The driver dropped Shaw at an intersection, and Shaw waited for the taillights to disappear before hiking two blocks back the way they had come. He knew the house he wanted. He followed the long drive. He tested the door on the garage; unlocked. The Beamer was unlocked too. Shaw popped the trunk. He selected a nine iron from Tuck’s clubs, and then he closed the trunk and closed the garage and walked around the back of the house.

The door was locked, but Shaw knew where the spare key was hidden, and he let himself into the kitchen. Unlike that horrible night when Shaw had been forced to watch a nightmare behind glass, the house was dark. Or—no. Not quite dark. Not completely. A blue flicker came from the living room, and then a muffled burst of voices. The television. Shaw took a step in that direction.

A shadow loomed in the doorway ahead, and Tuck’s drunken voice snaked into the darkness. “Baby?” Not just drunk. Wasted. “Baby, is that you? Baby, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I can’t—I can’t—” He was sobbing. He must have hit the lights because all of a sudden the room was bright and Tuck was blinking, tears streaming down his face, a bottle of Jack clutched to his chest where he bent slightly, as though his remorse had crippled him. “Shaw?”

Shaw walked the length of the kitchen. The nine iron trailed on the ground, a low metallic skitter across the tile. Confusion worked its way through Tuck’s handsome face, but it moved like a glacier, and as Shaw drew close, Tuck said, “North’s not here. I thought he was with you. Is something wrong? He said—”

As Shaw reached the other man, he swept the club up, back, and then swung down hard. Even years after Tuck had last played a sport demanding an athlete’s reflexes, he still had some of his natural grace and speed. Shaw had a flicker of a thought that Tuck might have even been fast enough to dodge the blow if not for the booze. But, of course, there had been lots of booze tonight, and Tuck was just starting to stagger back when the nine iron connected with his shoulder. Shaw couldn’t hear the bone shatter, not exactly, but he thought he pinpointed the exact moment by the pain flooding into Tuck’s face.

It took a surprising amount of time before Tuck screamed. Fifteen seconds. Maybe twenty.

Plenty of time for the second blow, which Shaw swung sideways, and the head of the club caught Tuck low in the belly. It gave Tucker’s second scream, which was just starting to break from his throat, a breathless whoosh at the end.

Tuck was still trying to back away. His arm swung out, and it wasn’t clear if he was trying to ward off a blow or use the bottle of Jack as a weapon, but either way, his injured shoulder betrayed him. With a shriek that sounded betrayed, Tuck lost his grip on the bottle, and it spun through the air, a brown tongue of whiskey lapping at the air before glass cracked against the wall.