They talked strategy for a while, but exhaustion did them in. Jill yawned, hugely, and it rippled around the room.

“Anyone else ready for some sleep?” Denton was barely able to keep his eyes open.

“Good idea,” Nate said, stretching. “I don’t think I can stay awake much longer.”

“What about him?” Aharon said. “The one in the other room. We should keep watch.”

“I’ll do it,” Hannah said. “After all, I only came in from Israel and that was several days ago.”

“Hannahleh,” Aharon murmured worriedly.

“She is the most bright-eyed,” Denton remarked.

“Can you operate the gun?” Jill asked. “Or maybe we can lock him in.”

“Lock, yes,” Aharon said. “Gun, no. And if you hear any noise from inside the room you scream, loudly.”

They all tiptoed out to check Farris. His was a small room under the eaves. The only lock operated from the room interior, so they dragged an armoire out of Hannah’s room and down the hall. It completely blocked Farris’s door.

“There,” Aharon said. “Now no one needs to stay up.”

“Don’t be silly!” Hannah said in a motherly tone. “What if he gets sick in the night? We can’t just leave him in there alone.”

“Hannah’s right,” Jill yawned. “We don’t want to kill the man. If he wakes up and needs help, get us up.”

“Of course.” Hannah nodded.

Hannah wasn’t tired. Her mind was so overrun by thoughts and ideas that she’d probably never sleep again. Who would believe a word that was said tonight? No one, that’s who, and Israelis, even ones who used to be New Yorkers, were not known to be gullible. Except that her own husband, Aharon Handalman, a man who did not lie and did not kid, was right in the middle of it.

There was a sound behind the door.

Hannah had taken a chair into the hall so she could sit near Farris’s door. There was something going on in there. She leaned into the armoire and listened. There was muttering, as though the man was talking in his sleep, and some whimpering.

“Water.”

The word, muffled through the door, was low but distinguishable. The man sounded half-asleep. She held her breath, listening.

“Water.”

Hadn’t they even put a pitcher with some water and a glass in there? She couldn’t remember. Or maybe he was so sick he couldn’t find the glass. Maybe he would go back to sleep.

“Please,” came a low groan.

Hannah drew back from the door and stiffened her spine. She marched down the hall to her own room. From the scant light coming in the window she could make out Aharon’s face on the pillow—drawn and troubled. He looked so thin! So white, so exhausted!

She reached out a hand to wake him, but the wife in her couldn’t do it, not after all he’d been through. Hesitant, she turned to the man on the pallet on the floor. Denton Wyle was also deeply asleep, lying on his back, arms wide over his head, snoring lightly. Could she wake up a stranger? A strange man in the middle of the night?

She sighed and went back down the hall to the room where Nate and Jill were sleeping. They weren’t married, she didn’t think, but they were obviously a couple. They had left their door open a little, too, and when she heard nothing she peeked inside. They were so cute together—spooned on the bed, deeply asleep. They were so heavily asleep, in fact, that they looked like they might sink right through the bed—a strange impression.

No, she couldn’t bring herself to wake any of them.

She went back to the armoire-blocked door and could hear moaning now, low and pained. Well, for goodness’ sake, what if the man was dying? If he was dying, she ought to wake the others. Yes, okay, but what if he wasn’t dying?

Hannah had nursed sick children through the night plenty of times. You got up, you gave them a drink of water, you listened to their sleepy terrors, soothed their foreheads, maybe gave them some baby aspirin, and that was it. They were back asleep.

She could always scream.

Making up her mind, Hannah went to fetch some aspirin and a glass of water. She placed these on the floor in the hallway and, as quietly as she could, pushed the armoire inch by inch out of the way. When the door was unblocked enough to enter, she paused, aspirin and glass in hand, to listen. She heard another low moan inside the room. She opened the door.

The door swung slowly open. In the light from the hall Pol saw a woman, a dark-haired woman, walk quietly toward the bed. Earlier he had positioned his pillow under the blanket so it would look occupied. Now he made himself wait behind the door until she put down the glass. Then he jumped her.

His hand came over her mouth before she could so much as gasp. She struggled mightily for such a small thing. He clamped his muscles hard around her and dragged her from the room.

He had a plan. It was dangerous. He was outnumbered. But he was not afraid of these people; they were weak. His plan was simple. He was going to escape and take the blond woman with him.

He dragged the dark-haired woman down the hall. He would like to find his gun, too, but unless it was easily spotted there would be no time to search for it. He managed to keep his captive’s feet off the ground and mostly her kicks and blows landed silently on his person. His hand blocked his mouth, but she was making sounds in her throat.

The woman he wanted was not in the room he’d spied on earlier, but in a different room down the hall, away from the stairs and freedom. She was lying on a bed, entwined with the boy, asleep.

Something about the scene, that she should have ease and the warmth of another, angered him. He worked his way around the bed and the dark-haired woman’s feet connected with the edge of it, making a bang. But it was too late. In one movement he released the dark-haired woman and pulled the warm, sleeping weight of the blonde against his chest. She was too groggy to even struggle. He put one arm around her throat, tight, and the other he wove through her arms and behind her back.

She gasped in a deep breath of pain, fully awake.

“Don’t fight or I’ll kill you.” His arm tightened around her throat to show her how it would be done.

“Denton! Aharon!” The boy was up from the bed, calling for backup. He scrambled under the mattress, and Pol knew he was going for the gun. Good. That meant Pol wouldn’t have to waste time looking for it.

He backed toward the door. The boy held the gun on him. His gun. The gun of a Silver monitor, detective class. But the woman was between Pol and the gun. The man with the hair on his face came running from down the hall and the dark-haired woman collapsed into his arms.

“Aharon, it’s my fault! I heard him ask for water and I thought, instead of waking you—”

“Hush, Hannah. It’s all right.”

Three of them. There should be four. Where was the fourth? Calder was still several feet from the doorway to the hall—the exit and his escape. The man and woman blocked it. The boy held the gun on him, but from the look on his face Pol knew he wouldn’t use it.

“Move,” Pol told the couple in the doorway, motioning his head to indicate they should join the boy.

They obeyed. The man said, “So let her go and let’s talk, for heaven sake. No one wants to hurt you.”

Pol backed toward the door. He looked over his shoulder. The doorway was empty. Where was the other man?

“Let her go,” the dark-haired boy ordered. He raised the gun, pointing toward Pol’s head. Pol smiled. He would never risk it.

“Nate,” the older man warned, “look, if we wanted to hurt you we would have left you to freeze in the woods. Talk to us.”

Pol took a step back, dragging the blonde with him, and now he was in the doorway. He meant to say, Where’s the other man? He meant to say, Give me the gun or I’ll kill her. But when the sentences tried to go from his brain to his esophagus, they dissolved into nonsense. That scared him.