She ripped off her thin glove, staring at her hand. Two thorns from the branch had punctured her palm and broken off into her skin. Her eyes flushed with horror.

“No! no, it’s just blackberry. You’re fine. Here. Let me look.”

“No! Don’t touch it.”

But Brynn took the woman’s hand and flicked the candle lighter over the skin, examining the tiny wounds. “We just want to get them out so it doesn’t get infected. In five minutes you won’t feel a thing.”

Brynn eased the thorns out of her skin and the woman winced, whimpering and staring at the growing dots of blood. Brynn pulled out the bottle of alcohol, dampened the edge of a sock with it and started to bathe the wounds. She couldn’t help notice the dark, artistic nails.

“Let me do it,” Michelle said and dabbed at the skin. She handed back the sock and found a tissue in her pocket, pressed it onto the wound. By the time she lifted it away the bleeding had almost stopped.

“How is it?”

“It’s okay,” Michelle said. “You’re right. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

They continued on their route, heading in the direction that Brynn pointed.

Sure, she thought, Hart would pursue them and they’d have to remain vigilant. But he’d have no idea where they were headed. The women could have gone in any direction except south to the county road-since they’d have to sneak around the killers to get there.

With every passing yard, Brynn grew more confident. At least she knew something about the forest and where the trail ahead of them lay. The men did not. And even if Hart and his partner happened to choose this direction, the men would surely find themselves lost in ten minutes.

BACK ON THE shore near the Feldman house Hart was looking over the GPS function on his BlackBerry. Then he consulted the map of the area they’d brought with them.

“The Joliet Trail,” he announced.

“What’s that?”

“Where they’re headed.”

“Ah,” Lewis said. “You think?”

“Yep.” He held up the map. “We’re here.” He tapped a spot then moved his finger north. “That brown line’s the trail. It’ll take ’em right to that ranger station there.”

Lewis was distracted. He was looking over the lake. “That was smart, I gotta say. What they did.”

Hart didn’t disagree. Their short row into the lake had revealed that the women had propped up life vests to resemble bodies hunched down in the canoe and then shoved the boat into the water. The scream-at the sound of the shots-was ingenious. Had Brynn or Michelle uttered the sound? Brynn, he bet.

Hart wasn’t used to having to out-think his opponents. Part of him liked the challenge but a bigger part liked being in control. The contests he preferred were those in which he had a pretty good idea that the outcome would be in his favor. Like working with ebony: the wood was temperamental-hard and brittle-and could split easily, wasting hundreds of dollars. But if you took your time, you were careful, you foresaw any potential problems, the end result was beautiful.

What kind of challenge was Brynn McKenzie?

Smelling the ammonia.

Hearing the crack, crack, crack of her gun.

Ebony, of course.

His aching arm prodded him to think too: And what kind was Michelle?

That would remain to be seen.

“So you’re thinking of going after them?” Lewis asked. He opened his mouth and puffed out a bit of steam.

“Yep.”

“I gotta say, Hart. This isn’t what I planned on.”

Putting it mildly.

Lewis continued, “Everything’s changed. That bitch shooting you, trying to shoot me. The cop…You or me, in that bathroom, the ammonia trap. If it’d worked, one of us’d be blinded. And that shot in the house, the cop? Missed me by inches.”

I can dodge bullets…

Hart said nothing. He wasn’t riled up the way Lewis was. The women were just being true to their nature. Like that animal he’d seen. Of course they’d fight back.

“So that’s what I’m thinking,” Lewis said. “I just want to get the hell out of here. She’s a cop, Hart. Lives ’round here. She knows this place. She’s halfway to that ranger station or something right now. They’ll have phones in the park… So we’ve gotta get outa here now. Back to Milwaukee. Whoever that girl is, Michelle, she’s sure as hell not going to ID us. She’s not stupid.” He tapped his pocket, where her purse, containing her name and address, rested. “And the cop didn’t really get a good look at us. So, back to Plan A. Get to the highway, ’jack a car. Whatta you say?”

Hart grimaced. “Well, Lewis, I am tempted. Yes, I am. But we can’t.”

“Hmm. Well, I’m inclined to think otherwise.” Lewis was speaking softly now, more reasonable, less surly.

“We have to get them.”

“‘Have to’? Why? Where’s that written down? Look, you’re thinking I’m scared. Well, I’m not. Tonight, against two women? This’s nothing. Let me tell you a story. I did a bank job in Madison? Last year?”

“Banks? Never done a bank.”

“We got fifty thousand.”

“That’s pretty good.” The average bank robbery take nationwide was $3,800. Another stat Hart knew: 97 percent of the perps were arrested within one week.

“Yep, was. So. This guard wanted to be a hero. Had a backup gun on his ankle.”

“He’d been a cop.”

“What I figured. Exactly. Came out shooting. I covered the other guys. Right out in the open. Kept him down. I didn’t even crouch.” He laughed, shaking his head. “One of my crew, the driver, was so freaked he dropped the keys in the snow, took a couple minutes to find them. But I held that guard off. Even stayed upright while I reloaded, and we could hear sirens in the distance. But we got away.” He fell silent to let Hart digest this. Then: “I’m talking about what makes sense… You stand your ground when you need to. You get the hell out when you need to. And then take care of ’ em later.” Another tap of Michelle’s purse. “Nothing good’s going to come of this.” He repeated, “Everything’s changed.”

A mournful call filled the moist air, a bird of some sort, Hart guessed. Waterfowl or owl or hawk, he couldn’t tell them apart. He squatted down, pushed his hair off his forehead. “Lewis, I’m thinking that nothing has changed, not really.”

“Sure it has. The minute she tried to cap you, it all went to shit in there.” A nod back at the house and a skeptical glance.

“But it’s shit we could’ve foreseen. We should’ve foreseen. Look, when you make a choice-signing on for this job, for instance-there’s a whole slew of consequences that can follow. Things could go left, they could go right. Or, what happened tonight, they could turn around and slug you in the gut…”

Or shoot you in the arm.

“Nobody forced me to live this kind of life. Or you either. But we chose it and that makes it our job to think everything through, figure out what could happen and plan for it. Every time I do a job I plan everything out, I mean every detail. I’m never surprised. Doing the job itself’s usually boring, I’ve been through it so often in my mind.”

Measure twice, cut once.

“Tonight? I figured out ninety-five percent of what could happen and planned for that. But what I didn’t bother to think about was the last five percent-that that Michelle was going to use me for target practice. But I should’ve.”

The slim man, rocking on his haunches, said, “The Trickster.”

“The what?” Hart asked.

“My grandmother said when something went wrong, something you didn’t think could happen, it was the Trickster’s fault. She got it out of a kid’s book or something. I don’t remember. The Trickster was always hanging around looking for ways to make things go wrong. Like Fate or God or whatever. Except Fate could do you good things too. Like give you a winning lotto ticket. Or could make you stop for a yellow light, even if you would’ve gone through, and save you from getting T-boned by a garbage truck. And God would do things that were right, so you’d get what you deserved. But the Trickster? He was just there to mess you up.” He nodded again at the house. “Trickster paid us a visit in there.”