd noticed that the two-car garage had small windows placed high in the metal doors, too high to look through. He walked around the back and found a double-hung window into the garage. His pen-light revealed that it was empty.

Relieved, he returned to his car. If her Mercedes had been there he would have felt obligated to break in for a look-see. Its absence made it most likely that she was at rehearsal with her phone off.