I said, “You need to know how serious we are, Cody.”

“I know! I know!” Shrieking now.

“You think he knows?” I asked Bubba.

“I think he knows,” Bubba said.

A guttural sigh of relief escaped Cody’s lips and he looked up into Bubba’s face with a gratitude that was almost embarrassing to witness.

Bubba smiled and smashed the tennis racket down into Cody Falk’s groin.

Cody sat up like the base of his spine was on fire. The world’s loudest hiccup burst from his mouth, and he wrapped his arms around his stomach and puked in his own lap.

Bubba said, “You can never be too sure, though, can ya?” and tossed the tennis racket over the hood of the car.

I watched Cody struggle with the bolts of pain shooting up his body, seizing his intestines, his chest cavity, his lungs. Sweat poured down his face like a summer shower.

Bubba opened the small wooden door that led out of the garage.

Cody eventually turned his head toward mine and the grimace on his face reminded me of a skeleton’s smile.

I watched his eyes to see if the fear would turn to rage, if the vulnerability would be replaced by that casual superiority of the born predator. I waited to see that look Karen Nichols had seen in the parking lot, the same one I’d glimpsed just before Bubba pulled the .22’s trigger that first time.

I waited some more.

The pain began to subside and the grimace relaxed on Cody Falk’s face; the skin loosened up by his hairline, and his breathing returned to a semiregular rhythm. But the fear stayed. It was dug in deep, and I knew it would be several nights before he slept more than an hour or two, a month at least before he could shut the garage door behind him while he was still inside. For a long, long time, he would, at least once a day, look over his shoulder for Bubba and me. Cody Falk, I was almost certain, would spend the rest of his life in a state of fear.

I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the note Karen Nichols had left on his car. I crumpled it into a ball.

“Cody,” I whispered.

His eyes snapped to attention.

“Next time, the lights will just go out.” I tilted his chin up with my fingers. “You understand? You’ll never hear us or see us.”

I shoved the balled-up note into his mouth. His eyes widened and he tried not to gag. I slapped the underside of his chin and his mouth closed.

I stood up, walked to the door, kept my back to him.

“And you’ll die, Cody. You’ll die.”

It would be six months before I gave any serious thought to Karen Nichols again.