My 6-year-old granddaughter phoned me in panic just after midnight. “Mommy says the baby is coming! Help!” I asked, “Where’s daddy?” She answered, “He k!cked mommy’s tummy and left.”…..

You willing to help? Depends. What do you need? Information? Where he hides his money? Who he trusts? What scares him? June laughed, but there was no humor in it. Trent doesn’t trust anybody. And the only thing that scares him is losing his money. He’s got about 50,000 in cash stashed in a safe deposit box at First National.

Thinks nobody knows about it, but he bragged about it one night when he was trying to impress me. What else? He’s paranoid about his gambling operation. Thinks everyone’s trying to rip him off, which they probably are. He’s also convinced that his bookie and Billings is skimming from him, but he can’t prove it. Harry filed the information away.

Paranoia was a useful tool if he knew how to feed it. There’s something else. June continued. Trent’s got a mean streak a mile wide, but he’s also a coward. First sign of real trouble. He runs. That’s what happened after he hit Cassidy. Soon as he realized what he’d done, he took off instead of facing the consequences. Where does he go when he runs? Lake cabin mostly.

But if things get really bad, he’s got a bolt hole. Old hunting lodge about 60 mi north belongs to his cousin. Place is falling down, but it’s off the grid. No phone, no electricity, just a place to hide until the heat dies down. Harry made a mental map of the locations. Escape routes were important. You had to know where someone was likely to run before you could trap them.