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the blanket down and sat up, wincing. Pain cut into her hip and she edged the hospital gown back to see. Her body told the tale. She’d landed on her side when she dove from the path of the car and there was an ugly bruise on her hip that felt bone-deep.
    She got out of bed and looked in the mirror. Her cheek had an ugly scrape—road burn from playing dodge-car in the dark—but otherwise she seemed okay. She changed into her clothes and a nurse caught her, tried to convince her to stay and wait for a doctor to check her out.
    She didn’t. She headed straight for the Starke County Sheriff’s Department.
    “We don’t know who was in the car,” the investigator told her, around bites of a tuna fish sandwich. “Could’ve been anyone.”
    “There had to be cameras,” Erin said. “Didn’t they catch it?”
    “There are, and they did,” he said, “but the driver had parked out of camera range until the last minute. The cameras only picked up the car when it came into the frame taking the run at you.”
    A chill ran down Erin’s spine. That didn’t sound like a disgruntled protester acting on impulse. It sounded like someone who’d been out there watching, waiting. And when the opportunity was right, he—or she, Erin acknowledged, with an eerie memory of the long-skirted shadow she’d seen—wheeled in, hit the lights, and gunned the gas.
    “What was on the cameras?”
    The deputy wiped mayonnaise from his chin. “Besides you leaping out of the way like a scalded cat?” He cracked a smile at her then tossed down his napkin. “It was a dark Hyundai. A rental.”
    “Rental?”
    He put up a hand. “The ID used at the rental agency was bogus. Fake driver’s license, fake credit card, fake insurance.”
    The starch went out of Erin’s body. It
was
planned. And the investigation had already hit a dead end.
    “We’ll keep on it,” the deputy said, though Erin doubted it. “We’re talking to everyone who attended the execution—er, the almost-execution—and everyone who’s been active in the senator’s campaign against your brother.”
    “Even Mrs. McAllister?”
    The man stared.
    “There was a woman in the parking lot when I left. I could see the silhouette of a skirt, just below the knees, like the one the Senator’s wife was wearing.”
    “Aw, God,” he said, wiping his face with a beefy palm. As if he could rub away what she had just said.
    “Put it in your report,” Erin said.
    He jotted down a note. The cynic in Erin made her wonder if it would go into the file or if he’d toss it into the trash the minute she walked out. When he looked back up, his gaze grazed the scrape down her cheek. “Look, miss, this isn’t going to go away. It’s already in this morning’s news and there’ll be a lot of hype for the next week, and now you’re asking me to look at a U.S. Senator’s wife.” He shook his head, reminding Erin of a badgered grandfather. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to disappear while the sheriff up in Ohio does his thing. Just get out of sight for a bit.”
    Erin was a step ahead of him. She stood, remembering Sheriff Nikolaus Mann and his quaint little town. “Thanks,” she said, gathering her purse. “I think you’re right. It
is
a good idea to get away for a while.”
    She knew exactly where she’d go.

CHAPTER
5
    Friday, November 9
    Lake Barrow, Ohio
    6:00 p.m.
    N ICK STRAIGHTENED HIS GUN ARM , homed in on the target, and fired. Staggered backward and almost fell. That’s what happened when you mixed alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. Mostly alcohol.
    He lowered the Hechler & Koch, swayed, and peered into the woods at the target. Evening now, getting too dark for this shit. But he could still make out a few man-shaped pieces of paper hanging on trees, black circles closing around the centers. The closest one was Malcolm Hersher, stuck to a tree forty feet away.
    Nick took another hit of tequila, aimed, and emptied the cartridge into the center of Hersher’s chest. Wobbled