“What? Whatta you see?”

“I think it’s her. Yeah, it is! The cop.”

“What? She got out of the water? Fuck. Where is she?”

“In that other house. The one we just passed. Number Two. The cop.”

“No shit. You’re sure?”

“In the window. Yeah. I saw her plain as day.”

“I can’t even see the house.”

“Was a break in the trees. She probably saw us go past and stood up. Thinking we were gone. Man, that was stupid of her.”

“They both there?”

“I don’t know. All I saw was the cop.” Hart was silent a moment. Lewis kept driving. Hart continued, “I don’t know what to do. We’re doing pretty good with the tire.”

“She’s holding up,” Lewis agreed.

“And we’ll be at the highway in ten minutes. I’d love to get the fuck out of here.”

“Amen.”

“’Course, then we miss the chance for some payback. Jesus, that woman’s slugs came six inches away from my head. I don’t dodge lead the way you do.”

“True too,” Lewis said, thinking things over and laughing about the bullet dodging.

“And wouldn’t be a bad idea to get things finished up now so we don’t have to worry. Especially since she knows my name.” Hart shrugged. “But I don’t know. Whatever you’re up for. Get her or not.”

A pause. Then Lewis lifted his foot off the accelerator, considering this. “Sure. And Michelle, maybe she’s there too… Fuck her up bad is what I really want, my friend.”

“Okay, I say let’s do it,” Hart said. He looked around again and then pointed ahead to the driveway at 1 Lake View. “Shut the lights off and head up there. We’ll move around behind. She’ll never guess.”

Lewis grinned. “Payback. You son of a bitch, Hart. I knew you’d be up for it.”

Hart gave a short laugh and pulled his pistol from his belt.

In fact, Hart hadn’t seen anything in the window at Number 2. Like Lewis, he couldn’t even see the place. But instinct had told him that the cop was there. He knew she’d survived the crash; he’d seen footprints leading from the lake. She’d have gone toward the closest shelter she could find: the second house on Lake View, he’d concluded. None of this he’d shared with Lewis, though. Hart had been taking soundings for the past couple of hours and knew his partner definitely didn’t want to stay here. He wanted to head back to Milwaukee. He talked big about tracking down the two women and taking care of them. But Hart knew it was just that: talk. The man’d get lazy and forget about it-until somebody came for him in the middle of the night. But if Hart had insisted they remain here to hunt the women down, Lewis’d dig his heels in and there’d be a fight.

Hart did not need any more enemies tonight.

But seeing Lewis wipe the lip of the bottle, back at the Feldmans’ house, Hart had sized up the younger man and decided he could get Lewis to stay here if he played on the man’s insecurities: complimenting his shooting and making it seem like staying to get the cop was Lewis’s idea.

Hart was sometimes called “the Craftsman,” a reference to his hobby of furniture making and woodworking, though the term was usually used by people in his profession, the one that had brought him here to Lake Mondac tonight. And the number one rule of craftsmanship is knowing your tools: the animate ones, like Lewis, in addition to those made from steel.

No, Hart never intended to return to the city without killing these two women, even if it took all night. Or all the next day, for that matter, even if the place was swarming with cops and rescue workers.

Yes, he wanted to kill Michelle, though that was a lower priority than getting the policewoman. She was the one he absolutely had to kill. She was the threat. Hart couldn’t forget her. Standing by her car. Just standing tall and waiting for him. The look on her face, a flash of gotcha, which might’ve been his imagination, though he didn’t think so. Like a hunter, waiting for just the right moment to take the shot. Like Hart himself.

Only his instant reflex, diving to the ground, had saved him. That, and the fact that she’d fired one-handed, wisely not letting go of her car keys. He actually heard a bullet near his ear, a pop, not a phushhhh, like in the movies. Hart knew he was closer to death at that moment than when Michelle had snuck up behind him and taken her shot.

Lewis now continued up the drive of 1 Lake View. At Hart’s direction, he beached the Ford in a stand of brush behind the house. It was well hidden in the tall grass and shrubs. They climbed out and moved west, into the woods about thirty feet, and then started going north, parallel to the private road, moving as quickly as they could toward Number 2.

Hart led Lewis around a pile of noisy leaves and they picked up the pace, staying in the thick of the forest for as long as they could.

A snap of branches behind them.

Both men spun around. Lewis readied the shotgun nervously. The visitor wasn’t human, though. It was that animal again, the one nosing in the grass earlier, or a similar one. A dog or coyote, he supposed. Or maybe a wolf. Did they have wolves in Wisconsin?

It kept its distance. Hart sensed no threat other than the risk of noise that might alert someone in the house. This time Lewis paid it no mind.

The creature vanished.

Hart and Lewis paused and studied the house for a long moment. There was no motion from inside. Hart thought he heard someone talking but decided it was the wind, which brushed over leaves and made the sound of a mournful human voice.

No light, no movement inside.

Had he been wrong in his guess that the cop had come here?

Then he squinted and tapped Lewis on the arm. A thin trail rose from the heating system exhaust duct next to the chimney. Lewis smiled. They eased closer to the house, under cover of thorny berry bushes that stretched from the woods nearly to the back porch. Hart carried his pistol with his trigger finger pointed forward, outside the guard. He held the gun casually, at his side. Lewis’s grip on the shotgun was tense.

At the back door, they stopped, noting the broken glass in the window. Hart pointed to the porch, at their feet. Two fragments of differing footprints, both women’s sizes.

Lewis gave a thumbs-up. He hooked the gun through his left arm and reached in through the broken pane, unlatched the lock. He swung the door open.

Hart held up a hand, whispered as low as he could, “Assume one of ’em has a weapon. And they’re waiting for us.”

Lewis gave another of his patented sneers, evidencing his low opinion of their enemy. But Hart lifted an impatient eyebrow and the man mouthed “Okay.”

“And no flashlights.”

Another nod.

Then, their gun muzzles pointed forward, they moved into the house.

Moonlight slanted through the large windows and gave some illumination throughout the first floor. They searched quickly. In the kitchen, Hart pointed to the drawers. A half dozen were open. He tapped the knife block. Several slots were empty.

Hart heard something. He held up a hand, frowning. Tilted his head.

Yes, it was voices. Women’s voices, very faint.

Hart pointed up the stairs, noting that his pulse, which had been a little elevated by the trek through the forest, was now back to normal.

STANLEY MANKEWITZ WAS eating dinner with his wife in an Italian restaurant in Milwaukee, a place that claimed to serve the best veal in the city. That was a meat that troubled both Mankewitz and his wife but they were guests of the businessman making up the threesome and so they’d agreed to come here.

The waiter recommended the veal saltimbocca, the veal Marsala and the fettuccine with veal Bolognese.

Mankewitz ordered a steak. His wife picked the salmon. Their host had the chopped-up calf.

As they waited for their appetizers they toasted with glasses poured from a bottle of Barbaresco, a spicy wine from the Piedmont region of Italy. The bruschetta and salads came. The host tucked his napkin into his collar, which seemed tacky but was efficient, and Mankewitz never put down whatever was efficient.