I am his guard, she thinks. I am his guardian angel. And like a guardian angel, there is little I can do, thinks Kitty. Just be here. That’s all.

She had defined her job as learning the lay of the land, learning as much as she can, not getting caught. Along the way she has added to this the job of making things difficult for Blink’s captors. But now her job has changed to just being here. Bearing witness. She must see what happens and faithfully record it.

This boy. He is ten months younger than she is, but he seems so much younger sometimes. So open — she’d seen that in him at first glance. She could recall him in the emptiness of Union Station waiting to buy his train ticket, pulling out that fistful of bills, his palm flat, unrolling the needed amount. He might as well have had a SUCKER sign on his back. All she’d needed to do was create a situation where he would expose himself like that again.

But there is nothing else weak about him, she thinks. He is bold — reckless, perhaps — but full of this crazy kind of certainty that is like a tonic to her. In his determination to turn things to his advantage, he seems invincible in a way. Somehow he’d convinced her, against her better judgment, to join in on this whole scheme. So she feels guilty for knowing better and yet falling for it. Falling for his eagerness, the way it lights up his eyes.

She owes him, she thinks. She robbed him and then let him rob her of her own good sense. Good sense? What a laugh! She’d spent most of the year flaunting her complete lack of good sense. A death wish? Yes. Probably. And then this desire, every bit as overwhelming, not to die. Was that what happened to her Wednesday morning? Waking up like that with this grand scheme to collect money from Drigo? And is this what she has collected? Or had the desire to stay alive come with this brave and foolish boy?

She remembers something Wayne-Ray said about it being okay to be numb. That being numb gave the body a chance to recover. She isn’t numb anymore. Blink Conboy has woken her up. If she was his guardian angel, she’d been asleep at the wheel. That wouldn’t happen again.

She makes herself as comfortable as she can under the eaves. At the darkest corner of the lodge. She is more or less dry, but shivering with a cold that has winter written all over it. Her new denim gaucho jacket is too short and not at all warm. She had chosen it because it showed off her figure. She wanted him to like her.

The rain picks up, gusting off the unseen lake, black and shifting, playing the bass note to the wind’s lead. She had placed herself in the lee of that wind. She begins to think about the sheds across the clearing. Perhaps there is somewhere inside one of those small outbuildings where she might curl up small, like a sow bug under a rotten board. When the lights go off in the lodge maybe. When everything settles down. But, no, she will stay here. It’s not like punishment. Not really. She wants to stay here because of the boy inside who needs her.

She must have nodded off, because suddenly she is awoken by a clatter across the yard and an almighty shout of pain.

She half suspects a bear, until the swearing starts. A string of curses no bear would be likely to use. Apparently Tank has stumbled across her trap.

She can’t resist the urge to sneak to the corner of the lodge to see him, in the light spilling across the yard from above the doorway. He appears, swearing and hobbling, rain streaming off his ball cap. Limping badly.

The Moon opens the door. “What’s all the racket?” he asks.

“My foot!” yells Tank. “A fucking nail.”

Kitty makes her way back to her safe corner and only makes it just in time, because lights suddenly appear in the woods, like a false and hurried sunrise. It’s a car coming. She dives into the bush as the vehicle enters the yard, its headlights raking the back wall of the lodge as it turns around.

It’s a black SUV. A man jumps out and runs, covering his head, toward the door. He’s lanky. So is this the Snake at last?

He enters the lodge, slamming the door behind him, but almost right away returns to the vehicle, followed by two more figures: the Moon and, under a black umbrella, Jack Niven, a briefcase in his hand.

Kitty waits, fearfully, expecting Tank to appear next with Blink all trussed up and gagged. There will be nothing she can do. Create a diversion? Throw herself in front of the SUV? Or drive the ATV like crazy back to the Jeep and pursue them? But considering the speed at which the Snake pulled into the yard, the SUV will have put many miles between her and them by the time she would be able to follow.

Her horrifying speculations arise and are resolved almost instantaneously. No sooner has the car door shut on Jack Niven than the SUV wheels around in the yard and takes off up the road.

So, as far as Kitty knows, there is just Tank left now — Tank with a wounded foot. Better odds, she thinks.