When I entered the kitchen, I heard the rattling again. Someone was trying the knob on the back door. My heart thumped, and I walked across the room to where the bat still stood in the corner. I grabbed it, and lifted it with one hand while I swallowed hard.

My throat was dry as the desert. My knees felt weak, like tiny twigs that couldn’t support me.

The knob stopped rattling, and then someone knocked lightly.

What kind of burglar knocked?

I shuffled to the door, the bat raised, and with my left hand, I undid the chain and the dead bolt. I pulled the door open, ready to swing.

And I saw Blake standing there on the patio, blinking like a dazed child in the porch light.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I went right out the door, pulling it shut behind me with my free hand while holding the bat with my other.

Blake backed up as soon as he saw the look on my face.

I reached him before he could get out of my way and shoved him in the chest, sending him stumbling backward until he fell onto the soft grass with a dull thump. I dropped the bat and stood over him. He held his hands up defensively, his eyes wide, his mouth turned down in a grimace.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” I asked in a harsh whisper.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

I wanted to pile on top of him and start swinging. I wanted to kick him in the gut while he was down. He and I had never had a fistfight, although many, many times I’d felt like punching him. But I’d never made the kind of contact with him I did that night. Shoving him down. Standing over him.

“Where have you been?” I asked. “I’ve been trying to call you. Sam is looking for you. What did you do to me? Did you set me up? Are you trying to get me arrested? And you’re sending me these absurd Facebook requests.”

My voice rose to a shout, so I cut my words off. I turned and looked up at the house, at our bedroom window. I hoped I hadn’t made so much noise that I’d woken Amanda or Henry. My shoulders heaved as I breathed hard. The pent-up anger and frustration of the whole evening surged through me like a flammable liquid, putting me on the brink of losing control. I took a step back, tried to get a grip on my emotions.

Blake stayed on the ground, his hands up, still begging for mercy. “What’s your problem, Ryan?”