From the bathroom Lewis called, “No alcohol. Whisky in the bar, I saw.”

“Get vodka. Whisky smells too much. Can give you away. Don’t forget your gloves.”

Did the thin man give an exasperated sigh?

A few minutes later Lewis returned with a bottle of vodka. True, the clear liquor didn’t smell as much as the whisky but Hart could tell that Lewis had had himself a hit. He took the bottle in his gloved hands and poured the liquid on the wound. The pain was astonishing. “Well,” he gasped, slumping forward. His eyes focused on a picture on the wall. He stared at it. A jumping fish, a fly in its mouth. Who’d buy something like that?

“Phew…”

“You’re not going to faint, are you, man?” Lewis asked as if he didn’t need this inconvenience too.

“Okay, okay…” Hart’s head dropped and his vision crinkled to black but then he breathed in deeply and came back around. He rubbed the Ivory soap over the wound.

“Why’re you doing that?”

“Cauterizes it. Stops the bleeding.”

“No shit.”

Hart tested the arm. He could raise and lower it with some control and not too much pain. When he closed his fist, the grip was weak but at least it was functioning.

“Fucking bitch,” Lewis muttered.

Hart didn’t waste much anger at the moment; he was more relieved than anything. What ended up being a shot arm had almost been a shot head.

He remembered standing in the kitchen, scratching his face through the stocking, when he’d looked up to see movement in front of him. It turned out, though, to be a reflection of the young woman moving up silently from behind, lifting the gun.

Hart had leapt aside just as she’d fired-not even aware he’d been hit-and spun around. She’d fled out the door as he’d let go with a couple of rounds from his Glock. Lewis, who’d been standing next to him-and would have been the next to die-had spun around too, dropping a bag of snacks he’d pilfered from the refrigerator.

Then they’d heard a series of cracks from outside and Hart knew she was shooting out the tires of both the Ford and the Mercedes so they couldn’t pursue her.

“Got careless there,” Hart now said ominously.

Lewis looked at him like he was being blamed, which he was-the skinny man was supposed to be in the living room, not the kitchen, at the time. But Hart let it go.

“Think you hit her?” Lewis now asked.

“No.” Hart felt dizzy. He pressed the side of the Glock pistol against his forehead. The cold calmed him.

“Who the hell is she?” Lewis repeated.

That was answered when they found her purse in the living room, a little thing with makeup, cash and credit cards inside.

“Michelle,” Hart said, glancing at a Visa credit card. He looked up. “Her name’s Michelle.”

He’d just got shot by a Michelle.

Wincing, Hart now walked across the worn rug, dark tan, and shut off the living room lights. He peered carefully out the door and into the front yard. No sign of her. Lewis started into the kitchen. “I’ll get those lights.”

“No, not there. Leave ’ em on. Too many windows, no curtains. She could see you easy.”

“What’re you, some wuss? Bitch is long gone.”

Grim-faced, Hart glanced down at his arm, meaning, you want to take the chance? Lewis got the point. They looked outside again, through the front windows, and saw nothing but a tangle of woods. No lights, no shapes moving in the dusk. He heard frogs and saw a couple of bats flying obstacle courses in the clear sky.

Lewis was saying, “Wish I’d knew that soap trick. That’s pretty slick. Me and my brother were in Green Bay one time. We weren’t doing shit, just hanging, you know. I went to pee by the railroad tracks and this asshole jumped me. Had a box cutter. Got me from behind. Homeless prick…cut me down to the bone. I bled like a stuck pig.”

Hart was wondering, What’s his point? He tried to tune the man out.

“Oh, I whaled on that dude, Hart. Didn’t matter I was bleeding. He felt pain that day. Come off the worst of it, I’ll tell you.”

Hart squeezed the wound and then stopped paying attention to the pain. It was still there but was lost in the background of sensations. Gripping his black gun, he stepped outside, crouching. No shots. No rustles from the bushes. Lewis joined him. “Bitch’s gone, I’m telling you. She’s halfway to the highway by now.”

Hart looked over the cars, grimaced. “Look at that.” Both the Feldmans’ Mercedes and the Ford that Hart had stolen earlier in the day had two flats each and the wheel sizes were different; the spares wouldn’t be compatible.

Lewis said, “Shit. Well, better start hiking, you think?”

Hart scanned the deep woods surrounding them, shadowy now. He couldn’t imagine a better place in the world to hide. Good goddamn. “See if you can plug one of those.” He nodded at the Ford’s shot-out tires.

Lewis sneered. “I’m not a fucking mechanic.”

“I’d do it,” Hart said, trying to be patient, “but I’m a little disadvantaged here.” He nodded at his arm.

The skinny man tugged at his earring, a green stone, and loped off resentfully toward the car. “What’re you going to be doing?”

What the hell did he think? With his Glock at his side, he started in the direction he’d seen Michelle flee.

EIGHT MILES FROM

Lake Mondac the landscape ranged from indifferent to hostile. No farms here; the country was forested and hilly, with forbidding sheer cliffs of cracked rocks.

Brynn McKenzie drove through Clausen, which amounted to a few gas stations, two of the three unbranded, a few stores-convenience, package and auto parts-and a junkyard. A sign pointed to a Subway but it was 3.2 miles away. She noted another sign, for hot sausages, in the window of a Quik Mart. She was tempted, but it was closed. Across the highway was a Tudor-style building with all the windows broken out and roof collapsed. It bore a prize that had surely tempted many a local teenager but the All Girl Staff sign was just too high or too well bolted to the wall to steal.

Then this sneeze of civilization was gone and Brynn began a long sweep through tree-and rock-filled wilderness, broken only by scruffy clearings. The few residences were set well off the road, trailers or bungalows, from which gray smoke eased skyward. The windows, glowing dimly, were like sleepy eyes. The land was too harsh for farms and the sparse populace would drive their rusted pickups or Datsun-era imports to work elsewhere. If they went to work at all.

For miles the only oncoming traffic: three cars, one truck. Nobody in her lane, ahead or behind.

At 6:40 she passed a sign saying that Marquette State Park campground was ten miles up the road. Open May 20. Which meant that Lake Mondac had to be nearby. Then she saw:

LAKE VIEW DRIVE

PRIVATE ROAD

NO TRESPASSING

NO PUBLIC LAKE ACCESS

VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED

And howdy-do to you too…

She turned, slowing as the Honda bumbled over the gravel and dirt, thinking she should’ve taken Graham’s pickup. According to the directions that Todd Jackson had given her, the distance was 1.2 miles from the county route to 3 Lake View, the Feldmans’ vacation house. Their driveway, he’d added, was “a couple football fields long. Or that’s what it looked like on Yahoo.”

Making slow progress, Brynn drove through a tunnel of trees and bushes and blankets of leaf refuse. Mostly the landscape was needles and naked branch and bark.

Then the road widened slightly and the willow, jack pine and hemlock on her right grew sparse; she could see the lake clearly. She’d never spent much time on bodies of water, didn’t care for them. She felt more in control on dry land, for some reason. She and Keith had had a tradition of going to the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, his choice pretty much. Brynn had divided her time there between reading and taking Joey to amusement parks and the beach. Keith spent most of the time in the casino. It wasn’t her favorite locale but at least the beige water lapping at the shoreline was as easygoing and warm as the locals. Lakes around here seemed bottomless and chill and the abrupt meeting of rocky shore and black water made you feel helpless, easy prey for snakes and leeches.