Skip, wary for steps outside the kitchen door, flipped through the money. It looked new. He studied it closely; it wasn’t counterfeit; the bills were perfect. He noted a number on a bill, then two, then three. This new money was numbered consecutively, as if it might have just come from the mint. Skip shook his head and grinned. Stolz had converted something—surplus profits, a payoff, a sale of shares—into this easily stored and beautifully legitimate currency. The newness of the bills, the consecutive numbering were to Skip an indication that there was nothing wrong here. Stolz had his cash where he could get it and spend it easily if he wanted to. He’d just forgotten to keep an eye on it!

Skip rose, having made sure there were no other packets scattered in the depths of the cupboard. He put the two packets inside his shirt against his skin, buttoned his shirt over them. He kept on smiling to himself, the smile distorted by the silken mask. The old woman hadn’t been so smart after all. She was just a stupid, panicky old bag, putting new locks on doors and then getting scared the locks weren’t enough and trying a trick or two. She was the kind of old bag would keep dimes and quarters in a sugar bowl. He wished he could go up and be allowed to punch her face in.

He happened to be looking toward the door when Eddie appeared there. “I’ve been thinking about what Mrs. Havermann said about Stolz,” Eddie told Skip. “If he’s really on his way here, apt to arrive any time, it might be better to have Mrs. Havermann out of sight.”

Skip regarded him thoughtfully.

“If he comes in,” Eddie continued, “you and I could hear him in time to slip out the other door. Then if he caught Karen upstairs she could pretend nothing was wrong, the old lady was out seeing some friends or something. If she wasn’t out where he could see her, tied up like that, he’d have no way of knowing right off that anything was going on.”

“Sure, you’re right.” They went down the hall, passing the open door of the parlor where Eddie had been searching. Karen met them at the top of the stairs. Skip stopped and said, “We’re going to put Mrs. Havermann out of sight. So if Stolz comes he won’t see her right away. And you can tell him she’s out visiting, until you have a chance to slip out.”

Karen started to say something. Probably she intended to remind Skip again of his promise that there would be no violence. But the words died before she spoke them. She looked tired and drawn. Her cheek was swelling where Skip had struck her with his elbow. There was a deeper wound somewhere inside; her eyes were sick with the pain of it.