“And in every case, there was no reason why I should have expected you to be there. You’re a fairly well-known person in Soho. Your death would have been noticed. I thought we should avoid being noticed for as long as possible.” He knelt down by the bench, and I leaped up to make a dash for it. He shot out a hand, caught my wrist, and yanked me back down, damn near breaking my arm in the process. Then he unrolled a long, thin wire from under the seat. “In a minute, I will be going downstairs. You’ll be staying here to wait for Rico.”

From the direction of my evergreens, behind me, Sunny said, “Oh, why don’t we all stay?”

I wanted to turn and look at her, but I was looking at Hawthorn instead, the expression on his face, and the motion of his hands toward the package taped under the bench. I kicked him in the face.

It would have worked better if I’d been wearing something heavier than sneakers, but he still fell back. I sprang off the bench. Sunny fired her pistol and I was instantly deaf as a blue-eyed cat, but I saw a leaf fly up from a bush next to Hawthorn’s neck, and a pane of glass in the greenhouse wall shatter.

“The bench is wired!” I shouted to her.

She’d stepped forward to keep Hawthorn in her sights. She was a storybook cop brought to life: the gun braced with both hands, her stance wide, the jacket falling open over her holster, her mouth a straight, uncompromising line under her sunglasses. She scared me to death, but I knew she wouldn’t scare Hawthorn.

My ears were working again; I heard Hawthorn scream something. I looked toward the sound.

The plants were moving. The azalea stretched out branches into the path, the potted trees writhed their limbs and bent their trunks, and the evergreens leaned and twisted in toward the center of the greenhouse, toward me. I heard Hawthorn’s running steps, but I couldn’t see him.

Sunny was beside me, the pistol aimed along what had been the path, before the plants had crawled into it. “It’s an illusion!” she yelled, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. “God damn it” she growled, “why do I carry this thing? Come on!” And she leaped straight through a thrashing vine and disappeared.

By the time I reached the top of the stairs, the greenery was all back where it belonged, and Sunny was careening through the door at the bottom. I followed.