“I trusted him. He was…strong.” She started back toward her car.

“I gave him those names, the ones on the papers that you found in the attic,” said Karen.

Marianne stopped.

“What do you mean?”

“I created them, all but one. He came to me and I did it.”

“Who is he? Who is he really?”

“I don’t know. The only name that I didn’t give him is the one he used with you. Moloch was how I knew him, right from the beginning. I guess he likes that name a lot.”

She tossed a set of car keys to Marianne.

“This is your car now. Registration is in the glove compartment. It’s clean.”

“I’ll give you more money.”

“Didn’t cost me much. I’d kept it hidden away in case I ever had to run. I guess your need’s greater than mine right now.”

Karen helped her move the bags into the trunk of the new car, then shifted the baby seat to the Oldsmobile while Marianne carried Danny. He was awake now, and had begun to cry.

“You’d better get going,” said Karen.

Marianne strapped the still-howling child in, then stood at the driver’s door.

“I-”

“I know.”

Then, without even knowing why, Marianne walked quickly up to the older woman and kissed her tenderly on the mouth, then hugged her. After a moment, Karen responded, hugging her tightly in return.

“Good luck,” she whispered.

“And to you.”

Then Marianne got in the car and drove away.

There were three First Uniteds in Cumberland, and each was monitored after Marianne’s warning. It was not her fault that the information she had given was wrong. Cumberland was merely the base: the bank itself was in Fort Ashby, ten miles south. It was taken just as the doors were being locked for the day. Nobody was killed, although the security guard was pistol-whipped and would never fully recover from his injuries. The silent alarm was not set off until the robbers-five of them-had left the bank. By the time the police could react, the thieves were gone.

Moloch got back to his house shortly before daybreak. The street was quiet. He made one full circuit of the block, then parked at the end of the driveway and entered the house. He walked straight to the back door, passed through the garden in darkness, and unlocked the shed door.

He saw the space where the board should have been, and the empty hollow where his money once lay, and then there were flashlight beams, and shouted orders, and dogs barking.

And as he emerged blinking into the phalanx of armed men, he thought:

Bitch. I’ll kill you for this.

It was close to dawn when they neared their destination. Already there was a faint glow visible in the east, as of a fire distantly glimpsed. They had agreed on a rotation for sleeping and driving, as Moloch was reluctant to pause for any reason. He had the scent of her now, of that he was certain. It had proved easier than expected, for elements outside his control had fallen into place for him: foolish Verso, who had hoped to trade Moloch’s life for his own; his idiot brother-in-law, risking his anonymity in order to gamble on meaningless outcomes; and Dexter’s casual remark that his wife would not be using her own name, causing tumblers to fall in Moloch’s mind.

For most of the journey, he remained silent and awake, watching the red lights of the cars on the road streaming toward the void, fading into the distance until they were swallowed up by the blackness. Moloch had been incarcerated for so long that he found himself fascinated by the small details of the lives being lived around him, although there was a remoteness, perhaps even a coldness, to his interest: it was the curiosity of a small boy marveling at the industry of termites or ants in the moment before he annihilates their mound or torches their nest. He watched the cars go by, their occupants only occasionally visible in the brief flare of a match or the comforting illumination of the dashboard lights, and wondered how so many could be on the roads and highways at this time, for what mission could be so urgent, what destination so compelling, that it caused them to give themselves up to a journey through the night, forsaking sleep? Moloch suspected that, for some, there was no destination. There was no home waiting, no husband drowsing, no wife sleeping or children dreaming. There was only the illusion of progress and momentum offered by the cocoon of the automobile in the surrounding night. These people were not traveling; they were fleeing, taunted by a false belief that if they ran fast and hard enough they might somehow escape their past or their present, that they might even somehow escape themselves. Moloch recalled those who had crossed his path and faded from the view of the world as a consequence. For some, he thought, it might almost have been a relief. He closed his eyes and waited for the coming of the dream.

Braun, weary now of Willard’s unsmiling company, had joined Dexter and Moloch in the lead van, while Leonie had taken the wheel of the second. Farther back along the road, Tell and Powell were engaged in a lengthy discussion of their various sexual conquests, both real and imagined, while Shepherd sat in silent judgment upon them. As the trip had worn on, Shepherd had begun to draw away a little not only from the younger men in the car but from the group as a whole. There had been no opportunity for him to talk with Dexter and Braun since Moloch’s escape, and the need to do so was now pressing. They knew one another well, these three men, for they had worked together before under Moloch’s aegis. Leonie too shared a history with Dexter, although she largely kept her own counsel, choosing to reveal her thoughts only with Dexter and trusting him to relay them, if necessary, to the rest of the group.

Shepherd was concerned about recent developments, including the killing of the investigator down at Dismal Creek and the mutilation of his companion, and the deaths of Moloch’s sister-in-law and her husband. He also had real worries about the sanity of at least one of their group.

Of Powell he knew little and, in truth, cared to know even less. He had come highly recommended, and had state time behind him in Maryland and Tennessee. Shepherd found him boorish and ignorant, and the snatches of conversation that were coming from Shepherd’s right did nothing to alter that perception. Tell, he liked, but while he understood the possible justification for taking the life of the young pizza-delivery man (he was smart, argued Tell after the fact, and might have noticed more than he pretended), he was not convinced that it was necessary, and Tell’s inability to make that distinction troubled him. The incident with the cell phone also indicated that Tell’s temper was somewhere between short and nonexistent. Shepherd, as previously noted, wasn’t a big fan of cell phones. He believed they were contributing to the creation of a ruder, less caring society. There was a time, and it wasn’t so very long ago, when people kept their voices down in public, not only because they wished to enjoy a little privacy in their conversations but also because talking too loudly disturbed the people around them. Now, all that was going out the window, along with leaving your car unlocked or your front door open. The fact that people now locked their doors and secured their houses to protect them from criminals like Shepherd was beside the point. Still, Shepherd had never really considered solving the cell phone problem by killing anyone who used one in a discourteous manner. It was a pity that nobody would ever know that excessive conversational volume was the reason behind the Arab’s murder. Otherwise, he might have made a nice example to others, convincing them to change their ways. Shepherd figured that Tell would be okay if he could just calm down some, maybe take a deep breath once in a while instead of pulling a trigger. Shepherd would work on him.