“Oh, baby,” Lisa had replied, and kissed him, her mouth sweet and plush. “You’ll always reach higher when you have something lifting you up.”

Tap-tap-tap.

The back door? Who the fuck came to the back door at any time of the day, let alone nine o’clock in the morning?

Trouble, that was who.

Luke owned a gun—a snub-nosed .38 Special—which he kept in a lockbox, like a smart American, but had lost the key, like a goddamn idiot. Maybe that was just as well; if the .38 had been accessible four months ago, he might have used it to pop his brains out, rather than rolling down the garage door with the four-banger running.

He sprang out of bed and into the hallway, where he grabbed his Louisville Slugger—forty-two inches of solid ash—from the shit-pile that served as a coat closet. It wasn’t as reassuring as his .38, but it would have to do. Hoisting it to his shoulder, he edged into the living room, which was open plan, an L-shaped breakfast bar separating it from the kitchen. It offered a better view of the back door.

Tap-tap.

Luke cleared a channel through the empty beer bottles and looked over the breakfast bar. The blind in the back-door window was down but only half-closed. Through the cracks, he glimpsed someone on the other side, wearing what looked like a red hoodie. Some meth-head, probably, looking to steal his shit.

Tap-tap-tap.

“I have a gun, motherfucker,” Luke called out, “and I know how to use it.”

The second part was true, at least. He’d spent six weeks training at Brock’s Urban Shooter for his role in A Bullet Affair. Couldn’t hit a bull in the ass to begin with, but by the end could clear a tactical area with nothing but headshots.

Mr. Red Hoodie lingered for several seconds, as if weighing his chances, then disappeared from view. Luke lowered the baseball bat and ran a hand through his hair, aware only then how keenly his heart was drumming. He pulled in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“That’s right,” he shouted. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Luke counted to thirty, then looped around the breakfast bar. He took three long strides across the kitchen and peered out the window over the sink.

Red Hoodie was still there. A female, not a male. Luke could tell from her slender shoulders and hands, and from the wavy black hair hanging down from inside her hood. She sat with her back against a sun-faded planter, knees drawn to her chest, her head low. Her track pants were covered in dirt, and her colorful sneakers—

“Oh shit,” Luke hissed. He flashed back to just after his suicide attempt, standing in his driveway with a cloth pressed to his whirling head, watching the girl who’d saved his life lower one colorful sneaker onto her skateboard before rolling away.

“Kitty.”