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“Give me the bag, Lou,” Vic said.

Lou said, “Ms. Hutter. Ms. Hutter, please, please, radio your guys and ask about Maggie Leigh. Ask about what just happened in Iowa. You’re getting ready to arrest the only person who can get my kid back. If you want to help our son, you need to let us go.”

“No more talk, Lou,” Vic said. “I’ve got to leave.”

Hutter squinted, as if she were having trouble seeing through her glasses. No doubt she was.

Chitra Surinam closed in on him. Lou held out one hand, as to ward her off, and he heard a steely cranking sound and found she had thrown one bracelet of the handcuffs on him.

“Whoa!” he said. “Whoa, dude!”

Hutter slipped a cell phone out of her pocket, a silver rectangle the size of a hotel soap. She did not dial a number but depressed a single button. The phone blooped, and a male voice came through static.

“Cundy here. You throw down on the bad guys out there?”

Hutter said, “Cundy. Any word on the hunt for Margaret Leigh?”

The phone hissed.

Chitra said to Lou, “Your other hand, please, Mr. Carmody. Your other hand.”

He didn’t give it to her. Instead he held his left hand up out of reach, the plastic bag looped over his thumb, as if it were a bag of stolen candy and he was the schoolyard bully who had snatched it and didn’t intend to give it back.

Cundy’s voice came through the hiss, his tone unhappy. “Uh, are you feeling especially psychic today? We just got word. Five minutes ago. I was going to tell you when you got back.”

The shouts from the other side of the house were closer.

“Tell me now,” Hutter said.

“What the f*ck is this?” Daltry asked.

Cundy said, “She’s dead. Margaret Leigh was beaten to death. The cops there like McQueen for it. She was spotted leaving the scene on her motorcycle.”

“No,” Hutter said. “No, that’s . . . that’s impossible. Where did this happen?”

“Here, Iowa. A little over an hour ago. Why is it so imposs—”

But Hutter hit the button again, cut him off. She looked past Lou at Vic. Vic was twisted around on the saddle, the bike shuddering beneath her, staring back at her.

“It wasn’t me,” Vic said. “It was Manx. They’re going to find out she was beaten to death with a hammer.”

At some point Hutter had lowered her gun entirely. She put her phone in the pocket of her coat, wiped at the water on her face.

“A bone mallet,” Hutter said. “The one Manx took with him when he walked out of that morgue in Colorado. I don’t—I can’t—understand this. I’m trying, Vic, but I just can’t make sense of it. How is he up and walking? How are you here when you were just in Iowa?”

“I don’t have time to explain about the rest. But if you want to know how I got here from Iowa, stick around. I’ll show you.”

Hutter said to Chitra, “Officer, will you please . . . take the cuffs off Mr. Carmody? They won’t be necessary. Maybe we should just talk. Maybe all of us should just talk.”

“I don’t have time to—” Vic started, but none of them heard the rest.

“Oh, what the f*ck is this?” Daltry said, turning away from Chris McQueen and bringing up his gun to aim at Vic. “Get off the motorcycle.”

“Officer, holster your weapon!” Hutter cried.

“The f*ck I will,” Daltry said. “You’re out of your mind, Hutter. Shut off the bike, McQueen. Shut it off now.”

“Officer!” Hutter yelled. “I am in charge here, and I said—”

“On the ground!” screamed the first FBI agent around the eastern side of the house. He had an assault rifle. Lou thought it might be an M16. “ON THE FUCKING GROUND!”

It seemed as if everyone was yelling, and Lou felt another dull wallop of pain in his temple and the left side of his neck. Chitra wasn’t looking at him, her head twisted around to stare at Hutter with a mix of anxiety and wonder.

Chris McQueen flicked his cigarette into Daltry’s face. It hit below his right eye in a spray of red sparks, and Daltry flinched, the barrel of his gun lurching off target. Chris’s free hand found a piece of stovewood at the top of the woodpile, and he came around with it and clubbed Daltry across the shoulder hard enough to stagger him.

“Get out of here, Brat!” he yelled.

Daltry took three stumbling steps across the mucky earth, steadied himself, lifted the gun, and put one bullet into McQueen’s stomach and another into his throat.

Vic screamed. Lou turned toward her, and as he did, his shoulder bumped Chitra Surinam. This was, unfortunately, a bit like being bumped by a horse. Surinam put one foot back into the soggy earth, bent her ankle wrong, and went straight backward, sitting down in the wet grass.

“Everyone lower your weapons!” Hutter cried. “Goddamn it, HOLD YOUR FIRE!”

Lou reached for Vic. The best way to get his arms around her was to put a leg over the back of the bike.

“Off the motorcycle, off the motorcycle!” hollered one of the men in body armor. There were three of them coming across the grass with their machine guns.

Vic’s face was turned to look back at her father, her mouth stretched open in her last cry, her eyes blind with amazement. Lou kissed her fevered cheek.