She sat in the car and fumed while he loaded the backseat. Then he went and rapped on her window. She cracked it and glared at him. “What?”

Bob smiled shyly. “Get outta the car. I got somethin’ for you.”

“Give it to me in here.”

“Naw, it’ll be better out here.”

Her nose wrinkled as she tried to choose between inconvenienced and curious. But he knew she’d get out of the car. He knew how to pick them.

“What is it?” she said, standing in the snow.

“I gotcha somethin’ special, to show how I feel for ya’. It’s why I was runnin’ late. Bought it th’ other day but couldn’t pick it up ‘til today.”

She was flushed, not just from the cold. “Show me!”

”’Kay,” he said, “here it is.”

He pulled the taser out of his coat. It made an insectile clacking noise, and Tessa squealed as he prodded her face and arms with it until she lay curled, sobbing, in the snow. Then he rolled her into the icy ditch by the side of the road with his foot.

Best eighty bucks he’d ever spent, he thought, driving off.