Michelle’s purse was gone, which meant the killers had it-and that they’d now know her name and where she lived.

Brynn walked into the kitchen, where the bodies lay in their death poses, the blood making a paisley pattern next to the husband and a near-perfect circle around the wife. Brynn hesitated briefly and then knelt and searched their pockets for cell phones. None. She tried the jackets. Similarly empty. She then stood and looked down at them. Wished there were time to say some words, though she had no idea what.

Did the couple have laptop computers? She looked at the briefcase on the floor-it was the woman’s-and at the pile of file folders all stamped with the word CONFIDENTIAL. But no electronics. The husband apparently used a backpack for his briefcase but that had contained only a few magazines, a paperback novel and a bottle of wine.

Brynn’s feet were beginning to sting again from chafing; the lake water had soaked through the dry socks. She looked in the laundry room and found two pairs of hiking boots. She pulled on dry socks and the larger of the boots. She took the second pair for Michelle. She also found a candle lighter and slipped that in her pocket.

Was there anything-?

She gasped in shock. Outside, the croak of frogs and the whisper of wind vanished in the insistent blare of a car alarm.

Then Michelle’s desperate voice calling, “Brynn! Come here! Help me!”

Brynn ran outside, gripping her makeshift spear, blade forward.

Michelle was standing beside the Mercedes, the window shattered. The young woman was frantic, wide-eyed. And paralyzed.

Brynn ran to the car, glancing at the house at Number 2. The flashlights went out.

They’re on their way. Great.

“I’m sorry!” Michelle cried. “I didn’t think, I didn’t think…”

Brynn ripped the passenger door open, popped the hood and ran to the front of the car. She’d made a point to learn all she could about cars and trucks-vehicles make up the majority of police work in a county like Kennesha-and her studies included mechanics as well as driving. Brynn struggled to work the cable off the positive terminal of the battery with the Chicago Cutlery knife. The piercing sound stopped.

“What happened?”

“I just…” Michelle moaned angrily. “It’s not my fault!”

No? Whose was it?

She continued, “I have low blood sugar. I was feeling funny. I brought some crackers with me.” She pointed to a bag of Whole Foods-brand snacks in the backseat. She said defensively, “If I don’t get food, sometimes I faint.”

“Okay,” said Brynn, who’d avoided breaking into and searching the Mercedes specifically because she’d known it would be alarmed. She now climbed in fast, grabbed the crackers and handed them to Michelle, then rifled through the glove compartment. “Nothing helpful,” she muttered.

“You’re mad,” she said, her voice an irritating whine. “I’m sorry. I said I was sorry.”

“It’s okay. But we have to move. Fast. They’re on their way.” She handed Michelle the boots she’d found inside, the smaller pair, which should fit fine. Michelle’s own boots were chic and stylish, with spiky three-inch heels-just the sort for a young professional. But useless footgear for fleeing from killers.

Michelle stared at the fleece boots. She didn’t move.

“Hurry.”

“Mine are fine.”

“No, they’re not. You can’t wear those.” A nod at the designer footwear.

Michelle said, “I don’t like to wear other people’s clothes. It’s…gross.” Her voice was a hollow whisper.

Maybe she meant dead people’s clothes.

A glance toward Number 2. No sign of the men. Not yet.

“I’m sorry, Michelle. I know it’s upsetting. But you have to. And now.”

“I’m fine with these.”

“No. You can’t. Especially with a hurt ankle.”

Another hesitation. It was as if the woman were a pouty eight-year-old. Brynn took her firmly by the shoulders. “Michelle. They could be here any minute. We don’t have any choice.” Her voice was harsh. “Put the goddamn boots on. Now!”

A long moment. Michelle’s jaw trembling, eyes red, she snatched away the hiking boots and leaned against the Mercedes to put them on. Brynn jogged to the garage and found beside it what she’d seen when she’d arrived: a canoe under a tarp. She hefted it. The fiberglass boat wasn’t more than forty or fifty pounds.

Although Yahoo’s estimate was accurate and two hundred yards separated them from the shoreline, a stream was only about thirty feet from the house and it ran pretty much straight to the lake.

In the garage she found life preservers and paddles.

Michelle was staring down at her friend’s boots, grimacing. She looked like a rich customer who’d been sold inferior footwear and was about to complain to the store manager.

Brynn snapped, “Come on. Help me.”

Michelle glanced back toward the house at 2 Lake View and, her face troubled, shoved the crackers in her pocket, then hurried to the canoe. The two women dragged it to the stream. Michelle climbed in with her pool cue walking stick and Brynn handed her the spear, paddles and life vests.

With a look back at the morass of forest, through which the killers were surely sprinting right now, the deputy climbed in and shoved off into the stream, a dark artery seeping toward a dark heart.

THE MEN RAN through the night, sucking in cold, damp air rich with the smell of rotting leaves.

At the sound of the horn, Hart had realized that rather than head for the county road, like he’d thought, the women had snuck back to the Feldman house. They’d probably broken into the Mercedes hoping to fix the tire, not thinking the car was alarmed. He and Lewis had started running directly for the place but immediately encountered bogs and some wide streams. Hart started to ford one but Lewis said, “No, your feet’ll chafe bad. Gotta keep ’em dry.”

Hart, never an outdoorsman, hadn’t thought about that. The men returned to the driveway and jogged to Lake View Drive and then north toward number 2.

“We go…up careful,” Hart said, out of breath, when they were halfway to the Feldmans’ driveway. “Still…could be a trap.” The jogging was hell on his wounded arm. He winced and tried moving it into different positions. Nothing helped.

“A trap?”

“Still…worried about a gun.”

Lewis seemed a lot less obnoxious now. “Sure.”

They slowed at the mailbox, then started up the drive, Hart first, both of them sticking to the shadows. Lewis was silent, thank God. The kid was catching on, if you could call a thirty-five-year-old a kid. Hart thought again of his brother.

About fifty feet up the driveway they paused.

Hart scanned what they could see, which wasn’t much because of the dusk. Bats swooped nearby. And some other creature zipped past his head, floating down to a scampering landing.

Hell, a flying squirrel. Hart’d never seen one.

He was squinting at the Mercedes, noting the broken window. He saw no signs of the women.

It was Lewis who spotted them. He happened to look back down the driveway toward the private road. “Hart. Look. What’s that?”

He turned, half expecting to see Brynn rising from the bushes about to fire that black service piece of hers. But he saw nothing.

“What?”

“There they are! On the lake.”

Hart turned to look. About two hundred feet into the lake was a low boat, a skiff or canoe. It was moving toward the opposite shore but very slowly. It was hard to see for certain but he thought there were two people in it. Brynn and Michelle had seen the men, stopped paddling and hunched down, keeping a low profile. The momentum was carrying them toward the opposite shore.

Lewis said, “That alarm, it wasn’t a mistake. It was to distract us. So they could get away in the fucking boat.”

The man had made a good catch. Hart hadn’t even been looking at the lake. He bridled once again at being outguessed-and he decided it was probably Brynn who’d tried to trick them.