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neck sparkled in the afternoon sun and his ginger-red hair was spiked with so much gel that he looked more like something you’d find at the bottom of the ocean than in a small Southern town. Oblivious to how stupid he looked, his head bobbed with the rap music pounding out of his car stereo and he gave her a suggestive wink. Lena looked away, thinking she’d like to see his spoiled white ass dropped off in the middle of downtown Atlanta on a Friday night. He’d be too busy pissing his pants to appreciate the gangsta life.
    She turned off at the next street, taking the long way to Hank’s, wanting to get away from the kids and traffic. Hank was probably fine. Lena knew one thing she shared with her uncle was a tendency toward moodiness. Hank was probably just in a dark place. He’d probably be angry to find her on his doorstep, invading his space. She wouldn’t blame him.
    A white Cadillac Escalade was parked in the driveway behind Hank’s old Mercedes. Lena pulled her Celica close to the curb and turned off the ignition, wondering who was visiting. Hank might be hosting an AA meeting; in which case, she hoped the Escalade’s driver was the last to leave instead of the first to show up. Her uncle was just as hooked on self-help bullshit as he had been addicted to speed and alcohol. She had known Hank to drive six hours straight to hear a particular speaker, attend a particular meeting, only to turn around and drive another six hours back so that he could open the bar for the early afternoon drunks.
    She studied the house, thinking that the only thing that had changed about her childhood home was its state of decay. The roof was more bowed, the paint on the clapboard peeling so badly that a thin strip of white flecks made a chalk line around the house. Even the mailbox had seen better days. Someone had obviously taken a bat to the thing, but Hank, being his usual handy self, had duct-taped it back onto the rotting wood post.
    Lena palmed her keys as she got out of the car. Her hamstrings were tight from the long drive, and she bent at the waist to stretch out her legs.
    A gunshot cracked the air, and Lena bolted up, reaching for her gun, realizing that her Glock was in her glove compartment at the same time she processed that the gunshot was just the front door slamming shut.
    The slammer was a stocky, bald man with arms the size of cannons and an attitude she could read from twenty paces. A large sheath containing a hunting knife was on his right hip and a thick metal chain dangled from his belt loop to his wallet in his back left pocket. He trotted down the rickety front stairs, counting a wad of money he held in his meaty hands.
    He looked up, saw Lena, and gave a dismissive snort before climbing into the white Cadillac. The SUV’s twenty-two-inch wheels kicked up dust as he backed out of the driveway and swung out into the street beside her Celica. The Escalade was about a yard longer than her car and at least two feet wider. The roof was so high she couldn’t see over the top. The side windows were heavily tinted, but the front ones were rolled down, and she could clearly see the driver.
    He’d stopped close enough to crowd her between the two cars, his beady eyes staring a hole into her. Time slowed, and she saw that he was older than she’d thought, that his shaved head was not a fashion statement but a complement to the large red swastika tattooed on his bare upper arm. Coarse black hair grew in a goatee and mustache around his mouth, but she could still see the sneer on his fat, wet lips.
    Lena had been a cop long enough to know a con, and the driver had been a con long enough to know that she was a cop. Neither one of them was about to back down, but he won the standoff by shaking his head, as if to say, ‘What a fucking waste.’ His wife beater shirt showed rippling muscles as he shifted into gear and peeled off.
    Lena was left standing in his wake. Five, six, seven … she counted the seconds, standing