“No,” he said firmly. “It’s bad enough being here, where Harraway or one of his cops can spot us. Going to the casino is just asking for trouble.”

With a slightly mischievous smile, Glynis said, “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

So they spent the day in Vernon, ate lunch in one of the town’s three restaurants, strolled up and down its main streets, window-shopping like an old married couple while Jake expected Harraway or one of his officers to come roaring down the street and cart them off to the lockup.

Glynis actually bought a ridiculously garish oven mitt, decorated to look like a bright orange dragon. Jake shook his head when she picked it up off the shop’s counter, but Glynis wormed it onto her hand and made its mouth open and shut.

“I could do a puppet show with this,” she said, laughing.

Jake wished he could laugh, too, but he kept looking over his shoulder for one of Harraway’s police cars.

As dinnertime approached, Glynis phoned the B and B again. Perez hadn’t shown up. They ate dinner in the restaurant across the street from where they’d had lunch, Jake too nervous to eat much, Glynis apparently blithely unconcerned about anything except the steak on her plate.

As the sun was setting they walked back to the bed-and-breakfast. The Mustang was still sitting at the curb across the street.

They slid into the car.

“Now we wait for him to show up,” Glynis said.

“Like a police stakeout,” said Jake.

“Yes.”

They chatted about inconsequential things as the shadows of evening engulfed them. Jake found himself telling Glynis about his hopes to be on the team building the next NASA probe of Mars.

“Does that mean you’ll have to leave the university?”

Nodding in growing darkness, Jake said, “I’ll take a sabbatical. I’ll probably have to go to the Goddard center, in Maryland.”

“I see.” She sounded disappointed.

“That’s close to West Virginia. Your family lives there, don’t they?”

“Yes, but I seldom get back there.”

“You could come and visit.”

“I suppose I could,” Glynis said, sounding a little brighter.

Jake reached for her and she leaned toward him.

Her cell phone broke into “Flight of the Valkyries.”

Jake straightened up as Glynis fumbled in her purse for the phone.

“Yes? Yes! Oh! I see. Yes, we’ll be right up.”

Before Jake could ask she said, “It’s Perez. He’s in his room and he’s waiting to see us.”

“Glynis, are you sure you want to do this? If you’re right, the guy’s pretty dangerous.”

“I’m right, Jake,” she said, with utter certainty. “That’s why I have to face him.”

Ignacio Perez

IGNACIO PEREZ

“So what’s this all about?” Nacho Perez asked, as soon as Glynis and Jake stepped into his room.