An hour past midnight, nice young man Wayne Milton walks out of his second-shift office and into unplanned, unwanted combat with a fevered stranger. Seconds later, the stranger lies dead -- and hanging from Wayne's hand is a gun, not his own, smoke wreathing its steel muzzle. Wayne sinks to his knees, every sense stupefied. Then the shriek of an approaching siren pierces his torpor, and on instinct he dives into shadow and flees the bloody scene, legs and mind churning witlessly. The cold October night closes around him. What fortune will the new day bring? What trials bestride the dawn? As Wayne skulks westward in fear and shame, ducking the law while striving to maintain sanity, civility, and basic hygiene, the ricochet from his violent encounter rattles the lives of those he loves, those he doesn't much mind, and those he couldn't care less about.