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October leaves crackled across the road, driven by a chill autumn wind. Nick Winslow angled his four-by-four through yet another roadside pile of leaves. They exploded aloft like dervishes in his Bronco's slipstream. Whooping like a teen-aged boy on spring break in Fort Lauderdale, he watched the results of this minor vandalism in his rearview mirror. Leaves swirled down, re-cluttering the yard that had been so meticulously cleared of them.

Once upon a time Nick had lived a neat, orderly life in a young, fairy-tale neighborhood just like this one. No more. That had changed once he and Charlotte had finalized their divorce. Slicker than lawyer snot, she had walked out, stripped his bank account of everything but chump change and left him with custody of their three-year-old daughter and a mortgage he could no longer afford to pay. At thirty-five, Nick Winslow had had no choice but to move himself and his daughter in with his parents. It made for a cramped and uncomfortable existence, rather like wearing a pair of shoes that had grown too small.

"No place like home, is there, Dorothy?" he muttered. "Two bedrooms, one bath, four occupants and zero privacy."

This afternoon, though, his parents had taken their granddaughter for one last weekend at the beach before winter set in. Nick was grateful for the gesture that afforded him a day or two of breathing room. He desperately needed a break from the pitying glances his parents cast his way when they thought he wasn't looking, and he was more than ready to drop the Daddy-mask of happy normality he wore for Megan. This weekend it would be just Nick, an empty house, and the bottle of bourbon he'd picked up from the package store. With mounting anticipation of the cathartic drunk he intended to pull, Nick blasted through a few more leaf-piles on his drive home, scattering debris to the wind.

The last fingers of sunlight were painting the underbelly of clouds a shocking pink by the time he pulled into the neighborhood where he'd grown up. It had been a good place when he was younger, full of kids and games and laughter. Now there was nothing left but empty nests, silent but for aging parents.

Nick parked the Bronc beneath the big oak that served as his garage and slogged to the house through the tree's latest deluge of autumnal droppings. The hinges on the screen door squealed a need for lubrication when he opened it, a lonely cry that went unheeded in the quiet neighborhood. Unlocking the inner door, Nick let himself into the darkened kitchen, then pulled up short at the touch of devil's breath that whispered across the back of his neck. Stifling a shiver, he tried to pin down the source of his sudden apprehension. His eyes raked the shadows for movement, his ears strained to catch any out-of-place sound. The only movement came from the faint flutter of curtains over the sink, stirred to false life by the breeze through the open doorway. The only sound, the water-torture ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room.

Nick forced a laugh and scrubbed a hand over his face. He kicked the door shut behind him (Mom would have fussed, but Mom wasn't there, was she?) and flipped on a light, dispelling the shadows along with his sudden case of nerves. Maybe he expected his ex-wife to jump out of the shadows and finish what she'd started.

That would be a neat trick, he thought. Especially as she was currently doing time in the county jail while awaiting trial for assault and battery. Nick's fingers strayed absently to the fading bruise on his cheek. She'd jumped him as he'd left the Manor House Restaurant where he'd taken a potential client for dinner a week ago. It had taken two cops to pull her off. Nick had ended up a bloody mess. Worse, he'd lost the high-profile account and the badly-needed promotion it would have meant.

At least he hadn't lost his job.

Nick pulled his tie free, filled a glass with more bourbon than ice, and wandered into the den to rummage around for the remote. He found it wedged in a crevice of his dad's recliner and aimed it at the television. In a flash of multi-colored light, the screen formed itself into an image of the unsmiling face of the local news anchorette. Nick took a sip of his drink, wincing. Did women ever smile anymore? He certainly never seemed to see any who did. Maybe some feminist politician had passed a law against it. His thumb hovered over the unfamiliar remote searching for the channel button when the headline on the screen caught Nick's eye.

Jailbreak.

Nick moved his thumb to a different button and turned the volume down to a level that didn't reverberate against his eardrums.

"In late-breaking news, this station has just learned that three men escaped the Randolph county jail this afternoon, killing a guard in the process," the anchorette reported. "Two of the escapees have been apprehended while the third remains at large. Though considered armed and dangerous, Sheriff Don Parker reports confidence in his department's ability-"

The newscaster's voice faded to just so much background noise as Nick's brain made a crucial connection. Alarmed, he flared his nostrils, testing the air. Then he had it. A fading glimmer of Charlotte's cologne. Faint but distinct, the fragrance of Charlie hung from the air currents like spider webs: delicate, ephemeral, unobtrusive.

There it is, he thought. That's what kicked my instincts into overdrive.

The phone on his dad's desk jangled loudly to life. Nick jerked toward it, expecting to see the receiver bouncing on its hook like a cartoon phone.

"Touch it and you're just one more dead man."

The glass of bourbon slipped from Nick's nerveless fingers, shattering on the floor. He whirled to find himself face to face with an intruder.

A rough-looking punk wearing a prison jumpsuit leaned negligently against the far wall. Thick colors from the television swam across heavy muscles that boasted the use of steroids. He held a switchblade in one hand. With a lazy grin, he fingered the catch. The razor-edged blade snicked into fighting position. Nick had no doubt that if he reached for the receiver he' d be dead before he could say "hello."

The phone shrilled insistently as the intruder shoved off from the wall and sauntered into the den. From the confines of the forty-two inch screen, the news anchorette continued her report, calmly noting that the prison guard had been stabbed to death.

The intruder heaved a sigh of regret.

"He died hard."

With the tip of his blade, he turned the television off. The screen flashed a protest of illumination, leaving him back-lit in the weird half-life of phosphorescence. As the phone's last ring echoed into dusky silence, the intruder turned to Nick and flashed a winning smile. Blue eyes that seemed out of place in that masculine countenance glittered feverishly in the semi-dark. Nick felt a pang of loss looking into them. After all, it was his wife that stared back.

"You shouldn't have killed the guard, Charlotte," he said softly.

Charlotte shrugged and walked over to him. Not the feminine glide he remembered but the swagger of a younger man with too much testosterone fizzing around in his veins.

"He was in my way, man. I had places to go. Things to do. People to see. You, for instance." The blue eyes narrowed. "It's Charlie now, Nicky-boy. You know that."

Nick suppressed a shudder. The divorce settlement Charlotte had reamed out of him had gone to pay doctors who had rearranged her internally and externally while shooting her full of male hormones. He gestured hopelessly.

"Look, I can't change the past-"

Stars lit the inside of his skill when she backhanded him. Nick staggered under the sheer force of the blow.

"Not much you can do about the future either, Nicky. Your time's up. Payment 's due." Charlotte's eyes glinted as she wove the switchblade in a mesmerizing pattern before him. Nick struggled to keep the trembling from his voice.

"Put the knife down, Charlotte," he said. "Don't make things any worse than they already are."

Charlotte snarled a response, a rabid growl that sent chills racing down his spine. The knife whipped out. It sliced neatly through the sleeve of his shirt, drew a delicate line of fire across his arm. Nick flinched away, shocked at her speed. He grabbed his arm, trying to squeeze the pain out of existence. Sticky warmth oozed through his sleeve, wetting his fingers.

"Things couldn't get much worse, could they?" she sneered. "And whose fault is that?"

Nick felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside. Charlotte had told him countless times that it was his affair-a miserable one night indiscretion, really-with Charlotte's best friend that had driven her to lesbianism and beyond. But it wasn't his fault Allison hadn't wanted a lesbian lover. Nor was it his fault that she hadn't wanted a gender-swapped freak in her bed, either.

"Okay, Charlotte, you win! So it's all my fault. What more do you want from me?" He swiped his nose, realized it was bleeding. "You nearly cost me my job. You've destroyed my ego. You've robbed me blind. Just look at you, Charlotte-"

The knife flashed. Nick yelped as the hot touch of the blade sliced a gash down the length of his other arm. He stumbled backward, trying to put some distance between himself and the knife. Charlotte followed, carving circles in the air as she backed him against his dad's desk. Her words dripped venom.

"What more do I want from you, Nicky? I want you to know what it was like for me. Being with you, being your wife, night after night-"

Charlotte swung her fist. Pain detonated in his head. The blow stunned him; the rusty taste of blood filled his mouth. Nick blinked back tears, fighting to clear his vision. But the liquid in his eyes served to magnify the image before him.

Nick didn't like what he saw. A thirty-year-old punk, dried blood splattered across the front of his prison jumpsuit, threatened him with a knife. A tangle of blond hair fell across eyes that, once beautiful, now burned with the light of insanity. Nick could never have hurt his wife. But this wasn't his wife. Not any more.

Charlie licked his lips and shifted the bulge in the crotch of his jumpsuit. The tip of the knife-blade prodded Nick's belt buckle. "Drop 'em or I'll cut a hole in them."

The only sound in the house was the water-torture count-down of the grandfather clock. Nick stared at Charlie in horrified disbelief. Charlie's lips curled into a smirk. With all the power of a steroid ripped body-builder, he jerked Nick off the desk and threw him face down on top of it. Nick exploded in rage and terror, struggling against the heavy hand that held him pinned to the desk. He scrabbled desperately over the desktop, searching for something -anything- he could use for a weapon.

There was a tug at the back of his pants, the slash of fabric. The phone crashed to the floor before Nick could get a grip on it. Bills fluttered uselessly after. While the freak behind him popped open the snaps on his jumpsuit, Nick's eyes lit on his dad's pearl handled letter opener. As a rough hand reached inside the torn fabric of his pants to tug at his boxers, Nick caught it up in a death-grip, snaked sideways on the desk and buried it in Charlie's side.

Stunned silence filled the room as Charlie reeled backward, his mouth open in shock. Nick twisted upright, panting harshly and clinging to the desk for balance.

Charlie's face went a peculiar shade of gray. The switchblade clattered to the floor as he grabbed the pearl handle protruding from his side. The slaughterhouse smell of blood filled the air. It blossomed through the thin fabric of the prison jumpsuit, staining it black in the dim light. Charlie raised incredulous eyes. Nick tensed, expecting him to pull the letter opener out of his side and plunge it two-fisted into his own pounding heart.

Instead, the younger man buckled. He eased to the floor, cradling the letter opener with his hands. His shoulders quivered with soft sobs as he began to cry. Nick raked his fingers through his hair, torn by an odd mixture of revulsion and pity. Revulsion at the ludicrous horror of having nearly been raped by the man who'd once been his wife. Pity for the sad decline of a human being he'd once known and loved.

A fist pounded at the front door.

"Sheriff's Department! Open up!"

Without a word, Nick turned his back on the hideous sight and went to let the cops in. The neighborhood blazed with light. It puddled beneath streetlights and poured from front porches. The strobing incandescence of the emergency lights on top of the ambulance parked in the driveway rotated through the crisp night air. Neighbors milled about their yards and clumped together in groups, their attention focused on the Winslow residence. Across the street, old Mrs. Anderson peered out from behind her living room drapes. A dog barked incessantly several houses away, alerting anyone who didn't already know that Something Big Was Going Down At The Winslow's. Nick fingered the bandages on his arms and absorbed it all with a detached sense of reality.

A crackle of static and clipped codes burst from the deputy's radio as Nick watched paramedics load Charlie into the back of the ambulance. The sweet fragrance of Charlie cologne wafted to him on the breeze.

"What'll happen now?" Nick asked the deputy.

The deputy clicked his notebook shut. "That'll be up to a judge. I'd be surprised if he didn't end up-I mean, if she-" He faltered, then cleared his throat. "Well, Butner, maybe, for evaluation..."

Nick nodded absently, wondering if the shrinks at the state psychiatric hospital would be able to repair the mental damage Charlotte had suffered during the transition from female to male. The medics slammed the doors shut on the back of the ambulance and jumped into the cab. Nick pulled his tattered attention back to the deputy.

"Thanks for showing up when you did." His eyes sought out the officer's name tag for what must have been the hundredth time. He didn't seem to be able to keep the man's name in his head.

"We had a hunch he'd come looking for you. When no one answered the phone, we decided this would be a good place to start checking." As the ambulance backed out of the driveway, the deputy gave Nick an encouraging smile and clapped him on the shoulder. "You going to be all right, buddy?"

Nick scuffed his shoe through a clump of leaves, kicking them aside for a glimpse of the green grass beneath.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'll be okay." Taking a deep breath, he glanced around at the leaves cluttering the yard and decided it was true. Nick Winslow would be just fine. In fact, tomorrow he'd rake. It was time to start cleaning up the mess in his life.