And that’s when something snapped inside Michelle’s brain with such ferocity that she almost deposited all the booze in her belly on the heel-scarred floor. For perhaps the first time in years Michelle was seeing things as they were really meant to be seen. It was startling how fast the decision was reached. And once she made it, she did not revisit the issue. She fell back on what had dominated her life: Michelle Maxwell acted on impulse.

He threw a weary punch and Michelle easily sidestepped it. Then she aimed another kick, this time at his groin, but he managed to clamp a big hand on her thigh. Reenergized at having finally seized his elusive quarry, he lifted her up and threw her over the bar and into a shelf of wine and liquor bottles. The crowd, delighted at this change of events, started chanting, “Kill the bitch. Kill the bitch.”

The bartender screamed in fury as his inventory spilled over the floor, but he stopped when the big man came over the bar and laid him out with a wicked uppercut. Next, he picked Michelle up and twice slammed her headfirst into the mirror that was hanging over the demolished booze, cracking the glass and maybe her skull too. Still enraged, he drove a massive knee right into her gut, and then threw her to the masses on the other side of the bar. She hit the floor hard and lay there, her face bloody, her body going into spasms.

The crowd jumped back when the big man’s size sixteen boots landed next to Michelle’s head. He grabbed her by the hair and lifted her straight up, her body dangling like a spent yo-yo. He studied Michelle’s limp form, apparently deciding where next to hurt her.

“In the face. In the damn face, Rodney. You mess it up good,” screamed his lady, who’d picked herself off the floor and was dabbing at the beer, wine and other crap staining her dress.

Rodney nodded and swung a big fist back.

“Right in the damn face, Rodney!” his lady screamed again.

“Kill the bitch!” barked the crowd a little less enthusiastically, sensing the fight was just about over and they could return to their drinking and smoking.

Michelle’s arm moved so fast Rodney didn’t even seem to realize he’d been struck in the kidney until his brain told him he was in awful pain. His scream of fury actually drowned out the music still ripping from the bar’s sound system. Then his fist connected to her head, once, knocking a tooth out; and then he hit her again; blood gushed from her nose and mouth. Big Rodney was hauling back for the crusher when the cops kicked down the door, guns out, looking for any reason to start shooting.

Michelle never heard them come in, save her life and then arrest her. Right after the second blow landed she started to fade into unconsciousness and didn’t expect to be coming back.

Before she blacked out completely Michelle’s final thought was simple:

Goodbye, Sean.

SEAN KING STARED OUT across the calm wedge of river in the rapidly fading light. Something was going on with Michelle Maxwell and he didn’t know how to deal with it. His partner was growing more depressed each day and this melancholy was becoming entrenched.

In the face of this troubling development he’d suggested that they move back to the Washington, D.C., area and start anew. Yet, the change of scenery had not helped. And with funds low and work scarce in the highly competitive D.C. area, Sean had been forced to accept some largesse from a buddy who’d scored big in the world of private security consulting, selling his company to one of the global players.

Sean and Michelle were currently staying in the guesthouse of the friend’s large river estate south of Washington. At least Sean was; Michelle had not been around for several days now. And she was no longer answering her cell phone. The last night she had come home she’d been so wasted he’d laid into her for getting behind the wheel in that condition. By the time he got up the next morning, she was gone.

He ran his finger over Michelle’s racing scull that was tied to a cleat on the dock he was sitting on. Michelle Maxwell was a natural athlete, an Olympic medalist in rowing, an exercise fanatic beyond all reason, and held various martial arts black belts enabling her to kick other people’s butts in multiple and painful ways. Yet the scull had lain untouched since they’d arrived here. And she didn’t go running on the nearby bike path and showed no interest in any other physical activity. At last Sean had pressed her to get professional help.

“I’m out of options,” she’d replied with a grimness that had startled him. He knew her to be impetuous, often acting on gut instincts. That sometimes ended up getting you killed.

And so now he was watching the day end and wondering if she was okay.

Hours later, while he was still sitting on the dock, the screams reached Sean’s ears. He wasn’t startled by it; he was pissed. He slowly rose and headed up the planked steps away from the calm of the river.

He stopped at the guesthouse near the large swimming pool to grab a baseball bat and some cotton balls, which he stuffed in his ears. Sean King was a big man, six-two, over two hundred fairly trim pounds, but he was pushing forty-five and his knees were gimpy and his right shoulder suspect from a long-ago injury. So he always took the damn bat. And the cotton balls. On the way up he looked across the privacy fence and noted the older woman staring back at him in the dark, arms crossed and scowling.

“I’m going up, Mrs. Morrison,” he said, raising his wooden weapon.

“Third time this month,” she said angrily. “Next time I call the police right away.”

“Don’t let me stop you. It’s not like I’m getting paid to do this.”

He approached the big house from the rear. The home was only two years old, one of those mansions that had sprung from a knockdown of a rancher a quarter the size. The owners were rarely here, preferring instead to ride their private jet up to their estate in the Hamptons in summer or to their oceanside palace in Palm Beach in winter. But that didn’t stop their college-age son and his nose-in-the-air friends from regularly trashing the place.

Sean passed by the Porsches, baby Beemers and hand-me-down Mercedes and marched up the stone steps and into the sprawling kitchen. Even with the cotton balls buffering the sounds, the music was so loud he could feel his heart cringe with every smack of the overloaded bass.

“Hey!” he shouted over the music as he pushed his way through the gyrating nineteen-year-olds. “Hey!” he screamed again. No one paid him any attention, which was why he’d brought the bat. He walked over to the makeshift bar set up on the kitchen island, raised his trusty wooden Louisville Slugger behind his shoulder, assumed his stance and pretended he was taking his cuts at Yankee Stadium. He cleared out half the bar with one swing and finished the rest off with a second sweep.

The music stopped and the kids finally started focusing on him, though half seemed too stoned to take too much of an interest. Some of the underdressed ladies started giggling while a couple of shirtless guys stared grimly at Sean, their fists clenched.

Another kid, tall and chunky with wavy hair, stormed into the kitchen.

“What the hell’s going on?” He stopped as his gaze settled on the ruined bar. The kid shouted, “Damn it! You’re gonna pay for this, King.”

“No, I’m not, Albert.”

“My name’s Burt!”

“Okay, Burt, let’s call your dad and find out what he thinks.”

“You can’t come in here and pull this shit all the time.”

“You mean saving your parents’ house from being wrecked by a bunch of rich assholes?”

“Hey, I resent that,” said one girl, who was teetering on four-inch spikes and wearing only a butt-level skintight T-shirt that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.