I turned and looked at her wrist, glimpsed red finger marks. She hid them from me.

“Did the kid hurt you?” I asked.

“No, no.” She tucked a curl behind her ear. “He would never—”

“If he’s hurt you, I’ll kick his ass,” I said. “He’s not too young to learn what you get if you raise your hand to a woman. Once I’ve finished kicking his ass, Nick will kick his ass, and then the two of us will hold him down while you kick his ass.”

I’ve got a real issue with men who beat up on women. It’s part of a large collection of emotional baggage that would make a team of bellhops throw in their hats.

The Minnow residence was covered in bougainvillea; the mailbox was balanced on the top of a gray concrete post. I turned off the engine and was about to open my door when a coffee table smashed through the front window of the house and landed upside down in a flower bed.

TIME LOOPS AROUND. One minute you’re a washed-up ex-cop with love handles who hasn’t shaved in days, and the next minute you’re back in time, a rookie with washboard abs who couldn’t grow a beard for love or money, adrenaline thrumming in your veins as you wait for the go-ahead to bust into a crack house with your team.

The Minnow residence wasn’t a crack house, but it sure seemed as dangerous as one. As I jogged over, I heard Winley Minnow growling and the sounds of glass breaking and something dry, maybe cereal, scattering across the floor. Through the window by the back door, I saw Winley and his father, Derek, a small, round man who was sweating in his polo shirt. Winley held a wooden block of knives under one arm like a football and had one knife in his big fist. Just above Derek’s head, beneath a cheerful cuckoo clock with lumberjacks poised to saw tiny logs, a knife handle jutted out of the drywall. I watched as Winley brandished the blade at his father.

“Win, please.” Derek put his hands up. “Please, please, son, put the knife down.”

“They’re not taking me. They’re not taking me! I’m not going! They’re not taking me!”

I could tell Winley was high as a kite even before I saw his face. He was pacing in a small area, two steps forward and two back. Between the shouts, he muttered something to himself in a singsongy voice.

“No one’s coming to take you,” Derek said. “You’re out of your mind!”

I kicked in the back door just as Nick came in the front. Nick grabbed Derek and yanked him out of the kitchen. Winley turned and hurled the knife at me; it went sailing past my ear and through the open door to the yard. Nick grabbed the boy’s hand as he went for another, and I went for the knife block. We wrestled, and the knives scattered on the floor. Nick swept the kid into a headlock that didn’t seem to slow him down at all.