She dropped gratefully down on the cold ground and hugged herself, shivering, waiting. The wind carried an echo of laughter. She pulled the corn plants aside and saw a family inside eating dinner in a kitchen from Better Homes; they were having something that looked like lasagna. Her stomach pitched.

From where she sat, Velvet had a perfect view of the garage—three cars, one heavy-looking Mercedes, one boxy-looking Volvo station wagon, and one white Jeep Cherokee, since everybody in Highland Park seemed to think they couldn’t live without four-wheel drive. She wondered what the chances were that the rich left keys in their cars, and decided they weren’t too good; the rich had invented paranoia, what with their alarm systems and electric gates and big dogs. She glanced around nervously for dogs, but found only evidence of kids—bright yellow and red plastic tricycles, ragged-looking dolls, dismembered pieces of toys she couldn’t identify. If they had a dog, they kept it in at night.

An outside light snapped on, bathing the corn row in harsh white. She dropped flat and pressed her cheek to the cold dirt as the back door opened. Someone clumped down three steps and across the flagstones to the garage. She lifted her head and clawed hair out of her eyes to watch a tall guy in a blue shirt gather up an armload of firewood. He was whistling something that sounded like a commercial, or opera.

Velvet heard wood creak and turned her head the other way, her other cheek now in the dirt. A dark shape dropped over the top of the gate and landed lightly, knees bent, in the shadows.

“Oh, Christ,” she whispered, and bit her lip. The guy in the garage dropped a stick of firewood and bent over to pick it up; his whistling broke off and started again as he straightened up.

Agent Dimples came a step closer into the light; he was smiling slightly, not even out of breath. He’d put on gloves, and in one hand he had the gun he’d pulled on her at Robby’s apartment. He was watching the garage, but he was also looking around the back yard for potential hiding places. Any second now, he’d look at the corn row.

No time for subtlety. Velvet opened her mouth to scream.

The back door opened, and a little girl said, “Daddy?”

Velvet’s scream hitched in her throat like a gag. She swallowed hard and stayed very still, cheek pressed to the ground, wind pressing like cold fingers on her exposed face.

“Coming, sweetheart. Go on back inside, it’s cold out here.”

Think, Velvet screamed at herself. Do something. Anything. For god’s sake, don’t just lay there!