“Inside word,” she repeated. “It’s on Mountain Laurel Lane.”

“No kidding. Spencer used to live on Mountain Laurel Lane.”

“His parents still do, a few doors down. It’s next door to Adrian Rizzo’s friends, Teesha and Monroe and their little boy. They’re nice people, they’d be good neighbors.”

He smiled at her over his beer. “Sounds like it’s settled.”

“You’re going to want to look at more than one, I expect, but I’m betting this one checks some boxes. Dom told the owner he had somebody who’d want to take a look right off, and got me the name and number for you to call.”

“Then I will. How’s Dom?”

“He’s good. Slowing down some, but he’s good. Having his granddaughter with him’s made a difference. Like having you and the kids here makes one for me.”

The kids ran in to throw their arms around Jan’s legs, babbling their thank-yous.

She smiled over at Raylan. “All the difference there is.”

They hauled luggage in, toys in, his equipment and tools. Since it obviously pleased her, he let her help Mariah put her things into Maya’s old room, Bradley into his while Raylan did what he could to make his nest in the first-floor den.

He squeezed in a work space, put the rest of his things in the hall closet his mother had already cleaned out for him. The main level had a tiny bathroom with a tiny corner shower, and that would do fine. For a while.

Mountain Laurel Lane, he thought, and stretched out on the couch in the den for just a minute. He’d run that street, those sidewalks and yards as a kid. So maybe.

He woke groggy, disoriented, stiff as a board. And with his sister standing in the doorway with two glasses of wine and a smile.

“You saved me from waking you.”

He sat up, rubbed the back of his aching neck. “Jesus Christ, how did I forget how uncomfortable this pullout is?”

“Stretch it out, soldier. Dinner’s in an hour, the kids—yours and mine—are outside with the dog. Joe’s arguing with Mom over control of the grill.”

“What’re we having?” He stood, rolled his shoulders, tried to stretch out his back.

“In honor of your homecoming, it’s steak, baked potatoes, grilled corn and vegetables, tomatoes and mozzarella, and cherry pie.”

“That’s a damn good deal.” He smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She went in for a hug, handed him a glass. “Let’s take a walk around, front to back. Get your blood moving again and catch up a little before we hit the crowd.”

“I didn’t mean to drop off like that, dump the kids on Mom.”

“She’s in heaven, so are the kids. Good job, Raylan.”

“I hope so.” They went out the front, and he paused to scan the neighborhood where he’d grown up. Some changes, sure, but not many, and the same easy feel to it. “It feels good. I wasn’t sure it would. How’s business?”

“It’s good, too. I love it, and I wasn’t sure I would. Aren’t we the lucky ones?”

“Mom’s done a good job.”

They walked around hydrangea bushes, pregnant with fat pink blossoms.

“I hear you might put down stakes on Mountain Laurel Lane.”

“I haven’t even seen the house yet. Or any.”

“It’s a pretty house, at least from the outside. Paul Wicker—he was in your class.”

“Biker dude, rough customer.”

“This is his older brother, Mark. A contractor. He bought the house to flip. Paul, not so much a rough customer now, works for him. Anyway, I can tell you about your closest neighbors.”

They ducked under the branches of a red maple as they walked around to the side of the house. “They’re terrific. Monroe’s a songwriter, Teesha’s Adrian Rizzo’s business manager. Their kid, Phineas, is Collin’s best pal, so I know them really well.”

“Maybe I’ll call former rough customer Paul’s contractor brother tomorrow.”

She tapped her glass to his before she drank. “Why not now?”

He heard his kids playing in the backyard where he’d once battled supervillains, shot hoops, mowed grass.

Maybe a phone call could give him the next step on giving them their own.

“I can do that.”

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

The alley steamed, a pot of gumbo on the simmer, even past two in the morning. The dumpster stank from the day’s baking. But she always left the bar last, always by the alley door.

Stupid, just stupid, for an educated woman with a degree in business management, another in hospitality. But she thought because she kept herself buff, because she carried a Taser—and an illegal knife—she could handle what came.

She wouldn’t handle this, or anything else after tonight.

Another slut—twice divorced—with an ego so big she’d named her bar after herself. Stella’s. Stella Clancy, who’d already poured her last shot.

Now it was just wait, sweating under the disposable black coveralls, for her to come out the door, lock up before her half-a-block walk to her apartment.

She’d never get there. She’d die in the stink of the alley like she deserved.

Near to three, she came out, her whore-dyed red hair cut short to show off the tattoo on the back of her neck.

The pipe struck there first.

She went down like a tree, a toughly built woman in a skinny-strapped top and shorts that barely covered her crotch.

Whore.

She never made a sound.

Blood flew as the pipe struck the back of her skull. It struck again and again, shattering bones after she’d stopped breathing.

Too much fun! Yes, too much fun.

Pull back, get control. Job’s done.

Take her watch, the ugly, gaudy ring, the cheap purse.

Smile, bitch. Take the photo.

Bag up the souvenirs, strip off the bloodied coveralls. Bag them with the pipe.

Into the Mississippi with that bag.

Then hunt up a bar, have a drink. Maybe try the Hurricane like a real tourist before it was on the road again.

The dog woke him early. Raylan calculated the pullout aged him about thirty years as he creakily crawled out of it. He dragged on gym shorts, led the prancing Jasper into the kitchen, grabbed a Coke out of the fridge before he opened the back door.

Jasper shot out like a rocket. And in the hazy morning heat, Raylan leaned on the doorjamb while Jasper sniffed around the yard to decide where to complete his morning necessities.

A considerate and oddly poop-shy dog, Jasper wandered out to the back fence and behind a butterfly bush. Used to the routine, Raylan waited in the quiet, so different from the morning bustle of Brooklyn.

He’d done the right thing. If he’d had any lingering doubts about the move, they’d dissolved the evening before around the old—newly painted bright blue—picnic table where his kids feasted and chattered like cocaine-fueled magpies, and Joe with his John Lennon glasses and Orioles fielder’s cap bounced Collin on his knee—despite the boy’s sauce-smeared hands and face.

With his sister holding a heartfelt discussion on fashion with Mariah. And his mom looking as if he’d given her the world.

He fed the dog, started coffee so his mother wouldn’t have to, then worked out the worst of the creaks in the shower.