She had to respect him now. She had no choice. The power was all his. In this game, he always won. He had stripped away all of her pretense, the mask of beauty, to reveal the plain raw truth: that she was nothing and he was God.

It was important for her to know that before he killed her.

My dad is a very important man in the community.

It was important that she had the time to reflect on that truth. Because of that, he wouldn’t kill her just yet. Besides, he didn’t have the time.

My dad. My hero.

It was nearly three o’clock. He had to go pick up his child from school.

Chapter 2

2

Five Days Later

Tuesday, October 8 , 1985

“You suck, Crane.”

Tommy Crane sighed and stared straight ahead.

Dennis Farman leaned over from his desk, right across from Tommy’s, his fat face screwed up into what he probably thought was a really tough look.

Tommy tried to tell himself it was just a stupid look. Asinine. That was his new word of the week. Asinine: marked by inexcusable failure to exercise intelligence or sound judgment. Definition number two: of, relating to, or resembling an ass.

That was Dennis, all the way around.

He tried not to think about the fact that Dennis Farman was bigger than he was, a whole year older than he was, and just plain mean.

“You suck donkey dicks,” Farman said, laughing to himself like he thought he was brilliant or something.

Tommy sighed again and looked at the clock on the wall above the door. Two more minutes.

Wendy Morgan turned around in her seat and looked at him with frustration. “Say something, Tommy. Tell him he’s a dork.”

“‘Say something, Tommy,’” Farman parroted, making his voice really high, like a girl’s. “Or let your girlfriend talk for you.”

“He doesn’t have a girlfriend,” Cody Roache, Farman’s scrawny toady, chimed in. “He’s gay. He’s gay and she’s a lesbo.”

Wendy rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Cockroach. You don’t even know what that means.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Because you are.”

Tommy watched the clock tick one minute closer to freedom. At the front of the room, Miss Navarre walked back to her desk from the door with a yellow note in her hand.

If someone had tortured him, held fire to his feet, or stuck bamboo shoots under his fingernails, he would have had to admit he was kind of in love with Miss Navarre. She was smart and kind, and really pretty with big brown eyes and dark hair tucked behind her ears.

“Twat,” Cockroach said, just loud enough that the bad word shot like a poisoned dart straight to Miss Navarre’s ear, and her attention snapped in their direction.