Then a nurse.
Then a man in the back.
The sound spread like a fire catching.
Hunter went red to the roots of his hair.
“Stop that!” he shouted.
“This is a business!”
And that was when the back door opened.
The bell in the kitchen hallway jingled.
A man came through it in a gray work shirt and ball cap, carrying a metal toolbox, whistling, with an envelope visibly sticking out of his shirt pocket.
Zane Cardenas.
It was seven minutes to two.
Hunter’s head turned.
His face went from red to white to something like relief.
“Zane,” he said, loudly.
“Perfect timing.”
In my pocket, my phone buzzed once.
I did not need to read it.
I knew what it said.
In the quiet, with coffee dripping off my chin, I stood up from the chair.
I straightened my shoulders, and I let my voice come back the way it had been on the stepladder, eleven years before.
