By 5 A.M. the boys were out of gas in Great Falls. They pulled up at a minimart to fill the tank, but found themselves short of cash, and left with a friendly wave to the cashier. By five-fifteen they had crashed the Volare into a fairgrounds outbuilding with the cops behind them, and piled out to run. The police took Lyle and the Murphys into custody, but Trey Jordan and his gun were gone.

*

Gina didn’t know anything about the boys when she saw the men combing the field outside her house. She locked the doors and called Chase at work, and he told her most of it. He had seen the wreck when he walked to get the newspaper at the end of the road, and he had talked to the police who were there.

“This was at six,” Gina said.

“Five-thirty, six.”

“And you didn’t tell me about it.”

“I didn’t think much about it,” Chase said. “You weren’t up yet.”

“I was up before you left. We talked.”

“You were mad at me about something,” he said.

“I sent Amy alone to get a ride. I went walking.”

“Maybe I knew you’d react like this.”

“Like what?”

“I’m on another call,” he said. “We’ll talk later.”

Gina put the dog in the kennel and drove to Amy’s school to wait outside until classes got out. Amy looked surprised and walked warily to the car, letting her leg cast slow her down more than it had to.

“I’m staying for the dance,” Amy said. “They’re just cleaning the gym.”

“Where’s Marisol?”

Amy shrugged. “Her mom said she’d pick us up.”

“I don’t want you to go anywhere but the dance.”

“Why?”

“Just don’t.”

Amy cocked her head to one side. “First you’re afraid of me going to the dance, now you’re afraid of me not going.”

“I never said I was afraid of you going.”

“Yeah,” Amy said.

Marisol came out of the school and gave Gina a languid, suspicious look from the other side of the street.

“I’m going to help decorate the gym now,” Amy said carefully.

Gina watched the girls walk away into the building, on their long, too-long legs, Amy’s cast not slowing her down at all. They leaned into each other to talk, and glanced back at the car. Amy made an impatient gesture with her hands. Gina drove to the library, to hide out while the police did their work.