“No…that’s not necessary.” She looked up at him. “I really don’t think you’ll hurt me.”

“You can bet your life on that.”

Vin escorted her over to the M6, and after she was settled in the passenger seat, he got in behind the wheel. “We’re going to the Wood.”

“What’s that?”

“A residential part of town where every single street ends with ‘wood.’ Oakwood, Greenwood, Pinewood.” He started the engine. “It’s like the city planners just ran out of inventive names at that point, and you have to wonder why there isn’t a Woodwood Avenue over there.”

She laughed. “I’ve been here for about a year and a half. I should probably know where it is.”

“It’s not far. Just about ten minutes.”

Five blocks over from the club, he eased onto the Northway and went up one exit, getting off at Caldie’s northern suburbs. As they passed street after street of postage-stamp lots, the houses were small and became even smaller as he went on.

He had memories of these neighborhoods, but not the Norman Rockwell, squeaky-clean, happy-family kind. More like him sneaking out of the house to get away from his parents and hooking up with his friends to go and drink and smoke and fight. Anything was better than being home back in those days.

God, how he’d prayed for them to go away. Or for him to leave.

And he’d gotten his wish, hadn’t he.

“Almost there,” he said, although Marie-Terese seemed perfectly content next to him, her body relaxed, her head back against the seat rest as she looked out the window.

“I feel like you could just keep driving for hours,” she murmured, “and I’d be happy just to sit here and watch the world go by.”

He reached over and took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “When’s the last time you had a vacation?”

“Forever.”

“Ah. I know how that one is.”

When he got to 116 Crestwood Avenue, he pulled into the driveway and up to a tiny two-bedroom with aluminum siding and a concrete walkway to the front door.

The place where he’d grown up had never looked so good, the bushes around the foundation trimmed and the big oak tree free of dead branches—and when there was grass growing on the ground, it would be mowed every week. He’d also replaced the roof two years ago and had the siding redone and the driveway resurfaced. It was the best-kept house on the street, if not in all of the Wood.

“What is this?” she said.

He was abruptly embarrassed, but then that was the point. Devina had never been here. No one who worked with him even knew about the place. Ever since he’d started making it, he’d shown people only what he’d been proud of.

He opened his door. “This…is where I grew up.”