"No. Thanks a whole helluva lot, Ron!" Barb said, her mood darkening. She gritted her teeth. "Great message, hon! Nor that you love me! Not that you love our kids!" She picked up a Playboy and threw it at the wall, knocking into one of the levels hanging there. "Just look under the floor. For your friggin' porn!"

"Maybe it's here but we're just not seeing it."

"Like where?" Barb whirled around on her sneakers.

"Anywhere." Nat surveyed the room, looking for a clue. It was a garage used for a workshop and storage area. Hammers and saws hung neatly on a brown pegboard on one wall, next to a tall metal toolbox on wheels, stacks of tiny plastic drawers, and a Craftsman workbench. Kids' toys and bikes, balls and Wiffle bats, and a plastic Little Tykes three-wheeler sat stowed in boxes toward the front of the room, against the metal garage door, the kind that slid up. The rain thundered outside, the room uninsulated from noise and cold.

Barb eyed the place, her hands resting on her hips. "I suppose I could look some more. He was so handy. He could have hidden something here. Or even in the house."

"I'll help you. We could search pretty thoroughly, together. Let's start here, then if we don't find anything, we'll look in the house, under some rugs, okay?"

"Okay." Barb sighed, pushing up the knit sleeves of her sweater. "We've got three hours before the boys get home."

"Then let's get busy."

It wasn't until ten o'clock that Nat hit the road, driving home through the dark countryside in a continuous downpour. Hard rain pounded the car's roof, and the wipers worked frantically to clear the windshield. There were only a few other cars on the road, but she drove cautiously in the storm, too nervous to call Angus or Hank. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts anyway, which tumbled over themselves in confusion.

She and Barb had searched everywhere, but they hadn't found anything under the floor, much less money from drug sales or otherwise. Maybe the burglars had taken whatever they were looking for, or whatever it was was never there in the first place. Maybe Nat had misunderstood Saunders, or he had been delirious, in extremis. Either way, she felt terrible for delivering a message that made no sense, and for linking the message to a burglary that may have been just a burglary. She had been playing sleuth and failing miserably. She was a lousy Nancy Drew.

Rain fell so hard that the wipers couldn't keep up. The headlights fought the mist rising from the melting snow and were losing the battle. Ice and slush pooled along the side of the winding road, spraying from the Volvos tires. She accelerated only gently and passed a homemade orange sign that read, caution-horse and wife crossing. Somehow it made her think of Angus.

Natalie, listen.

Suddenly light flooded the Volvo, from headlights blasting behind her, and she felt a reflexive tremor from the accident last night. She'd been too preoccupied to check for black pickups. She looked in the rearview. It wasn't a pickup behind" her, but a state police cruiser. Flashing lights on its roof flickered red, white, and blue in the storm. She checked her speedometer. Forty-five miles an hour. What had the last sign said? Thirty-five?

Damn. She'd been speeding. The cruiser flashed its headlights, illuminating the interior of the Volvo, and she pulled over, cut the ignition, and braked. She went into her purse and retrieved her wallet while the familiar wide-brimmed silhouette appeared at her door. She wondered if it would be Milroy or another trooper she knew. She lowered the window, blinking against the rain spraying inside, but she didn't recognize him. She couldn't see much of his features, only his profile, visible in the headlights from the cruiser. Droplets dotted his steel-rimmed glasses, and a plastic cover, like a shower cap, protected his hat.

"You're going too fast for these conditions, Miss," the trooper said, his voice almost drowned out by the rain. "License and registration, please."

"Sorry," Nat said, hoping for a warning. She handed her ID and registration through the open part of the window, and the trooper stuck them on his little clipboard, where they could get soaked.

"Please wait here." The trooper went back to the cruiser, and Nat slid the window up, fighting a free-floating anxiety. What if he wasn't a real trooper? She'd seen reports like that in the news. She hadn't asked him for ID. She twisted around in the seat, shielding her eyes from the high beams. The multicolored lights on his roof were still flashing. It was a real state police car.

Stay outta Chester County.

Nat felt a tingle of paranoia. No one knew she was here. She rooted in her bag for her cell phone to call Hank. She pressed his speed dial, but he didn't pick up, and she didn't leave a message. She went to Plan B, holding the phone up to the light to see the numbers for information, then asked for the hospital's phone number. The call connected after a minute, and the hospital operator picked up.

"Angus Holt, please," Nat said, just as the trooper reappeared at her window, with his clipboard and a long white ticket book. She flipped the phone closed and put it back in her purse, then lowered the window.

"Please step outside the car, Ms. Greco."

"In the rain?"

"Step outside, please."

Nat felt oddly nervous. She reached for her purse and fumbled for her cell phone, but it must have slipped to the bottom of her purse. She groped for it but couldn't find it in the dark.

"Ms. Greco? Now."

Calm down. Nat opened the door and got out in the storm, and the trooper stepped aside and faced her. She still had her coat on but cold rain poured onto her head. She tensed her shoulders so it wouldn't run down her neck and covered her head with her hands.

"Please wait a minute," the trooper said. He switched on a black flashlight and aimed it inside the Volvo's front seat, where the beam danced a jitterbug over the front seat.

"Will this be long? This is torrential-"

BOOM! Suddenly there was an earsplitting blast. Something exploded from the cop's head. Warmth splattered across Nat's face. The trooper's hat flew off in the air. He dropped the flashlight and crumpled to the wet street.

Nat screamed. She whirled around in the pounding rain. A silhouette in a black ski mask stood on the far side of her car, out of the cruiser's headlights. He held a gun, smoke snaking from its barrel.

"Run, bitch!" said the figure.

Nat felt stunned for a split second, then bolted across the street in terror, as hard as she could in the pouring rain. She began screaming but rain drowned the sound. She tore into a dark field of snow and mud. She sprinted forward in the darkness, pinwheeling her arms to keep her balance. Slush churned up around her, soaking her boots. A dark tree loomed in front of her. She darted to avoid it. Branches tore her cheek. She couldn't see a thing in the rain. She ran with her hands in front of her. There were no buildings or lights. She didn’t even know if she was running in a straight line.

She glanced back. The Volvo sat on the road, lit up by the police cruiser. Freezing rain slaked her face and soaked her. Her lungs felt about to burst. She panted with exertion. She tried to think through her panic. What was happening? Was he coming after her? There were no houses around. Her cell was in the car. She kept running.

A loud neighing cut through the rain, a sound so piercing she felt it in her chest. Suddenly horses were galloping around her, massive shadows speeding in the dark. They snorted and blew, their hooves crunching through ice and sucking mud. Nat stood stock still, too terrified to move, screaming as they stampeded past. A heavy haunch bumped her in the shoulder, spinning her around, and she fell down in the muck. Hooves pounded around her, spraying mud. She got up as soon as she could, checking behind her.