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might to pay attention, it was all Palmer that morning. His four words were haunting: “I need your help.”
    I told myself once, maybe a hundred times during the kickboxing session, Palmer’s fine. Stop being so alarmist.
    The admonitions didn’t work.
    “Left jab.”
    Bam.
    “Right cross.”
    Bam.
    “Roundhouse kick.”
    This time my coach clubbed the right side of my head with his pads, which, cushion or no cushion, stung like a bastard. “You got no street in you. Somebody’s gonna pop you outside of class, and you won’t know what to do.”
    My eyes narrowed.
    He saw the anger. “Take a shot.”
    I took my fighting stance, left leg forward.
    He waited, expecting one of those endless combo drills that dominate our exercise routines. My ear smarted. And me being the sensitive guy I am—always sucking it up until my temper takes over—I wanted to kick his ass. I jumped and twisted in midair, my right shin wheeling around and leveled at his head. Make no mistake: I was going for blood.
    The coach ducked, low enough to avoid serious contact. I still managed to swipe his clean-shaven pate. After about ten lessons, it was the closest I had ever come to landing a real blow. And cuffing him felt glorious.
    He was surprised. His mouth curled up to the right—smile, smirk, a hint of respect. He continued to circle. “Nice, man, real nice. But in a street fight, nobody’s gonna wait for you to wake up.”
    I waited, fuming, not thinking about what he said. I watched for an opening, ready to jump and take down my coach with a spinning hook-heel kick, anything to get even.
    “Enough for one day, Grove. Your legwork’s good. Must be all that cycling, because it sure as hell isn’t your concentration.”
    “You want to come riding with me?” I was throwing down the gauntlet. I could take him in a bike race, no sweat.
    “Thanks, man. Can’t.”
    Palmer never called Saturday, which was odd. We don’t worry about bothering each other on the weekends. We’re long past that. I knew something wasn’t right. And my instincts were eating me from the inside out.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA
    “What’s your wife say?”
    “About what?” The crew boss rubbed his temples. He was trying to forget last night’s special, the dazzling kick line of two-for-one tequila. He wished the kid would shut up and leave him alone.
    “Us working Saturday.”
    “Says she needs the time off.”
    “From what?”
    “Me.”
    “Hah!” the kid chortled. “Go figure.”
    “Shut up.”
    There were five men working a job near exit 55 on I-95. They had taken two pickup trucks, one equipped with a cherry picker. The telescoping boom reached forty feet no problem, important for the big jobs.
    Everyone on the crew wore a blue construction helmet and a body harness, company policy at Smithfield Outdoor Media for employees going up. A sticker on the kid’s helmet read, I STILL MISS MY EX, BUT MY AIM IS IMPROVING. The decal was not standard at the billboard company.
    They had driven south from corporate headquarters, forty-five minutes through the dense stands of pine and cypress. Saturday morning or not, it was like any other day on the North Carolina freeway. Flying insects detonated against windshields, splattering in yellow cones. Heat wafted off the tarmac in double helixes of Southern ennui. And aging northerners gunned their Cadillacs south. The winter pilgrimage to Florida was under way.
    An endless procession of billboards broke the monotony of open road. They promoted fast food, hotels, and chains of every kind. By far, the displays from South of the Border were the most annoying, its one-liners legendary. One after another, they exhorted drivers to pull over and flex their credit cards at the decaying theme park on the Carolina border:
    FILL UP YOUR TRUNK WITH PEDRO’S JUNK.
    HONEYMOON SUITES: HEIR CONDITIONED.
    KEEP YELLING, KIDS! (THEY’LL STOP.)
    Soon, one lone billboard would steal all the attention from