He found the ball just inside the shed, closing its door quietly, with one eye on his house, before heading back through the pines and out toward the tracks. Up the stony bank Troy climbed. After the total darkness of the woods, he could almost see the shiny metal tracks and their straight path due north to Chicago or south to Atlanta, depending on your direction. Troy headed south-not to Atlanta, but to the Pine Grove Apartments where both Nathan and Tate lived. It was Tate's apartment he went to, scooping up a handful of pebbles from the landscaping and tossing them up at the second-floor window he knew was hers.

It took a dozen stones before her light went on and the window slid open.

"Who's there?" Tate said, hissing into the night, just the edge of her face appearing between the curtains and the window frame.

"Tate," Troy said, "it's me."

Tate stuck her head right out the window then and, looking down, still whispering, asked, "What in the world are you doing?"

"Can you come down?" he asked.

Tate swept her long brown hair behind her ears and said, "You really need me to? It's, like, almost midnight."

"I do," he said.

"Okay," she said with a forceful nod, "let me get out of these pajamas."

Troy circled the apartment building and waited in the shadows until Tate's form slipped free from her front door and down the steps. She held a finger to her lips, and they stayed quiet until they reached the railroad tracks in back.

"Are you crazy?" Tate asked, still whispering.

"You don't have to whisper," Troy said.

"Who doesn't whisper?" Tate asked. "It's the middle of the night. The last time we did something like this, you almost got gunned down by a security guard inside Cotton Wood."

"I didn't almost get gunned down," Troy said.