Five minutes with Ffodor’s webcam roulette software and the wireless connection from a coffee shop in Taos gave Mollie a new doorway site. She chose a garden terrace behind a hedge on the campus of an engineering college in Chandigarh, India. It was sixteen hundred miles from Talas—just barely enough from her point of view. But it was random, a place she’d never visited before, and somewhere she’d probably never revisit. She wasn’t about to scout the casino from within one of her own bolt-holes. After all, others had probably entertained similar thoughts about the place by now. And, on the off chance the chaos surrounding her last visit hadn’t culminated in a permanent change of ownership, she wasn’t giving anyone a chance to track her. Baba Yaga was bad fucking news. So was her pal, the drooling vegetable in the wheelchair—the guy looked harmless, but something about him gave Mollie the screaming clownies.

She paused, chewing the last bite of a cloying lemon bar. Do I really want to rob that witch a second time?

All it took was a little bit of bad luck to turn something simple into something rotten. The residual Taser ache in her chest served a useful reminder. Good. It would keep her alert.

Hell yes I do. She turned my life into shit. If not for Baba Yaga, I never would have come near that sick fight club shit in a million years. And Ffodor …

Mollie cleared her thoughts with an angry shake of her head. It rattled her table; other patrons glanced at her. She glared back at them until they became uncomfortable. Then she locked the real-time image on her tablet. A text banner flashed across the screen:

Be smart. Be safe. Be quick.

She gasped.

Ffodor, taking care of her even now. He had written the webcam software for her. It was yet another thing she never would have considered on her own, a simple idea that somehow made her ace that much better. She’d forgotten that he added a reminder … Her face turned hot, warmed by the blush of embarrassment when she remembered the misadventure in São Paulo that had prompted him to add the gentle reminder. The embarrassment turned to shame.

And then she couldn’t see the screen anymore. She blew her nose on a paper napkin. It smelled like overly strong coffee and the chocolate syrup from her mocha, but for a moment she could almost smell the scent of weird Hungarian cigarettes, as though somebody had snuffed one just before she entered the room.

God damn it.

Mollie wiped her eyes, glad she hadn’t bothered with makeup before getting a start on the day. She studied the image on the laptop until she could easily picture the secluded spot on the Indian campus with eyes closed. Then she scooted her chair back, stood, and went to the ladies’ room. It was empty. She went into a stall. Somebody had used a black Magic Marker to draw an arrow pointing to the dispenser of tissue-paper toilet seat covers; above this they had scrawled in block letters, FREE! AUTHENTIC TAOS COWBOY HATS! Alongside this somebody had printed, in a different hand and ink, FUCK YOU, CHOLO.