"Sorry," he said, bending to pick up the fork.

The crack of rifle fire came the instant his head dropped below the table.

The window shattered inward. He rose too quickly, certain Ruby was dead, and banged his head on the underside of the table. Stars shot across his vision.

"What the heck?" Norma gasped, scooting back in her chair.

Sheila dropped beside the counter. Ruby was moving toward the window, almost gliding, her gaze flitting from the shards of glass on the floor to the singed hole in the fluttering terrier-print curtain.

"Ma, you really should—"

"We've got your woman!" The gruff elderly woman's voice carried in the early morning. "Come outside so we can settle this face to face!"

Norma scowled. "Is that Helen?"

"It is Helen." A sly smile spread across Ruby's face. "And who, I wonder, is she addressing? A friend of yours, Martin?"

She turned back from the window, catching him in her gaze like a trap catching a wolf. He felt her working in his mind the way Ethel had earlier but the ache this time was swift and sharp. The confession spilled out of him: "James Barclay is in the house. The killer who was hunting us. They're planning to kill you."

Her fixed smile widened. "There. That wasn't so hard to admit, was it?"

He shook his head, fighting a strange urge to cry, like a little kid confessing to stealing from the church collection plate or calling her a swear behind her back.

The sound of bootheels on tile alerted them. Barclay stepped out of the shadows, twirling the knife in his hand. "I guess now the beans are spilled, no use me hidin."

"Ah," Ruby said, her smile so wide now her yellow teeth showed. "You must be the Witch Killer. 'Tis a pleasure to finally meet you."

"Witch Hunter, I b'lieve they call me. And I must say, I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Savage." He pointed with the knife. "You're the genuine article. I could smell it the second I stepped inside this den of yours."

"Miss," Ruby said irritably. "And I could smell you, Mr. Barclay. Your woman across the street, too. Cigarettes and gun oil and hurried sex under the three-quarter moon. Don't you dare think for a moment I don't know what you did to my kin. Their blood is on your hands—isn't it, Jimmy?"

Barclay flinched.

"Ol' Gimme Jimmy," she said, smiling again. "That's what they called you, isn't it? Your old crew? The boys?" She crossed the room slowly as she spoke. Not a hint of infirmity anymore, the pretense entirely dropped. "Or so you like to tell yourself. The truth is quite sad. Pathetic, even. The other boys hated you. They picked on you. Beat you up and called you names. Gimme Jimmy Never Gets. Jimbecile. Jimmy the Fairy."

Barclay shook his head. "No, that ain't true. I was the king of that school."

"You were the king of squat. The girls picked on you, too, didn't they? Their words stung more than the boys and their fists. Ugly Jimmy. Always staring. Pervert. Creep. The ugly little boy who eats worms for attention."