“Aye, I thought so. We’re not discussing this, Rowan,” she continued with a stern shake of her head. “If you go, I go. End of story. Now answer the phone, then.” She was already turning around the corner of the doorway on her way back to the bedroom as she issued the last command.

I knew better than to press my luck, especially on this subject. We’d beaten it beyond recognition already, and we were both too stubborn to give in. I took a step forward, picked the phone out of its cradle on the fourth ring, and then placed it to my ear.

“Yeah, Ben. I’m here” was all I said.

“Awww, Jeezus H. Christ, Row… Jeeeez… Goddammit…” He launched immediately into a string of curses, his voice a peculiar mix of relief, anger, and disgust.

Whenever my friend started a sentence this way, I knew that what followed probably wasn’t going to be good. Of course, I’d known that before the phone ever rang, but there was always that small inkling of hope that I might be wrong. Judging from the baseness of Ben’s first words, I knew that this would not be the occasion.

“Porter?” I inserted my question into the lull that trailed along in the wake of his outburst.

“Yeah,” he returned, his voice slightly calmer. “But that was a given, I guess.”

In an instant, the “probably” became an absolutely, and the “wasn’t going to be good” was nothing less than a cold fact.

“Uh-huh. Truth is I’m surprised he waited this long,” I replied. “It’s been more than two weeks since he killed that woman in Cape Girardeau.”

“Yeah.” He paused. “So, what gives? You sound like you were awake already.”

“Yeah. I was.”

“So what’s up? Don’t tell me you were waitin’ for me to call.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Jeez, Row…” The note of resignation in his voice was clear. “So, did you have one of those nightmares or somethin’?”