I bought two pounds of chicken. It makes about three and a half batches.

"These are really hot," I warn them, piling them onto a serving plate. "Karen, put this on the table. I'll get the mac and cheese."

The kids are already piling up nuggets when I get back. Karen is about to smear hers into a blop of honey on her plate. I catch her wrist before I sit down.

"Try it on its own first."

She looks at me and experimentally nibbles the chicken without first smearing sugar all over it to make it palatable.

Her face lights up and she looks at Kelly, who is already on her third nugget. Where the hell does that kid put all that food?

I serve the macaroni and cheese myself, piling it up on their plates. I save a little for myself.

Kelly eyes me. "Mom doesn't let us eat that much."

"This isn't that boxed garbage, it's actually good for you. Protein. Eat it."

"Kel, want a soda?"

Kelly nods.

"Bullshit on that," I say, rising.

"You cuss too much," Kelly chides me.

"Yeah, I do."

I return with one of Rose's beers (apparently I need to go to the liquor store for her, too) and chocolate milk in the two biggest glasses I could find.

"Mom doesn't-" Kelly starts.

"Don't tell her," I say, and sit down to eat.

The kids gobble down the whole tray of nuggets so fast I can't believe they're not making themselves sick. I eat my fill and sit back.

"I'm sleepy," Karen says, yawning.

"That happens when you have real food. Let's do the dishes."

"What?"

"Come on, we have to cover our tracks. Or do you want her to know you had chocolate milk for dinner?"

Karen's phone chirps.

"Mom needs to be picked up."

Once the dishwasher is running, I wipe my hands. "I'll get her. Get in bed."

"But-"

"Now. Do it. I don't want her flipping out when she finds out that I let you stay up. Go!"

They both look at me, look at each other, and trudge upstairs. When I'm convinced they're not leaving I take Karen's key and lock up, and drive over to the college to pick up Rose.

When she gets in the car she asks, "Did you make them something to eat?"

"Yeah, chicken nuggets and mac and cheese."

She sighs. "I wish they'd eat healthier."

"Not store-bought shit. I made it for them."

She sits up and looks at me. "What do you mean?"

"I made them," I shrug.

"What, like out of a bag?"

"No, I breaded and fried them in olive oil."

She stares at me, blinking. "The macaroni and cheese?"

"I remembered a recipe from my mom's cookbook."

"Seriously?"

I shrug.

She yawns. "God, I'm tired. I have to get up at five in the morning again. I can't keep doing this."

"Yeah," I sigh.

When we get back she walks into the kitchen, yawns, and opens the fridge. Then looks at me. Then opens the cupboard, then looks at me.

"What is all this?" Panicked, she spins in place, looking at all the food. "I can't afford-"

"Don't worry about it." I shrug, dismissing her with a wave of my hand.

She rushes upstairs, and when I walk into the living room I see her peeking into the kid's rooms. The little one must be asleep. Rose just looks at her and smiles, and pulls the door shut.

She talks briefly with Kelly, waking her. Then she looks at me and descends the stairs. She rubs her arms and looks into the kitchen, and I spot a wet trail on her cheek. I brush the tear away and she flinches at my touch.

"Thank you so much," she says, very softly.

"I couldn't eat that boxed crap." I shrug. "Cupboards looked a little bare. It's no big deal."

She steps into the kitchen. "You don't know what this means to me."

I step up behind her and put my hands on her hips. God, I want to knot my fist in her hair, bend her over, and finish what I started earlier. She tenses when I run my hand over her chest.

"You have to get up at five thirty in the morning," I whisper in her ear.

"Yes."

"Hmm. I can't keep you awake. This will have to do."

I touch my lips to her cheek. She's so warm.

"Ride in the morning?"

She nods. "Yes. Please."

"Good," I say, and squeeze her ass. I give her rump a little pat for good measure.

I have some work to do.

She watches me leave, which amounts to pulling my car into my own garage.

There I wait. The living room light in her house clicks off then the bedroom light clicks on. I start to get a little stiff thinking about her taking a shower, up there fingering herself, thinking about my dick inside her.

Her bedroom light clicks off, and then I get back in the car and roll out, lights off until I hit the end of the block. By now there's no guard at the gate. I have to wave a little card at a reader to open it.

No witnesses.

I drive, with my laptop propped open on the seat.

Burt is having an evening out, at the local no-tell motel, if the coordinates are right.

Subtlety is not his strong suit. It's a one-floor strip of a motel, one wing off a slightly bigger building, probably the manager's residence. Parked in front of one of the rooms is Burt's Mercedes.

There's a nice lot up the street where I can park. It used to be a Quik-Mart or something but it's abandoned now, boarded up, big sheets of silvery plywood over the front door. The windows look like eyes, the broken glass in the door like teeth in the dark, glinting with menace.

From there I walk to the back of the motel, cutting across the lawn behind. I count my way down to the windows to find a lit one. From there I just have to grab the ledge and lift up to peer into the bathroom of a cheap motel room decorated in early Norman Bates. The old tube-type TV is playing silently, the only light in the room as Burt, Rose's boss, grunts on his knees, thrusting into the eighteen-year-old receptionist in front of him.

In all honestly she looks a little bored, but Burt is having the time of his life. He smacks her ass and she flinches.

I snap a few pictures and a video for good measure.

I pull the black mask down over my face, lift the folding glass window, and start unscrewing the window from the frame.

Burt is about done. He grabs the girl's hips, grinds against her, and then flops back on the bed while she gets up and pads into the bathroom.

I duck down. The toilet flushes and the shower runs. I have one of the metal arms that holds open the window detached. When the other one comes off the window will pop right out. Cheap.

The girl steps out of the shower and towels off. She's pretty, fit, but she's no Rose. I don't give her a second thought as she walks into the front of the room, crawls under the covers, and Burt gets up and walks into the bathroom.

He closes the door and fiddles with his phone. He must be texting someone. Resting the phone on the vanity, he climbs in the shower and turns it on, and starts singing Girl from Ipanema.

No, really.

The rest of the window comes off. I lower the glass pane to the ground and slip inside, stepping first onto the toilet then down to the floor.

His phone is locked, but he was texting his wife. Probably told her he was out bowling or something.

Sighing, I rip the curtain open. He gives me a look, probably half expecting a guy in his mom's dress, and before he can cry out I stick the needle in his throat and push down the plunger.

Burt topples forward. I catch him and lower him to the floor, click off the light, and swing open the door into the room. The girl is snoring, lying on her side under the covers. Silently I move through the room until I find Burt's keys, and lay them gently and quietly on the bed next to her. It's only polite to give her a ride home if we don't make it back in time.

Getting Burt out is the tricky part, but I manage.

Nobody notices me hauling him buck-ass nude in a fireman's carry back to the car, where I lower him into the trunk, zip tie his arms and ankles together behind his back" is clearer, and jog around to the front seat.

Halfway through the drive he starts thumping on the inside of the trunk. You know how they have those emergency releases in trunks, so kids can't get stuck inside, and so you can get out if you're kidnapped?

Sixty-eight Impalas don't have those.

I can't take him back to the house, of course. I had to do this quick and dirty. I rented a mini storage garage on the other side of town. There are cameras, yes, but I rented a huge 20-by-20 unit, more than enough room for the car.

I pull inside and step out, pull the metal door down, and click on some battery-powered work lamps for illumination, then open my trunk.

Burt sits up. "Who the fuck are you? Do you have any idea who I am?"

I backhand him across the face and he flops down on the floor of the trunk.

"What are you going to do, give me a root canal?"

"I'll fucking ruin you. I know people. I can have you taken care of, mister."

I can't help it, I bust out laughing.

He just stares at me.

"Seriously. Okay, up."

"But-"

I haul him out of the trunk by his arms, stand him on his bound feet, and make him hop over to a wicker chair. He stares at it.

"There's no seat."

"I know," I say. "Sit down."

Gingerly he rests on the rim. He starts to stand when I step away, so I produce the silenced .22 pistol I've been carrying behind my back and put the end of the suppressor to his forehead.

"Sit down."

He sits down.