One She saw him, and she stopped a few feet from the stairs. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” The woman in the dull black overcoat didn’t blink and didn’t move. “What do you want?” He’d prepared a speech, but he couldn’t remember it. “To talk. To you. I want to talk to you.” Briar Wilkes closed her eyes hard. When she opened them again, she asked, “Is it about Zeke? What’s he done now?” “No, no, it’s not about him,” he insisted. “Ma’am, I was hoping we could talk about your father.” Her shoulders lost their stiff, defensive right angles, and she shook her head. “That figures. I swear to God, all the men in my life, they…” She stopped herself. And then she said, “My father was a tyrant, and everyone he loved was afraid of him. Is that what you want to hear?” He held his position while she climbed the eleven crooked stairs that led the way to her home, and to him. When she reached the narrow porch he asked, “Is it true?” “More true than not.” She stood before him with her fingers wrapped around a ring of keys. The top of her head was level with his chin. Her keys were aimed at his waist, he