“You fucker!” Rick screamed, and shoved back. It was only reasonable to expect that a guy who’d spent several years working in construction, when he wasn’t in jail probably lifting weights, was going to have stronger arms than a guy who daydreams at a computer all day. When he shoved, his arms were like pistons, driving me back across the kitchen and into a set of floor-to-ceiling cupboards. The chair hit them first, and inside I could hear stacked cans rattle and fall over.

Sarah kept screaming.

Rick ducked down, rushed me, grabbed me around my taped waist, and dragged me and the chair down to the floor. Then the pummeling began. This was very serious pummeling. I felt his fist connect with my chin, then my right cheek, bounce off my forehead, crush my lip. Blood filled my mouth where my tooth had gone through it. Some time around then, I started blacking out.

This was not good. This was not good at all.

“Zack? Can you hear me? Zack? Zack, say something.”

It was like coming out of a deep sleep, except this time, while snoozing, someone had rearranged my body parts. My head, hanging down on my chest, was throbbing, and I could hardly see anything out of my left eye, or focus very well with the other.

“Zack, you there? He’s in the other room. Zack, what’s happening?”

I went to stretch, like I normally do when coming out of a deep sleep, but very little of me moved. My legs were held in place, and my left hand was trapped at my left side. Only my right arm was free.

My right eye was starting to focus, and I saw that I was pushed up to the kitchen table. I found the strength to lift my head up slightly, and confirmed that all that had happened before wasn’t some bad dream. I was still in my kitchen, Sarah was still tied up in a chair across from me. And I was tied into a chair, too.

I was in a great deal of pain.

I looked over at Sarah and tried to smile, but using those muscles made me wince.

“Zack,” she said. “Zack, can you understand me? Can you hear me?”

I nodded. God, it hurt.

“Who is that man? Why does he want to kill us? What’s this ledger he’s talking about? What on earth is going on?”

“Fucked up,” I mumbled. “Big time.”

“What? What did you do?”

“The purse. I took that woman’s purse, at the grocery store. I thought it was yours.” I paused. “Big mistake.”

Sarah took it in. “My God,” she said. “But I was wearing my fanny pack. You were trying to teach me a lesson and …”

“If it had been anybody else’s purse,” I whispered. “Any purse but that one …”