“Papers.” She paused, weighing up the relative merits of peace of mind and a shotgun wound to the chest. “Fuck it,” she said shortly. “I need to go home. I need five minutes there. Paulie, take me home.”

“Whoa! Is that really smart?” asked Paulette, knuckles tightening on the steering wheel.

“No.” Miriam grimaced. “It’s really not smart. But I need to grab some stuff, the goddamn disk with all your research on it. I’ll be about thirty seconds. We can ditch the car immediately afterwards. You willing to wait?”

“Didn’t you say they’d staked you out?”

“What does that mean?” Brill asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

Miriam sighed. “My house,” she said. “I haven’t been back to it since my fun-loving uncle had me kidnapped. Roland said it was under surveillance so I figured it would be risky. Now—”

“It’s even more risky,” Paulette said vehemently. “In fact I think it’s stupid.”

“Yes.” Miriam bared her teeth, worry and growing anger eating at her:

“But I need that disk, Paulie, it may be the best leverage I’ve got. We don’t have time for me to make millions in world three.”

“Oh shit. You think it may come to that?”

“Yeah, ’oh shit’ indeed.”

“What kind of disk?” Brill asked plaintively.

“Don’t worry. Just wait with the car.” Miriam focused on Paulette’s driving. The answer will be somewhere in the shoebox, she thought, desperately. And if Angbard had my ma snatched, I’ll make him pay!

Familiar scenery rolled past, and a couple of minutes later they turned into a residential street that Miriam knew well enough to navigate blindfolded. A miserable wave of homesickness managed to penetrate her anger and worry: This was where she belonged, and she should never have left. It was her home, dammit! And it slid past to the left as Paulette kept on driving.

“Paulie?” Miriam asked anxiously.

“Looking for suspicious-acting vehicles,” Paulie said tersely.

“Oh.” Miriam glanced around. “Ma said there was a truck full of guys watching her.”

“Uh-huh. Your mother spotted the truck. What did she miss?”

“Right.” Miriam spared a sideways glance: Brill’s head was swiveling like a ceiling fan, but her expression was more vacant than anything else. Almost as if she was bored. “Want to drive round the block once more? When you get back to the house stop just long enough for me to get out, then carry on. Come back and pick me up in three minutes. Don’t park.”

“Um. You sure that you want to do this?”

“No, I’m not sure, I just know that I have to.”