She’d been huddled against Doug in the rear seat, feeling cold and tired, totally wrung out, but mostly sad.

Dr. Monnet wanted me dead.

She’d been forced to accept the truth of that, and yet… how could it be? Horrifying enough to learn that anyone wanted you dead, but Dr. Monnet… and after she’d been so worried about his well-being. It was too cruel.

To her surprise, Jack walked past the car and into the food court. Minutes later he emerged with a canvas shoulder bag emblazoned with Atlantic city in Day-Glo green letters.

“How’s everybody doing?” he said as he slipped into the front seat.

“Better now,” Doug said. “Thanks to you.” He extended his hand over the seat. “I’m Doug Gleason.”

They shook hands.

“Jack.” He gave Doug’s wrist a quarter-turn. “Is that a Quisp watch? Neat.”

“You want it? It’s yours.”

Jack waved him off. “No, that’s OK.”

“I’m serious,” Doug said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You will in a minute.”

Jack backed the car out of its spot but didn’t drive far. To Nadia’s dismay he parked in another spot in a far corner of the rest area by the rideshare info sign. She wanted to go home.

“Aren’t we going back?”

“Not yet.” Jack pulled a couple of bottles of Snapple from the canvas bag and handed them back. “If you’re thirsty, drink up; otherwise, dump it out on the pavement.”

Nadia drank half of her lemon-flavored iced tea quickly. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. Jack had opened his door and was emptying bottle after bottle into the parking lot.

“Shame to waste the stuff, I know,” he said, “but it seems Snapple’s about the only thing that comes in glass bottles these days.”

Then he took out a glass cutter and began scoring the flanks of the bottles.

Baffled, Nadia said, “What are you doing?”

“Trick I learned from an old revolutionary. Ups the chances these’ll shatter on contact.”

Then he pulled an Atlantic City souvenir T-shirt and a newspaper from the bag. He began tearing up the shirt.

Nadia studied his face, his deft, sure movements. Where was the easy going fellow she’d seen off and on over the past few days? He’d been replaced somehow by this fiercely focused man whose sense of purpose radiated through the car. His expression was grim and the brown eyes she’d once thought mild now gleamed with intensity.

“What’s going on?” Nadia said.

“One of Oz’s attractions escaped. I have to go after it.”

“He hired you?”

“No. This is my own thing.”

“Why on earth—?”

“It may harm someone who matters to me.”

“Can’t you call the police?”

“They’ll think I’m nuts, or trying to scam them with a Jersey Devil story.”

Doug said, “This ‘attraction’ wouldn’t happen to be a big, strange-looking creature with yellow eyes and dark skin.”

Jack looked up. “You saw it?”

“Yeah. I think so. The night I was kidnapped they brought me into one of the tents and pushed me up against the bars of a cage with this huge guy in a stinking rubber monster suit inside.”