Her big Prada bag, which she also took everywhere, hadn’t materialized after the assault, so William must have gotten that. He’d searched the remains of the Miata. If the pen wasn’t there, or at Morrell’s, or the Czernin house, then I was betting she’d lost it either at Fly the Flag or in the truck that took them to the landfill. Or at the landfill itself, I suppose. Since I didn’t know where the truck was and couldn’t look at the landfill until morning, I’d swing by the plant now, before William had the same idea.

I hoped Billy and Josie would continue to be safe if I left them behind. It was hard to live with so much uncertainty. I’d been trailed yesterday, but not today—as far as I knew. But I’d been using my phone this past hour, and Billy had been using Mary Ann’s computer. I went to the living room and peered through a slit in the drapes. I didn’t think anyone was watching, but you never know.

Josie had gotten them this far. She was four years younger than Billy, but a harder-headed urban survivor. It was she I coached to put the chain bolts on both doors and not to open them for anyone but me; if I didn’t come back tonight, then tomorrow they had to tell a reliable adult what was going on.

“You two have been smart about not speaking on Coach McFarlane’s phone, and you need to keep doing that, but you have to promise me that you will call Commander Rawlings in the Fourth District if you don’t hear from me by morning. Don’t talk to anyone but him.”

“We can’t go to the police,” Billy objected. “Too many of them owe favors to my family, they do what my father or—or grandfather tells them.”

I was about to say they could trust Conrad the way they trusted me, but how could I be sure of that? It might be true, but Conrad had superiors, he even had patrol officers who could be bribed or threatened. I gave them Morrell’s number instead.

“When I do come back, I’m going to take you home with me. I don’t like leaving you here with Coach McFarlane—you’re too exposed, and it puts her in danger.”

“Oh, Victoria, my life is too close to the end to worry about danger,” Mary Ann protested. “I like having young people in the place. It keeps me from brooding over my body. They’re looking after Scurry, and I’m teaching them Latin—we’re having a grand old time.”