He was a watcher, not a local. And by the bulge Petra noticed under his jacket, an armed watcher. But was he watching to make sure no one got in, or that no one got out?

Or was he with the group inside? Standing guard in case…

In case someone like me shows up, she thought. She closed her eyes and swore under her breath. Like the others, Winters would soon be a dead end. If they hadn’t been delayed in New York, they wouldn’t have gotten stuck in traffic, and it was possible they would have been able to get to the house first. Winters would have been theirs.

She pulled out her phone and called Mikhail.

“We’re too late,” she said.

“What happened?”

She told him what she’d found.

“He’s still alive, though,” Mikhail said. “There’s still a chance.”

“The only chance I see involves a high percentage of bullets aimed at my head. Is that what you want me to try?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Have you made progress on Moody?”

“A little. I traced him from Philadelphia to an address in Manhattan, but he’s not there anymore, either. I’m trying to figure out where he went next.”

Petra wanted to scream, but instead she said, “Get us on a flight back tonight.”

She disconnected the call, then stood there for several moments thinking. Maybe Mikhail was right, and Winters wasn’t yet a lost cause. At the very least, pictures of those who had him could be very useful in identifying who the killers were.

She traded her phone for the palm-size digital camera in her bag, then, keeping low, moved back onto Winters’s street, crouching behind a parked car to mask her return. She was only there a few moments before the watcher stepped away from the tree and started crossing the street. He was tilting his head the way a person did when he was listening to a receiver in his ear.

She shot off a couple of pictures, then turned the camera on the house.