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The phone next to the bed rang and she jumped. After five rounds of chiming, she answered the thing only because it refused to stop going off. “Hello?”

“Madam?” A doggen. “You have a call from our master Butch. Are you receiving?”

Oh, great. So he’d heard.

“Madam?”

“Ah…yes, I am.”

“Very well. And I’ve given him your direct dial. Please hold.”

There was a click and then that telltale gravel voice. “Marissa? Are you okay?”

Not really, she thought, but it was none of his business. “Yes, thank you. Beth and Wrath have been very charitable to me.”

“Listen, I want to see you.”

“You do? Then may I assume that all your problems have magically disappeared? You must be thrilled to be back to normal. Congratulations.”

He cursed. “I’m worried about you.”

“Kind of you, but—”

“Marissa—”

“—we wouldn’t want to endanger me, would we?”

“Listen, I just—”

“So you better stay away so I don’t get hurt—”

“Damn you, Marissa. Goddamn this whole thing!”

She closed her eyes, mad at the world and at him and at her brother and herself. And with Butch getting angry, too, this conversation was a hand grenade about to go off.

In a low voice she said, “I appreciate you checking in on me, but I’m fine.”

“Shit…”

“Yes, I believe that covers the situation well. Good-bye, Butch.”

As she hung up the phone, she realized she was shaking all over.

The ringer went off again immediately and she glared at the bedside table. With a quick lean-and-grab, she reached over and yanked the cord out of the wall.

Shoving her body down through the sheets, she curled over on her side. There was no way she was going to go to sleep, but she shut her eyes anyway.

As she fumed in the dark, she came to a conclusion. Even though everything was…well, shit, to use Butch’s eloquent summation…she could say this at least: Being pissed off was better than having a panic attack.

Twenty minutes later, with his Sox cap pulled down low and a pair of sunglasses in place, Butch walked up to a dark green ’03 Honda Accord. He looked left and right. No one was in the alley. There were no windows on the buildings. No cars passing by on Ninth Street.

Bending down, he picked up a hunk of rock from the ground and punched a hole in the driver’s side window. As the alarm went apeshit, he stepped away from the sedan and melted into the shadows. No one came running. The noise died off.

He hadn’t stolen a car since he was sixteen and a juvenile delinquent in South Boston, but he was back in the groove now. He walked over calmly, popped the door, and got in. The sequence that came next was quick and efficient, proving that crime, like his Southie accent, was something he’d never quite lost: He ripped off the panel underneath the dash. Found the wires. Put the right two together and…vroom.

Butch knocked out the rest of the shattered glass with his elbow and took off at a leisurely roll. As his knees were nearly up to his chest, he reached down, hit the release and shoved the seat back as far as it could go. Propping his arm on the window, like he was just taking in the early spring air, he leaned back, all casual.

When he got to the stop sign at the end of the alley, he hit the directional signal and came to a full-tire halt: Following traffic laws when you were in a stolen vehicle and had no ID on you was mission critical.

As he hung a louie and headed down Ninth, he felt bad for whatever Joe he’d just royally fucked over. Losing your wheels was not fun, and at the first stoplight he came to, he flipped open the glove compartment. Car was registered to one Sally Forrester. 1247 Barnstable Street.

He vowed to return the Honda to her ASAP and leave her a couple of grand to cover the inconvenience and the busted window.

Speaking of busted things…he tilted the rearview mirror toward himself. Oh, Christ, he was a train wreck. He needed a shave and his face was still a mess from the beatings. With a curse, he repositioned the glass so he didn’t have to look at his road map of ugly.

Unfortunately, he still had a pretty clear picture