strung between them was a net. She walked around to the far side of it. The net had plants stuck in it, and a couple of large rocks along the bottom. She walked around it again. The ground on the side away from the house was smooth and flat, with a plastic tarp spread over it. She knelt down and ran her fingertips along the bare surface behind it. There were footprints on this side. They were long and deep, as though a big man, or maybe two, had stood here. It wasn’t just kids building a fort.
It was a blind. Somebody had built a blind. But what would they be hunting from blinds here, in midsummer? She stepped onto the plastic tarp, knelt down behind the blind, and looked. There was a clear, unobstructed view of the house and of the trail she was about to take to the kitchen door. She judged the distance. It must be about two hundred yards. There was a wing along the left side of the blind, so she moved to that side and looked over it. This side of the blind had been put here to command a view of the first curve of the road. A car heading from Bernie’s house toward town would come around the curve, then drive straight toward the blind for—what?—ten seconds, before the next curve began and the car went past.
Jane felt an urge to run for the house, but she held it in abeyance. She moved to the front of the blind and touched one of the plants that were stuck into the netting. It was beginning to feel spongy and dehydrated, so it had probably baked in the sun. She followed the stem to the cut, and felt a sticky, wet residue, so it had been cut within a day or two. She decided they must have built this blind after dark last night, when Bernie and Rita could not have seen them doing it. She stared at the blind. They must have planned to come back tonight after dark to occupy it. The sun had already been down a half hour. She let her eyes go unfocused and looked around her for other disturbances in the landscape. A hundred feet to her right she saw a group of big rocks she remembered from her other visits, but it looked different tonight.
She moved closer and saw that a couple of feet behind the rocks was a darker shadow that kept fooling her eyes. Was there a tarp there too? She reached the spot and looked down. It wasn’t a tarp. It was a hole … a foxhole? She dropped to her knees and stared into it, then saw a vague line in the shadows. She reached down for it and touched a smooth wooden handle. She grasped it and lifted it, and found that it was much longer than she had expected, at least four feet. It was a shovel. This wasn’t a foxhole. Nobody could stand in a six-foot hole and still see over those rocks. She looked at the shovel. The spade end seemed to have an odd glow in the darkness.
She held it closer. It was covered with a bright white powder-fine dust. She used it to probe the hole, and heard a sound of paper rustling. She pushed the shovel lower to bring the paper object closer to the surface, where she could see it. The object was a big empty bag. She saw the word “Lime.” She dropped the shovel and stepped back to measure the hole with her eyes. It was a grave.
Jane turned toward the house and broke into a run, dashing straight for the kitchen. When she reached the steps, she leapt up to the landing and pounded on the door.
She stepped back, so that when the porchlight came on she would be right in the middle of it, where Rita could see her, but the light didn’t come on. Instead, the door opened and Bernie said, “Sorry, honey. This is the doorman’s night out, and I didn’t hear your car.”
Jane stepped inside and pushed past him. “I left it in town. Where’s Rita?”
Bernie opened the broom cupboard to put his shotgun away. “Upstairs. She said she was going to read. She’s got the radio on, so I guess her eyes and ears are on separate circuits.” He frowned. “Is something wrong?”
Jane hurried through the dining room past the computers, across the living room, checking that the windows were covered, then up the stairs. “Rita!” she called.
“Yeah?” The voice came from the back bedroom.
Jane stepped inside. Rita was lying on the bed with her bare feet propped up on a pillow with bits of tissue jammed between her toes while the nail polish dried. There was a magazine opened facedown on the other pillow. She sat up quickly. “What’s going on?”
Jane turned off the radio by the bed. She took a deep breath, then glanced down at Rita. The girl’s eyes looked frightened and childlike. Jane’s urge to shout at her dispersed. Jane sat on the bed beside her. “We’ve got a problem.”
“What?”
Jane said gently, “I know you miss your mother. I don’t blame you for wanting her not to be worried. I never specifically said, ‘Don’t write any letters to your mother.’ But I wish now that I had.”
“But I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t say where I was, or who you were, or say Bernie was alive, or anything.”
“How many letters did you write?”
“Two. And they were to my mother, not anybody else. What—I can’t write to my mother in prison?”
Jane sighed. “The problem with prisons is that they’re filled with criminals. I think somebody read your letter. It had to be the first one, because I read the second.” Jane pointed toward the window. “Out there somebody has set up a blind.”
Jane heard Bernie move into the room behind her. “A blind what?”
“A blind. Like a duck blind. A little camouflaged barrier you hide behind to shoot something.” She looked at Bernie, then at Rita. “It’s set up to give them a view of this house and the road to town. It’s fresh—maybe a day old. Was anybody out there today?”
Rita said, “Not me.” Bernie didn’t answer, but the look on his face indicated that the question was unnecessary.
Jane said patiently, “I mean did you
“No,” said Rita.
“Then it’s probably pretty much what I thought. They were getting ready for tonight.” She glanced at her watch. “It doesn’t seem to make sense to plan to shoot somebody from a distance when they’re asleep. I think they’ll come when they expect to find us still awake and walking around in front of lighted windows.”
“You always struck me as a smart girl,” said Bernie, “but—”
“When did you go to bed last night?” Jane interrupted.
“I don’t know,” Bernie answered. “It wasn’t this early.”
“Eleven-thirty,” said Rita. “I watched the eleven o’clock news.”
“Then we’ve got two hours at the outside. Let’s assume it’s one hour.” Jane bent over, picked up Rita’s sneakers, and tossed them on the bed beside her. “Both of you get packed as quickly as you can. Don’t bring anything you’re not going to need badly, but don’t forget things like money and the IDs I gave you.”
Bernie went to his room and Jane could hear him opening and closing drawers. Rita put the suitcase Jane had bought her on the bed, then lifted armloads of clothes and tossed them inside. By the time Bernie returned, Rita had finished packing. She put on her shoes.
“All ready? Good,” said Jane. She opened her jacket and handed Rita the packet she had prepared. “These are new IDs for you and Bernie. What you’ve got to do is get into your car and get out of here. Go east, not toward town. That’s the way they seem to be expecting you to run.”
Bernie said, “What about you?”
Jane looked at him in surprise. “I’ll be safer without you. Henry said we have to take the hard disks out of the computers and destroy them. That will take me a few minutes. After that, I’ll be on my way too.”
As Jane headed for the doorway, she heard Bernie say to Rita, “I’ll wait for you downstairs, kid.” Jane reached the dining room and a moment later, Bernie was at her shoulder.
“How did they find us?”
Jane didn’t look up from the computer. “I don’t think I want to tell you.”
“Rita got in touch with somebody, didn’t she?”
Jane nodded. “Her mother.”
Bernie looked sad, but he wasn’t angry. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Jane looked at him in surprise. “Sorry?”
“She’s just a kid. Don’t blame her. Her mother is all she ever had. I just wish that you weren’t here for this. You didn’t have to come back. That wasn’t the deal.”
“We’ll all be out of here in a few minutes, before those guys get to their blind.”
“I don’t think that’s the way it’s going to happen,” he said.
Jane moved the computer closer so she could see it better, and opened the cowling on the side. “A few yards from the blind they dug a six-foot hole with lime in the bottom. What do you suppose that was for?”
“I don’t mean that,” said Bernie. “That’s probably what you think it is. But the plan isn’t right. It might be
