“Swung down,” the radio told her. “How about that—and this is just the edge, folks. Stay indoors and hunker down if you haven’t already left town. This is only a Category 2, but you betcha it’ll feel a lot bigger down here on the Keys. We’re going to have at least three more hours of this before the eye passes over us. This is one big baby girl, and she’s taking her time. The good ones always do.”

Lindsey could hardly get the candles lit; the matches were that soggy, her hands greased with sweat. When she went in the bathroom, the iguana looked as battered and beat, in the light from the candle, as some old suitcase.

Her bedroom had too many windows to stay there. She got her pillow and her quilt and a fresh T-shirt. A fresh pair of underwear.

When she went to check Elliot’s room there was a body on the bed. She dropped the candle. Tipped wax onto her bare foot. “Elliot?” she said. But when she got the candle lit again it wasn’t Elliot, of course, and it wasn’t Alan, either. It was the sleeper. Versailles Kentucky. The one who looked like Alan or maybe Lindsey, depending on who was doing the looking. A rubber vise clamped down around Lindsey’s head. Barometric pressure.

She dropped the candle again. It was exactly the sort of joke Alan liked. Not a joke at all, that is. She had a pretty good idea where the other sleepers were—in Jason’s apartment, not on the way to Pittsburgh. And if anyone found out, it would be her job, too, not just Jason’s. No government pension for Lindsey. No comfy early retirement.

Her hand still wasn’t steady. The match finally caught and the candle dripped down wax on Versailles Kentucky’s neck. But if it was that easy to wake up a sleeper, Lindsey would already know about it.

In the meantime, the bed was up against an exterior wall and there were all the windows. Lindsey dragged Versailles Kentucky off the bed.

She couldn’t get a good grip. Versailles Kentucky was heavy. She flopped. Her head snapped back, hair snagging on the floor. Lindsey squatted, took hold of her by the upper arms and pulled her down the dark hall to the bathroom, keeping that floppy head off the ground. This must be what it was like to have murdered someone. She would kill Alan. Think of this as practice, she thought. Body disposal. Dry run. Wet run.

She dragged Versailles Kentucky over the bathroom threshold and leaned the body over the tub’s lip. She grabbed the iguana. Put it on the bathroom floor. Arranged Kentucky in the tub, first one leg and then the other, folding her down on top of herself.