“Yes, Denise, I’m home now,” she said into her phone, settling down precisely on the edge of the bed I was hiding under. The springs groaned, forcing me to flatten myself even further against the floor. “No, no way. The girl turned out to be very docile. Too much so, I’d say. Marcus says she’s practically an orphan. That her daddy is some nickel-and-dime engineer at a plant, barely scraping by. I went personally to see her place. A hovel in some run-down building out in Decatur. A shame, truly. But now my Marcus has leverage.”