Elektra walked on, stumbling again and cursing her wet shoes that were rubbing at her heels. She passed another two houseboats and, although each was in the right position, they were too modern or too old.
At a bench beside the pathway, she sat down to take off her shoes, then pitched them one at a time into a bin a metre away. Her aim was way off, and they clanged against the metal, startling something in the tree behind it. Elektra went to push herself off the bench to place them in the bin, but her energy had all but drained from her arms and legs. The pills she had taken earlier seemed to have done little to allay the breathlessness and oscillations of panic. Reaching into the back pocket of her jeans, she removed the card and punctured another blister. She did this without looking, a
