“I know it,” Ed said. He put on his floppy, cotton khaki hunting hat and let himself out the door facing the dock. He turned right and went around the side of the house facing away from the twins’ place, then walked to the back corner. He took out a hand mirror from one of the vest’s many pockets and held it around the corner, getting a fix on the upstairs wraparound porch, and watched for signs of movement. Nothing.

—

Across the road, in the Jackson house, Primmy and Carly sat silently in the upstairs bedroom. Primmy looked at her watch. “It’s time,” she said.

“Okay,” Carly replied, getting to her feet.

“Any second thoughts?” Primmy asked.

“I don’t think so,” Carly said. “I’m committed.”

“Me, too,”

The girls leaned Primmy’s shotgun against the doorjamb, along with their handguns, then walked out onto the upstairs front porch. “Don’t look at the twins’ house,” Primmy said, “not even for a second.”

“Right,” Carly replied.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” Carly replied.

“Slowly,” Primmy said. “There’s no hurry.

The two women began removing their clothing.

—

Rawls checked his wristwatch, then got onto his belly and began crawling through the high grass behind his house. On his elbows and knees, he worked his way slowly to the side of the road. He looked across at the Jackson house and couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but he knew it was real, so he kept at it. He used his binoculars to survey the twins’ house, then stood up into a crouch, then ran across the road and dived into the grass on the other side. He crawled a few more feet to a large tree, then got behind it before he could be seen.

Ed was momentarily transfixed by the sight of the two women on the upper porch, stark naked and, apparently, doing stretching exercises.

Ed took a long strap from a pocket, handed it around the tree, fastened it to his belt, and started climbing the tree, using his gloved hands and the barbs strapped to his ankles.

—

Stone trudged on up the road toward Rawls’s house. Then he came around a corner and caught a glimpse of what appeared to be naked flesh on the upstairs porch of the Jackson house. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing, so he ran across the road and continued slowly toward the house. A little winded from his exertions, Stone leaned against a tree and mopped his brow with his handkerchief. Then he heard a voice.

“Stone, don’t move. Freeze right there!” said the voice in a loud whisper.

It took Stone a moment to realize that the voice was Rawls’s. “Ed?” he whispered back.

“Shut up, and stay on the side of the tree away from the twins’ house.”

Stone froze for a moment. “Where are you?” he whispered.

“In a deer blind,” Rawls whispered back. “In the tree above your head.”