In the end she compromised halfway, taking the T into town and finding a diner with a good range of exit options before switching on the phone and dialing. That way, even if someone had grabbed Roland and was actively tracing the call, they wouldn’t find her before she ended the call. It was raining, and she had a seat next to the window, watching the slug-trails of rain on the glass as her latte cooled while she tried to work up her nerve to call him.

When she dialed, the phone rang five times before he picked it up, a near-eternity in which she changed her mind about the wisdom of calling him several times. But it was too late: She was committed now. “Hello?” he asked.

“Roland. It’s me.”

“Hello, you.” Concern roughened his voice: “I’ve been really worried about you. Where are—”

“Wait.” She realized she was breathing too fast, shallow breaths that didn’t seem to be bringing in enough oxygen. “You’re on this side. Is anyone with you?”

“No, I’m taking a day off work. Even your uncle gives his troops leave sometimes. He’s been asking about you, though. As if he knows I’ve got some kind of channel to you. When are you going to come in? What have you been doing? Olga had the craziest story—”

“If it’s about the incident in her apartment, it’s true.” Miriam stopped, glanced obliquely at the window to check for reflections. There was nobody near her, just a barrista cleaning the coffee machine on the counter at the other side of the room. “Is Edsger around? He hasn’t gone missing or anything?”

“Edsger?” Roland sounded uncertain. “What do you know about—”

“Edsger. Courier on the Boston-New York run.” Quickly Miriam outlined her departure from the Clan’s holdings in the capital city Niejwein, her encounter with the courier on an Accela express. “Did he arrive alright?”

“Yes. I think so.” Roland paused. “So you’re telling me somebody tried to kill you in the warehouse as well?” A note of anger crept into his voice. “When I find out who—”

“You’ll do nothing,” Miriam interrupted. “And you’re not going to tell me you can provide security. There’s a mole in the organization, Roland, they’d work around you—and I’ve found out something more interesting. There’s a whole bunch of world-walkers you don’t know about, and they’re coming in from yet another world, where everything’s different. What we were talking about, the whole technology transfer thing, it can work there, too. In fact, that’s what I’m doing now, with Brill. The politics—do you know anything about Baroness Hildegarde’s interests? Olga said she’s going to try to get the Clan committee to declare me incompetent. Before that happens I want to be able to make her look like an idiot. I’m working on the other side, Roland, in the third world, building a front company. So I’m going to stay out of touch for quite a bit longer.”

“That makes sense. Can I see you?” he asked. A pause: “I really think we’ve got a lot to work out. I don’t know about you.” Another pause, “I was hoping we could …”

This was the hardest part. “I don’t think so,” Miriam heard herself saying. “I’d love to spend some time with you, but I’ve got so much to do. And there isn’t enough time to do it. I can’t risk you being followed, or Angbard deciding to reel me in too soon. I want to, but—”

“I get it.” He sounded distant.

“I’m not dumping you! It’s just I, I need some time.” She was breathing too fast again. “Later. Give me a week to sort things out, then we’ll see.”

“Oh. A week?” The distant tone vanished. “Okay, a week. I’ll wait, somehow. You’ll take care of yourself? You’re sure you’re safe where you are?”

“For now,” Miriam affirmed, crossing her fingers. “And I’ll have a lot more to tell you then, I’ll need your advice.” And everything else. The urge to drop her resolve, grab any chance to see him, was so strong she had trouble resisting. Keep it businesslike, for now. “I love you,” she said impulsively.

“Me too. I mean, I love you, too.” It came out in a tongue-tied rush, followed by a silence pregnant with unspoken qualifications.

“I’d better go,” she said at last.

“Uh. Okay, then.”

“Bye.” She ended the call and stared bleakly at the rain outside the window. Her coffee was growing cold. Now why did I really say that? She wondered, puzzled: Did I really mean it? She’d said those words before, to her husband—now ex-husband—and she’d meant them at the time. Why did this feel different?

“Damn it, I’m a fool,” she told herself gloomily, muttering under her breath so that the waitress at the far end of the bar took pains to avoid looking at her. I’m a fool for love, and if I don’t handle this carefully, I could end up a dead fool. Damn it, why did I have to take that locket in the first place?

The raindrops weren’t answering, so she finished her latte hurriedly and left.

They spent the next three days exercising Miriam’s magic credit card discreetly. Angbard hadn’t put a stop on it. Evidently the message had gotten through: Don’t bug me, I’m busy staying alive. A garden shed, a deluxe shooting hide, and enough gas-powered tools to outfit a small farm vanished into the trunk of Miriam’s rental car in repeated runs between Home Depot and Costco and the new office near Cambridge-port. Miriam didn’t much like the office—it had a residual smell of stale tobacco and some strange coffee-colored stains on the carpet that not even an industrial carpet cleaner could get rid of—but she had to admit that it would do.

They moved a couple of sofa beds into the rear office, and paid a locksmith to come around and beef up the door frame with deadbolts, and install an intruder alarm and closed-circuit TV cameras covering the yard and both entrances. A small fridge and microwave appeared in the kitchen, a television set and video in the front office. Paulette and Miriam groaned at each other about their aches and pains, and even Brill hesitantly joined in the bitching and moaning after they unloaded the flat-pack garden shed. “This had better be worth it,” Miriam said on day three as she swallowed a Tenolol tablet and a chaser of ibuprofen on the back of her lunchtime sub.

“You’re going across this afternoon?” asked Paulie.

“I’m going in half an hour,” Miriam corrected her. “First trip to see if it’s okay. Then as many short ones as I can manage, to ferry supplies over. I’ll take Brill through to help get the shed up and covered, then come back to plot expedition one. You happy with the shopping list?”

“I think so.” Paulette signed. “This isn’t what I was expecting when we got started.”

“I know.” Miriam grinned. “But I think this is going to work out. Listen, you’ve been going crazy with the both of us living on top of you for the past week, but once we’re gone we’ll be out of your hair for at least five days. Why don’t you kick back and relax? Get in some of that partying you keep moaning about missing?”

“Because it won’t be the same without you! I was planning on showing you some of the good life. Get you hitched up with a date, anyway.”

Miriam sobered. “I don’t need a date right now,” she said, looking worried—and wistful.

“You’re—” Paulette raised an eyebrow. “You still hooked on him?”

Miriam nodded. “It hasn’t gone away. We spoke yesterday. I keep wanting to see him.”

Paulette caught her arm. “Take it from me: don’t. I mean, really, don’t. If he’s for real, he’ll be waiting for you. If he isn’t, you’d be running such a huge risk—”

Miriam nodded, wordlessly.

“I figured that was what it was,” Paulie said softly. “You want him whether or not he’s messed up with the shits who’re trying to kill you or disinherit you, is that right?”

“I think he’s probably got his reasons,” Miriam said reluctantly. “Whatever he’s doing. And I don’t think he’s working for them. But—”