Hart gingerly tried the knob. Locked. The voices continued, unalarmed. Hart pointed to himself and his good shoulder.

Lewis lowered his mouth to Hart’s ear and whispered, “Your arm?”

“I’ll live with it. When I’m through I’ll drop down on the floor and give covering fire. You come in over me and take them out.”

“They have guns, you think?” Glancing toward the door.

“Why take knives if you’ve got guns? But we oughta count on one of them having a piece.”

Lewis nodded and gripped the shotgun, eyed the safety. The red button showed.

Inside, the talking continued, casual as could be.

Hart stepped back, glanced at Lewis, who held the muzzle of the Winchester skyward and nodded. Then, hunched down like a tackle, Hart sped forward and flinched as his right shoulder connected with wood. With a loud crack the lock popped and the door flew inward, but stopped only a few inches inside. Hart gasped as his head slammed into the oak and he stumbled back, stunned.

The door had hit some barricade.

Inside the bedroom the voices stopped instantly.

Hart shoved the door again-it moved no farther-and then snapped to Lewis, “Push, help me. Push! It’s blocked.”

The younger man dug his feet into the carpet but the door wouldn’t budge. “No way. It’s blocked solid.”

Hart looked around the hall. He ran to the bedroom next door, to the right, and pushed his way inside. He searched the room fast. It had a French door leading to a deck outside. He kicked this open and looked out, to the left. The deck was thirty feet long and the bedroom where the women hid opened onto it as well, via a similar French door. There were no stairs off the deck. They hadn’t escaped this way; they were still inside.

Hart called for Lewis to join him. Together they stepped out onto the deck. They moved to the first bedroom, stopping just short of the windows, which were closed, shades pulled or curtains drawn, and it seemed that other pieces of furniture had been pushed against the windows as barricades. The French door, beyond the end of the windows, was curtained as well.

Considering how best to approach the assault, whether the woman would be holding her Glock toward the hall or window, barricades, escape routes-for the women and for Hart and Lewis…

Lewis was eager to move but Hart took his time. Finally he decided. “You go down to that door. I’ll stay here and kick this window out and try to push that dresser or table, whatever it is, out of the way. I’ll fire. They’ll focus on that. Then you let go with a couple rounds.”

“Crossfire.”

Hart nodded. “We got ammo. We can afford to use it. Then we’ll go in through the door. Okay?”

Lewis, crouching, covered the distance to the door, staying low. He took a deep breath and glanced back. Hart nodded, kicked in the window, with a huge crash, and pushed over a small dresser. He dodged back as Lewis broke out a pane in the door and fired three shotgun rounds into the room, shaking the curtains and rattling the glass, while Hart fired his Glock four times in a random pattern. He didn’t expect to hit anything but he knew it would keep their prey down, give him and Lewis time to get inside.

“Go!”

The men ran through the doorway, guns ready.

They found a room filled with mismatched antiques, rustic prints, books and magazines stacked on dressers and in baskets. But no human beings.

Hart thought for a moment that the women had used the delay to escape by the door to the hallway but it was still blocked-by a big dresser, it turned out. He gestured to the closet. Lewis pulled the door open and fired a shotgun round inside.

The noise was deafening. Wished the man had held back. The sudden deafness was freaking Hart out; he couldn’t have heard anybody sneaking up behind him.

Looking around again. Where? The bathroom, Hart supposed. Had to be.

The door was closed.

Lewis stood in front of it. Hart pointed at Lewis’s fatigue-jacket pocket. The man nodded and set down the shotgun and pulled out his silver SIG-Sauer pistol, still loud but less deafening than the Winchester scattergun. He chambered a round and flicked off the safety.

Hart started forward. Just as he was about to kick in the bathroom door, though, he paused, cocking his head. He gestured Lewis back. “Wait,” he mouthed. He pulled a drawer out of a dresser and tossed it into the door, which snapped open.

Fumes poured from it. Their eyes stung fiercely and both men began to cough.

“Jesus, what is that?”

“Ammonia,” Hart answered.

“Like fucking teargas.”

Holding his breath, Hart flicked on the bathroom light.

Well, look at this.

The women had propped a bucket of ammonia on the top of the door so that whoever walked through would get drenched-and possibly blinded. Luckily the door eased shut by itself and tipped the bucket to the floor before the men arrived.

“A fucking trap.”

He imagined what it would’ve been like to get soaked with the chemical. The pain, unbearable.

Wiping his eyes, Hart slammed the door shut and scanned the bedroom. “Look.” He sighed. “It wasn’t them at all. That’s what we heard.” He pointed to a TV. The electric cord of the Sony was tied around the leg of the dresser and then plugged into the wall outlet. When Hart had tried to break in the door, he’d pushed the dresser inward about three inches, which had unplugged the TV-making it seem that the women had stopped talking and presumably were hiding in the room.

He plugged the cord in again. The Shopping Channel came on. “Women talking,” Hart whispered, shaking his head. “No music. Just voices. They set it up and went out the patio door and through the other bedroom. To keep us busy and give ’em time to get away.”

“So they waited in the woods, saw us go past and’re halfway to the county road.”

“Maybe.” But Hart wondered too if they’d made it seem like they were escaping to the highway when in fact they were hiding somewhere else in the house. He’d glanced downstairs earlier; the place seemed to have a large basement.

Yes or no? He finally decided: “I think we’ll have to search.”

Lewis replaced his pistol in his jacket and picked up the shotgun. “Okay. But let’s get the fuck out of here.” He was coughing. They pulled the dresser away from the door. But Hart paused, noticed something stuffed under a table. It was a pile of wet clothes. Of course, the cop would have changed after her swim in the freezing lake. Hart looked through the clothes. The pockets were empty. He examined the front of the shirt, the name tag, black and etched with white lettering. Dep. Brynn McKenzie.

She’d tricked him, sure, but Hart was pleased. For some reason he always found knowing the name of his enemy comforting.

MUTED GUNSHOTS FROM inside 2 Lake View Drive snapped like impatient fingers. There was a pause and then more shots followed.

Brynn and Michelle were approaching the Feldmans’ house, which was now completely dark. The air was thick with the smell of fireplace flames and loam and rotting leaves. The young woman had shut down again, sullen and resentful. She limped along more slowly, using a pool cue as a cane.

Brynn squeezed her arm.

No response.

“Come on, Michelle, we have to move faster.”

The young woman complied but was obviously distraught. She seemed put out. As if she were the only victim here. It reminded her of Joey’s attitude when Brynn insisted he do homework before playing computer games or text-messaging his friends.

As they neared the house Brynn was reflecting on the dispute she’d had with Michelle back at 2 Lake View after agreeing to put the furnace on.

But she’d done that simply to trick the men into believing they were hiding out in the house. She’d said to the young woman, “Come on. We’re going back to the Feldmans’ place.”