“Just ten minutes. If nobody shows by then, we’re outta here… Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, and checked her watch. “Ten minutes, and not a second more.”

She saw him pull a toothpick from his pocket, then kneel and fiddle with something inside the car door near the hinge. The courtesy lights went out.

“What are you doing?”

“Jamming the light button.”

He snapped off the rest of the toothpick and closed the door without latching it.

“What in God’s name for?”

“You’ll see. Won’t matter if we haven’t been followed. Let’s go.”

She followed him up the walk where he unlocked the front door and flipped on the lights. Alicia stopped at the threshold and took it in.

First off—the smell: Mold and mildew had been having a ball here. Then the look: The living room rug was filthy, the furniture sagging and worn, and here and there around the room, near the ceiling, corners of wallpaper curled back like peeling skin, revealing mildewed plaster.

“Your ‘country place?’ “ she said. “When was the last time you stayed here?”

“Never.” He closed the door behind her and moved to the drawn Venetian blinds. “This is my decoy place.”

“For hunting?”

“No. For a situation just like this—when I’m being followed, or think I am, and can’t be sure.”

“You bought a house way out here just for that?”

He nodded as he lifted one of the slats on the blind and peered through. “Well, yeah. I wanted three things: isolation, low maintenance, and cheap.”

She glanced around again. “I don’t know what you paid for it, but you certainly got one and two.”

“It was cheap enough to allow me to make some improvements.”

“Improvements? Where?”

“They’re not readily apparent.”

“You can say that again. Looks like a crack house.”

He laughed as he kept watch through the blind. “Oh, right. Like you’d know.”

“Yeah, I would know,” she said, resenting his sarcasm. “I’ve gone along when we’ve had to retrieve sick children from addict parents. You don’t know a fraction of what I’ve seen.”

Jack glanced at her. “You’re right. I don’t. Sorry. I’m sure there’s lots I don’t know about you.”

What does he mean by that? Alicia wondered as he turned back to peeking through the blind. She was about to ask him but held back.

Ease up, she told herself. You’ve been acting a little weird tonight. All right, more than a little. He’s got to have some questions about you. Anybody would.

She glanced at her watch: three minutes gone. In seven minutes she’d hold him to his word and make him take her home.

“Uh, oh,” he said from the window. “Company.”

He stepped aside and held up the slat for her. She peeked though.