“No. But it’s freaking me out. I keep looking over my shoulder. Man, she is going down. When we get back, I am tracking down that bitch. I don’t care who she is, where she lives. She’s going down. She fucked with the wrong man.”

I’m the one who got shot, Hart reminded silently. He examined the forest again. “We almost had a problem.”

Lewis blurted sarcastically, “You think?”

“I checked his phone. Turned it back on and checked.”

“The…?”

“The husband’s.” A nod toward the house. “Remember? The one you took away from him.”

Lewis was looking defensive already. As well he should. “Got through to nine-one-one. It was a connected call,” said Hart.

“Couldn’t’ve been on it more than a second.”

“Three seconds. But it was enough.”

“Shit.” Lewis stood up and stretched.

“I think it’s okay. I called back and told ’em I was him. I said I’d called by mistake. The sheriff said they’d sent a car to check it out. He was going to tell ’em to come on back.”

“That would’ve been fucking pretty. They believe you?”

“I think so.”

“Just think?” Going on the offensive now.

Hart ignored the question. He gestured at the Ford. “Can you fix it?”

“Nope” was the glib response.

Hart studied the man, his sneering grin, his cocky stance. After Hart had agreed to do this job he’d gone out to find a partner. He’d checked around with some contacts in Milwaukee and gotten Lewis’s name. They’d met. The younger man had seemed all right, and a criminal background check revealed nothing that raised alarms-a rap sheet for some minor drug arrests and larcenies, a few pleas. The skinny guy with the big earring and the red-and-blue neck decoration would’ve been fine for the routine job this was supposed to be. But now it had gone bad. Hart was wounded, they had no wheels and an armed enemy was out in the woods nearby. It suddenly became vital to know Compton Lewis’s habits, nature and skills.

The assessment wasn’t very encouraging.

Hart had to play things carefully. He now tried some damage control and, keeping his voice as neutral as he could, said, “Think your gloves’re off.”

Lewis licked the blood again. “Couldn’t get a grip on the wrench. Detroit piece of crap.”

“Probably want to wipe everything.” A nod toward the tire iron.

Lewis laughed as if Hart had said, “Wow, did you know grass is green?”

So that’s how it was going to be.

What a night…

“I’ll tell you, my friend,” Lewis muttered, “Fix-A-Flat does shit when there’s a fucking bullet hole in the sidewall of a tire.”

Hart saw the can of tire sealant where Lewis had flung it in anger, he supposed. So that now the man’s prints were on that too.

He blinked away tears of pain. Fourteen years in a business in which firearms figured prominently and Hart had never been shot-and he’d rarely fired a weapon himself, unless of course that was what he’d been hired to do.

“The other houses. Up the road? We could try them. Might have a car parked there.”

Hart replied, “Wouldn’t make sense, leaving a car out here. Anyway, try hot-wiring a car nowadays. You need a computer.”

“I’ve done it. I can do it easy.” Lewis scoffed. “You never have?”

Hart said nothing, still scanning the brush.

“Any other ideas?”

“Call Triple A,” Hart said.

“Ha. Triple A. Well, guess that’s it. We better start hiking. It’s a couple miles to the county road. Let’s empty out the Ford and get moving.”

Hart went into the garage and came back with a roll of paper towels and glass cleaner.

“The fuck’s that for?” Lewis said. And gave one of those snide laughs again.

“Fingerprints’re oil. You need something to cut it with. Wiping just distorts them. The cops can reconstruct them a lot of times.”

“That’s bullshit. I never heard of that.”

“It’s true, Lewis. I’ve studied it.”

“Studied?” Another sarcastic laugh.

Hart began spraying the cleaner on whatever Lewis had touched. Hart himself hadn’t touched a single thing, except his own arm, with his bare hands since they’d been here.

“Heh. You do laundry too?”

As Hart scrubbed, he also was looking over the property three-sixty, listening. He said, “We can’t leave just yet.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“We’ve got to find her.”

“But…” Lewis said, with a sour smile, as if the one word conveyed a whole argument about the futility of the task.

“No choice.” Hart finished wiping. He then took out his map, examined it. They were in the middle of a huge stew of green and brown. He looked around, studied the map some more, folded it up.

Another of those irritating snickers. “Well, Hart, I know you want to fuck her up after what she did. But let’s worry about that later.”

“It’s not revenge. Revenge is pointless.”

“Beg to differ. Revenge is fun. That asshole I told you about with the box cutter? Fucking him up was more fun than seeing the Brewers. Depending on who’s pitching.”

Hart reined in a sigh. “It’s not about revenge. It’s just what we have to do.”

“Shit,” Lewis blurted.

“What?” Hart looked at him, alarmed.

Lewis tugged at his ear. “I lost the back.” Started looking down at the ground.

“Back?”

“Of my earring.” He put the emerald or whatever it was carefully into the small front pocket of his jeans.

Jesus our Lord…

Hart collected the flashlights and extra ammunition from the trunk of the Ford. Waiting until Lewis put his gloves back on, Hart handed him a box of 9mm ammo and one of 12-gauge shells for the shotgun.

“We’ve got a half hour before we lose the light completely. It’ll be a bitch to track her in the dark. Let’s get going.”

Lewis wasn’t moving. He was looking past Hart and playing with the colorful boxes of bullets like they were Rubik’s Cubes. Hart wondered if the head butting was going to start now in earnest. But it turned out that the younger man’s attention was just elsewhere. Lewis put the boxes into his pocket, snagged the shotgun, clicking off the safety, and nodded down the driveway. “We got company, Hart.”

AS SHE APPROACHED the Feldman house Brynn McKenzie decided that even with the glow from behind ivory curtains the place was eerie as hell. The other two houses she’d passed might have been the sets for family dramas; this was just the place for a Stephen King movie, the kind she and her first husband, Keith, would devour like candy.

She looked up at the three-story home. You sure didn’t see many houses of this style or size in Kennesha County. White siding, which had seen better days, and a wraparound porch. She liked the porch. Her childhood house in Eau Claire had sported one. She’d loved sitting out in the chain swing at night, her brother singing and playing his battered guitar, her sister flirting with her latest boyfriend, their parents talking, talking, talking…And the home she and Keith owned had a nice wrap-around. But as for her present house, she didn’t even know where a porch would fit.

Approaching the Feldmans’, she glanced at the yard, impressed. The landscaping was expensive. The place was surrounded by strategically placed dogwoods, ligustrum and crepe myrtles that had been cut way back. She recalled her husband’s advice to his customers against this practice (“Don’t rape your crepes”).

Parking in the circular gravel drive, she caught movement inside, a shadow on the front curtain. She climbed out into the chill air, fresh and sweet with the perfume of blossoms and firewood smoke.

Hearing the comforting sound of frogs croaking and the honk of geese or ducks, Brynn walked over gravel and up the three steps to the porch. Flashed on Joey, imagining him skateboarding off this height into the school parking lot.

Well, I did talk to him.

It’ll be fine…

Her issue black Oxfords, as comfy and unstylish as shoes could be, thunked on the wood as she approached the front door. Hit the bell.