“He causing you trouble?”

“No, no. It’s not him I’m worried about.”

“Just hold on a minute. I’ll get into the DMV database.”

Less than sixty seconds later the sheriff’s easy voice came back on the line. “Rolling Hills Landscaping’s got three forty-foot flatbeds, two F150 pickups and an F250. Graham himself has a Taurus he’s leasing through his insurance company-’causa that woman stealing his pickup last month, I’d imagine.”

“The Taurus? It’s dark blue?”

“White.”

“Okay…”

She was thinking back to that night.

You should have… You should’ve killed me.

“Tom, I need somebody to watch the house again.”

“What’s going on, Brynn?”

“Somebody was outside, parked. Checking out the place. Joey saw him. You know kids, might’ve been nothing. But I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Sure we can do that, Brynn. Anything.”

ON THURSDAY, MAY 7, Brynn was sitting in her cubicle clutching a cup of hot chocolate, really hot. This had become a recent addiction, though she’d given up her much-loved saltines and Brie sandwiches in compensation. She could drink three cups of cocoa a day. She wondered if this was because she’d been so chilled on that night. Probably not. Swiss Miss made a really good product.

She reflected that she and Graham had sipped hot chocolate at the Humboldt Diner at the end of their first date. The beverages had started out near 212 degrees when they’d begun talking, and the cups had been cold when they’d finished.

She was reading through her notes-hundreds of jottings, setting out the conversations she’d had after her meeting with Stanley Mankewitz. She’d never worked so hard in her life.

Looking for the wrong who…

Her office phone rang. She took a last sip and set the cup down. “Deputy McKenzie.”

“Hello?” asked a Latina voice with the reserve most people displayed when calling the police. The caller explained she was the manager of the Harborside Inn in Milwaukee.

“How can I help you?” Hearing “Milwaukee,” Brynn sat forward quickly, tense. The most likely reason for someone from that city to call was the Feldman murder case.

That was indeed the purpose and Brynn grew more and more interested as she listened.

The hotel manager said she’d seen on TV a composite picture of the man wanted in connection with the killings at Lake Mondac, a man possibly going by the name or nickname of Hart or Harte. Someone looking very similar had checked into the inn there on April 16. The manager had called the local police and they referred her to the Kennesha County Sheriff’s Department.

The name of the guest was William Harding.

Harding…Hart…

“Is it true he’s a killer?” the woman asked uneasily.

“That’s our understanding… What was the address on the register?” Brynn snapped her fingers at Todd Jackson, who appeared instantly at her cubicle.

As the manager recited an address in Minneapolis, Brynn transcribed it and told the young deputy, “Check this out. Fast.”

Asked about phone calls and visitors, the woman said there were no outgoing calls but the guest, Harding, met in the coffee shop with a skinny man with a crew cut, who the manager thought was rude, and a pretty woman in her twenties with short red hair. She looked a bit like the woman in the other composite picture the manager had seen.

Getting better and better…

Then the woman added, “The thing is, he never checked out.”

“He’s still there?” she asked.

“No, Officer. He checked in for three days, went out the afternoon of the seventeenth and then never came back. I tried to call but directory assistance doesn’t have anybody listed in Minneapolis, or St. Paul, by that name at that address.”

She wasn’t surprised when Jackson slipped her a piece of paper that read: Fake. A parking lot. No name in MN, WI, NCIC or VICAP.

She nodded, whispering, “Tell Tom we’ve got something here.”

Jackson disappeared as Brynn was scanning through her notes, flipping pages. “What about a credit card?” she asked the manager.

“Paid cash. But the reason I called: he left a suitcase here. If you want to pick it up, it’s yours.”

“Really? I’ll tell you, I’d like to drive down there and look through it. Let me rearrange a few things and give you a call back.”

After they disconnected Brynn slouched back in her chair.

“You okay?” Tom Dahl asked, stepping into her cubicle, looking cautiously at her eyes, which she supposed reflected a certain gleam.

“I’m more than okay. We’ve got ourselves a lead.”

MICHELLE ALISON KEPLER -now brunet and severely collagened-sat in the bedroom of a ritzy house in a ritzy neighborhood of Milwaukee. She was painting her nails dark plum, their color on that terrible night in April.

She was reflecting on a truth that she’d learned over the years: that people heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted, believed what they wanted. But to exploit that weakness you had to be sharp, had to recognize their desires and expectations then subtly and cleverly feed them enough crumbs to make them think they were satisfied. Hard to do. But for people like Michelle it was necessary, a survival skill.

Michelle was thinking in particular of her companion that night: Deputy Brynn McKenzie.

You’re their friend?…From Chicago?…I heard you and Emma worked together… Are you a lawyer too?

My God, what a straight man you were, Brynn.

Michelle had found herself in a tough situation back there at the house. The Feldmans were dead. She’d found the files she’d been after and destroyed them, which meant she no longer needed Hart and Lewis. But then Hart had reacted like a cat…and the evening went to hell.

The escape into the woods…

Then finding Deputy Brynn McKenzie. She knew instinctively just what role to play, a role that the country hick deputy could understand: rich, spoiled girl, not very likeable but with just the right touch of self-questioning doubt, a woman who’d been dumped by her husband for being exactly who that husband encouraged her to be.

Brynn would be irritated at first, but sympathetic too, which is just how we feel about most people we meet under difficult circumstances. We never like victims-until we get to know them and recognize something of them within us.

Besides, the role would keep Brynn from wondering why she didn’t quite seem like your typical houseguest mourning the deaths of her host and hostess, murders she’d just committed.

I wasn’t lying when I said I was an actress, Brynn. I just don’t act onstage or in front of the camera.

But now it was three weeks later. And things were turning around. About time. She sure deserved a break. After all the outrageous, unfair crap she’d been through on April 17 and afterward, she’d earned some good luck.

Stuffing cotton balls between the toes of her left foot, she continued painting.

Yep, God or fate was back on her side. She’d finally managed to track down Hart’s full name and address-he lived in Chicago, as it turned out. She’d learned, though, that he wasn’t spending a lot of time there lately; he was frequently in Wisconsin, which was sobering, but expected, of course. He was looking for her as diligently as she was looking for him.

He was looking for a few other people too, and apparently he’d found one. Freddy Lancaster had stopped returning phone calls and text messages. Gordon Potts would also be on Hart’s list, though he was hiding way out in Eau Claire.

Michelle was cautious but not panicked. She’d cut nearly all ties between herself and the events of April 17. Hart knew her real name-he knew it from looking through her purse that night-but locating Michelle Kepler wouldn’t be easy; she always made sure of that.

Ever since her teens Michelle had been an expert at working her way into other people’s lives, finagling them into taking care of her. Playing helpless, playing lost, playing sexy (with men mostly, but with women too when necessary). She was presently living with Sam Rolfe, a rich businessman in Milwaukee (nobody saw, heard or believed what he wanted to better than Sam). Her driver’s license listed an old address and her mail went to a post office box, which she’d changed first thing on April 18, no forwarding.