“That won’t be necessary,” I said quietly.

Still holding the gun, she came up close to me. “Where are your car keys?”

“What?”

“Zack, just tell me where they are.”

“Front pants pocket,” I said, and Trixie came alongside me and slid her slender fingers down into the pocket of my jeans as I once again tested the cuffs on the railing.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m only going after your keys.” She found them, gave them a shake. “I’ll just take the car keys, not your house keys. I figure they know what kind of car I’ve got, so it’s better if I get a running start in yours. You can have my car. I’ll leave you my set on the kitchen counter.”

“Trixie, you’re making a big mistake. Let me help you through this.”

“I need help, that’s for sure,” she said. “But not the kind I think you’re up to.” She leaned in close to me, her face so close to mine I could feel her breath. “I know I keep telling you this, Zack, but I’m really sorry about everything. Maybe someday I can make it up to you.”

And she leaned in and kissed me, placed her mouth squarely on mine, slipped a hand behind my head so I couldn’t try to pull away. She moved her lips over mine for a second or more, pulled away, leaned in to me again for a small, follow-up peck, and smiled sadly at the shocked expression I guess was on my face.

“Sarah’s a very lucky gal,” she said, and climbed to the top of the stairs. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure someone comes and finds you.”

“Trixie,” I said, one last time. “Just tell me. Why are you doing this?”

She paused, looked at me very seriously for a moment, and said, “I’m not going to let them get my little girl.”

And then she was gone.

She was late.

A couple of days, Miranda didn’t worry. Took note of it, but didn’t panic or anything. But then it was a week. Ten days. Now it was time to panic. She went to the drugstore and came home with a pregnancy test. Went into the bathroom, closed the door.

“What’s up, Candace?” Eldon said. “You seem funny.”

She came out a few minutes later. “You’ve knocked me up,” she said.

“Huh?” he said.

“I’m gonna have a kid,” Miranda said. She had no idea what he would do. Storm out, maybe? Start screaming? Accuse her of fucking up her birth control? She thought maybe he’d hit her. That’s the sort of thing her dad did when she said something that upset him. Just whacked her upside the head. Eldon had never hit her, but there was always a first time. There always had to be a first time when a guy you thought loved you took a swing at you.

He said, “You think it’s a girl?”

She said, “What?”

“A girl. You think it’s a girl? Because, you’re so beautiful, if it’s a girl, she’ll be beautiful too.”

The guy was full of surprises.

Gary had already been letting her split her time between the stage and the office upstairs. He’d turned over the books to her, but once in a while, a girl would take off sick, Gary’d tell her, “Go downstairs and do some bump and grind. If we didn’t have the ol’ bump and grind goin’ on, there’d be no books to balance.” Like Miranda should be grateful he was giving her a chance to take her clothes off because it gave her money to count upstairs later.

But once she started showing, well, that was it. Nobody wanted to drink their beer watching some chick who was knocked up.

So in a way, it all worked out okay. Sort of.

But in the back of her mind, Miranda was thinking about the kind of world she was going to bring this baby into. She hadn’t known, for several years now, a particularly respectable life. Not like her sister, Claire. She and Don had gotten married, they had a decent apartment now, not some place over a pizza joint. She had her secretary job, he had his job at Ford. Not that they’d have to worry that much about bringing any kid into the world. Claire couldn’t have kids, it turned out.

How crazy. Claire’s home was the perfect one in which to raise a child, but she couldn’t have one.

And I’m the one who’s pregnant, thought Miranda. Working in a bar with strippers and hookers and dope dealers.

I need my head read.

But she did have a man in her life. Eldon seemed excited about the idea of becoming a father. She would talk to him-she still had not told him that her real name was not Candace-about getting some sort of new life. Of leaving the Kickstart. Of getting respectable jobs. Of making a proper home for their baby.

“Yeah,” he would say. “That sounds like a good idea. Maybe I should start looking for something else,” he said. “Maybe I should take some courses too. You know what I’ve always been interested in? Electrical work. Wiring.”

“Electricians make a fortune,” Miranda said.

So she worked all the time in the upstairs office, doing the finances, turning dirty money into clean. It was a gift, no doubt about it.

And then one day, sitting upstairs at the computer, she knew this was it. She phoned down to the bar, asked for Eldon. “This is it,” she said.

It was a girl.

Her name was Katie.

THE MOMENT I HEARD the front door close, I yanked on the cuffs. The stair railing didn’t budge but the cuffs cut sharply into my wrists and I winced from the pain. Already I could feel my fingers starting to go numb from reduced circulation. Outside, I could hear the door of my Virtue hybrid car open and close. The vehicle was so quiet, I didn’t hear it start or back out of the drive and pull away.

I hadn’t heard Trixie make any phone calls from upstairs, but I had to hope, certainly if I couldn’t get free on my own, that she’d keep her word and send someone to rescue me. The handcuff keys were on a table only ten feet away, but they might as well have been in the next town for all the good they did me now.

I glanced in the direction of Martin Benson, not wanting to look at him, yet not able to take my eyes off him. The slice across his neck was a macabre grin. Look what happens when you mess with me, it seemed to be saying. I tried not to think about what might happen if the person or persons who did that decided to return before I could get myself out of these handcuffs and the hell out of this house.

Rather than yank on the railing with the cuffs again and make my wrists even more sore, I put my hands directly on the railing and pulled. If I could pry it off the wall and drag it just ten feet, I could reach the keys and get out of here. I pulled once, and nothing. Clearly, the screws that held the hardware to the wall had been sunk into studs and not just drywall. I tried again, really putting my back into it this time, still without success. I cursed under my breath.

Even if I could free myself, it wasn’t necessarily my plan to run. I’d feel a lot safer than I did now as long as I had the freedom to move around. If Trixie wanted to make a break for it, well, that was her decision. Evidently she had her reasons, one of which had just been revealed to me.

“I’m not going to let them get my little girl.”

Just when I thought there was so little I knew about Trixie, I found myself realizing there was even more I did not know. Not long after I’d first met her, I’d asked her whether she had children, and she had said no.

While Trixie might have had her reasons to flee before the police arrived, I couldn’t see myself following suit. I had to stay and explain this as best I could. Chances were I wouldn’t even need to call the police. They were probably on the way now, or at least would be soon. Once Trixie felt she had enough of a head start, I was reasonably confident that she’d let them know about me, and Benson.

So I would explain this to the police as best I could. That was the Zack Walker way. You bring in the authorities. You extricate yourself from the situation and let the professionals take over.