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He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out the folded paper. He tossed it in the pizza box, then with some effort got the lid finally closed with the flaps tucked in.

The overweight girl took a shortcut across the front yard of the duplex.

“Here we go,” Juan said, quickly checking for traffic, then revving the engine with a twist of the right grip and dumping the clutch.

Tito quickly squeezed his knees and thighs against the seat as the big bike jerked into motion. He switched the pizza box to his left hand and put his right on the nine-millimeter semiautomatic in his coat pocket.

The motorcycle roared across the street, then bumped up onto the opposite sidewalk.

They closed fast on the girl. About the time she heard them approaching and started to turn her head back, Tito threw the pizza box onto the walkway ahead of her. He pulled out the pistol and tried to aim as Juan almost ran over her with the front tire.

Tito began squeezing the trigger repeatedly, the pistol bucking as the plastic grips slipped in the greasy glove.

The overweight girl went down.

Tito slapped Juan on the back.

“Got her!” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Go! Go!”

Juan saw the door of the duplex open. A heavyset dark-skinned adult woman came out, then screamed as she ran down the steps to the girl lying facedown in the snow.

IX

[ONE]

Little Bight Bay

Saint John, United States Virgin Islands

Monday, November 17, 5:04 P.M.

Maggie McCain looked out the mouth of the bay and saw on the big water the crisscrossing sailboats, ones she knew were headed to find a mooring buoy or marina to tie up for the night. She was glad to be anchored in her protected cove, with the option of staying there the night or making the run back to the resort after dusk. Her boat, her choice.

As was her ritual, she had uncorked one of the bottles of nice merlot and poured her traditional sunset glass of wine. She had done it countless times in more anchorages than she could recall, and while the wine and the scenery were as sublime as ever, it now felt somewhat mechanical.

She had sipped at the wine, hoping it might loosen the knot that had formed in her stomach after she had gone back to read Philly News Now. She wondered if she should have asked Matt Payne if her not being considered a “person of interest” meant anything more than the obvious. And then there was the update to the article that mentioned the missing case workers from the Sanctuary.

She had closed down that window and gone to the text message page, read over the exchanges, then, shaking her head, signed out of it.

She was about to do the same with her e-mail account when a new e-mail appeared in her queue. Like the majority of the recent—and unread—e-mails sent to her in-box, this one was color-coded in bright red, indicating the sender had assigned it Highest Priority.

It was another message from one of her assistants at Mary’s House.

Maggie was about to ignore it, too, but then read the subject line—and her heart skipped a beat.

Attempted murder?

She clicked on it and read:

From: Charlotte Davies

Date: 17NOV 0501

To: Maggie McCain work

CC: Maggie McCain home

Subject: PLEASE REPLY!!! Attempted Murder at Work