Crush walked farther into the lunch room, closer to the snack machines. “Have you ever been on skates?”

She nodded. “I used to figure skate. It made sense when I was five. Then I was twelve and—”

“Suddenly five-ten?”

“Try six feet.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. My poor parents.”

“Why were they surprised?”

She shrugged. “I was adopted. They were full-human. I didn’t know what I was until my ninth grade English teacher told me. When she told me I was ‘special,’ I thought she was just hitting on me.”

“Kind of a glass-half-empty girl?”

“It is half empty. Half full makes no sense.”

Crush pressed his back into the wall, ducking his head so she couldn’t see him smile.

“At the very least,” he was finally able to tell her without laughing, “you can skate. You won’t fall on your face. Some of the ones trying out ... not pretty.”

“I haven’t skated in years. And I’m just not sure that I should be put into violent situations that involve sticks and big guys aggressively coming at me.”

“Why not?”

Her eyes lowered and she seemed to suddenly close in on herself. Crush watched her, his head tilting to the side. The cop in him had a litany of questions to ask her, but that wasn’t what she needed right now: a cop asking why she shouldn’t be in violent situations. So Crush said, “Think of it this way ... if you don’t go to the tryout, Blayne will think you’re still available.”

Hannah’s head snapped up, her eyes blinking wide. “Oh, God. I forgot.”

“So you might as well give it a shot, right?”

She snorted, nodded her head. “Yeah. You’re right. I might as well just get this over with.”

She headed off and Crush followed, the pair walking back into the rink. Cella smiled when she saw them, and skated over.

“Am I too late?” Hannah asked.

“Nope. Not at all. In fact, I want you to hit the ice with these two ladies. They’ve been doing really well today.” Cella motioned to two Arctic She-foxes. Sisters. No. Actually twins. They made their way over and stopped, grinning. “This is Nita and Nina Gallo.”

“Hi!” the tiny foxes said in unison. Crush would guess they weren’t older than nineteen. Maybe. They were cute, though, but tiny. Five-six, if that, and maybe a hundred pounds. He had to admit, he was surprised they were here. Foxes this age were usually off doing something that required Crush to arrest them. Or, at the very least, try to arrest them. The sole reason that he, unlike most polars, had no foxes to call his own.

“We’ll meet you out on the ice!” these foxes chirped. Then they waved and skatedoff.

Hannah looked up at him. “Because it’ll be so much fun for me to be the giant ogre standing over the little elf girls.”

“Welcome to my world, kid. Now go out there and do some damage.”

Cella saw the looks on the guys’ faces and skated over to them. “Well?”

Van Holtz and MacRyrie shrugged, but Novikov ... “She’ll need work,” he complained.

“I know.”

“All three of them will.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Her skating is beyond rusty. And the other two have the attention spans of fleas.”

“I know. I know.” Cella didn’t argue. She waited.

“She’s fast, though,” he finally admitted. “And the foxes, with some serious training, could be pretty good. Maybe.”

Cella nodded. “I think you’re right. Instead of putting them on right away, why not go your route? Start ’em off in the minors and let them work their way up.” Of course, one of Cella’s uncles was the assistant coach of the minors so Cella kind of worked with the minor team anyway, but no need to mention that.

Novikov looked off. “Well ... that might work.”

She glanced at Van Holtz and MacRyrie. They were staring at her, eyes wide, until Van Holtz mouthed at her, How do you do that?

They sat in Dee-Ann’s car, staring across the street.

“That’s a ...”

“Yeah. A country club. For very rich people.”

“Huh. Learn something new every day.”

They hadn’t driven all the way from Atlantic City to the Hamptons; they had taken Van Holtz’s helicopter from AC to the Hamptons, a rental car taking them here. To a country club.

The girl pointed. “He came out of there.”

“Past that hedge?”

“Yeah. But I think there’s a door there.”

“Okay.”

Sophie briefly chewed her bottom lip.

“What?”

“I just don’t know if you should ...”

“If I should what?”

“Challenge these people.”

“Because they’re rich?”

“Look, I don’t steal some poor guy’s Prius or the Ford he inherited from his dad, you know? That’s not my thing.”

“You steal from rich people.”

“And I know my targets. I know them really well. I make it my business to know. Although the town, in theory, owns the country club, there’s a man who runs it. And he’s not dangerous just because he’s rich. He’s dangerous because he knows how to play both sides of any situation. He practically makes me seem like Mother Teresa. Just ... be careful.”