"They've gone to make a deal," Vera said. "They're going to sell the children back to that idiot, make him pay for what is legally his."

"Where's the meeting place?"

Vera shrugged, while Lana stared at the floor.

"Lana, get out now. Whatever you've done to help them, I can't believe you would agree to murder."

"They wouldn't-"

"They would. Amos was going to kill Mark, and he would have killed me, too, just because I was there. Amos is dead because of them."

Tess was hoping Lana had some residual warmth for the man she had married. Whatever had passed between Lana and Amos, however mercenary it might have been in its origins, there must have been something genuine there. The Velvet Frost had said she was distraught earlier in the week. Lana's name was one of only five in Amos Greif's address book. SlavicBeautee.

"The business," Lana said at last. "But then they're coming back here." She looked at Vera, as if daring her to contradict. "They said they would come back for me and give me my share of the money, pay me back everything I've loaned them and more."

"The business? You mean Robbins amp; Sons, over on Smith Avenue?"

"No, the place they keep the furs, out in the country."

"How much of a head start do they have?"

"Enough," Lana said, gloating a bit. "You won't catch up to them."

"Only fifteen minutes or so," Vera said. "But those twins can't go long without a bathroom break, especially with Natalie making them drink all that hot chocolate before they went out. So strange, a hot drink on a night as warm as this. But Zeke said they had to drain their cups."

Chapter Thirty-nine

ISAAC SAT AS FAR FORWARD ON THE SEAT AS HIS SEAT BELT would allow, fighting his own drowsiness. He didn't understand why he felt so sleepy, not after being stuck in that little house all day with nothing to do but watch television and reread his book. But he couldn't stop yawning, despite his excitement and anticipation. The twins had already nodded off, one slumped on either side of him. The woman they said was his grandmother had chased them around all day, although not in the happy way he thought a grandmother would have. Her only concern had been to keep the twins from touching anything in her house, not that there was anything interesting to touch.

And Lana was there, too, standing by the door while his mother and Zeke shared secrets somewhere else in the house. Isaac guessed that was because they were in Baltimore now and they knew if he got even a chance, he would start running, running, and running until he found a pay phone or a policeman or even a street he knew. He would run all the way to his father's house or store if he had to. But now they said they were taking him to his father, so he didn't have to run. Still, he studied the landscape, determined to figure out where they were.

So far he hadn't even seen anything familiar. He tried to memorize the landmarks that went past. There were the usual stores and restaurants, and now they were on a highway, but it wasn't the baseball highway to Camden Yards or the big highway they took north to New York and south to Washington. Instead they seemed to be heading away from the city. In the middle of this highway, an empty subway car went rattling past, all lit up, but with no one on its blue seats, so it was like a subway car for ghosts. Isaac hoped Zeke wasn't lying. Zeke had promised them their father, but Zeke was mean enough to make a promise and break it. He was, he definitely was.

Natalie hadn't wanted to do the cocoa thing tonight, but Zeke had insisted. He said the children would get overstimulated at the reunion, that they would be hard to control once they saw their father again. "This is trickier than it looks," Zeke told Natalie. "We need time, as much as we can get. So you've got to let me take them in, give them to Mark, and go. No drawn-out good-byes. Everybody wins, right?"

"Not me," she had told him. They had been in her old bedroom, which her mother had stripped of every memory after Natalie left with her father, as if Natalie never existed. Vicious old bitch, refusing to fight for her own daughter. Natalie was a better mother by far. "I won't have my children. It doesn't matter how much money Mark gives us if I can't have them."

"If you hadn't killed a police officer, we might have more options," Zeke had said. He had been saying that a lot the past two days, holding it over her head, enjoying it almost too much. Whatever he wanted, it seemed, could be justified by her one mistake. A big mistake, sure, but she hadn't done it for herself, she had done it for him. He was the bank robber, he was the one who would have gone back to prison if they were caught. That had been her only thought at the time, to save Zeke. "You and I need to go somewhere far away and start new lives. We can't do that with the kids. Mark will never let us be. The two of us together have a chance. The five of us-never."

"I don't know…" This was late afternoon, and they had been lying on her bed, the narrow single bed where she had dreamed about the glamorous life she so clearly deserved. Her mother could redecorate all she wanted, but she couldn't erase Natalie from this room. She was in the floorboards, the wallpaper, the dust floating in the air. In this bed, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, Natalie had dreamed about a man like Zeke, and now Zeke was wrapped around her, the fingers of his left hand entwined in her hair, his right index finger tracing the line of her jaw, her eyebrows, the not-yet-visible lines that would bracket her mouth one day, when she was old and sour. No, unthinkable. She would never look like that woman downstairs.

"Trust me. I know what's right for them. And you." He began kissing her deeply, more passionately than he had all these weeks on the road. She assumed it would be the same routine, that he would unzip himself and press her head down to him, then use his hand so she would feel some release, too, their usual teenage courtship. But he began undressing her instead, taking his time, revealing each part of her as if it were a treasure. Strange, but now she was the one who balked, nervous and unready.

"The children…"

"Vera and Lana are watching them."

"The door…"

"I locked it when we came in here."

"It's not the Ritz." But she was teasing him now, her excitement making her giggly, almost silly.

"Sure it is. Just close your eyes."

But she didn't. She left them open the entire time, so she would remember everything. She was there, she was with him, but she was also hovering above them both, observing. For more than a decade, a third of her life, this man had been the only person who shared her vision of herself, who saw her as something precious and special. She was worried that waiting so long would make it anticlimactic, but it was even better than she had dreamed. She was his now.

She was his now. Pure instinct-and not a little will-had kept Zeke from doing this all these weeks. Abstinence had been a practical decision at first. When she led him back to the motel in Terre Haute, he had assumed he would make love to her and then send her home, instructing her to stay with Mark until he could get settled and send for her. But the three kids sitting on the double bed had pretty much killed that plan-and those desires. Later, when Natalie started crawling over him in the car night after night, he had realized he would enjoy more power over her if he didn't give in right away. He would know when the time was right.

Today had sealed the deal. As drunk on sex as the kids were on their vodka-spiked cocoa, Natalie would wait in the car as instructed, assuming the exchange was going off as planned. The serotonin fumes and pheromones would carry her along, fogging her brain, keeping her from questioning too much. It would be a few days before the call would come, probably from Lana. Such a tragedy-Mark and the children, dead, a vicious act of revenge by a twisted, desperate man. Natalie would return to Baltimore to bury her family. Zeke would show up after a suitable interval, a repentant stepbrother, offering nothing more than his services at the store. The estate might take up to a year to execute, but they didn't have to live in Baltimore during that time. They could go somewhere warm if they sensed the police closing in. Somewhere without extradition, if possible.