He shifted over, his hip brushing mine. “Go on outside. Get some air.”

“I’m-”

He bumped me with his hip, causing his stack of junk food to sway. “Go. Stretch your legs. There’s a field out back, isn’t there? Behind the building?”

“I think so.”

“Find a picnic spot then. Grab Jeremy and I’ll meet you there.”

“Thanks.”

Jeremy was just outside the doors, eying one of those new SUV hybrids.

“Looking for a trade-up on the Explorer?” I asked.

“I was thinking of you.”

“I have a car.”

“Which is half dead, has no air bags, no child restraints, and is definitely not baby-friendly.” He waved at the SUV wannabe. “This is cute.”

“Cute? It looks like a minihearse. Yes, I know I’ll need something new. But not that. And if you mention minivan-”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

I told him Clay’s picnic plan.

“That’s fine,” Jeremy said. “I need to use the restroom. You can wait for me or, if Clay comes out first, I’ll meet you both out back.”

He started to walk past me, then stopped to watch a vehicle pull in a few spots down. A Mercedes SUV.

“Perhaps something like that,” he said. “It’s a luxury vehicle, sure to have all the top safety features, plus be quite reliable in bad weather, but not as big and unwieldy as the Explorer. I’m sure you’d find it quite peppy.”

“Peppy? That’s almost as bad as ‘cute.’ ”

“It would be the perfect vehicle for a-”

“Suburban soccer mom.”

A slight furrow of the brows.

“Never mind. Just…” I waved at the car. “Not me. Not now. Not ever. I’ll find something. But not-” I looked at the Mercedes and shivered. “That.”

He shook his head and walked toward the building.

I followed the walkway along the north side of the service center. Behind the building, the path cut on a diagonal to the southwest truckers’ lot.

The whir of the huge air-conditioning unit and the distant rumble of idling trucks blocked out the roar of the highway to the north. To my right was a white storage silo. Beyond that was a swamp.

I thought the swamp was what I’d smelled when I first picked up the scent of something heavy and overripe. But the smell came on the south wind, blowing toward the swamp, not from it. The scent carried other notes too, all human-the smell of an unwashed body and unwashed clothes, male, seemingly healthy, but underlain with that faint scent of overripeness. Of…rot.

It was the same scent I’d smelled on the man in the bowler yesterday. Not sickness but rot, so faint I had to get a noseful before I was sure. I realized it was the same thing I’d smelled walking backfrom the restaurant after breakfast.

I dismissed it. No one-and nothing-could track us like that. We were 185 miles from Cabbagetown. Even I would’ve lost the trail the moment we’d driven away last night. If this guy came from where I thought he did-nineteenth-century London -well, let’s just say he couldn’t hop into a car and give chase.

So it was impossible. Even when I glimpsed a figure darting between the rigs in the southwest lot, and caught another whiff of that distinctive scent, I knew it couldn’t-shouldn’t-be him. But follow logic too far and it can lead right into the jaws of folly.

Jeremy had asked me to wait for him or Clay, and I hadn’t meant to ignore him. But after fifteen years of being able to walk through deserted parking lots without a spark of fear, I was ill-accustomed to needing an escort.

Someone was following me, possibly hoping to cut me off when I was far enough from the service center, and from my male companions. At the very least, I should stop and wait for Jeremy and Clay.

Yet, the moment they showed up, my pursuer would run. So I kept going slowly and concentrated on picking up some sense of Clay. No luck. I stopped to tie my shoes and scope out the playing field.

Swamp to the right. A good place to throw my pursuer off-kilter, but the stink and the water would make tracking difficult. The field in front of me was too open. Behind it was a forest, which screamed “pick me, pick me.” My ideal environment. But it was too far away, and I risked losing him on the trek across the open field. The parking lot had lots of places to hide, and that’s where he was now. But the noise, the stink of diesel fuel and the possibility of bystanders would complicate matters. The best choice was also the closest-that thirty-foot-wide storage silo to my right.

Rotten

I WALKED SLOWLY PAST THE SILO, STILL STRAINING FOR A sense of Clay. When I reached the other side I felt that little twinge of relief and anticipation that told me he was nearby. As for where exactly he was, I had no idea. But he’d be looking for me.

With a half-dozen strides, I was close enough to touch the silo, and I started circling toward the back. Quick steps pattered over the pavement-someone running across the parking lot, footfalls too heavy to be Clay or Jeremy, the slightly awkward clomp of one unaccustomed to silent hunting.

I caught a whiff on the breeze, heavy with rot. On that same breeze came a more familiar-and certainly more pleasant-smell. Clay was getting closer. I smiled and picked up my pace to lure my pursuer farther behind the silo.

The clomping footsteps sped up, closing the gap. Closing in fast. Waiting for Clay wasn’t going to be an option.

I spun around and found myself a hairsbreadth from being skewered by a butcher’s knife. It was probably more like two feet away, but any time a knife that big is pointed at you it seems a whole lot closer.