“Only one way to find out.”

Shannon walked over to the counter and bought another chai for Eli and a wheatgrass juice for himself and brought the drinks back to the table. When he handed Eli his chai, he saw his friend’s heavy-lidded eyes open a quarter of an inch wider and knew Eli’s stare was fixed on his damaged hand.

“I knew there was something different about you this morning,” Eli said, a forced casualness in his tone. “I just realized you’re not wearing your trademark glove.”

Shannon didn’t bother to respond. He sat across from Eli and sipped his wheatgrass juice.

“You never told me before what Charlie Winters had done to your hand. The only thing I knew was he had injured you. Jesus, I had no idea.”

“That bad, huh?” Shannon asked.

Eli made a face indicating that it was. “Bill, I never pushed you before, but I need you to tell me what happened. I can’t put things in the proper perspective without knowing.”

Shannon took another couple of sips from his drink. He had never told anyone about what happened that last night with Winters. Not the cops who arrived on the scene, not the therapist he saw after he had moved to Boulder, no one. The only person who knew was Susan, and that was only because she had witnessed it.

Shannon stared stone-faced at Eli for a long moment, but the compassion flooding the other man’s eyes weakened his resolve. He shrugged. “It will sound like something out of a horror movie,” he said.

“Hey, you’re talking to one of Stephen King’s biggest fans.”

Shannon looked away from his friend to a pastel drawing on his right of Chautauqua Park. The lower part of the pastel showed a meadow done in a muted green, the four faces of the Flatirons above it were colored a soft purple.

“That last night, Winters murdered my partner, Joe Digrazia.”

“You had told me that.”