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the bells of St. Clement’s.
    You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St. Martin’s.
    When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey.
    When I get rich, say the bells of Shoreditch.
    When will that be? say the bells of Stepney.
    I do not know, says the great bell of Bow.
    Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
    Mal was sure he was hallucinating and for a split second wondered if the previous night had been a part of it. He hadn’t heard that British nursery rhyme since he was five or six, and there was certainly no good reason for him to be hearing it in the Ukrainian countryside, when all the people here were either natives or American. He thought about Hans. Maybe Swiss.
    It was a fairly gruesome song—one that could certainly play a big part in some cheap horror movie, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t slightly spooked by hearing it. Through his binoculars, he could see Abby digging in the field and playing with some kind of handheld machine. Then he caught one of the kids jumping up and down, really just the top of his head, and realized that she must have taken the kids down there too. What was she doing? He couldn’t get any closer because she’d see him. But whatever it was, it seemed to have little to do with the orphanage…unless they had some security features out there? Maybe that was it.
    He really had no idea. But as long as he had eyes on Abby, he was good. She looked happy today, at least probably the happiest he’d seen her since he started watching her. He wondered if he’d had anything to do with that. His mind had been running over the previous night on and off all day. In all his years, he’d never just shagged a girl—on a roof, no less—and had her disappear with no explanation. He at least asked them out, explored their needs, made sure they weren’t looking for a boyfriend or any kind of long-term friendship before closing the deal. He even balked at friends with benefits—he never believed the women who claimed to want that.
    His phone vibrated. Baston.
    “Garrett here,” he said.
    “What man did she go to dinner with?” his boss asked with no preamble.
    Shit, as soon as he’d woken up, he’d regretted the sitrep he’d sent the night before. He didn’t know why he hadn’t just sent a same-old, same-old report. He should have seen this coming.
    “No one I’d seen before.” He flipped onto his back in the grass and closed his eyes and lied through his teeth. “I was with her the whole time. I wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.”
    There was a pause. “Okay, keep me updated. If she sees him again, I want a full background on him. Do you copy?” Baston barked down the phone line.
    “Copy that.” She won’t see him again.
    His boss hung up. Mal looked at the phone and groaned. Well at least that settled that. He wouldn’t be seeing her again, so no need to make up a background investigation.
    He rolled back onto his front and aimed his binoculars at Abby again. For a second he couldn’t see her, until she came into stark focus—through the lenses she looked as if she were almost on top of him. He pulled his elbows down and lay flat in the grass, hoping she wouldn’t see him from the path that led back to the farmhouse.
    He held his breath as she walked past him, maybe ten feet from where he was lying. When she passed, he looked up. Her eyes were on the ground, and her hands had children hanging off them. Cute. And then one of the kids turned his head and looked him straight in the eye. He was paralyzed. Why had he looked up? He could have just stayed lying down until she was back inside.
    The little boy blinked his light blue eyes at him and grinned a huge, toothless smile and then turned back to keep step with Abby.
    He flopped back down. That served him right for trying to cop a look. Jesus. He should have just stuck to the routine. He was here to keep her safe, not discover her every secret. An