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he spots Ben and Emily. “You there! Don’t try to run! I’ve got you now!”
    Mr. Pendergast favors lime green trousers with little whales on them during the day, and Mrs. Pendergast, Cara says, has had so many face-lifts she hears through her mouth. Last year they bought the old Marsh house, a dignified historic summer home. They tore it down and replaced it with a brand-new one.
    “All right, you little hoodlums,” Mr. Pendergast snarls as he stamps down the street toward them. “You’re coming back to the house with me while I call the police.”
    Ben goes rigid.
    Emily steps forward. “Hello, Mr. Pendergast, are you all right?”
    The old man stops dead in his tracks.
    “It’s Emily Porter, Mr. Pendergast.” She offers her hand.
    Mr. Pendergast narrows his eyes suspiciously.
    Her voice is as sweet as sugar, as cool as ice. “You know—you and Mrs. Pendergast had drinks here last week with my parents and a few of their friends.”
    “Who’s this with you?”
    “It’s Ben McIntyre, Mr. Pendergast.”
    “McIntyre? McIntyre. That’s not a name I know.” He peers at Ben. “You look like an island boy to me.”
    Emily puts her hands on her hips and raises her chin. “He’s my friend,” she asserts stoutly.
    “Is that so? Well, what are you two kids doing out here at this time of night?”
    “We’ve been watching a video. We heard some noises and came outside to see what was going on.”
    Mr. Pendergast glowers as he weighs her words. Finally he lowers the club and the mallet. “Did you see anyone run by just now?”
    “No, sir.” Emily is pure innocence.
    “It’s those blasted island kids again. They’ve put a pair of goats in the yard.”
    “Goats?” Emily bites her cheeks to keep from laughing.
    “They’re eating all the flowers and shitting everywhere.”
    “You could call the animal control officer.”
    “Yes, yes, of course I’ll do that, that’s not the point. Someone’s got to stop these nefarious little assholes before they do real damage.”
    “That’s exactly what Daddy says,” Emily coos.
    The old man mutters away back to his house.
    Expelling a huge sigh of relief, Ben seizes Emily’s shoulders and brings her close so he can whisper in her ear. “Whoa, Emily, you were awesome.”
    “Have you seen The Last of the Mohicans ?” Emily asks.
    “Huh?”
    “In case the cops ask us what we were watching. We own The Last of the Mohicans .”
    “Wow, have you got a cunning mind. Yes, I’ve seen it.”
    “Good. That’s what we watched tonight, right?”
    “But what about your parents?”
    “They’re at a party. If they ask anything, I’ll tell them I let you in after Maggie went to bed.”
    “They’ll kill you.”
    “Yeah, they’ll bore me to death with a lecture.”
    “Well, you saved my ass.” Ben is all heat and intensity and sweat and male, his black hair flopping in his eyes.
    His hands remain on her shoulders, warm and possessive. Her knees are going wobbly. “Oh, well—”
    “Look, don’t tell Maggie, okay? She’ll tell Mom and I’ll get murdered.”
    “I won’t tell. But, Ben—”
    “I know. I’ll cool it for a while.”
    “Good.”
    He wraps a brotherly arm around her shoulders and steers her up the walk to her house. “Go inside,” Ben commands. “It really isn’t smart for a girl your age to be outside alone at night.”
    Emily doesn’t want him to leave—but before she can shut the door, Ben is gone.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Ben’s so excited he’s out in the street kicking a soccer ball at six in the morning. Maggie, more composed, pretends to read, but the words float away into the air, and Frances seems to spend whole hours putting mascara on each individual eyelash. At last Thaddeus arrives in his old clanking Jeep. Everyone crowds in, and off they go along the Polpis Road.
    They’re going to visit Thaddeus’s farm, twenty-five acres between the road and Polpis Harbor.
    Hidden by a great overgrown wall of privet, a rutted dirt lane