Jess rose to her knees, her head swimming, vision blurred. She watched Harwood swing his arm around, trying to fend Lucy off, but the dog simply bounced back and came at him again, forcing him backward and latching on to his arm, her teeth snapping, tearing flesh.

Harwood screamed and swore and kicked at Lucy. Lucy kept on him, backing him across the clearing toward the edge of the cliff, the elbow of the pass where Jess had hoped to stage her ambush. The dog’s collar was gone; she must have wriggled out of it. Jess wondered how Lucy had known to come up here, how she’d known she was in trouble.

She’s your dog, Jess. She damn well knows.

Harwood fell backward, Lucy on top of him. He kicked at her, and she bounced off and came at him again, and Harwood felt around, his hands reaching for a rock, for some kind of weapon.

Jess crawled across the clearing to where her pistol lay forgotten. She picked it up and looked across at where Lucy and Harwood still wrestled. The dog had him pinned, but Harwood’s fingertips had just brushed another rock, and Jess knew the deputy would stave in her dog’s head if he could just gain one more inch.

She raised the gun before he could get there. Aimed it over Harwood’s head, over Lucy, and fired.

The shot did what she’d hoped it would: it terrified Lucy. The dog forgot about chewing on Harwood and bolted for the woods, leaving Harwood on the ground at the edge of the cliff. He was staring at Jess, trying to get his breath back, and she leveled the pistol at him from her knees.

“Get up.”

Slowly, painfully, Harwood obeyed. He stood twenty feet away from her, hunched over, his clothes torn where Lucy had ripped through them, his face scratched and bloody. He was holding the rock he’d been trying to grab, though she couldn’t tell if he was even aware.

Behind Harwood, the gray sky and the island and the pass, the wind overhead and the sound of the breakers far off. Jess stayed on her knees. She wasn’t sure she could stand.

They looked at each other. The island was quiet, and Jess wondered about Burke. Wondered about Dale Whitmer and the scary guy. Wondered if this was it.

Harwood was watching her, watching the gun. Like he was waiting for her to make up her mind.

“I got your package,” she told him. She nodded across to the little cave where she’d spent the night with Burke. “It’s in there.”

Harwood followed her eyes. He said nothing.

“You know where it came from, that junk you were moving?” she asked. “You ever get the full history of that stuff?”

Harwood shrugged. “Asia, they said.”