She extends her small hand and pinches my ear like one of her misbehaving offspring.

“I’ve always been patient. That’s what’s got me where I am in life.”

“You’ve done well for yourself, all right.”

“Don’t embarrass yourself trying to act tough. I told you I was patient. Your insults won’t hurry me to shoot you and be done. We’re going to take our time here. Especially after what you did to my grandbabies Tiffany and Todd, we’re going to make your worst nightmare come true.”

“It’ll give the police more time to find this place.”

For the first time, I seem to get under her skin. “That ain’t going to happen. I already know I won’t be arrested tonight.”

“And how’s that?”

“Because I have intimations of the future. I always knew you’d cross my path eventually—maybe in a parking lot, maybe at a rest stop along some country road—and you wouldn’t see me coming. All I would have to do is push this into your side and squeeze.”

She removes a small revolver, a .38 snub nose, from her coat pocket. She presses the barrel against my hidden body armor. She feels the resistance of the ceramic plate.

“Now what’s this?” she says, then raises her scornful eyes at her family. “Didn’t any of you numbskulls think he might be wearing a bulletproof vest? He’s a game warden.”

If they strip me, they’ll find the knife. I have to divert her.

“Maybe you really can see the future.”

She thinks I’m mocking her. She jams the gun hard under my chin.

“What’s that?”

“Maybe all your wishing is what brought me to Stratford today. Maybe you made it happen.”

She takes half a minute to process what I’ve said.

“I know you think you’re mocking me, but that’s what happened. It was my intentions that blinded you to my presence. There was calculation, too. That Bazinet girl stalled you even longer than I wanted. I only said to keep you around till sundown. Instead she talked your ear off. I guess I’ll have to pay her a visit later and ask what she was trying to pull.”

“She did everything you asked,” says a deep-voiced man I can’t see. “You have no reason to be upset with her.”

“Don’t give me lip, Vic Bazinet,” Tempest says. “I won’t tolerate lip from you or your friend.”

“Can we get on with this?” says a familiar male voice. I’m guessing it’s the man she’d called Bazinet’s friend.

She waves her revolver in the air. “Are you really going to test my patience tonight after what happened to my grandbabies?”

I crane my neck. Bruce Jewett stands in his navy snowsuit behind an obese man in coveralls who must be Vic Bazinet.