Jewett looks drained; as bloodless as if he’d spent the night in a cave full of vampire bats.

Of course Tempest would bring Jewett here. She needed to keep the pressure on him.

It was Stacey, of all people, who had made me see the pattern in the scattered puzzle pieces.

Ever since the Dows learned that Burch had seen Chamberlain and Jewett arguing in the boat, they’d been blackmailing the Navy vet. It must have been Tori or Tiff’s idea, to convince their new boyfriend to give Jewett an alibi. After he was in Arlo’s debt, but still facing the possibility of a murder charge, they could steal him out of house and home.

“You can’t go back to the hill,” I say. “Not any of you. Jewett included.”

Tempest laughs. “Sure, we can.”

“I gave the dispatcher your names.”

“I know you’re lying,” she says. “But even if it’s true, it won’t matter. We’ll tell the police you visited us all and asked us questions. What happened after you left, we have no idea. My family knows how to keep a secret. Dows don’t ever crack—”

“What about Jewett, though? Or Lynda?”

This gives the old woman pause. She presses her thin lips together. Then rises creakily to her full height of four and a half feet.

My last-ditch hope is to provoke a confrontation between Tempest Dow and Bruce Jewett. The paranoid gun-sniffer has to be armed. If I can find some way to encourage him to draw down on the woman who has destroyed his life.…

But Lynda Lynch foils my plan.

“Tempie,” she says, almost whining, “You know I would never—”

Tempest swings on her as if to administer another pistol-whipping. “Shut up, you!”

Lynda recoils like a dog used to being kicked.

Tempest turns to Jewett next. “Make yourself useful, Bruce. Help Tanner drag the warden over there. And be careful. We’re going to have to go over all this ground with Oxy-Clean. There can’t be any trace of his DNA here. And we’re going to need to torch the Chevy to be on the safe side.”

She stands aside as Tanner and Jewett take me under their arms. God knows I am not going to make it easy for them. I refuse to take a single step toward my own execution. They drag me through the new-fallen snow to an enormous blue tarp spread out across it.

The whole time I am praying that I don’t lose the knife in all this jostling.

I spent the time Tempest was talking counting my enemies. There are only four men, Tanner, Jewett, Bazinet, and a guy on crutches, missing his lower left leg.

I can’t fathom why Felice’s dad is here until I see the truck.