“Sure,” said Merker, his eyes dancing. “That’s what I’d do too, I was you. But your mom said she was having phone trouble, which is why she told me to tell you that everything was totally okay and—”

“Gary!” Leo sounded like he was going to die.

“Ah, fuck,” Merker said and bounded up the stairs, two steps at a time, to see what was wrong with his friend.

And suddenly, for the first time in hours, Gary Merker was not watching over us. He was out of the room. Sarah and I exchanged glances. Katie’s eyes went back and forth between us. Even she seemed to sense that there was an opportunity here, and we might be the ones to help her take advantage of it.

Ludmilla, however, was looking at the gym bag. She must have had a pretty good idea what it contained.

Upstairs, Merker shouted through the bathroom door, “Pull up your pants, we’re getting out of here!”

“Could you come in here?” Leo said. “I think I’m done, but I feel kind of weak.”

“Jesus, no,” said Merker. “Clean yourself up and come on.”

Ludmilla advanced on the gym bag, picked up the keys on top, and pulled back the zipper. Just a couple of inches, but enough to see the mountain of cash. She was turned away from me, so it wasn’t possible to see her expression, but I could imagine it.

But the sight of all that cash wasn’t enough of a shock that she forgot how to react. She kept the keys to Merker’s truck in one hand and grabbed hold of the bag’s straps with the other. She was out the front door without another word.

I made no move to stop her. This was my opportunity to escape not only Merker, but the Gorkins as well.

To Sarah, I said, quietly but with great urgency, “Go.”

She grabbed Katie by the hand. The girl seemed suddenly alive, swinging her legs off the couch and planting them on the floor.

“Just run,” I whispered. “Anywhere.”

Upstairs, Merker said through the bathroom door, “Smells like you died in there. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”

“Come,” Sarah said to me, her eyes full of pleading, already heading with Katie to the kitchen so she could sneak out the back door.

“Right behind you,” I said.

Out front, I heard the door slam on Merker’s truck, the engine turn over with a great roar. While Sarah and Katie slipped out the back way, I took a moment to peek through the glass in the front door to see Ludmilla backing out of the driveway.

It turned out to be a stupid thing to do. It was a moment I could not afford to take.

Merker came bounding back down the stairs. It took him a second to register that the bag was gone. “What the—”