Lou circled the table, never once averting his gaze from the frightening diorama. He expected he’d see the remains of the meal, mauled and bloody.

But there was not any blood to be seen.

What Lou witnessed instead, was nothing.

There was no mouse left at all.

Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

Lou felt leagues better the moment he set foot inside Cap’s Stick and Move. One good whiff of stale gym air with its distinctive blend of sweat, cheap aftershave, and bleach, and he felt he was home. But he still could not forget Joey Alderson’s astonishing termites. Before heading over to the gym, he had made a quick search of the Internet, but could find no entomological evidence that such creatures existed.

Only they did.

The image and hideous clicking of that amber-colored swarm totally consuming a mouse in a matter of seconds would stay with him indefinitely. Lou wrote down the name and number of Oliver Humphries at Temple University in Philadelphia, listed as one of the experts in the field of termite entomology. If time allowed, he might give the man a call.

Joey was extremely excited at Lou’s stunned reaction to his pets, and offered to drop another mouse into the Lucite habitat. Lou politely begged off an encore, but did ask where he had come up with the bugs.

“I can’t show you today,” Joey had said, a broad smile creasing his boyish face. “But come back on the weekend, and I’ll take you there. I think you’ll be pretty amazed.”

“I’m pretty amazed right now,” Lou had said, “and a bit horrified, too.”

Lou concentrated on the young fighters chasing their dreams, and Joey’s nightmare bugs gradually receded toward the back of his consciousness. As always, the gym was a sanctuary for his brain. The grunts, soft thud of boxing gloves, and rhythmic skip of jump ropes across the cement floor were symphonic.

After changing quickly in the locker room, Lou slipped on his bag gloves and got to work on the heavy bag. Cap was in the ring nearby, training a young fighter who had pretty decent moves. Lou started off with a set of straight jabs, remembering what his mentor had told him about not telegraphing the punch by leaning forward. Then he switched over to a rapid-fire combination set that included a mix of jab-cross, jab-hook, and jab-hook-hook punches. By minute five of his ten-minute set, he was sweating profusely and feeling almost airborne. He tried to focus on his punching technique, but then a surprising thing happened.

He found himself thinking about Renee.

Thud. Thud. Renee. Thud. Steve. Thud. Emily. Thud.