It was time for a new plan.

He sprinted down a dark alley in a strip mall and found himself at the loading dock behind a grocery store. He had to rest. Months of extra weightlifting in prison could only carry him so far. He hadn't focused nearly enough on cardio training. The side-stitch in his abdomen felt like a knife in his belly. Traces of smoke in the air from those brushfires in the Everglades were starting to bother him. Damn drought. He couldn't even make a run for the wilderness. Not that he would have wanted to go anywhere near that place after dark. It was Alligators vs. Pythons out there, nature's classic showdown between reptiles for the Everglades' title of chief predator. And the fires worked to the advantage of the police; they didn't waste their time trying to hunt him down in the middle of nowhere.

Exhausted, he stopped and hid behind a towering stack of flattened cardboard boxes. He sat with his head between his knees, searching for a second wind.

"Shoulda' killed him," he muttered beneath his breath. The smart thing would have been to take that hammer and bash the old man's brains in, just like he'd done with that little barking fur ball. Isaac's best advice inside the correctional center had come from a lifer who escaped from a Texas jail and got recaptured less than 300 yards from the Mexican border. "You wanna stay out of prison, you gotta take no prisoners," said the voice of experience. "It's their bad luck if they cross your path, but it's you or them." Isaac couldn't know for sure, but he figured that the old man had wiggled free from the rags that bound his wrists and ankles, run to safety, and dialed 911. The cops might not have thrown every resource into south Miami-Dade County based solely on a tip from Theo Knight, an ex-con. But a second sighting cinched it. All that could have – should have – been avoided with just one swing of the hammer.

Fool!

He kicked over a stack of boxes in anger, then calmed himself. None of this was his fault. A measly two thousand bucks was what he had expected from Theo's cash box. He got less then three hundred. That wasn't nearly enough for a new identity and safe transport out of the country. And some OxyContin. Grind those pills to dust and snort 'em. Oxycotton. One dollar per milligram on the street. A quick but expensive high, better than heroin.

Gotta have it.

Isaac pushed himself up from the ground. The box he used for leverage had contained produce, and there were still a few grapes inside. He sucked the juice out of them and savored the flesh. Even slight nourishment seemed to bring a much-needed clarity to his thoughts.

Isaac could have come up with any number of ways to get his hands on two grand. Hell, that would have been a bad night's haul back in his days as a Grove Lord. But he'd resisted the impulse to pull off even a simple robbery save for the relatively risk-free theft of that homeless guy's clothes. His prison sources had warned him that police would be watching crime reports carefully looking for indicators of a fugitive on the run – stolen cars, weapons, drugs, and cash. He needed to score in a way that would keep him off police radar – like from a girlfriend or a buddy. Even more, he needed a front man he could trust to make all the arrangements on his behalf. Surely a reward was being offered for his recapture, so showing his face in a pawnshop or the like was out of the question.

His thoughts kept turning to Theo Knight. Isaac still had leverage there.

But he was running out of time to play it.

The blare of police sirens again pierced the night. More squad cars were headed toward the Florida turnpike. Isaac counted three this time, a slightly different sound than the last vehicles. Maybe state troopers. The cops had obviously gotten it into their heads that he was fleeing on wheels, which suited Isaac just fine. That was yet another way in which the likes of a Theo Knight could have worked to Isaac's advantage – someone to phone in false sightings to 911, orchestrated confusion.

Gotta take another shot at Theo.

Isaac looked up into the sky. The choppers were back, and it wasn't just the police. The television media were also getting into the act now. Isaac Reems was no longer the proverbial needle in a haystack. He had to go north, back to where his old friends from the Grove Lords still lived.

Isaac had his wind again. He ran across the loading dock and didn't stop until he reached the chain-link fence behind the building. Intertwined with the fence was a thick ficus hedge, and beyond it was a twenty-four-hour diner. The restaurant was well lit on the inside, but the parking lot behind it was dark. Isaac heard the click of heels near the Dumpster, and he spotted someone walking toward a car. It was a woman – a waitress wearing her powder blue uniform. She was probably just finishing her shift. Tired, no doubt – her guard down. She was headed toward a Mustang. It wasn't new, but it looked fast.

Isaac removed the pistol from his pocket – Theo's gun – and quietly hopped the fence. He made not a sound as he ducked behind another car. She didn't even look in his direction. She continued walking to her vehicle, in the dark, completely unaware. Just a teenager, probably six months out of high school. Too young to think anything bad could happen to her, too dumb to ask the manager to escort her to her car.

Damn, I'm lucky and good.

He continued along the perimeter of the parking lot, crouched below the cars to stay out of sight. She stopped. He readied himself. She gave a cursory look around, a woman's obligatory safety check, and then opened her purse. The jangle of car keys got his heart pumping, and he heard the car alarm disengage by remote control. As she reached for the door handle, Isaac sprang from behind the parked van and took her from behind. Before she could make a sound, his hand covered her mouth, and the gun went under her chin with so much force that she was staring straight up at the moon.

"Don't move," he said.

He could feel her fear and the paralysis that came with it. She was no fighter. Isaac was an expert on these things. Quickly but quietly, he took her behind the car and popped the trunk.

"Please," she said, her voice quaking. "Don't – don't rape me."

"Your bad luck, baby. That ain't what I'm after." He stuffed her into the trunk, slammed the lid, and hurried into the driver's seat. The engine started right up, and the gas gauge indicated nearly a full tank. He left by way of the parking lot's rear entrance so that none of the workers inside the diner would see him driving the waitress's car.

He laid the pistol on the floorboard, between his legs.

Plan C, he told himself. No prisoners.

Jack and Rene were cruising north on U.S. 1 with Uncle Cy in the backseat.

Around ten o'clock, a half-dozen MDPD squad cars had converged on Sparky's to make sure Reems hadn't doubled back. Agent Henning wasn't part of the sweep, though Jack wondered if she was behind it. Theo was furious – swirling blue lights in the parking lot were never good for business – and Jack told him to go somewhere and cool off before he took a swing at a uniform. Two hours later, Theo still wasn't back, but Cy was ready for his ride home.

True to his jazz musician roots, Uncle Cy had the internal clock of a vampire. He seemed to come alive at midnight, which definitely had its drawbacks.

"Say, whatever happened with you and that Andie woman?" the old man asked. He was sitting on the edge of the rear seat, his forearms resting against the back of Jack's headrest. Jack pretended not to hear him.

Rene said, "Uncle Cy asked you a question." The guy really was everybody's Uncle Cy.