The other man, Mr. Unibrow, doesn’t get up. He just sits there, staring. Eyes like shining nickels beneath that dark furrow.

Atlanta’s seen him before. She’s sure of it. Can’t place him, though. The door closes.

She feels trapped. A cornered rat.

“Sit,” the elder Erickson says, pointing to the chair just vacated by Mitchell. “Please.”

The word is warmer, friendlier than she expects. She’s sure it contains a secret vein of threat, a subtle promise to break open her cheek with that ruby ring, but it’s so subtle she can’t hear it.

Atlanta doesn’t have much choice. She eases into the chair, legs shaking.

The big man sits behind his desk, framed by a massive elk head on the wall behind him. It’s then she realizes: he looks the part of big-game hunter. She can picture him in a pith helmet and khakis, blasting blunderbuss rounds at escaping elephants, greedy for their ivory.

“I’m Orly Erickson. Mitchell’s father.”

Atlanta nods toward the man in the corner. “And him? Who’s Unibrow?”

But Orly ignores the question.

“You made a lot of trouble, little girl,” Orly says. His big voice calls to mind the distant rumble of a tractor trailer on the highway. Before she can protest, he adds: “My son and his friends have made trouble, too. They responded poorly. Nobody would disagree with that.”

“Poorly?” she asks. “Oh, I think the police might have stronger words than poorly.”

“Not so sure the police need to be involved in this,” Orly says. “Kids being kids and all that. You started something. They finished it. Nobody’s a winner if the law gets involved. Isn’t that right?” That last question posed not to her, but to Unibrow over there in the corner.

Atlanta turns, sees a small smile tease along the edges of the man’s mouth.

It’s then that she recognizes him.

He’s a cop.

He was there. That night. The night of gun smoke. The night Mama’s boyfriend . . .

Shit.

Her heart pumps faster: a cold rush of saline through her veins.

“I see,” she says. And boy, does she ever. These snakes have at least one cop in the hole with them. Maybe more, who knows?

“Good. Very good.” Orly sucks at his teeth. “The actions of children shouldn’t be confused with the troubles of adults.”

“And what troubles do you have, Mr. Erickson?” she asks, her gaze floating over the room. A black banner hangs on the catty-corner wall: on it is a white cross framed by a white circle, and above that the text: PRIDE WORLDWIDE. Next to the banner is a familiar-looking black license plate with the tag 14WORDS in white lettering. Next to that, a T-shirt with a white fist in the center of a horseshoe of laurel.

(And early though the laurel grows. It withers quicker than the rose.)