“If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.”

W.H. Auden

Dressed in dark jeans and a black t-shirt, Mark Harber slung the black backpack over his shoulder and climbed the wooden stairs leading to the platform house nestled in the trees twenty feet from the ground.  When he reached the top, he slowly peered around the corner of the wall for any sign of activity inside the Whitfield house across the yard.  The house appeared quiet, everyone asleep, except for Bradley.  She was still pacing back and forth across her room, just as she was doing when he had left with Phil fifteen minutes prior. 

Mark quietly walked in the shadows along the side of the treehouse, turned the corner and opened the glass door...

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