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would happen. The passenger elevators faced the long reception counter in the lobby, and either a guard or one of the staff at the counter would recognize him and he’d be sent back to his room like a child, or the staff and the guards would be busy closing up for the night, waiting for the night shift guards who manned the counter until morning, and no one would notice him. It could go either way, the lady or the lion, but not much of a lady or a lion, not much risk at all. Laughable, in fact.
    When the elevator door slid open, he quickly wheeled out and around the corner using his good left hand, which he felt was becom ing stronger to make up for the atrophy of his right hand. He rolled away from the reception area and, apparently not being noticed by the busy staff behind the counter, headed down the long hall connecting the nursing home wing to the main building.
    Although Steve still had trouble recalling things from before his stroke, he was getting better at recalling things from the recent past. He knew that the activity center was a huge room at the far end of the wing. He would have to travel the entire length of the wing. First would be the intermediate nursing home patients, ones like Sue and Marjorie who could still get around. After intermediate he’d have to circle the nurses’ station in the center of the wing. Finally he’d have to pass through skilled care where most patients were bedridden. He assumed that at this time of evening, the wing staff would be busy, as they had been on his floor, helping residents who could not get them selves ready for bed.
    The hearsay at Hell in the Woods was that the nursing home wing turned into a block-long tomb quite early in the evening. But all was not quiet in the nursing home wing. He’d made it through the auto matic double doors and rolled the length of the intermediate section when he heard voices being raised. Apparently a few of the staff were in a room across the hall from the nurses’ station. As he approached the sound of the voices, he kept glancing behind him. He figured someone would come up from behind and he’d be sent back upstairs. But, so far, that hadn’t happened.
    When he got to the doorway from which the voices emerged, he paused, trying to think of a good reason for being here. But mostly, he wondered what had made him come here.
    The last time Jan visited, and they’d finished their usual emo tional greeting, which sometimes resulted in her closing the door and propping the guest chair against it so they could have a little privacy, she’d spoken again about the case he was on when they met. She had hired him to find out who killed her husband and someone else. Yes, someone he knew. Sam Pike. When Jan questioned him about the case, all he could remember at the time was that it had something to do with kids. He had no idea whose kids or how many kids. He sim ply remembered that the case had something to do with kids.
    Jan was quite excited about this, saying he was getting much bet ter at remembering things. For the few weeks since he’d been at Hell in the Woods, this is how it had gone with Jan. She would prompt him until he recalled some tidbit from the past—or from something she’d said on a previous visit, he wasn’t sure which—and she would use this recollection to begin telling him the details of an incident. When he’d recalled that the case involving Jan’s husband and Sam Pike had something to do with kids, she told what seemed like a tall tale, but insisted that every word of it was true.
    The part of the tale he recalled now was that there were some kids being held on an island and that they were in danger. Young men with automatic weapons guarded the island and it was up to him and Jan to help the kids get away. Apparently those responsible for her hus band’s and Sam Pike’s deaths were holding the kids. The kids were not related to him or to Jan, but someone had to help them. Jan said they took a rowboat out to