“I'm afraid I do know. Shelley and I were just trying to figure out what to do about it.”

Bruce gave her a grim look. "Jane, if you value the quality of your life, you won't let that — that person in your house. Believe me, you'll regret it the rest of your life. He's the most evil person in the world.”

Four

It turned out that Bruce's experience with Lance King went way back to years ago in Kentucky, where they both lived at the time.

“Ever heard of karst topography?" he asked.

“Something to do with caves, isn't it?" Jane said.

Shelley looked surprised. "I never cease to marvel at the weird snippets of things you know about, Jane."

“College geology," Jane said. "I liked geology.”

Bruce took up the explanation. "In the simplest terms, karst topography is where you have limestone bedrock below the soil. When there's a lot of groundwater, it erodes the limestone over time and that forms caves. If it erodes far enough, sometimes the top of the cave falls in and you get a sinkhole. Most of the middle part of the country is limestone bedrock, but only some areas get sinkholes. Kentucky is one of them."

“This has something to do with Lance King?" Shelley asked.

“Quite a lot," Bruce said. "My dad was a contractor outside Louisville. He built a little subdivision, eight or ten houses, and just as the last one was being completed, the first one fell into a sinkhole. The added weight of the house itself collapsed the ceiling of the cave and the entire house just collapsed into the hole."

“Oh, my gosh!" Jane exclaimed. "Shouldn't somebody have known there was a big hole under the house?”

Bruce nodded. "Oh, yes. Nobody in their right mind would build in that part of the country without having a thorough geologic survey done. My dad hired the people, who assured him that it was solid bedrock."