“Why are you here?” Winnie asks.

“This place is mine now,” Ryan says, his voice uncertain. “I bought it.”

“You bought it.” She says the words flatly, a statement, not a question. She seems to find them humorous, but she does not smile; instead, she flares her nostrils.

“Why?”

“To . . . to clean it. To make it new.”

“What if it doesn’t want to be?”

Ryan blinks at her, as lost as one of the gals at the assessor’s office.

“What are you talking about?”

“What if it just wants to be what it is? What it has become?”

This makes Ryan laugh, a loud barking laugh that echoes through the empty building.

Winnie snarls, her lip curling. She lifts the wood, brings it down hard.

He curls his arms around his head again, and again the world retreats in darkness.

* * *

When he wakes up, she is gone and he is alone.

He limps down the stairs and out of the building, down to where his green Lexus is waiting. It is night, a thick hot summer night. Where did the whole day go? He has the most horrific hangover he’s ever experienced, and he aches terribly.

Running his tongue over his lip, he can tell that it’s split. Touching fingers to his eyes, he can tell that they’re blackened.

When he gets to his green Lexus he looks at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. It’s worse than he thought. There’s a red welting crease over his cheekbone, and both his eyes are as purple and blue as overripe plums.

First, he uses his cell phone to call the police. He tells them about the crazy squatter in his building. He wants her cleared out. He is a man of substance, goddamn it! He has pumped millions into the local economy over the past decade. He is on a first-name basis with the mayor.

Yes, he is willing to press charges for assault. He wants her locked up for life. Maybe in an insane asylum.