"The office called, Sweetpea," Dixie explained. "Urgent, they said."

From her pocket, Caroline pulled her cell.

"No juice?" Nicole asked.

Caroline stuck the cell back into her pocket.

"No juice," Nicole confirmed, adding, about Caroline's face, "Just look at that puss. Hey, Caroline, no juice, it's no big deal."

"I told them I'd get you the message," Dixie said.

"And I wanted to see Jack's place," Nicole said, surveying the shack. "The lap of luxury, Jack. What'cha doing?"

"It looks as if you're getting ready for the demolition derby," Dixie said, slipping out from the driver's side.

Dixie wore a three-piece white suit, white shirt, baby blue bow tie, off-white socks, white shoes, and a crushable white fedora.

"Nicole," Dixie said, "you were born and bred in this county and you don't recognize a demolition derby car when you see one?" He shook his head. "I have neglected your education. Give me a brush, Jack. It's been a long time since I've helped prepare a clunker like this."

Noticing Nicole's look, Dixie added, "When I was your age, I came close to winning a demolition derby. You driving at the county fair, Jack?"

"Day after tomorrow," Jack said.

"Friday night?" Dixie said. "I'll be there."

Dixie took a brush out of a pail of paint thinner and inhaled deeply.

"I love the smell of turpentine," Dixie said.

He studied the colors in each of the six gallon cans of paint. Daintily, he dipped his brush in black and with a few deft strokes outlined a reclining nude.

"You're such a dirty old man," Nicole said.

"She only says that," Dixie told Jack, "because last night, while we were watching a Doris Day movie on TV, I told her Bob Hope used to call her JB. For Jut Butt."

"I want a brush, too," Nicole said.

She grabbed a brush from the can of paint thinner and plunged it up to the handle in red paint.

"You're going to ruin your suit, Dixie," Caroline said.

Jack could tell she was making an effort to sound casual.

So-Jack thought-could Dixie, who shot her a glance.

3.

"You're really going to drive?" Nicole said.

She flipped her brush at Jack, spattering wildflowers behind him: hollyhocks, lilies, asters.

"Is it dangerous?" Caroline asked about the demolition derby.

A mutt trotted over to check out the paint-spattered flowers, then sniffed a tree.

"He's checking his e-mail," Dixie said.

"Is it dangerous?" Caroline asked.

Another, larger dog came to check the spattered flowers. The first dog sniffed the second dog's rear.

"Now," Jack said, "he's checking the canine Facebook."

Nicole made a face and attacked the clunker with red paint, which dripped from her brush down the back of her hand and wrist.

"Is it dangerous?" Caroline asked.

Jack tilted his head and appraised Dixie.

"You've been around for a while," Jack said.

"You're not old," Dixie said, "until you have trouble pulling on your own socks."

"What have you learned from living so long?" Jack asked.

Dipping his brush, Dixie said, as if it was confidential between the two of them, excluding his nieces, "Life is simple. You go from keeping the bathroom door locked when you're a teen so you won't be caught jerking off, to keeping it unlocked when you're my age in case you have a heart attack."

Jack laughed and said, "Dixie, you're okay."

"Is it dangerous?" Caroline shouted.

Jack, Dixie, and Nicole turned to her in unison.

"Not usually," Dixie said.

"I don't want you driving," Caroline told Jack.

But Jack was staring past her shoulder.

Caroline turned just in time to see a man disappear into the trees at the top of a hill.

From Jack's face, she knew it was the man who had tried to kill him on the train.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN.

1.

Jack hobbled up the hill into the trees, leaving Caroline to improvise an explanation: "A neighbor Jack's having trouble with."

"What kind of trouble?" Nicole asked.

"Property rights," Caroline said.

Halfway up the slope, Jack stepped in an animal burrow. Opening up the wound in his leg. Jack felt the bandage get moist. Felt blood sliding down his leg.

Where the dirt slope was almost vertical, Jack used a row of birches as handholds, pulling himself up to the road on the crest above his shack.

Jack found footprints in the soft earth. Tire tracks where the Cowboy must have peeled out when he realized he was noticed.

Why did the Cowboy bolt?

Jack was with three witnesses.

Maybe the Cowboy wanted to keep his job simple. Not out of any humanitarian motive, but out of efficiency.

One corpse is easier to explain away than four.

After Dixie and Nicole left, Caroline told Jack, "Get me a gun."

2.

"Don't forget to call your office," Jack said as he was using a screwdriver handle to tap on the cover of a paint can.

Caroline used Jack's cell phone, wandering in circles as Jack carried the paint cans into a shed beside his shack.

When Caroline handed Jack back his cell, she told him, "They said if I don't go back tomorrow, full-time, they want my resignation."

"Someone pressured them," Jack said.

"They don't want me working with you," Caroline said. "On whatever it is we're working on."

"Maybe," Jack said, "they're trying to keep you from getting killed."

3.

"We're getting out of our depth," Caroline said.

"I don't think we can swim back to shore," Jack said. "Not now."

Caroline didn't answer.

"And if we get back to shore," Jack said, "nothing's going to look the same."

"So we confront Keating?" Caroline asked.

"We have no proof," Jack said.

"Then," Caroline said, "what do we do?"

"Stay alive until we get proof," Jack said.

"And if we don't get proof?" Caroline asked.

"We get revenge," Jack said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT.

1.