THE VAN’S AUTOMATIC lock clicked.

Brynn turned toward the passenger door as it opened.

Hart stood there, his gun forward, scanning carefully for threats. He saw her hands were taped and that the van was otherwise unoccupied. He climbed in.

The door slammed behind him.

He put his gun away and began searching through the mounds of junk on the floor and directly behind the front seats.

Brynn said, “The girl back there, in the camper? The little girl?”

“No. She’s all right.”

“The fire?”

“Diversion. The camper wasn’t burning.”

Brynn looked. The smoke had cleared. He was telling the truth.

Hart found some bleach, opened it and drenched his gloves and the keys, which were bloody. Then poured more in a tear in his leather jacket-the bullet hole from Michelle’s shot, it seemed. He exhaled slowly from the pain.

The chlorine stench rose and stung her eyes. His too. They both blinked.

“Druggies…Can’t be too safe nowadays.” It was like he was apologizing for the fumes. Hart looked her over, focusing on her vastly swollen cheek. He frowned.

“Are you telling me the truth? Is she alive?” Her eyes bored into his. He gazed back.

“The girl? Yes, I told you. The mother, if she was the mother, she’s not. The others aren’t either… You’re interested, they left the kid in the camper when they thought it was burning. And ran outside. Maybe they just meant to fight. Or maybe they just meant to leave her to burn.”

Brynn looked him over. A solid face, gray eyes, long hair, dark and dry. Skin rough. She’d had a bout of acne as a girl; it had tormented her. But the condition had cleared up as soon as she hit college. He wasn’t handsome, not really, but he had confidence in spades, an attraction all its own.

“Brynn,” he mused.

How’d he know her name? Had Gandy told him before he died? No. The men had been in the second house along Lake View Drive, the bedroom. He would have seen the name badge on her blouse.

“Hart.”

He nodded with an exasperated smile. “My friend was talking a bit much. Giving that away.”

“What’s his name again?”

The smile lingered.

Brynn said, “Tell me where the girl is.”

“In her room in the camper.” Hart continued, “She’s in bed with some doll named Chester. I found it for her. Or a rabbit. I don’t know.”

“You left her there?” Brynn asked angrily. “She could look outside and see her mother’s body?”

“No, my friend’s moving them all into the woods. I told the girl to stay put. Come morning this park’ll have more cops per square foot than the police academy. They’ll find her.”

“She’s dead, isn’t she? You killed her too.”

His face tightened. He was upset that she doubted him. “No, I didn’t kill her. She’s in bed with Chester. I told you.”

Brynn decided that she believed him.

“So what happened?” he asked. “You met that fellow in the woods and he was going to let you use his phone here. And you walked into a meth lab.”

“I figured it out before. But not before enough.”

“Smelled it, right? The ammonia?”

“Yep. And the chlorine too. And burning propane.”

“That’s how I found it,” Hart said. “I was down by that lake and could smell it down there.”

“Wind must’ve shifted,” she said. “I didn’t smell it till we were almost here.”

Hart stretched. “Phew. Quite a night. Bet you don’t see many of ’em like this in…what’s this county again?”

“Kennesha.”

He looked again at the wound on her face. He’d be noting how infected it was, how painful. She supposed he’d be considering how long she could hold out before she told him where Michelle was.

Forever.

Wondering if that was true.

And as if he were reading her thoughts: “Where is your friend Michelle?” he said evenly.

“I don’t know.” Recalling that they’d found her purse. They knew who she was and where she lived.

Hart moved in the seat slightly and grimaced, apparently at the pain in his shot arm. “What’s that name-Brynn?”

“Norwegian.”

He nodded as he took this in. “Well, about Michelle, you’re lying to me. You do know where she is.” He actually seemed offended. Or hurt. After a moment Hart said, “I talked to somebody tonight, you know. On the phone.”

“Talked to somebody?”

“Your husband.”

She said nothing, thinking at first that he was bluffing. But then remembered that they’d taken her phone. Graham might have called and Hart might have answered.

“I pretended I was another trooper. I told him you’d been delayed. He bought it. I could tell. There’s nobody coming to save you. And before you get your hopes up I took the battery out. Can’t be traced. Now, where is she? Michelle?”

They held each other’s eyes. She was surprised at how easy it was.

“You killed her friends. Why would I tell you where she is, so you can kill her too?”

“So,” he said, nodding, “Michelle was a friend of the family? Is that how she got mixed up in this whole thing?” A laugh. “Wrong time and wrong place, you might say. A lot of that going around tonight.”

“We need to talk about making arrangements here.”

“I’ll bet this’s a first for you. Has been for me.”

“What?”

“The game we’ve been playing tonight. Like poker. Bluffing. You fool me, I fool you.”

Poker…

“My friend was telling me about this character. His mama or grandma, I forget, was talking about the Trickster. Some mythology thing, a fairy tale. He causes all kind of grief. That’s what I’ve been calling you all night, Brynn.”

Trickster, she reflected.

Hart continued, “That TV in the house at Number Two Lake View-finding a channel with women talking. That was smart. And the ammonia above the door. But now I think about it, you didn’t rig it to fall, did you? You’d worry about rescue workers or your cop friends getting blinded. Funny-knowing you didn’t come up with a cowardly trap…makes me feel better about you.”

Brynn McKenzie repressed a smile and didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.

“Then the canoe. And the blood on the ledge.”

“And you in the three-wheeled car,” she replied.

“Didn’t fool you, though, did it?”

“I can say the same. After all, here you are. You found me.”

He looked her over. “The blood at the ledge. You cut yourself extra for that?”

“Didn’t bring any ketchup with me.” She tilted her head so he could see the coagulated blood in her hair.” Then she added, “The flashlight tricked me, on the ledge. What’d you do, make a rope out of a T-shirt?”

“Yep. My friend’s. Got to see more of his tattooed body than I wanted. I used a branch too so it’d hang out a ways and dangle in the wind.”

“But how’d you find us?”

“BlackBerry.”

She shook her head, smiling ruefully. He has satellite. I have a homemade toy compass…though one worked as good as the other, Brynn thought. “The Sheriff’s Department won’t pay for those.”

“I figured you’d make for that trail, the Joliet, and north from there. And go to the interstate or Point of Rocks.”

“I’d decided on the interstate. The climb’d be a bitch but it’s closer and by the time we got to the highway there’d be plenty of trucks on the road.”

“How come you didn’t get lost?”

“Good sense of direction.” She looked him over closely. “Why are you doing this, Hart?” she asked. “It’s hopeless.”

“Ah, Brynn, we’re both too smart for hostage negotiation one-oh-one.”

She continued nonetheless, “Less than two percent of perps get away with murder-and those’re usually drug clips where nobody cares about the victim or there’re so many suspects it’s not even worth investigating. But tonight…they won’t stop until they get you… You’re not stupid, Hart.”

Again he seemed hurt. “That was condescending… And what you’re trying’s cheap. I’ve been treating you with respect.”