Brynn had experienced this mania before, at car wrecks and heart attack scenes, and knew the implicit question was best answered simply and honestly. “I’m sorry. I was there, in the kitchen. I saw them. I’m afraid they’re gone.”

Michelle held on to a fragment of hope for a moment longer. Then let it go. She nodded and lowered her head.

Brynn asked, “You have any idea what they want? Ow!” She flinched. She’d bit her tongue. “Was it robbery?” Eyes lensing with tears.

“I don’t know.”

The shivering grew worse, consuming Brynn. Michelle’s perfect fingernails, she had noticed, were dark from plum-colored polish; Brynn’s, unpolished, were the same shade.

“I understand you and Emma worked together. Are you a lawyer too?”

A shake of her pretty head. “No, I was a paralegal in Milwaukee for a while before I moved to Chicago. That’s how we met. It was just a way to make some money. I’m really an actress.”

“Did she ever talk to you about her cases?”

“Not too much, no.”

“Could be-a case at her law firm. She might’ve found out about a scam or crime of some kind.”

Michelle gasped. “You mean they came up here to kill her on purpose?”

Brynn shrugged.

A snap nearby. Brynn gasped and turned fast. About twenty feet away a badger, elegant in its round, clumsy way, nosed past warily.

Wisconsin, the Badger State.

Brynn asked Michelle, “Will somebody start to wonder if they don’t hear from you?”

“My husband. Except he’s traveling. We said we’d talk in the morning. That’s why I came up here with Steve and Emma. I had the weekend free.”

“Look.” Brynn was pointing toward the Feldman house. Two flashlight beams were scanning the side yard, a quarter mile away. “They’re back there. Hurry. The other house. Let’s go.” Brynn rose to a crouch, both of them staggering forward.

SO THE COP had gone into the water.

Hart and Lewis had found debris and an oil slick.

“Dead, gotta be,” Lewis’d said, looking distastefully at the lake, as if he were expecting monsters to slither out. “I’m outa here. Come on, Hart. Jake’s. I need a fucking beer. First round’s on you, my friend.”

They’d returned to the Feldman house. The fire in the hearth had burned itself out and Hart had shut off all the lights. He’d put into his pocket all the used medical supplies stained with his blood. He didn’t bother with the spent shells that littered the house and front yard; he’d worn gloves when loading the Glocks and had watched to make sure Lewis had too.

Then he sprayed and wiped everything Lewis had come near with his bare hands.

Lewis couldn’t resist a snicker at this.

“Keep that,” an irritated Hart said, pointing to Michelle’s purse.

Lewis slipped it into his combat jacket pocket and took a bottle of vodka from the bar. Chopin. “Shit. This is good stuff.” He uncorked it and took a drink. He lifted the bottle to Hart, who shook his head because he didn’t want any booze just now, though Lewis took it as a criticism about drinking on the job, which was true too. At least he wore gloves when handling the bottle.

“You worry too much, Hart,” Lewis said, laughing. “I know the score, my friend. I know how they operate in places like this. I wouldn’t do that in Milwaukee or St. Paul. But here…these cops’re like Andy in Mayberry. Not CSI. They don’t have all that fancy equipment. I know how to play it and how not to.”

Still, Hart noted that he wiped the lip of the bottle with his shirtsleeve before replacing it.

And he saw in that tiny gesture-so fast you’d miss it easily-a clue. A telling clue about Mr. Compton Lewis. He recognized the careless, aggressive attitude that he’d seen in other men-in his brother, for instance. The source was simple insecurity, which can control you the way a pinch collar controls a dog.

They returned outside. Lewis went to work on the Ford once more, getting the spare on the front, in place of one of those that’d been shot out-so they could drag the other flat on the rear, like he’d suggested.

Hart reflected on how much the disaster at the house was eating at him.

Blindsided…

Looking for clues he should’ve seen but hadn’t. He hated incompetence but hated it most when he was the guilty party. Hart had once canceled a hit in St. Louis, when it turned out that the “park” his victim used to walk home from work-a perfect shooting zone-was a neighborhood playground, filled with dozens of energetic little witnesses. Angrily, he’d realized that the two times he’d surveyed the place in preparation for the kill had been in midmorning, while the kids were still in school.

He now looked around the house and yard. There was a possibility that somewhere he’d left damning trace evidence. But probably Lewis was right; the cops here weren’t out of that famous show CSI-Crime Scene International or whatever it was called. Hart didn’t watch TV, though he knew the idea: all that expensive scientific equipment.

No, something more fundamental was bothering him. He was thinking back to the paw print and the creature who’d left it, its disregard for the men who’d invaded its territory. Any challenges here weren’t about microscopes and computers. They were more primitive.

He felt that tickle of fear again.

Lewis was moving along with the jack and the lug wrench, swapping the wheels on the Ford. He looked at his watch. “We’ll be back to civilization by ten-thirty. Man, I can taste that beer and burger now.”

And returned to the task, working fast with his small but clever fingers.

“NO ALARM,” BRYNN whispered, grimacing.

“What?” Michelle asked, not understanding the mumpy voice.

She repeated slowly, “No. Alarm.” Brynn was looking over the spacious mountain house, 2 Lake View. The owners clearly had money; why no security?

She broke a window in the back door with her elbow, unlatched the lock. The women hurried into the kitchen. Brynn walked immediately to the stove and turned on a burner to warm herself, risking the light. Nothing. The propane was shut off outside. No time to find the valve and turn it on. Please, she thought, just have some dry clothes. It was cold inside but at least they were protected from the wind, and the bones of the house retained a bit of heat from the day’s sun.

She touched her face-not the bullet wound but her jaw. When the weather was cold or she was tired the reconstructed spot throbbed, though she often wondered if the sensation was imaginary.

“We’ve gotta move fast. First, look for a phone or a computer. We could e-mail or instant-message.” Joey was always online. She was sure she could get a message to him but she’d have to phrase it so that he’d get the urgency but not be upset.

There’d be no vehicular escape; they’d already peered into the garage and found it empty. Brynn continued, “And look for weapons. Not much hunting here, with the state park and most of the land posted. But they still might have a gun. Maybe a bow.”

“And arrow?” Michelle asked, her eyes panicked at the thought of shooting one at a human being. “I can’t do that. I wouldn’t know how.”

Brynn had played with one of the weapons at summer camp, once or twice, years ago. But she’d learn to handle it fast if she had to.

She was considering this fantasy when she noted that Michelle had walked away. She heard a click and a rumble.

The sound of a furnace!

Brynn ran into the living room and found the young woman at the thermostat.

“No,” Brynn said, her teeth chattering.

“I’m freezing,” Michelle said. “Why not?”

Brynn shut the unit off.

Michelle protested, “I’m so cold, it hurts.”

Tell me about it, Brynn thought. But she said, “There’ll be smoke. The men could see it.”

“It’s dark out. They won’t see anything.”

“We can’t take the chance.”