D Watkins Quotes

To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization. If you do the right things, then your vision, your expertise, and your drive can propel you forward and serve as seed crystals.

In the silence, I could hear the distinct sound of goats maa-ing in the barn. Lying there listening to them made me smile, too. I'd always loved goats - every one of them different from every other one, and all of them goofy and playful.

Begin with no; it's easier to say yes later. It's difficult (and damaging to your reputation) to say yes and then change your mind.

Leadership ultimately is about influence and leverage. You are, after all, only one person. To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization.

Match Strategy to Situation

Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you’re the new organ. If you’re not thoughtful in adapting to the new situation, you could end up being attacked by the organizational immune system and rejected.

Secure early wins. Early wins build your credibility and create momentum.

They'd drink like men, like their fathers and uncles, like George fucking Washington...

Assume that the job of building a positive relationship with your new boss is 100 percent your responsibility. In short, this means adapting to his style.

The most important decisions you make in your first 90 days will probably be about people.

No, Mo," Miss Watkins said, turning to Nesta who was crying with laughter. "Nesta Williams, seeing as you clearly find it so funny. What do you think the name of God might be?" "Er, not sure," said Nesta, looking caught out. "What do you think?" "I don't think," said Miss Watkins."I know." "I don't think I know either," giggled Nesta. The whole class got detention, but it was worth it. I felt like i'd spent the whole morning laughing my head off We never did get to know what God's name was.

I was trying to be a good friend,’ said Ilsa, sounding frustrated. ‘However much of a dickhead he is, I don’t want him paying child support to bloody Bijou Watkins for the next eighteen years. She’d make a nightmarish

Mission is about what will be achieved, vision is about why people should feel motivated to perform at a high level, and strategy is about how resources should be allocated and decisions made to accomplish the mission.

The streets provide an education in everything that many of these schools don’t, such as survival skills, kinship, moneymaking opportunities, and love. A love that is absent from the cold hallways of schools such as the ones Butta, I, and millions of other African Americans attend or attended. Butta’s school has been shut down, along

Aligning an organization is like preparing for a long sailing trip. First, you need to be clear on whether your destination (the mission and goals) and your route (the strategy) are the right ones. Then you can figure out which boat you need (the structure), how to outfit it (the processes), and which mix of crew members is best (the skill bases). Throughout the journey, you keep an eye out for reefs that are not on the charts.

She’d long ago given up trying to visualize God. There was no He or She. This was a Presence higher than gender, race or religion, transcending identity. All she would ever hope to do was follow the lamplit path into a place within and yet beyond her own heart and stay there and wait, patient and passive and without forced piety.

How much more of this? Merrily sat down in a chair at the end of the back row, feeling as though she’d been mugged. Fragments of faith scattered like credit cards in the gutter.

Read Talking With Young Children About Adoption by Susan Fisher, M.D., and Mary Watkins, Ph.D. (Yale University Press, 1995).

What is culture? It’s a set of consistent patterns people follow for communicating, thinking, and acting, all grounded in their shared assumptions and values.

From Portrait of a Landscape I think art only exists when it's being made. It's like a flower. Once picked, it starts to die.

He’d always had a crush on me. I never liked him because he wasn’t a challenge.

Once people perceive that change is going to happen, the game often shifts from outright opposition to a competition to influence what sort of change will occur.

Remember: You don’t want to be meeting your neighbours for the first time in the middle of the night when your house is burning

Remember: simply displaying a genuine desire to learn and understand translates into increased credibility and influence.

Don’t stay away. If you have a boss who doesn’t reach out to you, or with whom you have uncomfortable interactions, you will have to reach out yourself.

Finally, when your relationship with your boss has matured a bit (roughly the 90-day mark is a good rule of thumb), begin to discuss how you’re doing.

Don’t surprise your boss. It’s no fun bringing your boss bad news. However, most bosses consider it a far greater sin not to report emerging problems early enough.

Poverty, injustice, and reading comprehension issues go hand in hand,

Pursue good marks from those whose opinions your boss respects. Your new boss’s opinion of you will be based in part on direct interactions and in part on what she hears about you from trusted others.

Take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work. This is the flip side of “Don’t stay away.” Don’t expect your boss to reach out or to offer you the time and support you need. It’s best to begin by assuming that it’s on your shoulders to make the relationship work.

Delegating, thinking strategically, communicating—you may think this all sounds like Management 101. And you’re right. The most basic elements of management are often what trip up managers early in their careers. And because they are the basics, the bosses of rookie managers often take them for granted. They shouldn’t—an extraordinary number of people fail to develop these skills. I’ve maintained an illusion throughout this article—that only rookie managers suffer because they haven’t mastered these core skills. But the truth is, managers at all levels make these mistakes. An organization that supports its new managers by helping them to develop these skills will have surprising advantages over the competition.

If you are in a privileged group, and you want to help oppressed people, one of the best things you can do is teach other people in your privileged group. As a person of privilege, you do not have to actually face the oppression, so you have time to teach. Oppressed people do not have the energy to teach everyone about the oppression they have to live through every day.

My city is gone, my history depleted, ruined, and undocumented. I don’t know this new Baltimore, it’s alien to me. Baltimore is Brooklyn and DC now. No, Baltimore is Chicago or New Orleans or any place where yuppie interests make black neighborhoods shrink like washed sweaters. A place where black history is bulldozed and replaced with Starbucks, Chipotles, and dog parks.

Don’t run down your checklist. There is a tendency, even for senior leaders, to use meetings with a boss as an opportunity to run through your checklist of what you’ve been doing. Sometimes this is appropriate, but it is rarely what your boss needs or wants to hear. You should assume she wants to focus on the most important things you’re trying to do and how she can help.

If it is humanly possible, you should plan to have one or more in-person meetings with your boss early on. It is essential to make face-to-face connections early on to begin to establish a basis of confidence and trust (the same is true if you’re leading a virtual team). So if this means you need to fight for the resources and fly halfway around the world, you should do it.

Even though I was born in America, and my ancestors built its infrastructure for free, I’m not a part of the “Our” when they sing, “Our flag was still there!” I feel like the “Our” doesn’t include blacks, most women, gays, trans, and poor people of all colors. And, sadly, our nation reminds us every day. Some may reject the anthem because Francis Scott Key sang for freedom while enslaving blacks. His hatred even bled into the lyrics of the elongated version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” you won’t hear at a sporting event. The third stanza reads: No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave That line was basically a shot at slaves who agreed to fight with the British during the War of 1812 in exchange for their freedom.

Build your team. If you are inheriting a team, you need to evaluate, align, and mobilize its members. You likely also need to restructure it to better meet the demands of the situation. Your willingness to make tough early personnel calls and your capacity to select the right people for the right positions are among the most important drivers of success during your transition and beyond.

Aim for early wins in areas important to the boss. Whatever your own priorities, figure out what your boss cares about most. What are his priorities and goals, and how do your actions fit into this picture? Once you know, aim for early results in those areas. One good way is to focus on three things that are important to your boss and discuss what you’re doing about them every time you interact.

My grandfather was a railroad brakeman, sixty years with the D&H. I'd sit on his lap when I was little, I remember, at the upstairs apartment on Watkins Avenue in Oneonta overlooking the tracks, and we'd look out at the yard together and watch the trains hooking up, and he'd pull his gold watch out of his vest pocket and squint at the dial, a gold pocket watch, and the bulging surface of the watch case was all scritch-scratched, etched with tiny soft lines, hundreds of tiny scratches, interlaced. And then he'd check the yard, my Grandpa, to see if the trains were running on time. In those days there was a rhythm to everything, there was an order to things, but now we're riding a runaway train that's carrying us all away to that final night where nothing is remembered and nothing matters.

The first task in making a successful transition is to accelerate your learning. Effective learning gives you the foundational insights you need as you build your plan for the next 90 days. So it is essential to figure out what you need to know about your new organization and then to learn it as rapidly as you can. The more efficiently and effectively you learn, the more quickly you will close your window of vulnerability.

Strategic direction encompasses mission, vision, and strategy. Mission is about what will be achieved, vision is about why people should feel motivated to perform at a high level, and strategy is about how resources should be allocated and decisions made to accomplish the mission. If you keep in mind the what, the why, and the how, you won’t get lost in debates about what a mission is, what a vision is, and what a strategy is.

If you are leading a turnaround and need to assemble a team quickly, it can make sense to hire capable people you know and trust. But in less-urgent situations, the reflex to bring in people you know can easily be interpreted to mean you’re dissatisfied with the level of talent in your new organization. If you need to replace people on your team, the first place to look is one level below. The second best option is to hire people from the outside—just not from your old organization(s).

When you are diagnosing a new organization, start by meeting with your direct reports one-on-one. (This is an example of taking a horizontal slice across an organization by interviewing people at the same level in different functions.) Ask them essentially the same five questions: What are the biggest challenges the organization is facing (or will face in the near future)? Why is the organization facing (or going to face) these challenges? What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth? What would need to happen for the organization to exploit the potential of these opportunities? If you were me, what would you focus attention on?

Onboarding checklists Business orientation checklist As early as possible, get access to publicly available information about financials, products, strategy, and brands. Identify additional sources of information, such as websites and analyst reports. If appropriate for your level, ask the business to assemble a briefing book. If possible, schedule familiarization tours of key facilities before the formal start date. Stakeholder connection checklist Ask your boss to identify and introduce you to the key people you should connect with early on. If possible, meet with some stakeholders before the formal start. Take control of your calendar, and schedule early meetings with key stakeholders. Be careful to focus on lateral relationships (peers, others) and not only vertical ones (boss, direct reports). Expectations alignment checklist Understand and engage in business planning and performance management. No matter how well you think you understand what you need to do, schedule a conversation with your boss about expectations in your first week. Have explicit conversations about working styles with bosses and direct reports as early as possible. Cultural adaptation checklist During recruiting, ask questions about the organization’s culture. Schedule conversations with your new boss and HR to discuss work culture, and check back with them regularly. Identify people inside the organization who could serve as culture interpreters. After thirty days, conduct an informal 360-degree check-in with your boss and peers to gauge how adaptation is proceeding.

The climate for relationships within an innovation group is shaped by the climate outside it. Having a negative instead of a positive culture can cost a company real money. During Seagate Technology’s troubled period in the mid-to-late 1990s, the company, a large manufacturer of disk drives for personal computers, had seven different design centers working on innovation, yet it had the lowest R&D productivity in the industry because the centers competed rather than cooperated. Attempts to bring them together merely led people to advocate for their own groups rather than find common ground. Not only did Seagate’s engineers and managers lack positive norms for group interaction, but they had the opposite in place: People who yelled in executive meetings received “Dog’s Head” awards for the worst conduct. Lack of product and process innovation was reflected in loss of market share, disgruntled customers, and declining sales. Seagate, with its dwindling PC sales and fading customer base, was threatening to become a commodity producer in a changing technology environment. Under a new CEO and COO, Steve Luczo and Bill Watkins, who operated as partners, Seagate developed new norms for how people should treat one another, starting with the executive group. Their raised consciousness led to a systemic process for forming and running “core teams” (cross-functional innovation groups), and Seagate employees were trained in common methodologies for team building, both in conventional training programs and through participation in difficult outdoor activities in New Zealand and other remote locations. To lead core teams, Seagate promoted people who were known for strong relationship skills above others with greater technical skills. Unlike the antagonistic committees convened during the years of decline, the core teams created dramatic process and product innovations that brought the company back to market leadership. The new Seagate was able to create innovations embedded in a wide range of new electronic devices, such as iPods and cell phones.

drawer of some kind. “Got it,” she said. “I found what we needed in the second place I looked.” “Hey,” Nelson objected. “Wait a minute. That’s part of the linen closet. You can’t take that.” “You’re right,” Robin replied. “This drawer is part of the linen closet, but we can take it. Have you ever bothered looking inside it?” Drexel Nelson answered with a shrug. “Me? Why would I? Washing clothes and making beds aren’t my responsibility around here.” They will be now, buddy boy, Joanna thought. “What did you find, Agent Watkins?” she asked aloud. “The top couple of layers in the drawer contained exactly what you’d expect in a linen closet—sheets and pillowcases—but underneath those is a gold mine of material: handwritten letters and notes from what looks like a whole flock of lovesick boys. At least that’s what the ones on the top of the stack appear to be.” “Letters?” Joanna asked. “As in snail mail letters?” “Not exactly,” Robin replied. “I think it’s more likely that the notes were cloak-and-dagger stuff, dropped off somewhere and collected by hand rather than sent through USPS. But now we know why nothing

I wasn’t hooked on books until I read Sista Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever, Clockers by Richard Price, and a few Sherman Alexie essays. Those books opened up my mind and led to me consuming more and more. My thoughts changed, I developed new ideas, and I was forever transformed. Within months, I went from a guy who solved problems by breaking a bottle over someone’s forehead to using solution-based thinking when resolving—reading instantly civilized me. And if it can work for me, I believe it can work for anybody.

Decision making becomes more political - less about authority and more about influence. That isn't good or bad; it's simply inevitable.

Do reporting relationships help align effort? Is it clear who is accountable for what? Is the work of different units integrated effectively? Is the allocation of decision rights helping us make the best decisions to support the strategy? Is the right balance achieved between centralization and decentralization? Between standardization and customization? Are we measuring and rewarding the kinds of achievements that matter most to our strategic aims? Is the balance right between fixed rewards and performance-based rewards? Between individual incentives and group incentives?

To identify skill and knowledge gaps, first revisit your mission and strategy and the core processes you identified. Ask yourself what mix of the four types of knowledge is needed to support your group’s core processes. Treat this as a visioning exercise in which you imagine the ideal knowledge mix. Then assess your group’s existing skills, knowledge, and technologies. What gaps do you see? Which of them can be repaired quickly, and which will take more time?

Having identified potential threats and opportunities, the group should next evaluate them with reference to organizational capabilities.

It’s a mistake to believe that you will be successful in your new job by continuing to do what you did in your previous job, only more so.

Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you’re the new organ. If you’re not thoughtful in adapting to the new situation, you could end up being attacked

Because somehow, I knew a great many things about the Watkinses I’d never known before. I knew that despite their money, their house was an unhappy one. I knew Chris’s dad had struck Chris’s mom before, and I knew it had been covered up. I was sure Mr. Watkins would hurt his wife again.

Getting Started Aligning an organization is like preparing for a long sailing trip. First, you need to be clear on whether your destination (the mission and goals) and your route (the strategy) are the right ones.

(the structure), how to outfit it (the processes), and which mix of crew members is best (the skill bases). Throughout the journey, you keep an eye out for reefs that are not on the charts.

If you have inherited a disaster—the classic burning platform—you may be creating value from the moment your appointment is announced.

Preguntas sobre el pasado Rendimiento ¿Cómo funcionaba esta empresa en el pasado? ¿Qué piensa la gente sobre su rendimiento en el pasado? ¿Cómo se determinaban los objetivos? ¿Eran insuficientes o demasiado ambiciosos? ¿Se utilizaban puntos de referencia internos o externos? ¿Qué medidas se empleaban? ¿Qué comportamientos se fomentaban y cuáles se desalentaban? ¿Qué ocurría si no se cumplían los objetivos? Causas fundamentales Si el rendimiento ha sido bueno, ¿cuál ha sido la causa? ¿Cuáles han sido las aportaciones de la estrategia, la estructura, los sistemas, las bases del talento, la cultura y la política? Si el rendimiento ha sido bajo, ¿cuál ha sido la causa? ¿Están los problemas principales en la estrategia de la organización? ¿En la estructura? ¿En las capacidades técnicas? ¿En la cultura? ¿En la política? Historia del cambio ¿Qué se ha hecho por cambiar la organización? ¿Qué ocurrió? ¿Quién ha sido fundamental en la configuración de la organización?

Let us begin with verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Taken together, the final two clauses of this verse suggest, in D. A. Carson’s elegant phrase, that the Word is both “God’s own self ” and “God’s own fellow.

Prepare yourself. This means making a mental break from your old job and preparing to take charge in the new one.

In the first few weeks, you need to identify opportunities to build personal credibility.

you need to figure out how to build a productive working relationship with your new boss (or bosses) and manage her expectations. This means carefully planning for a series of critical conversations about the situation, expectations, working style, resources, and your personal development. Crucially, it means developing and gaining consensus on your 90-day plan.

You also need to learn to strike the right balance between keeping the wide view and drilling down into the details.

The complexity and ambiguity of the issues you are dealing with increase every time you get promoted. So you’ll need to rethink what you delegate. No matter where you land, the keys to effective delegation remain much the same: you build a team of competent people whom you trust, you establish goals and metrics to monitor their progress, you translate higher-level goals into specific responsibilities for your direct reports, and you reinforce them through process.

Decision making becomes more political—less about authority, and more about influence. That isn’t good or bad; it’s simply inevitable. There are two major reasons this is so. First, the issues you’re dealing with become much more complex and ambiguous when you move up a level—and your ability to identify “right” answers based solely on data and analysis declines correspondingly. Decisions are shaped more by others’ expert judgments and who trusts whom, as well as by networks of mutual support.

The good news about moving up is that you get a broader view of the business and more latitude to shape it. The bad news is that you are farther from the front lines and more likely to receive filtered information.

transitions are also periods of acute vulnerability, because you lack established working relationships and a detailed understanding of your new role.

You’re managing under a microscope, subject to a high degree of scrutiny as people around you strive to figure out who you are and what you represent as a leader. Opinions of your effectiveness begin to form surprisingly quickly, and, once formed, they’re very hard to change.

success in the new role requires you to stop doing some things and to embrace new competencies.

Attempting to do too much. You rush off in all directions, launching multiple initiatives in the hope that some will pay off. People become confused, and no critical mass of resources gets focused on key initiatives.

actionable insight is knowledge that enables you to make better decisions earlier and so helps you quickly reach the break-even point in personal value creation.

Often, promising managers fail in new roles because they’ve failed to prepare themselves by embracing the necessary changes in perspective.

A long tradition of hiring from within makes it difficult for some organizations to accept outsiders.

What will it take for you to reach the break-even point more quickly? What are some traps you might encounter, and how can you avoid them? What can you do to create virtuous cycles and build momentum in your new role? What types of transitions are you experiencing? Which are you finding most challenging, and why? What are the key elements and milestones in your 90-day plan?

Julia was highly attentive to detail. Though clearly a strength, her attention to detail had a downside, especially in tandem with a high need for control: the result was a tendency to micromanage people in the areas she knew best. This behavior demoralized people who wanted to make their own contributions without intrusive oversight.

A baseline question you always should ask is, “How did we get to this point?” Otherwise, you risk tearing down existing structures or processes without knowing why they were put there in the first place.

You can do a lot to compensate for your vulnerabilities. Three basic tools are self-discipline, team building, and advice and counsel. You need to discipline yourself to devote time to critical activities that you do not enjoy and that may not come naturally. Beyond that, actively search out people in your organization whose skills are sharp in these areas, so that they can serve as a backstop for you and you can learn from them. A network of advisers and counselors can also help you move beyond your comfort zone.

In fact, as you will discover later, learning should be a primary focus of your plan for your first 30 days on the job (unless, of course, there is a disaster in progress).

If Karl Lewin knew anything, it was how to manage in times of crisis. In fact, he’d recently overseen a quick and successful turnaround of European manufacturing operations at Global Foods, a multinational consumer products company. He was less sure, however, that the same sort of approach would be effective in his new role at the firm

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lack’d anything. “A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”; Love said, “You shall be he.” “I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear, I cannot look on thee.” Love took my hand and smiling did reply, “Who made the eyes but I?” “Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame Go where it doth deserve.” “And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?” “My dear, then I will serve.” “You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.” So I did sit and eat.16

So be sure that your plans for securing early wins, to the greatest extent possible, (1) are consistent with your agreed-to goals—what your bosses and key stakeholders expect you to achieve—and (2) help you introduce the new patterns of behavior you need to achieve those goals.

It’s a mistake to believe that you will be successful in your new job by continuing to do what you did in your previous job, only more so. “They put me in the job because of my skills and accomplishments,

Strategic thinking is the set of mental disciplines leaders use to recognize potential threats and opportunities, establish priorities to focus attention, and mobilize themselves and their organizations to envision and enact promising paths forward.

Prepare yourself. This means making a mental break from your old job and preparing to take charge in the new one. Perhaps

Miss Sheryl, Dontay, Bucket-Head, and I compiled our loose change for a fifth of vodka. I’m the only driver, so I went to get it. On the way back, I laughed at the local radio stations going on and on and on, still buzzing about Obama taking a selfie at Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Who cares? No really, who? Especially since the funeral was weeks ago. I

Two taps on the door, it opened, and the gang was all there—four disenfranchised African Americans posted up in a 9-by-11 prison-size tenement, one of those spots where you enter the front door, take a half-step and land in the yard. I call us disenfranchised, because Obama’s selfie with some random lady or the whole selfie movement in general is more important than we are and the conditions where we dwell. Surprisingly,

What the fuck is a selfie?” said Miss Sheryl. “When a stupid person with a smartphone flicks themselves and looks at it,” I said to the room. She replied with a raised eyebrow, “Oh?” It’s amazing how the news seems so instant to most from my generation—with our iPhones, Wi-Fi, tablets, and iPads—but actually it isn’t. The idea of information being class-based as well became evident to me when I watched my friends talk about a weeks-old story as if it happened yesterday. Miss

They spend hours aimlessly scrolling, absorbing fake and altered realities, praising the lives of celebrities when they could be enjoying real life, participating in rich discussions, and learning.

But in 2014, it feels the same as Bush, or Clinton, or any other president. The rich are copping new boats, and we still are using the oven to heat up our houses in the winter, while eating our cereal with forks to preserve milk. America still feels like America, a place where you have to pay to play, any- and everywhere, even here at our broke-ass card game. W

Despite your skin color, Trump fan, you probably have more in common with the minorities you’re demonizing than the candidate you’re cheering. Number

I beg your pardon, dune sea, but I am just here to get my girls. If you would kindly. This is not my first desert, you see. I am not done with my life—I’d say I’m about halfway through. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. I am a young white man in America and we typically do quite well here. So if you will excuse me.

recruiting is like romance, and employment is like marriage. As

Effective leaders strike the right balance between doing (making things happen) and being (observing and reflecting).

But she would ask and ask and ask to get to the bottom of something. You would say something to her, she would say it back to you, and that way everyone was 100% clear on what we were talking about. Once she got the information and knew what you were doing, you had to be consistent. She would say, ‘You told me X; why are you doing Y? I’m confused.’” Although she was demanding, she didn’t demand that people do things her way. Her subordinates were committed to the team’s goals because they were empowered, not ordered, to achieve them.

Gould was promoted to lead

Consequently, even many critics of economic inequality are hesitant to endorse the claim that inequality undermines growth. Paul Krugman, for instance, says that he is “a skeptic on the inequality-is-bad-for-performance proposition—not hard line against it, but worried that the evidence for some popular stories is weaker than I’d like.

To succeed as Michael did with a new boss, it’s wise to negotiate success. It’s well worth investing time in this critical relationship up front, because your new boss sets your benchmarks, interprets your actions for other key players, and controls access to resources you need. He will have more impact than any other individual on how quickly you reach the break-even point, and on your eventual success or failure.

Ding! The computer sounded across the room, signaling the arrival of another e-mail. “It’s him!” Madison squeaked, spinning to look at her computer. “Listen, Piper, I can’t talk now. Blue just wrote me a note.” “Hold it! You’re hanging up on your best friend just so you can read an e-mail from some random guy named Blue?” Piper huffed. “You don’t really know anything about him. And he could be making all sorts of stuff up.” “He’s nice,” Madison protested. “Oh, yeah? What if you find out that ‘Blue’ is actually Leonard Watkins, number one freak-a-zoid at EHS?” Madison winced at the thought. Leonard was certainly strange to look at--barely five feet tall, with oversized glasses, bad skin, and hair that looked like steel wool. But that was just looks. “Maybe Leonard is a nice guy. I know he lurks around the halls humming to himself, but you know, if he really was ‘Blue,” I’d give him a chance.” “You’re certifiably insane,” Piper declared, “You have all these guys at Evergreen High drooling over you and you fall for some unknown named Blue. Hmm…I that’s the way to get guys, maybe I’d better hang up and check my e-mail. Some maniac named Lemon Yellow could have sent me a letter that will change my life.” “Go for it, Piper!” Madison chuckled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” “Okay,” Piper said. “Although I may have eloped to Vancouver with Lemon Yellow by then.

done. Why did he stick around? Why would he force that encounter with you on the road, and that night at the diner . . .” He looked at Chris as though willing him to fill in the blanks, but Chris’s implacable eyes gave away nothing. “Wait,” Beck said, “I just remembered something. When Watkins came into the diner, I remember him looking surprised to see us there. But it was only me he was surprised to see, wasn’t it? He said he was there for a business . . . Ah,” he said with sudden enlightenment. “The payoff. He was meeting you there to get his money. “That was the night of Billy’s accident. I’d just come from the hospital. Our unscheduled meeting in the diner prevented you from conducting your transaction with Watkins. No wonder he was so angry that night on the road. He still hadn’t been paid. He was getting antsy. The heat was shifting from you onto him. In desperation, he went to Sayre and got Scott focused on the fratricide angle. That brought things to a head, so you arranged for a meeting with Watkins at the camp this morning.” Chris grinned. “I bet you aced law school, didn’t you? You’re actually very sharp. But, Beck, the only thing I would swear to under oath is that Slap Watkins came crashing through the door of the cabin, waving a knife and telling me he was going to kill his second Hoyle and how giddy he was at the prospect.” “I have no doubt that’s what happened, Chris. He just arrived earlier than you expected. He wanted to get the jump on you because he didn’t trust you. Justifiably. Even Watkins was smart enough to realize that you weren’t about to hand over money and let him walk away from that last meeting. He signed his own death warrant the minute he agreed to kill Danny.” “Please, Beck. Let’s not get sentimental over Slap. A double cross was his plan from the very beginning. Why do you think he left that matchbook in the cabin?” Beck mentally stepped back from himself and considered his options. He could leave now. Simply turn around and walk out. Go to Sayre. Live out the rest of his days loving her, and to hell with Chris and Huff, their treachery and corruption, to hell with their stinking, maiming, life-taking foundry. He was so damn weary of the struggle and the pretense. He longed to throw off this mantle of responsibility, to forget he ever knew the Hoyles and let the devil take them—if he would have them. That was what he wanted to do. Or he could stay and do what he had committed to do. As appealing as the former option was, the latter was preordained. “Slap Watkins didn’t plant the matchbook in the cabin, Chris.” He held Chris’s stare for several seconds, before adding, “I did.” • • • George

To a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.