“Will she?” Gant says. “What do we know of this girl, Jeremiah my old friend? The bare minimum, that’s what. We have been unable to undertake our usual copious amounts of research and, as a result, we are at a distinct disadvantage. She might be walking away right this very moment, leaving the poor unfortunate Danny in the hands of two highly irritable killers.”

“Should we go?” Jeremiah asks. “How about we kill Danny and leave him here for her to find? She’ll think we’ve given up, killed him in frustration, and she’ll come back and we’ll grab her and kill her.”

“A sound plan,” Gant says, nodding, “and in normal circumstances, it might stand a chance of working. But something tells me Stephanie Edgley is not a girl to be taken in so easily. What were we told about her?”

“She’s resourceful,” Jeremiah says, almost grudgingly. “She is not to be underestimated.”

“Indeed,” says Gant. “We’ve done very well so far, Jeremiah. She was impossible to find and yet we found her. We are standing in her house. We have forced her to hide. These are things we should be proud of. But we cannot afford to be overconfident. Overconfidence is a killer. If she knows we are here, she may very well be gone already. If she intends to save Danny, however, she is unlikely to be caught out by any of our usual ruses.”

“So what do we do?” Jeremiah asks.

Gant is silent for a moment. “We currently stand in enemy territory, Jeremiah. This is her house and, as we both know, one’s house is one’s domain. She knows it well. We don’t know it at all. There may be two of us, but here she has the advantage. We need to take that away from her. Put Danny in the car.”

“Where are we going?”

Gant turns to him. “Home, Jeremiah. If she wants to save him, she’ll have to follow us.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“We kill him, and start looking for her all over again. Put Danny in the car, there’s a good lad.”

Gant walks out, and Jeremiah kneels down to untie Danny’s feet. When he’s done, he attaches the piece of rope to Danny’s bound wrists and uses it to pull him off the sofa. Then he walks out, tugging Danny along behind him.

Danny glances back and sees Stephanie, still crouched behind the sofa. Her face is tight, tense but expressionless. He catches her eye, but she doesn’t move as Jeremiah yanks on the rope, tugging him from the room. Danny stumbles on his injured leg and Jeremiah walks on, not giving a damn if Danny falls and has to be dragged out. He manages to stay on his feet, however, and a moment later he’s limping out into cold air and snow.