“No, tonight we go to Maggie’s.”

“Maggie’s?” I stepped back. “We can’t go there. Dominick’s been watching the house, waiting for me.”

“You should have killed him nights ago, ripped his throat and watched him bleed. Maggie cared for you, little coward.”

William never spoke to me except in garbled sentences about chess games and rabbits. Philip’s use of “coward” sliced like a thin blade. Thinking myself above it all, above him, above pain, the shame made me choke.

Only because he was right.

“He knows what we are,” I said. “How to really end us, not like a peasant with stakes. He used a shovel to cut off William’s head.”

“You and Maggie shared a weakness, having grown too dependent on your gifts. Not lions anymore, but snakes, waiting only for the right time to strike. William was no challenge, old and weak. I am still a lion, and I am not weak.”

His words weren’t a hollow boast to impress me. Philip wielded the truth like a weapon. But he barely mentioned Maggie’s name after leaving the hotel last night. I thought his mourning must either be internal or past. Now he wanted revenge. What good would it do? We couldn’t get Maggie back.

“Can’t we just go, Philip? Just run? There’s nothing left here. Killing Dominick won’t change anything.”

“Are you coming, or do I go alone?”

The thought of staying here by myself, wondering, waiting, frightened me more than Dominick did. “I’m coming. But promise you won’t play with him. He’s dangerous. Promise we’ll just do it and go.”

“Whatever you want.” He seemed pleased, like a little boy with a new puppy. He glanced around the old junkyard. “These cars don’t work. We have to find others.”

“Couldn’t we just call a cab?”

A little over an hour later, we pulled up to Maggie’s in a ’79 Chevy pickup with Styx’s “Pieces of Eight” flooding from the speakers—Philip had actually wanted to put in Boston. I was going to have a serious talk with him about music when we had time.

“Didn’t you ever watch MTV?”

“What’s that?”

“Forget it.”

Somebody else must be buying his clothes.

The house looked dark.

Stepping from the car, I cast around with my mind for Wade. He wasn’t here. That would be just like him, though, to come back here instead of running for Portland.

Philip walked out the front gate and came back a moment later. “There’s a dark-haired man two blocks down the street in a silver Mustang.”

“That’s him.” Fear crawled up the back of my neck.

“Good, then he saw us drive up. Do you have a key?”

“A key?” I tried to smile, but my teeth kept clicking. “Mr. Break-and-Enter wants a key?”

“If I know Maggie, this place will be locked like a fortress.”

“Dominick broke in the night he killed William.”

“Then somebody got careless—left a window open maybe.”

Did we? I didn’t think so. But that would be too much to bear. Guilt from William’s death weighed heavily enough.

I had a set of keys, but getting past the multiple locks on the front door still took a few minutes. Philip had been right about that. There was also a dead bolt that someone would normally have to slide back from the inside, but Wade and I left in a hurry the night before last, out the back.

“Okay, we’re in,” I said.

“Leave the door cracked. I want him to waltz right inside.”

“He isn’t that careless.”

“We’ll see.”

“Do you want another shirt? That one’s all stiff.”

We went upstairs to Maggie’s room. I took my coat off and laid it on the bed, but then I watched Philip’s face as he walked in. He disappointed me a little. Instead of gasping in awe at her wondrous creation, he stepped to the window and lifted up yards of satin drapes to expose a blacked-out window laced with steel bars. He stomped his foot once against the floor.

“Good,” he said. “Hardwood floors beneath the carpet, Sheetrock walls. We can sleep in here if we have to. What’s the door reinforced with?”

I’d never even noticed the bars before. Philip must have known Maggie far better than I had. This room made me happy because of its beauty. But we definitely weren’t sleeping here—too high off the ground. So, instead of answering his question, I went to the walk-in closet and found an oversized plaid flannel shirt . . . maybe from Maggie’s baseball player?

“Here, this will fit.”

He wrinkled his nose. “I am not wearing that.”

Was he serious?

“Philip, no one cares how you’re dressed right now. This is soft, and it will fit loose if