The Search

Twenty-One

She woke in solid dark, unable to move or see or speak. Her head throbbed like an open wound, while nausea churned choppy waves in her belly. Disoriented, terrified, she struggled, but her arms remained pinned behind her back; her legs felt paralyzed.

She could do no more than worm, buck and struggle to breathe.

Her eyes, wide and wild, wheeled in her head. She heard the hum, steady, forceful, and thought—fresh panic—she was in the cave of some wild animal.

No, no. An engine. A car. She was in a car. In the trunk of a car. The man. The man on the jogging path.

She could see it all so clearly, the bold morning sun, the dreamy blue sky like a canvas against the rich hues of fall. That hint of autumn spice on the air like a flavor on her tongue.

Her muscles had warmed. She’d felt so loose, so limber. So powerful. She’d loved that feeling, the heady rush of being alone in a world of color and spice. Just her and the morning and the freedom to run.

Then the man, jogging toward her. No big deal. They’d pass, he’d be gone, and the world would be hers again.

But... did he stumble, did he fall, did she stop for a second to help? She couldn’t remember, not exactly. All blurred now.

But she could see his face. The smile, the eyes—something in those eyes—an instant before the pain.

Pain. Like being struck by lightning.

It spun in her head as the rhythm beneath her changed and the floor vibrated under her. Rough road, she thought in some dizzy corner of her brain.

She thought of her uncle’s warnings, and Greg’s. Don’t run alone. Keep the panic button handy. Stay alert.

So easily dismissed. What could happen to her? Why would anything happen?

But it had. It had. She’d been taken.

All those girls—the girls she’d seen in the paper. The dead girls she’d felt sorry for—until she’d forgotten them and gone on with her life.

Was she going to be one of them, one of the dead girls in the paper, on the news reports?

But why? Why?

She wept and struggled and screamed. But the sounds drowned against the tape over her mouth, and the movements only cut the bands into her skin until she smelled her own blood and sweat.

Until she smelled her own death.

She woke in the dark. Trapped. The scream burned up her throat only to be bitten back when she felt the weight of Simon’s arm tossed over her, when she heard the steady breathing—his, the dog’s.

But the panic was spiders skittering inside her chest, under her skin.

So the scream stayed in her head, piercing.

Get out! Get out! Get out!

She shoved herself toward the flap, fought it open and crawled out where the cool, damp air slapped at her face.

“Hold on. Hey. Hold on.”

When Simon gripped her shoulders she pushed at him. “Don’t. Don’t. Just need to breathe.” Hyperventilating—she knew it but couldn’t stop it. A boulder pressed on her chest, and her head began to swim in long, sick waves. “Can’t breathe.”

“Yes you can.” He tightened his grip, yanked her up to her knees and gave her a quick, shocking shake. “Breathe. Look at me, Fiona. Right here. Breathe! Now!”

She sucked in air on a short, shaky gasp.

“Let it out. Do what I tell you. Let it out, take it in. Slow it down. Slow it the hell down.”

She stared at him, wondered at him. Who the hell did he think he was? She shoved at his chest, met an unmoving wall even as he shook her again.

And she breathed.

“Keep going. Bogart, sit. Just sit. In and out. Look at me. In and out. Better, that’s better. Keep it up.”

He let her go. Focused on inhaling, exhaling, she sank back to sit on her heels as Bogart nudged his nose against her arm. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Drink. Slow.” Simon cupped her hands around a water bottle. “Slow.”

“I know. I’ve got it. I’m okay.” She blew out a long breath first, then sipped carefully. “Thanks, sorry, whatever altogether. Wow.” She sipped again. “I guess I wasn’t too tired for that panic attack after all. I had a flashback. It’s been... God, a really long time since I had one, but I guess the circumstances were pretty fertile ground.”

Breathing steadier, she draped her arm around Bogart’s neck. “You were mean,” she said to Simon. “And exactly what I needed to snap me out before I passed out. You could give lessons.”

“You scared the fuck out of me. Goddamn it.”

Before she could speak he held up a hand to stop her, then spun away to pace over the soggy ground. “Goddamn it. I’m not any good at this kind of thing.”

“Beg to differ.”

He whirled back. “I like you better tough.”

“Me too. Panic attacks and hyperventilating to the edge of unconsciousness are embarrassing moments.”

“It’s not a damn joke.”

“No, it’s reality. My reality.” She swiped her arm over her clammy face. “Fortunately, it’s not something I have to deal with regularly anymore.”

“Don’t,” he said when she started to rise. “You’re white as a sheet. If you try standing by yourself, you’ll fall on your face.”

He moved to her, took her hands to help her up. “You’re not supposed to be pale and fragile,” he said quietly. “You’re bright and bold and strong.” He pulled her close. “And this makes me want to kill him.”

“It’s probably wrong, but God, I appreciate that. Still, Perry’s worse off than dead.”

“That’s a matter of opinion. But maybe beating him half to death would be more satisfying.”

His heart, she realized, beat harder and faster than her own. And that, she realized, was another kind of comfort.

“Well, if you want violence, I broke his nose kicking him in the face when he opened the trunk.”

“Let me focus on that a minute. It’s good. Not complete, but not bad.”

She eased back. “Are we okay?”

He stroked her cheek, his eyes intense on hers. “Are you?”

“Yes. But I’m glad it’s nearly dawn, because I’m not going back in that tent. If you could get my pack, I’ve got some bouillon cubes we can heat up.”

“Bouillon at dawn?”

“Breakfast of champions, especially when you add a power bar.” Better, she thought, so much better to focus on what came next than what had happened before. “Once we eat and break camp, I’ll call in to base for the status, and a weather report.”

“Fine. Fiona? On the off chance I ever do this with you again, we’re getting a bigger tent.”

“Bet your ass.”

The bouillon was bland, but it was warm. As far as her nutrition bars, or whatever the hell you called them, Simon vowed if he ever came out again, he’d bring Snickers.

She broke camp as she did everything else, he noted. In an organized and precise fashion. Everything had to be put away exactly where it had come from.

“Okay, the forecast is good,” she announced. “Sunny, low seventies for a high—and we won’t reach that until this afternoon—light winds from the south. We’re moving into the northern section of the wilderness area. It’s not too rough. We’ll have some hills, slopes, some rocky ground. The understory may get thick in places, especially off the marked trails. I’m guessing after the hike they’d already put in, they wouldn’t choose the more mountainous terrain, or have kept going southeast into the higher elevations and rougher ground.”

“I can’t figure out why the hell they’d have come as far as this.”

“Again, I’m guessing, but he’s competitive, he’s pushing. Even if he was a little turned around, he probably wouldn’t admit it at first. And that type wouldn’t take the easier ground—wouldn’t necessarily head downhill instead of uphill.”

“Because he’s got something to prove.”

“More or less. I asked the woman they’re traveling with if he was the type who’d stop and ask directions—and she laughed. Nervous laugh, but a laugh. He’d drive to hell before he’d ask for directions. So you figure by the time he, or they, realized they were seriously screwed, it was just too late.”

“A lot of space out here to get lost in.” Which would he have done, he wondered, uphill or down, call for help or push on?

He wasn’t altogether sure, and hoped he wouldn’t ever have to find out.

“And if you’re not familiar with it, one fir or hemlock looks like the other hundreds. Anyway, we’re expanding the search area.” She glanced up. “Do you want me to show you on the map?”

“Do you plan on ditching me in the wilderness?”

“Only if you piss me off.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Then we saddle up.” She shrugged on her pack, gave Bogart the scent and juiced him up for the game.

Watery sunlight sparkled on mists and filtered through to shine on leaves that shed their rainwater from the night’s storm. Simon couldn’t say what Bogart smelled, but for him, it was clean and damp and green.

The ground roughened and rose, and still wildflowers, tiny stars of color, carved their way through cracks to bask or ranged themselves along skinny streams like waders about to dip their toes.

A downed tree, hollowed out by weather, tooth and claw, had him crossing over.

“Do you see something?”

“A bench,” he muttered. “Curve the seat, just like that. Back and arms, all out of one log. Carve a mushroom motif maybe on the base.”

He surfaced to see both her and Bogart waiting for him. “Sorry.”

“Bogart needed water anyway.” She offered the bottle to Simon. “I could use a bench.”

“Not that one. Too solid, too hefty for you. It wouldn’t—”

“Suit me. Got it.” Shaking her head, she checked in with base.

Despite the strengthening sun, Fiona continued to use her flashlight, running the beam over brush and trail as the dog trotted along.

“He’s picked it up. The rest did him good.”

“Isn’t the world basically a banquet of smells for a dog? How come he doesn’t get distracted? Hey, a rabbit! Or whatever. Jaws’ll chase a blowing leaf.”

“It’s training, practice, repetition. But basically, that’s not the game. The game’s to find the source of the scent I gave him.”

“The game’s moving off the trail,” Simon pointed out.

“Yeah.” She followed the dog, climbing the rough slope, maneuvering through brush. “They made a mistake here. Bogart may not get distracted, but people do. They left the marked trail, maybe they saw some deer or a marmot, or wanted to take a photo. Maybe they decided they’d try for a shortcut. There’s a reason the trails are marked, but people veer off anyway.”

“If the dog’s right, so were you. Competitive Kevin would go up instead of down.”

Bogart slowed down for the humans as they negotiated the climb. “Maybe they figured they’d get a cool view if they went up this way. But... Wait. Bogart! Hold!”

She turned her light on a berry bush. “He caught his jacket,” she murmured, and gestured to a tiny triangle of brown cloth. “Good dog. Good job, Bogart. Flag the find, will you?” she asked Simon. “I’m going to call this in to base.”

She’d shown him how to mark the finds early on the search when they’d come across tracks or other signs. Once he’d tied the flag, he gave Bogart water, took some for himself while she shouted for Kevin and Ella.

“Nothing yet. But this understory sucks up the sound. It’s warming up, and the wind’s still light, still good for us. He wants to go. He’s got a good scent. Let’s find Kevin and Ella. Go find!”

“What’s the longest you’ve ever been on a search?”

“Four days. It was brutal. Nineteen-year-old boy, pissed off at his family, walked away from their campsite after they’d bedded down for the night. Got lost, wandered in circles and took a bad fall. High summer—heat, bugs, humidity. Meg and Xena found him. Unconscious, dehydrated, concussed. He’s lucky he made it.”

Bogart zigzagged now, moving east, then west, turning back to the north.

“He’s confused.”

“No,” Fiona corrected, watching Bogart’s body language. “They were.”

Ten minutes later Simon spotted the cell phone—or what was left of it—in a huddle of rock. “There.”

He quickened his pace to reach Bogart, who stood at alert.

“Good eye,” Fiona said. “It’s cracked.” She crouched to pull it out. “Broken. Look here. Bandage wrappers on the ground, and this looks like blood—the rain didn’t wash it all off in here.”

“So one of them fell? Hit the rock, phone dropped, hit the rock?”

“Maybe. Only a couple bandages, so that’s a plus.” She nodded as he took out a flag without her asking. Once again, she cupped her hands and shouted. “Damn it. Damn it. How much farther would they go after this? I’ll call it in.”

“And eat something.” He dug into her pack himself. “Hey, you’ve got Milky Ways.”

“That’s right. Quick energy.”

“And I ate that crap bar. Sit down for five minutes. Eat. Drink.”

“We’re close. I know it. He knows it.”

“Five minutes.”

She nodded and, sitting on the rocks, ate a candy bar while she talked to Mai.

“We’re realigning the search. We’ve hit two finds, and Lori hit one that indicates this direction. Air search will sweep this way. It’s a red phone, and I’m betting hers. Mai’s going to check on that, but I don’t see Kevin with a bright red phone.”

“So that’s probably her blood.”

“Probably. He’s nuts about her, according to the friends. Just nuts about her. She’s hurt, he’d panic a little. Or maybe a lot, considering. You panic, you make it worse most of the time.”

“He could’ve called for help from right here.”

Fiona pulled out her cell. “Nope. Dead zone. That’s why they call it the wilderness. He probably tried to find a signal, ended up more lost, more off any kind of trail.”

They headed out again. Bogart was deep into the “game,” Simon concluded, trotting ahead, sending what could only be impatient looks over his shoulder as if to say, Hurry the hell up!

“Lost,” Fiona said half to herself. “Scared now—not an adventure anymore. One of them injured, even if it’s minor. Tired. New boots.”

“New boots?”

“Ella. New boots. She’s bound to have blisters by now. The instinct would be to take easier ground whenever they can. Downhill, or level ground, and they’d probably stop often to rest if she’s hurting. The storm last night. They’re wet, cold, hungry. They—Hear that?”

“Hear what?”

She held up a finger, concentrated. “The river. You can just hear the river.”

“Now that you mention it.”

“When you’re lost, scared, people often try to find high ground—to see more, to be seen. That might not be an option with an injury. Another instinct is to head for water. It’s a landmark, a trail, a comfort.”

“What happened to the deal about staying in one place and somebody’ll find you?”

“Nobody listens to that.”

“Apparently not. He’s got something.” Simon gestured to Bogart. “Look up. There’s a sock on that branch.”

“Once again, good eye. It’s a little late, but far from never. He’s started marking a trail. Good dog, Bogart. Find! Come on, let’s find Ella and Kevin!”

When they found a second sock in roughly a quarter mile, Fiona nodded. “Definitely the river, and he’s thinking again. He could use his phone here, see?” She showed Simon the service on hers. “So something’s up with that. But he’s trying to take easy ground, and he’s moving toward the river.”

“More blood, more bandage wrappers,” Simon pointed out.

“Dry. After the storm. These are from this morning.”

She lifted her voice to encourage the dog and, once again, to shout. This time, Simon heard it, a faint call in return.

Bogart gave a happy bark, then broke into a lope.

He felt it, a rise of excitement, a fresh spurt of energy as he quickened his pace to match Fiona’s and the dog’s.

In moments he saw a man, muddied, bedraggled, hobbling up a small rise.

“Thank God. Thank God. My wife—she’s hurt. We’re lost. She’s hurt.”

“It’s okay.” Even as she hurried toward him, Fiona pulled out her water bottle. “We’re Canine Search and Rescue. You’re not lost anymore. Drink some water. It’s okay.”

“My wife. Ella—”

“It’s okay. Bogart. Good dog. Good dog! Find Ella. Find. He’ll go to her, stay with her. Are you hurt, Kevin?”

“No. I don’t know.” His hand trembled on the water bottle. “No. She fell. Her leg’s cut, and her knee’s bad. She’s got awful blisters, and I think a fever. Please.”

“We’re going to take care of it.”

“I’ve got him.” Simon put an arm around Kevin, took his weight. “Go.”

“It’s my fault,” Kevin began as Fiona rushed after the dog. “It’s—”

“Don’t worry about that now. How far is she?”

“Just down there, by the water. I tried to move more into the open after last night. There was a storm.”

“Yeah.”

“We tried to stay covered. Jesus God. Where are we? Where the hell are we?”

Simon wasn’t entirely sure himself, but he saw Fiona and Bogart sitting beside a woman. “You’re found, Kevin. That’s what counts.”

He passed out candy bars, heated bouillon while Fiona checked and rebandaged the wound, elevated Ella’s swollen knee, treated the very nasty blisters on both her feet and Kevin’s.

“I’m such an idiot,” Kevin murmured.

“Yes, you are.” Huddled in a blanket, Ella managed a small smile. “He forgets to charge his phone battery. I’m so caught up in taking snapshots I talk him off the trail. Then he’s all, hey let’s try this way. Then I don’t look where I’m going and fall. We’re both idiots, and I’m burning those hiking boots the first chance I get.”

“Here.” Simon pressed the cup of bouillon on her. “Not as much fun as the Milky Way, but it should help.”

“It’s delicious,” Ella said after a small sip. “I thought we were going to die last night in that storm. I really did. When we were still alive this morning, I knew we’d make it. I knew somebody would find us.” When she turned to lay a hand on Bogart, the shine in her eyes shimmered with tears and relief. “He’s the most beautiful dog in the world.”

Bogart wagged his tail in agreement, then laid his head on Ella’s thigh.

“They’re sending an off-road.” Fiona hooked her radio back on her belt. “We can get you out in that. Your friends say you won the bet hands down, and they’re adding a magnum of champagne to drinks and dinner.”

Kevin dropped his head on his wife’s shoulder. As his shoulders shook, Bogart licked his hand in comfort.

“She’s not even pissed at him,” Simon observed as they bumped and rocked in a second off-road.

“Survival tops pissed off. They shared an intense, scary experience—and probably went off on each other a number of times during it. That’s done. They’re alive, and riding on euphoria. How about you?”

“Me? I had a hell of a time. It’s not what I expected,” he added after a moment.

“Oh?”

“I guess I thought you went out and tromped around, followed the dog, drank cowboy coffee and ate trail mix.”

“That’s not far off.”

“Yeah, it is. You’ve got one purpose out there, just like the dog. Find what’s lost, and find them as quickly as possible. You follow the dog, sure, but you handle the dog, and yourself while playing detective and psychologist and tracker.”

“Hmm.”

“All while being a team player—not just with the dog, but with the rest of the unit, the other searchers, the cops or whoever’s in authority. And when you find them, you’re paramedic, priest, best friend, mom and commander.”

“We wear many hats. Want to try some on?”

He shook his head. “You’ve already got my dog. He could do this. I get that now. Thank Christ,” he added when he saw the lodge through the trees. “I want a hot shower, a hot meal, a couple vats of coffee. Does that come with the package?”

“It will here.”

Chaos came first. Relief, tears, hugs, even as actual paramedics took over. Somebody slapped his back and shoved hot coffee into his hands. Nothing had ever tasted better.

“Good work.” Chuck tossed him a doughnut every bit as good as the coffee. “Helluva job. There’s a room for you inside if you want a hot shower.”

“Only as much as I want my next breath.”

“With you there. Ugly night, huh? But a damn good morning.”

He glanced over, as Chuck did, toward Ella and Kevin as the medics loaded Ella’s stretcher into an ambulance. “How’s she doing?”

“Knee’s banged up good, and she’ll need a few stitches. But they’re both better than they ought to be. They’ll fix her up. I guarantee this is a vacation they won’t forget.”

“Me either.”

“Nothing like a find,” Chuck said, and did another quick fist pump. “Well, go get that shower. Jill made up her spaghetti and meatballs, and you haven’t lived till you’ve eaten her meatballs. We’ll debrief over lunch.”

When he went inside, some motherly woman hugged him before pressing a room key in his hand. He turned toward the stairs, ran into Lori, got caught in another hug. Before he could get to the second floor, he had his hand shaken twice, his back slapped again. A little dazed, he found the room, closed himself inside.

Quiet, he thought. Silence—or nearly since the noise from downstairs and the corridors was nicely muffled by the door.

Solitude.

He dumped his pack in a chair, dug out the spare socks, boxers, shirt Fiona had instructed him to bring, the travel toothbrush she’d supplied.

On the way to the bathroom he glanced out the window. People continued to mill around. The dogs, obviously too juiced up from the game, trotted after humans or one another.

He didn’t find Fiona. He’d lost sight of her minutes after they’d gotten back to base.

He stripped, turned the shower on full and hot. And the instant the spray hit him every cell in his body wept with gratitude.

He might not be an urbanite, Simon thought as he just braced his palms on the tile and let the hot water pound over him, but Mother of God, he worshipped indoor plumbing.

He heard the tap-tap on the bathroom door and would’ve snarled if Fiona’s voice hadn’t followed it. “It’s me. Want company or do you want to ride solo?”

“Will the company be naked?”

His lips curved as he heard her laugh.

There was solitude, he thought, and solitude. And when she opened the shower door, tall, slim, naked, he decided he much preferred her kind.

“Come on in. The water’s fine.”

“Oh God.” As he had, she closed her eyes and wallowed. “It’s not fine. It’s bliss.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Oh. I needed to feed and water Bogart, touch base with the sergeant, set up the debriefing. We’re doing it over food, glorious food.”

“I heard. I haven’t lived till I eat the meatballs.”

“Solid truth.” She dunked her head, tipped it back so the water rained on her hair. Then just stood with her eyes closed and a hmm of pleasure in her throat.

“I called Syl, told her we’d pick up the boys on our way back.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“Things that must be done.”

“I’ve got another one.” He turned her to face him.

“Everyone celebrates in their own way.”

She sighed her way into the kiss. “I like yours.”

Twenty-Two

He couldn’t argue about the meatballs. As he ate, Simon realized the meal reminded him of one of his family’s dinners back home. A lot of noise, interruptions, that situational shorthand again and a stunning amount of food.

But then, he supposed families came in all shapes, sizes and dynamics.

He suspected his pecking order was “the boyfriend”—annoying but predictable—who was still being measured and weighed, but welcomed warmly enough.

He couldn’t argue about the charged, happy mood, not when it infected him, too. Watching Kevin hobble toward them after all those hours, all those miles, had struck hard and struck deep.

More than satisfaction, Simon decided, it had been like a revival, like a shot of a really good drug that settled into a sense of pride.

Both Mai and Fiona took notes, and there was talk of documentation, logs, mission reports.

He noticed, in the playback, Fiona deleted her panic attack.

“Anything you want to add, Simon?”

He glanced over at James. “I think Fiona covered it. I was just along for the ride.”

“Maybe, but you pulled your weight. He did okay, for a rookie,” Fiona added. “He’s got endurance, a good sense of direction. He can read a map and a compass, and has a good eye. Some training? He could be ready when Jaws is.”

“You’re in if you want a shot,” Chuck told him.

Simon stabbed a meatball. “Use the dog.”

“We’d bring you in at the top pay scale.”

Amused, Simon studied Meg as he wound pasta around his fork. “That’s goose egg, right?”

“Every time.”

“Tempting.”

“Think about it,” Mai suggested. “Maybe you could bring Jaws to one of our unit practices sometime. See how it goes.”

The mood mellowed out on the trip back, with the dogs dozing in the boat. Lori and James did the same, their heads tipped together, while Mai and Tyson huddled in the stern, fingers linked.

They’d drifted from unit to couples, Simon thought, sending a sidelong glance at Fiona, who sat beside him, reading over her notes. And it looked like he was one of them.

Once they reached Orcas, there were more hugs. He’d never seen people so addicted to squeezing one another.

He took the wheel for the drive home.

“We got dinner out—sort of,” Fiona said. “I ate so much pasta I may not eat for days. Plus, as date nights go, it was unique.”

“You’re never boring, Fiona.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Too much going on, in your life, in your head, to be boring.”

She smiled, flipped open her phone when it signaled. “Fiona Bristow. Yeah, Tod. That’s good. I’m really glad to hear it. We all are. You don’t have to, we got ours when Kevin and Ella got home safe. Yes, absolutely. You take care.”

She closed the phone. “Five stitches and a knee brace for Ella. They hydrated both of them, treated the blisters, the scrapes. Short version, they’re both going to be fine, and shortly on their way back to the lodge. They wanted to thank you.”

“Me?”

“You were part of the team who found them. How does it feel?”

He said nothing for a moment. “Pretty damn good.”

“Yeah. It really does.”

“You have to buy all your own equipment. The radios, tents, blankets, first aid, the whole shot.” Not that he was thinking about joining up. “I saw you note down what we used. You have to replace it on your own nickel.”

“That’s part of it. The radio was a gift, and boy did we need it. The parents of a kid we found bought it for us. Some want to pay us, but that’s a dicey area. But if they want to pick up some blankets or supplies, we don’t say no.”

“Give me the list. I’ll replace the stuff. I was part of the team, wasn’t I?” he asked when she frowned at him.

“Yes, but you don’t have to feel obligated to—”

“I don’t volunteer to do things out of obligation.”

“That’s true. I’ll give you a list.”

They stopped off at Sylvia’s, loaded up the dogs, which took twice as long as it might have due to desperate joy. He had to admit he’d missed his own idiot dog, and it felt damn good to be driving home with Fiona beside him and the back full of happy dogs.

“You know what I want?” she asked him.

“What?”

“I want a long, tall glass of wine and a lazy hour in my custom-made porch rocker. Maybe you’d like to join me?”

“I just might.”

When she reached over for his hand, he linked it with hers.

“I feel good. Tired, happy and just good all over. How about you guys, huh?” She shifted to look back, rub faces and bodies. “We feel so good. You can play while Simon and I drink wine until the sun goes down. That’s what I think. We’ll all be tired and happy and just good all over until—”

“Fiona.”

“Hmm?” Distracted, she glanced over. The hard set of his face had that happy lift dropping into worry. “What? What is it?”

She swiveled back as he slowed at her drive.

The red scarf tied to the lifted flag on her mailbox fluttered in the fitful breeze.

Her mind emptied, and for a moment she was back in the tight, airless dark.

“Where’s your gun? Fiona!” He whipped her name out and slashed her back.

“In my pack.”

He reached in the back, shoved her pack into her lap. “Get it out, lock the doors. Stay in the car and call the cops.”

“No. What? Wait. Where are you going?”

“To check out the house. He’s not going to be there, but we don’t take chances.”

“And you just walk out there, unarmed, unprotected?” Like Greg, she thought. Just like Greg. “If you get out, I get out. Cops first. Please. I couldn’t take it a second time. I couldn’t.”

She pulled out her phone, hit speed dial for the sheriff’s office. “This is Fiona. Someone tied a red scarf to my mailbox. No, I’m with Simon, at the end of the drive. No. No. Yes, all right. Okay.”

She drew a breath. “They’re on their way. They want us to stay where we are. I know that’s not what you want to do. I know it goes against the grain, against your instincts.”

She unzipped her pack, took out her gun. With steady hands, she checked the load, the safety. “But if he is there, if he’s waiting, he’d know that, too. And maybe I’d be going to another funeral for a man I love. He’d have killed me too, Simon, because I can’t come back from that a second time.”

“You put it that way to close me in a box.”

“I put it that way because it’s God’s truth. I need you to stay with me. I’m asking you to stay with me. Please don’t leave me alone.”

Her need pushed against his. He thought he could have fought hers back if she’d used tears, but the flat, matter-of-fact tone did him in. “Give me your binoculars.”

She unzipped another section of her pack, handed them to him.

“I’m not going anywhere, but I’m going to look.”

“Okay.”

He stepped out of the car but stayed close. He could hear her calming the dogs as he scanned the drive, the trees. Spring had leafed out those trees, forcing him to try to angle through the green and search the shadows. While the pretty breeze fluttered, he took a few steps away to try for a better vantage point, and followed the curve of her drive.

Her pretty house stood quiet before the dark arches of the forest. Butterflies danced on the air above her garden, while in her field, grasses and buttercups barely stirred.

He walked back, opened his door. “Everything looks fine.”

“He read the article. He wants me scared.”

“No argument. Stupid to leave the marker if he’s still around.”

“Yes. I don’t think he is either. He accomplished what he wanted. I’m scared. The cops are coming. It’s all in my face again, and I’m thinking about him. We all are. I called Agent Tawney.”

“Good. Here come the cops.”

He closed the car door, watched the two cruisers approach. He heard her get out the other side, nearly snapped at her to get back in. She wouldn’t, he thought, and it was probably unnecessary.

He watched the sheriff get out of the first cruiser. He’d seen the man around the village a few times, but they’d never had a conversation—or a need for one. Patrick McMahon carried a hefty girth on a big frame. Simon imagined he’d played high school football—maybe a tackle—and likely continued with hard-fought Sunday games with friends.

Aviator sunglasses hid his eyes, but his wide face held grim lines, and his hand rested on the butt of his weapon as he walked.

“Fee. I’m gonna want you to stay in the car. Simon Doyle, right?” McMahon held out a hand. “I’m gonna want you to stay with Fee. Davey and I, we’ll go down, take a look at things. Matt’ll stay here. He’s gonna take some pictures and put that scarf in an evidence bag so we’ll have it secure. Did you lock the doors when you left?”

“Yes.”

“Windows?”

“I... Yes, I think so.”

“They’re locked,” Simon told him. “I checked them before we left.”

“Good enough. Fee, how about you give me the keys? Once we clear everything, we’ll call on down to Matt. How’s that?”

She came around as Simon took the keys out of the ignition, then she peeled off the link that held her house key. “Front and back door.”

“Good enough,” he said again. “Sit tight.”

McMahon got back in the cruiser, swung around Fiona’s car and started down the drive.

“Sorry about this, Fiona.” Matt, barely old enough to buy a legal beer, gave her arm a little pat. “You and Mr. Doyle get on back in the car now.” He glanced down at the gun she held down at her side. “And keep the safety on that.”

“He’s younger than I am. Matt,” Fiona said when she got back in the car. “Barely old enough to drink. I trained his parents’ Jack Russell. He’s not going to be there,” she murmured, running her fist up and down her chest. “Nothing’s going to happen to them.”

“Did you ask anybody to come by, check on the place while we were gone?”

“No. It was just overnight. If it had been longer, Syl would’ve come by to water the pots, pick up the mail. God, God, if it had been longer, and—”

“Didn’t happen.” Simon cut her off. “No point projecting it. Everyone on the island, or damn near, would’ve known you were on that search by this morning. It’s not enough time for him to have pulled this.”

Unless, Simon thought, he was already on the island.

“I think it comes from the article—the timing of it—the way he mailed me the scarf after the first one. I guess he wants me to know he can get closer. Did get closer.”

“It’s arrogant, and arrogance leads to screwups.”

“I hope you’re right.” She stared at the scarf, forced herself to think. Follow the trail, she ordered herself. “Did it rain here last night? Did that storm, or the edge of it, blow through here, too? It was supposed to. The scarf’s dry, or dry enough to wave in the breeze. But then, the sun’s warm and bright today. He’d want to do that at night, wouldn’t he? At night or early enough there wouldn’t be much chance of a car going by.”

“We’ve been sitting here twenty minutes and I haven’t seen a car go by.”

“True, but it’s a stupid risk. Not just arrogant, stupid. If he came here at night, he’d need somewhere to stay on the island, or have a boat of his own. But if he came by boat, he’d need a car to get out here.”

“One way or the other, he was here. The odds are someone saw him.”

A car approached now, slowed, crept by.

“Tourists,” Fiona said quietly. “The summer season’s already geared up. Coming and going by ferry’s the easiest way to disappear. But maybe he didn’t come and go in the same day. Maybe he booked a room or a campsite or—”

She jolted when Matt tapped on the window.

“Sorry,” he said when she lowered it. “Sheriff says it’s clear.”

“Thanks. Thanks, Matt.”

She studied everything as Simon drove, everything so familiar. Could he have walked here? she wondered. Would he have risked the dogs? Would the need have overridden sense and caution? He might’ve taken the chance, creeping down, wanting a better look at the house, maybe hoping to see her sitting on the porch or weeding the garden.

Ordinary things, everyday things people do.

Walking down to get the mail, she thought, running an errand, holding a class, playing with her dogs.

Routine.

The idea he might’ve come before, might’ve studied her, watched her, stalked her—just as Perry had done—filled her with a sick dread that tasted bitter in the back of her throat.

McMahon opened her door when Simon stopped. “No signs of break-in. I can’t see that anything inside’s been disturbed, but you can tell me if you see different. We took a walk around outside, and I’m going to have Davey and Matt take another look, go a little farther out while we talk inside. Okay?”

“Yeah. Sheriff, I called Agent Tawney. I felt I should. I don’t mean to step on your toes, but—”

“Fiona. How long have you known me?”

She let out a relieved breath at the easy tone. “Since I started coming out to see my dad in the summers.”

“Long enough for you to know I’m not worried about my toes. I want you to go in, take a good look around. If you see anything off, you tell me. Even if you just think maybe.”

The advantage of a small house, Fiona thought, was it didn’t take long to go through it, even when she took the time—obsessively, maybe—to open a few drawers.

“Everything’s the way we left it.”

“That’s good. Why don’t we have a seat and talk about this?”

“Do you want something to drink? I could—”

“I’m good. Don’t worry about that.” He took a seat, continued in the avuncular tone Simon realized was designed to calm nerves and tempers. “I’ve let Davey take point on this, not because I haven’t been involved, but because I figured you’d be most comfortable with him. I don’t want you to think I’ve been brushing this off.”

“How long have you known me?”

He smiled at her, the lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling deep. “There you go. What time did you leave yesterday?”

“I logged the call in at seven-fifteen. I didn’t note down the time when we left, but I’d say it was less than fifteen minutes. Just enough time to pass the call to Mai, check the packs, lock up and load up. We dropped the dogs, except for Bogart, off at Syl’s, headed over to Chuck’s. The full unit was on its way at seven fifty-five.”

“That’s good response time.”

“We work at it.”

“I know you do. I know you found those people. That’s good work. What time did you get back today?”

“We got back to Chuck’s about three-thirty and swung by to pick up the dogs. I called you right away, within a minute after we saw the scarf. Was it wet? Damp? I thought—”

“Are you trying to do my job?” He wagged a finger at her, kept the tone light. “It’s dry. We got rain last night. Didn’t get hammered as much as you, but it came down pretty hard. Could’ve dried out by this time, as we’ve had a nice sunny day. But it wasn’t there when Davey did a drive-by at nine this morning.”

“Oh.”

“You might not’ve been here, Fee, but we’re keeping our eye out. A lot of people get on and off the ferry on a nice day like this. If I had to guess, I’d say he came over today, maybe did some driving around. Sometime between nine this morning and four-fifteen this afternoon he tied that scarf out there. I say drive because you live a good piece out. I can’t see him walking out this far, or hitching.”

“No,” she murmured, “he needs a car.” A car with a trunk.

“I’ve got a couple people I can trust keeping an eye on the ferry, checking out the departures. If they see a man driving on by himself, they’re going to get the license plate. The other thing we’ll do is check with the hotels, the B-and-Bs, campgrounds, even the rental houses, but it’s going to take some time. We’ll check out any man traveling alone.”

“You’re making me feel better,” she murmured.

“That’s good. But I don’t want you to take chance one, Fiona. I’m not just saying this as the sheriff, but as a friend of your father’s, and Sylvia’s. I don’t want you here alone. If here’s where you want to be, somebody’s here with you. I want your doors locked—day and night,” he added, and the warning edge to his gaze told Simon her habit of open, unlocked doors was no secret.

“They will be. Word of honor.”

“Good enough. When you’re on the road, I want your car windows up and your doors locked. I want you to carry your phone, and I want the name of every new client you take on. Every one of them. If you get another call for a search, I want you to contact me or my office. I want to know where you’re going and how to verify it.”

“She won’t be staying here,” Simon told him. “She’s moving to my place. Today. She’ll pack up what she needs before you leave.”

“I can’t just—”

“That’s a good idea.” McMahon ignored Fiona, nodded at Simon. “It changes the pattern. I don’t want her there alone, either.”

“She won’t be.”

“Excuse me?” Fiona held up both hands. “I’m not going to be difficult, and I’m not arguing about the need for precautions, but I can’t just move out of my house, my place of business. I teach here, and—”

“We’ll work it out. Pack.”

“What about my—”

“Give us a minute, will you?” Simon asked McMahon.

“No problem.” He scraped back his chair. “I’ll be right outside.”

“Do you know how infuriating it is when you continually interrupt me?” Fiona demanded.

“Yeah, probably about the same level as when you continually argue with good sense.”

“I’m not doing that. But good sense has to coordinate with the practical side. I have three dogs. I have a business here. The equipment I need to run that business.”

Excuses, not reasons, he concluded. And he wasn’t taking any bullshit.

“You want practical? I’ll give you practical. I have a bigger house and more room for those dogs. You can’t be alone because I’m there. I work there. If he comes looking for you here, he won’t find you. If you need the damn equipment, we’ll move the damn equipment. Or I’ll build new equipment. Do you think I can’t build a fucking seesaw?”

“It’s not that. Or not just that.” She held her hands out, then rubbed them over her face. “You haven’t given me five seconds to think. You didn’t even bother to ask.”

“I’m not asking. I’m telling you to go pack what you need. Consider it a change of pack leadership.”

“That’s not amusing.”

“I’m not feeling funny. We’ll get whatever equipment, whatever supplies we can today. We’ll get the rest tomorrow. Goddamn it, Fiona, he was under a quarter mile from your house. You asked me to stay, to go against my instincts and what I wanted to do and stay with you back there. Now it’s your turn.”

“I’m taking that five seconds to think.” She spun away from him, fists jammed on her hips as she stalked to the window.

Her place—was that what was wrong with her? Her place here, the first solid building block of the new life she’d created. Now, instead of holding her ground, defending it, she’d be walking away.

Could she be that stubborn, that foolish?

“Time’s up.”

“Oh, be quiet,” she snapped at him. “I’m being driven out of my own home, so give me a damn minute to deal with it.”

“Fine. Take a minute, then get moving.”

She turned back. “You’re a little pissed that you have—or feel you have—to do this. It’s one thing for you to sleep here, another for me to essentially live in your home.”

“Okay. What’s your point?”

“No point, just an observation. I have to make some calls. I can’t just pack. I’ll need to contact my clients, at least the ones coming tomorrow, and let them know I’ve moved the school. Temporarily,” she added, as much for her benefit as his. “James’s number is four on my speed dial. If you call him, he’ll come and help us move the outside equipment.”

“Okay.”

“And I’ll need to have calls forwarded to your number—from my house phone. For clients, and in case we get a search call.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do,” she said, wearily now. “I appreciate what you’re doing, especially because you’re not altogether happy about doing it.”

“I’d rather feel a little hemmed in than have anything happen to you.”

She let out a half laugh. “You have no idea, you really don’t, how sweet that is. I’ll do my best not to hem you in too much. Go ahead and tell Sheriff McMahon you won. I’ll start putting things together.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d won as he’d now have four dogs and a woman under his feet, but he stepped outside. McMahon broke off a conversation with his deputies and crossed toward the porch as Simon walked down.

“She’s packing.”

“Good. We’ll still come by here a couple times a day, check things out. When she’s going back and forth to hold those classes of hers—”

“She won’t be. She’ll do it at my place. I’m calling James so he can help me break down and move all that.”

Eyebrows lifted, McMahon looked over at the equipment. “Better yet. Tell you what, Matt here’s about to go off duty. He’s young and got a strong back. He’ll give you a hand. Won’t take much time. Those are your chairs, right?”

“They’re hers now.”

“Uh-huh. What I’m wondering is if you do porch gliders. My wife and I got an anniversary coming up next month. I’ve got a little shop, do some Harry Homeowner stuff, a little this and that. Thought I might try my hand at a glider. I proposed to her on one. I found out pretty quick building one was above my pay grade.”

“I can do that.”

“Something with those nice wide arms would be good. And she’s partial to red.”

“Okay.”

“Good enough. We’ll talk about the details later. You go ahead, get the tools to break what needs to be broken down. I’ll get Matt started on what doesn’t.” He started back, stopped. “Are you really making a sink out of a stump?”

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s something I want to see. Matt! Haul some of this dog playground business into Simon’s truck.”

He ended up calling James anyway, for the third pair of hands and the second truck. And with James came Lori, and with James and Lori came Koby.

Simon’s initial annoyance with having so many people and animals swarming around gave way to the realization that sometimes people didn’t get in the way, but helped make a necessary and tedious job go smoother.

It wasn’t a matter of a couple of suitcases’ worth of clothes, not when it was Fiona. It was suitcases, dog beds, dog food, toys, leashes, meds, dishes, grooming equipment—and that didn’t begin to factor in platforms, the seesaw, the slide, the tunnel. Or her files—and Jesus the woman had files—her laptop, her packs, her maps, the perishables in her refrigerator.

“The flower beds and vegetable garden are on a soaker hose,” she said when he objected to hauling over her flowerpots, “so they’ll be fine. But these need regular watering. Besides, we’ll enjoy them. And besides besides, Simon, you asked for it.”

And that he couldn’t argue with.

“Fine, fine. Just... go start putting some of this crap away, will you?”

“Any preference to where?”

He stared at the last load and wondered how the hell she’d fit all of that into her Seven Dwarfs-sized house. How had it all tucked in so tidily—and that didn’t count what she’d left behind.

“Wherever, I guess. Dump the office stuff in one of the spare bedrooms, and don’t mess with my stuff more than you have to.”

He walked back to help James put the training equipment back together.

Beside Fiona, Lori rolled her eyes and grabbed a box of files. “Lead the way.”

“I’m not entirely sure of it, but I guess we’ll take this first load upstairs, find the best spot.”

As they started in, Lori glanced around. “Nice. Really nice—a lot of space and light and interesting furniture. What there is of it. Messy,” she added as she started up the steps, “but really nice.”

“Probably three or four times as much space as I have.” Fiona glanced inside a room, frowned at the weight machine, gym equipment, tangle of clothes, unpacked boxes.

She tried another. A stack of paint cans, some brushes, rollers, pans, tools, sawhorses. “Okay, I guess this’ll work. I’m going to need my desk and chair. I didn’t think of that.”

She winced a little at the dust on the floor, the film on the window. “It is messy,” she murmured, “and I know what you’re thinking. Messy makes me twitchy.”

She set down her box of office supplies, turned a circle. “I’ll live with it.”

And him, she thought. For now.

Twenty-Three

She opted to set up her office space first. Which, in this case, meant cleaning the space first. She’d live with messy. It wasn’t her house. But temporary live-in lover or not, she wouldn’t work in dust and disorder.

While Lori and James set out to get her desk and chair—and lamp, and desk clock—she hunted down cleaning supplies. And, as Simon apparently believed in only the barest of basics, called Lori to add a list from her own supplies.

How, she wondered, did anyone—especially anyone with a dog—live without a Swiffer?

Working with what she had, she cleaned several months of dust from the windows, the floor, the woodwork, and discovered what she’d assumed was a second closet but was actually a bathroom.

One, she thought with a long huff of breath, that surely hadn’t been cleaned since he’d moved in. Fortunately, its primary purpose seemed to be gathering more dust.

She was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor when he came in.

“What are you doing?”

“Planning my next trip to Rome. What does it look like I’m doing? I’m cleaning this bathroom.”

“Why?”

“That you would have to ask explains so much.” She sat back on her heels. “I may, at some point, have to pee. I find this occurs with some regularity on any given day. I prefer—call me fussy—to engage in this activity in sanitary surroundings.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets, leaned on the jamb. “I haven’t been using this room or this john. Yet.”

“Really? I’d never have guessed.”

He glanced around the now dust-free bedroom where paint cans stood in stacks tidily beside sawhorses, rollers, pans and brushes on neatly folded tarps.

“You’re setting up in here?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Not for me. Did you wash the floor out here?”

“Damp-mopped. Let me point out, as someone who works with wood, you should take better care of your floors. You need some Murphy’s at least.”

“I’ve got some. Somewhere. Maybe.” She was making him twitchy. “I’ve been busy.”

“Understood.”

“You’re not going to go around cleaning everything, are you?”

She swiped a hand over her forehead. “Let me give you my solemn oath on that. But I’m going to work in here. I need a clean, ordered space to work. I’ll keep the door closed so it doesn’t shock your sensibilities.”

“Now you’re being bitchy.”

Because she heard the amusement in his tone, she smiled back. “Yes, I am. Move back so I can finish this. I appreciate what you’re doing, Simon.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I do, and I know it disrupts your space, your routine, your privacy.”

“Shut up.”

“I just want to thank—”

“Shut up,” he repeated. “You matter. That’s it. I’ve got something to do.”

She sat back on her heels when he strode out. Shut up. You matter. That’s it. Honestly, she mused, coming from him that was practically a poem by Shelley.

By the time she’d arranged her office, with her desk tidy under the window facing the back and the woods, she’d have killed for a glass of wine and a comfortable chair. But her sense of order wouldn’t allow her to leave her clothes in suitcases.

She’d scope out Simon’s bedroom, then find him and ask how he wanted her to deal with her clothes.

It surprised her to find the bed made—sort of made, she thought. The dog beds had been tossed in a corner, and the doors to the deck stood open to let in the air.

She poked in the closet, saw he’d shoved his clothes over to make room for hers. She’d need a drawer, she thought. Two would be better. She moved to the dresser, opened one gingerly. He’d emptied it out for her. He was one step ahead of her, she thought, then cocked her head, sniffed.

Lemon?

Curious, she crossed to the bathroom, then just leaned on the door frame. She recognized a freshly cleaned bathroom—the scent of citrus, the gleam of porcelain, the rich sheen of brushed nickel. The towels hung in an orderly fashion on rods melted her heart.

He’d probably cursed with every swipe, she mused, but, well, she mattered. And that was it.

She put away her clothes, stowed her toiletries, then went down to find him.

He stood in the kitchen, looking out the back door at the training equipment.

“Some of that should be replaced,” he said without looking around. “That platform’s crap.”

“You’re probably right. Did James and Lori go?”

“Yeah. She put stuff in the fridge and wherever, said to tell you she’d call you tomorrow. I offered them a beer,” he added, almost defensively. “But they rain-checked.”

“I imagine they’re tired after all this.”

“Yeah. I want a beer and the beach.”

“That sounds perfect. Go ahead. I’ve just a couple things, then I’ll come down.”

He walked over, opened the fridge for his beer. “Don’t clean anything.”

She lifted her hand. “Solemn oath.”

“Right. I’ll leave Newman, take the rest.”

She nodded. She couldn’t be alone, she thought. Not even here.

She waited until he’d gone out, until she’d heard him order Newman to stay, stay with Fee. Then she sat at his counter, laid her head on it and waited for the tears that had begun to burn in her throat to come.

But they wouldn’t. She’d held them back too long, she realized. Pushed them down all these hours, and now they were simply blocked, locked inside, hurting her throat, aching in her head.

“Okay.” She breathed the word out, rose. Rather than a beer she chose a bottle of water. Better, she thought. Cleaner.

She stepped outside where the faithful Newman waited. “Let’s take a walk.”

He bounded over immediately, doing a full-body wag as he rubbed against her.

“I know, new place. It’s nice, isn’t it? Lots of room. We’ll be okay here for a while. We’ll figure it all out.” Her eye instinctively picked up spots that needed flowers, a good location for a kitchen garden.

Not hers to play with, she reminded herself.

“Still it could use more color, more outdoor seating. I’m surprised he hasn’t thought of it. He’s the artist.” She paused as they came to the drop leading down to the beach. “But then there’s this. It’s pretty fabulous.”

The charm of crooked steps led down to the narrow beach and opened to the dreamy spread of water. Stars winked on, adding to the sense of peace, of privacy. Simon walked along with the three dogs sniffing sand and shale and surf.

He’d missed this, she thought, his solo walks in the twilight where the land met the water. Missed the quiet, the subtle whoosh of the surf at the end of the day, but he’d stepped away from that to be with her.

Whatever happened around them, between them, she wouldn’t forget that.

As she stood, looking down, he pulled bright yellow tennis balls from a bag he’d hooked on his belt. He heaved them, one, two, three, into the water—and the dogs charged and leaped.

They’d smell... amazing, she thought as she watched them swim toward the bobbing yellow balls.

Even as she thought it, she heard Simon’s laugh rise up, over the subtle whoosh of the surf, over the quiet—and the sound of it chased away the demons.

Look at them, she thought. Look how wonderful they are, how perfect they are. My guys.

Beside her, Newman quivered.

“What the hell. Four smelly dogs isn’t any worse than three. Go! Go play!”

He charged down the crooked steps, joy in the speed, in the challenging bark. Simon tossed a fourth ball in the air, caught it, then winged it into the water. Without breaking stride, Newman sprinted in.

And Fiona ran down to join the game.

In his motel room near the Seattle airport, Francis X. Eckle read the most recent message from Perry and sipped his evening whiskey on the rocks.

He didn’t care for the tone, no, he didn’t care for the tone at all. Words like disappointed, control, focus, unnecessary popped out of the text and grated against his pride. His ego.

Boring, he thought, and crumpled the paper into a ball. Boring, scolding and annoying. Perry needed to remember just who was in prison, and who wasn’t.

That was the problem with teachers—and he should know because before he evolved he’d been a teacher himself. Boring, scolding and annoying.

But no more.

Now he had the power of life and death in his hands.

He lifted one, studied it. Smiled at it.

He breathed fear at his whim, dispensed pain, eked out hope, then crushed it. He saw all of that in their eyes, all the fear, the pain, the hope and, finally, the surrender.

Perry had never felt this rush of power and knowledge. If he had, truly had, he wouldn’t constantly preach caution and control—or, as he liked to call it, “the clean kill.”

Annette had been the most satisfying kill to date. And why? Because of the sound his fists made when they pounded into her flesh, cracked against bone. Because he’d felt every blow even as she did.

Because there had been blood—the sight of it, the smell of it. He’d been able to watch, to study the way the bruises gathered, the way they rose up to stain the skin, and to enjoy the different tones—slap or punch.

They’d gotten to know each other, hadn’t they? Taking the time for that, sharing pain, made the kill so much more intimate. So much more real.

Thinking about it now, he realized Perry’s work had been bloodless, clinical, even detached. There couldn’t have been genuine pleasure with so little passion. The single time Perry had deviated, had allowed himself true, bloody violence, he hadn’t been able to handle it.

Now he lived in a cell.

That was why this gradual and creative acceleration was superior. Why he was now superior.

It was time, maybe past time, he decided, to break off all contact with Perry. He had nothing more to learn from that source, and no desire to teach.

Remembering himself, he rose to pick up the balled note. He smoothed it out carefully before tucking it into the folder with all the others.

He’d already begun to write a book on his life, his epiphany, his evolution, his work. He’d accepted it would be published posthumously. He’d accepted his inevitable end, and the acceptance made each moment more vital.

Not prison. No, never prison. He’d already lived his life in a self-imposed prison. But glory. In the end, the inevitable end, he would have glory.

For now, he would simply be a shadow, slipping in and out of the light, unnamed and unknown. Or known only by those he chose, those who crossed from life to death with his face caught in their eyes.

He’d already selected the next.

Another change, he thought. Another stage of his evolution. And while he studied her, tracked her like a wolf tracks a rabbit, he could speculate on how it would be between them.

The irony was exquisite, and he knew, already knew it would add to the thrill.

Then before much longer, there would be Fiona.

He took out the newspaper, unfolded it, smoothed his hands over her face. He’d fulfill his obligation to Perry with her, and his debt would be paid in full.

She would be the last to wear the red scarf. That was fitting, he decided. She’d be the highlight of this stage of the work. His crescendo, he thought, with a final homage to Perry.

He was sure already he’d enjoy her most of all. She’d know more pain, more fear than all the others before he was done.

Oh, how people would talk when he took her, when he ended her life. They’d talk of little else. They’d talk and they’d tremble over the man who killed the Perry survivor.

RSKII.

Reading the term made him shake his head, made him chuckle.

Made him preen.

After Fiona lay in the shallow grave he’d force her to dig herself, RSKII would be no more. He would become someone else, something else, find another symbol as he embarked on the next stage of his work.

In a way, he thought, and took another sip of whiskey, Fiona would be the end of him, and the beginning.

Mantz hung up the phone and knocked a fist on her desk. “I think I’ve got something.”

Tawney glanced away from his monitor. “What?”

“Verifying residence and employment on prison personnel and outside agencies. There’s a Francis X. Eckle, teaches at College Place—English studies, creative writing. He did four stints of instruction at the prison in the past two and a half years. He didn’t go back to work after the winter break. Mailed in a resignation, citing a family emergency.”

“Did you check it out?”

“He doesn’t actually have a family—not a traditional deal. He bumped around in the foster system from the time he was four. He didn’t leave any forwarding information at the school. Both the numbers listed for home and cell have been disconnected.”

“Let’s get more information. Find his caseworkers, some data on his foster homes. No criminal?”

“Not a whiff. No sibs, no spouse, no kids.” Though her voice stayed cool, the light of the hunter sparked in her eyes. “Perry signed in for all four of his classes at the prison. I ran a check on Eckle’s credit cards. Nothing since January. Not a single charge, but he hasn’t canceled them either. That’s off.”

“Yeah, that’s off. He could be dead.”

“This one’s talking to my gut, Tawney. Look, I know you want to try to get out and connect with Bristow today or tomorrow, but I think we need to check this out, talk to people who know him, face-to-face.”

“All right. Let’s check his bank accounts, see if you can get more background. An English teacher?”

“Untenured. Single, lives alone, forty-two years old. The administrator I talked to said Eckle just sort of drifted along, did his job, didn’t make waves. He couldn’t name any particular friends either, and it’s a small school, Tawney.”

That light sparked in Tawney’s eyes, too. “Make the calls. I’ll put in for the travel.”

Simon covered the nearly finished wine cabinet with a tarp. It made him feel a little foolish, but he didn’t want Fiona to see it, or ask him about it. Maybe he didn’t want to think too deeply about the fact that he was making it for her, just because she wanted one.

It had been weird enough waking up and knowing she was there. Not in bed, of course, he mused as he added a third coat of poly to his stump-and-burl-wood sink. If the sun was up, so was Fiona. But she’d been there, in his place, his space.

His bathroom smelled of her, just as his kitchen smelled of the coffee she’d brewed while he’d still been in bed.

And the weird thing? He was okay with it. He’d even been okay, after a moment of puzzlement, when he’d opened a drawer for a spoon and found his flatware organized into type.

He’d thought, glancing around, the kitchen was tidier—but since he wasn’t sure exactly how he’d left it, that was just a maybe.

By the time he’d been ready to start work, she’d fed the dogs, taken them through a quick training session, showered, dressed and watered her flowerpots.

He heard the cars for her first session and had deliberately angled himself on the shop porch so he could check out who got out.

He’d modulated the volume on his music so he could hear her if she called out—and that was a sacrifice. But he remained undisturbed and alone throughout her morning classes.

Even Jaws had deserted him.

Which was fine—better than fine. He didn’t have to worry about getting stray dog hair in the poly or ignoring sticks or balls dropped and that pleading look for playtime.

He’d gotten more templates cut out, several pieces glued up and clamped and now, at what the shop clock said was still just shy of noon, he was giving his sink another coat that brought out the rich grain of the wood, deepened the tones.

He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and paused to watch her and the dog approach.

“Keep them back, will you? This is wet. One shake and they’ll have hair all over it.”

“Sit. Stay. I just thought I’d see if you want a sandwich or...”

She stopped, stared. And he had the great satisfaction of seeing her mouth literally drop open. “Oh my God. Is that the stump? That’s my stump?”

“My stump.”

“It’s amazing!” Instinct had her fingers reaching out to touch. He slapped them back.

“Ouch. Okay, sorry, it’s wet. It’s upside down. That’s how it works. Of course.” Sliding her hands in her back pockets to keep them from the reach/slap, Fiona circled the sink.

“The roots form the base, holder, whatever it is for the bowl so it looks like something that grew in a magic forest. Who knew tree roots could look so amazing? Well, you did. But the bowl. What’s the bowl?”

“Burl wood. I found it months back. It needed the right base.”

“The color’s so beautiful. Like glass syrup. It’s just beautiful, Simon. I knew it would be interesting, but I didn’t know it would be beautiful.”

Gushy praise over his work invariably made him itchy. But oddly with her, with that dazzled delight on her face, he felt only satisfaction. “It’s not finished.”

“What will you do with it when it is?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged because he’d caught himself wanting to give it to her. It suited her down to the ground. “Maybe sell it, maybe keep it.”

“You’d feel magical every time you washed your hands. I’ll never look at a tree stump the same way again. God, wait until people get a load of this!” She laughed over at him. “Anyway, I’ve got a couple hours until my first afternoon class. If you’re hungry, I can make you a sandwich.”

He considered it, and her. “Listen, I don’t want you to wait on me because if you do I’ll want you to wait on me.”

She took a second. “You know, I understand that, oddly enough. Okay, how about a trade?”

“What kind of trade?”

“I’ll make you a sandwich, and you make me some wood slat things. I wrote down the lengths I want.”

She pulled out a list, handed it to him. He frowned down at it.

“What are they for?”

“For me.” She smiled.

“Fine. You don’t have a width.”

“Oh. Hmm. Like this?” She held her thumb and forefinger together.

“About a quarter inch. What kind of wood?”

“The wood kind—whatever you’ve got around.”

“Finish?”

“Jeez, it’s a lot of decisions. Just that stuff, the clear stuff. I don’t need fancy.”

“Okay. I’ll run them up when I’m done with this.”

“Perfect.”

It worked out okay, Simon thought later. He got a sandwich without having to make it, and they stayed out of each other’s way during the work. Solemn oath or not, she cleaned up after him—subtly. He saw her sweeping off the porch, and when he realized he’d forgotten to restock his shop fridge and went in for a drink, the gleam inside his refrigerator all but blinded him.

He heard the suspicious sound of the washing machine running.

So fine, they’d trade again. He’d build her some new training equipment when he had the chance.

When he stepped back outside, he saw her pacing the backyard with the phone to her ear. Something’s up, he thought, and crossed to her.

“Yes, sure, that’s fine. Thanks for calling. Really. Okay. Bye.” She clicked off. “Agent Tawney. He was going to try to come out today, but they’ve got something else to do. I think they have a lead. He was careful not to say, but I think they have a lead. He sounded too calm.”

“Too calm?”

“Deliberately calm.” She rubbed the heel of her hand between her breasts as he knew she did when struggling for calm herself.

“As if he didn’t want to show any sort of excitement or interest,” she explained. “Maybe I’m projecting, but that’s how it feels. And he didn’t tell me anything because he didn’t want me to react exactly the way I am.”

She closed her eyes, took a breath. “It’s a good thing I have a full afternoon. I can’t obsess.”

“Yes you can. It’s what you do.” Reaching behind her, he gave the tail of her braid a tug and tipped the topic to take her mind off her nerves. “Are you washing my clothes, Mom?”

“I’m washing mine.” She spoke very primly. “There may be an item or two of yours in there, too, just to fill out the load.”

He poked her in the shoulder. “Watch it.”

She fisted her hands on her hips as he strode away. “I’ve already gone radical. I changed the sheets on the bed.”

He shook his head, kept walking—and made her laugh.

Tawney and his partner took Eckle’s last known residence first, a small three-level apartment building within walking distance of campus. Their knock on 202 went unanswered—except for the crack in the door across the hall.

“She’s not home.”

“She?”

“Just moved in a couple weeks ago.” The crack widened. “Young thing, first apartment. What do you want?”

Both agents took out their ID. And the door opened all the way. “FBI!” Her tone might’ve been the same on Santa Claus!

Tawney gauged the woman as early seventies with bright bird eyes behind silver-framed glasses.

“I love those FBI shows on TV. I watch them all. Cop shows, too. Is that little girl up to something? You couldn’t prove it by me. She’s friendly and polite. Clean, even if she dresses like most of them do.”

“We were actually hoping to speak with Francis Eckle.”

“Oh, he left right after Christmas. His mother took sick. At least that’s what he said. I bet he’s in some sort of witness protection. Or he’s a serial killer. He’s just the type.”

Mantz raised her eyebrows. “Ms.... ?”

“Hawbaker. Stella Hawbaker.”

“Ms. Hawbaker, could we come in and speak with you?”

“I knew he was funny.” She pointed a finger. “Come on in. You can have a seat,” she told them and walked over to shut off the TV. “I don’t drink coffee, but I’ve got some for when one of my kids comes by. That and soft drinks.”

“We’re fine,” Tawney told her. “You said Mr. Eckle left after Christmas.”

“That’s right. I saw him hauling out suitcases, middle of the day when hardly anyone’s around but me. So I said, ‘Going on a trip?’ And he smiled the way he does that doesn’t look you in the eye and said he needed to go help tend his mother, because she’d had a fall and broke her hip. Now, he’d never once mentioned his mother in all the years he lived across the hall. Course he hardly mentioned anything. Kept to himself,” she added with a knowing nod. “That’s what they say about people who go out and chop people up with an ax. How he was quiet and kept to himself.”

“Did he mention where his mother lived?”

“He said, because I asked him straight out, she lived in Columbus, Ohio. Now you tell me,” she demanded, pointing her finger again, “if he had a mother out east, how come he never went to see her before this, or how come she didn’t come out to see him?”

She tapped the finger to the side of her nose. “Smells funny. And it smells funnier seeing as he never came back. Left his furniture—or most of it from what I could tell when the landlord finally got around to clearing the place out. Not much else, and I know he had cases of books in there—and they didn’t go with him. Must’ve sold them on eBay or something.”

“You pay attention, Ms. Hawbaker.”

She took Tawney’s comment with a sly smile. “That I do, and since most people don’t pay much to old ladies, I get away with it. In the past few months, I’ve seen him go out hauling shipping boxes or stacks of those mailing bags, and coming back empty. So I figure he sold those books, and whatever. Running money, I’ll bet. Never paid the rent from January on either. And, ’cause I talked to the landlord about it, I heard he quit his job and cleaned out his bank account. Every penny.”

Those bright eyes went shrewd. “I expect you know that.”

“Did he have friends, visitors?” Mantz asked. “Any girlfriends?”

Ms. Hawbaker made a dismissive sound. “Never once saw him with a woman—or a man either if he went that way. Not natural. Polite, I’ll give him that. Well spoken, but he wouldn’t say boo unless you said it first. What’d he do?”

“We’re just interested in talking to him.”

Now she nodded sagely. “He’s what you all call ‘a person of interest,’ and mostly that means he’s a suspect in something bad. He drove one of those little compact cars with the hatchback. That’s what he loaded up and drove off in that day. I’ll tell you something else, ’cause I’m nosy and I poked in—and the landlord and I talked about it. There wasn’t a single photograph in that place, or a letter or a postcard. He never planned to come back, that’s what I say. And he didn’t go to take care of his mother with any broken hip. If he had a mother, he probably killed her in her sleep.”

Outside, Mantz wrenched open the car door. “Now that’s an insightful woman.”

“I don’t think Eckle killed his mother in her sleep, since the records show his mother OD’d when he was eight.”

“She pegged him, Tawney. If that’s not our UNSUB, I’m a Vegas showgirl.”

“You’ve got good legs, Erin, but I’m looking the same way. Let’s track down the landlord, see what we can find out at the college, then I guess we’re going back to prison.”

Twenty-Four

One day, Fiona thought, she hoped to feel something other than dread when she saw Davey’s cruiser come down her drive.

“Uh-oh, we’re in trouble now,” one of her students joked, and she managed a stiff smile.

“Don’t worry, I have connections. Jana, see the way Lotus is circling? What do you read?”

“Ah, she’s in the scent pool?”

“Maybe. Maybe she’s trying to get a new gauge, work it out. Maybe she’s got a cross-scent and she’s trying to home in. You need to work it out, too. Work with her. Help her focus. Watch her tail, her hackles, listen to her breathing. Every reaction means something, and hers might be different from, say, Mike’s dog. I’ll be right back.”

She moved off, her heart banging against her ribs with every step as Davey walked to meet her.

“Sorry to interrupt your class—and it’s not bad news. How much longer are you going to be?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes. What—”

“It’s not bad news,” he repeated. “But I don’t want to talk to you with the audience. I can wait. It’s my timing that’s off.”

“No, we would’ve been done, but this group asked for an add-on cadaver-search cross-training. There’re only four of them, and I had the time, so...” She shrugged.

“I’ll let you get back to it. Okay if I watch?”

“Sure.”

“Fee?” Jana signaled, then lifted her hands in frustration. “She’s just not getting it, and she seems confused and, well, bored. We nail this at home. She loves this behavior, and we’ve got it down cold.”

Focus, Fiona ordered herself. “You’re not at home. Remember, a new place, new environment, new problems.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know you’ve said that before, but if we make it, every time she goes out on a search it’s a new place.”

“Absolutely true. That’s why the more experiences she has, the better. She learns every single time. She’s bright and eager, but she’s not pulling it in today—and she feels your frustration, too. First thing, relax.”

Do the same yourself, Fiona thought and glanced back to where Davey stood watching.

“Go back to where she started to circle and lose interest. Refresh, reward, reestablish. If she just can’t get it today, take her to the source, let her find it, reward.”

They were a good team, Fiona thought as she hung back. But the human partner tended to want quick results. Still, she put in the time and energy, had a strong relationship with her dog.

She turned to watch Mike and his Australian shepherd mix celebrate the find. The dog happily accepted the food reward and praise before Mike pulled on his plastic gloves and retrieved the cylinder containing human bone fragments.

Well done, she thought. And her third student held both his nose and his tail in the air, which told her he should find his source soon.

One day, she thought, one or all of them might go out on a call, search woods, hills, fields, city streets, and find human remains. And finding them would help give closure to family, help police find answers.

Bodies, she thought, like that of Annette Kellworth. Cruelly posed under a couple feet of dirt, left like a broken toy while the one responsible hunted something new.

Would there be another? Closer yet? Would her own unit be called in to search? She wondered if she could do it, if she could take one of her precious dogs and search for a body that could have been her own.

That would be hers if a man she didn’t even know had his way.

“She got it!” Jana called out as she bent to hug her Lotus. “She did it!”

“Terrific.”

Not bad news, she reminded herself as she stored her training tools. She got a Coke out of the refrigerator for both of them.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s have it.”

“The feds have a lead. They think it’s a strong one.”

“A lead.” Now her knees could tremble. She braced a hand on a counter stool to stay on her feet. “What kind of lead?”

“They’re looking for a specific individual, one who had contact with Perry inside the prison. An outside instructor. An English teacher from College Place.”

“Looking for?”

“Yeah. He quit his job, packed up some of his things and took off between Christmas and New Year’s. Cleaned out his bank account, left his furniture, defaulted on his rent. He fits the profile—they say. The thing is, he hasn’t had contact—that they can verify—with Perry in nearly a year. That’s a long time.”

“He’s patient. Perry. He’s patient.”

“The feds are putting pressure on Perry right now. Trying to find out how much he knows. And they’re digging into this guy’s background. What we got from them is he’s a loner. No relationships, no family. His mother was a junkie, so he was in the system even before she OD’d, when he was eight.”

“Mother issues,” she murmured as hope and fear bubbled up in a messy stew. “Like Perry.”

“They’ve got that in common.” Davey took a fax out of his pocket, unfolded it. “Does he look familiar?”

She studied the facsimile photo, the ordinary face, the trim, professorial beard, the ever-so-slightly-shaggy hair. “No. No, I don’t know him. I don’t know him. Is this really him?”

“He’s who they’re looking for. They’re not calling him a suspect. They’re careful not to. But I’m going to tell you, Fee, they believe this is the guy, and they’re all over it.” He gave her shoulder a quick rub. “I want you to know they’re all over it.”

“Who is he?”

“Francis Eckle. Francis Xavier Eckle. His age, height, weight, coloring are all listed on the fax. I want you to keep this picture, Fee. He may have changed his appearance. Cut the beard, dyed his hair. So I want you to keep this, and if you see anybody who looks anything like this guy, you don’t hesitate. You call.”

“Don’t worry, I will.” Even now his face was burned into her mind. “You said he was a teacher.”

“Yeah. His record’s clear. He had a rough childhood, but he didn’t make any waves—not on record, anyway. They’ll be talking to his foster families, his caseworkers. They’ve already started that, and interviewing his coworkers, supervisors, neighbors. So far, there’s nothing in his background that you’d look twice at, but—”

“People can be trained. Just like dogs. They can learn, good behavior or bad. It just depends on the motivation and methods.”

“They’re going to get him, Fee.” Davey put his hands on her shoulders, gave them a squeeze when their eyes met. “You believe that.”

Because she needed to believe it, she rushed over to Simon’s shop.

He stood at the lathe, music blaring, tool humming as he hollowed and smoothed the pale wood in his hands.

A bowl, she realized, one of those lovely ones he made with a sheen and texture like silk and a thickness that seemed hardly more than tissue.

She watched how he turned and angled, tried to figure out the method to help keep herself still.

He switched off the machine. “I know you’re over there, breathing my air.”

“Sorry. Why don’t you have any of those? You need one about twice that size for your kitchen counter, for seasonal fruit.”

He’d pulled off his ear protectors and goggles and simply stood. “Is that what you came in here to tell me?” And looked down as Jaws dropped a scrap of wood at his feet. “See what you started?”

“I’ll take them out for a game before my next class. Simon.” She held up the fax.

His body language changed. Alerted, she thought. “Do they have him?”

She shook her head. “But they’re looking, and they—Davey said—they think... I have to sit down.”

“Go outside, in the air.”

“I can’t feel my legs.” With a half laugh, she stumbled out, dropped down onto the shop porch.

Seconds later he came out with a bottle of water. “Let me have that.” He shoved the water at her, snatched the fax. “Who is this mother-fucker?”

“Nobody. Mr. Average Joe, except not really. Where’s the rope! Go get the rope!” All four dogs stopped poking with noses and bodies and shot off. “That’ll take a few minutes. Davey came to tell me what the FBI told them. His name’s Francis Xavier Eckle,” she began.

He continued to study the photo as he listened. When the dogs came back—the crafty Newman the winner—Simon took the rope. “Go play,” he ordered and heaved it hard and long.

“Don’t they check people out before they let them work at a prison?”

“Yes, of course. I guess,” she added after a moment. “The point is, there wasn’t anything there. Not that they’ve found so far. But he had contact with Perry, and now he’s changed his behavior. Drastically. They probably know more now. More than they told the sheriff’s office, or more than Davey could tell me. I’m looking at this because Tawney cleared it. Because he wants me to look at it.”

“Teaching at a small college,” Simon speculated. “Looking at long-legged coeds all day who probably don’t look back. It’s still a big leap from ordinary to Perry copycat.”

“Not so big if the predilection was there all along, if the drive was in place but he never knew how to engage it. Or didn’t have the nerve.”

She’d trained dogs like that, hadn’t she? Recognizing or finding hidden potentials, exploiting suppressed drives, or channeling overt ones, systematically altering learned behavior.

“You talked about the importance of motivation before,” she pointed out. “And you were right. It’s possible Perry found the right motivation, the right... game, the right reward.”

“Trained his replacement.”

“He taught there four times,” she added, “and Perry signed up for all the classes. He’s a chameleon. Perry. He acclimates. He’s acclimating in prison, doing his time, keeping his head down. Cooperating. So he becomes, in a way, ordinary again.”

“And they don’t pay as much attention?” Simon shrugged. “Maybe.”

“He’s a student of observation. It’s how he picked his victims, and how he blended so well for so long. He probably stalked and discarded dozens of women before the ones he abducted. Watching them, judging their behavior, their personality type.”

“Moving on if they didn’t fit his needs well enough.”

“That, and calculating the risk factors. Maybe this one’s too passive, and not enough of a challenge, or this one’s too chaotic and difficult to pin down.”

She rubbed her hand between her breasts, on her thigh—couldn’t keep it still. “He knows what to look for in people. It’s how he killed so many, how he traveled and engaged others so easily. I understand that. I can usually tell if a dog will respond to advanced training, if the dog and the handler will forge a team. Or if they’re better off strictly as the family pet. You can see the potential if you know where and how to look—and you can begin molding that potential. Perry knows where and how to look.”

Maybe she just needed to believe it, Simon thought, but she was damn convincing. “So you think Perry saw, we’ll say, potential, in this guy?”

“It could be it. It could be this Eckle approached Perry. Nobody’s really above flattery when it comes to their work. And killing was Perry’s work. But if either of those happened, if these two made that connection, Perry would know how to begin the mold. And, Simon, I think—if this is how it went—that the payment for that training, that molding, is me.”

She looked back at the photo. “He’d kill me to repay Perry for recognizing and grooming his potential.”

Perry’s dog, Simon concluded, who’d want to please his handler. “Perry’s never going to collect on that IOU.”

“He should’ve come for me first. They both made a mistake there. I was relaxed. I felt safe, and would’ve been an easier target at that point. Instead, they wanted me to live with the fear. That was stupid.”

He saw it happen, saw the nerves funnel into a steady anger and steely confidence.

“I’ve lived with fear before, and I’m older and smarter and stronger than I was then. Knowing I’m not invincible and that terrible things happen, that’s an advantage. And I have you. I have them.”

She looked over as the dogs played a kind of tag-team tug-of-war with the battered rope.

“You’re older and smarter and stronger—good for you. But if he tries to put a hand on you, I’ll break him to pieces.” When she turned her head and stared, he met her eyes with a blink. “I don’t say what I don’t mean.”

“No, I know you don’t. It’s a reassuring, if occasionally frustrating, behavior. It helps hearing you say it, and knowing you mean it. And I’m really hoping you don’t have to follow through. They have his face now, and his name. I’m going to believe that before much longer, they’ll have him.”

She let out a breath, tipped her head to his shoulder for a moment. “I have to get ready for my next session. Actually, you might want to keep Jaws in the shop with you for the next hour or so.”

“Because?”

“He’s not as mature or calm as my boys, and I’m doing a one-on-one behavioral correction session with a rottweiler with aggression issues.”

“A rottweiler with aggression issues? Where’s your body armor?”

“He’s coming along. We’ve had a couple sessions already, and he’s making good progress. Normally I’d go to the source on this sort of thing, but under the circumstances, I asked the client to bring Hulk here.”

“Hulk. Perfect. Are you carrying your gun?”

“Stop it. This is what I do,” she reminded him. “Or one of the things I do.”

“If you get bit, it’s going to piss me off. Hang on a minute.”

He got up, walked inside. She considered if they kept going down the path they were on now, he’d probably get pissed eventually. She’d rarely been nipped, but it did happen once in a while.

He came out with a box. “Those slats you wanted.”

“Oh, great. Thanks.”

She came through the session unscathed and decided to busy herself in the kitchen for the next hour. And since she had a chunk of time on her hands and was—more or less—confined to quarters, she thought she might make use of what could very loosely be termed Simon’s home gym once she’d finished up her kitchen project.

Dogs weren’t the only ones who needed to keep up with their training. Pleased with her first project, she emptied one of the kitchen drawers, scrubbed it, measured and cut the liner she’d asked Sylvia to pick up for her. Using the pattern she’d outlined in her head, she slid in the wood dividers—and deemed them perfect.

She’d nearly completed the third drawer when the phone rang. Her mind on organization, she answered it without thinking.

“Hello.”

“Oh, I must have the wrong... I’m looking for Simon.”

Fiona laid spatulas, slotted spoons, serving forks in their allotted space. “He’s here, but he’s out in the shop. I can go get him for you.”

“No, no, that’s fine. He’s probably got the music blasting and machines running. That’s why he didn’t answer his cell. Who’s this?”

“Ah, Fiona. Who’s this?”

“Julie, Julie Doyle. I’m Simon’s mother.”

“Mrs. Doyle.” Wincing a little, Fiona closed the drawer. “I know Simon would want to talk to you. It’ll just take me a minute to—”

“I’d much rather talk to you—if you’re the Fiona Simon’s told me about.”

“He... really?”

“He may not say much, but I have years of experience prying things out of him. You’re a dog trainer.”

“Yes.”

“And how’s that puppy doing?”

“Jaws is great. I hope your years of experience helped you pry out of Simon that he’s madly in love with that dog. They’re a great team.”

“You do Search and Rescue. Simon mentioned to his brother you’re training the pup for that.”

“He mentioned to his brother?”

“Oh, we e-mail a lot, all of us. But I need a phone conversation at least once a week. The better to pry, plus I’m angling for him to come home for a visit.”

“He should.” Guilt stewed in her belly. “Of course he should.”

“And he will when everything’s back to normal. I know you’re in a hard situation. How are you doing?”

“Mrs. Doyle—”

“Julie, and why would you want to talk about all of that with a perfect stranger? Just tell me, are you staying with Simon now, at his place?”

“Yes. He’s... he’s been wonderful. Generous, supportive, understanding. Patient.”

“I think I must have the wrong number after all.”

Fiona laughed and leaned back on the counter. “He talks about you. Just little things he says once in a while. He’s madly in love with you, too.”

“The madly’s often the key word in the Doyle family.”

It was easy to chat. Relaxed, Fiona opened the drawer again and filled it systematically as she and Julie Doyle got acquainted.

When the door opened, she glanced over her shoulder. “Well, here’s Simon now, so I’ll turn you over. It was really nice talking to you.”

“We’ll do it again, soon.”

“Your mom,” Fiona mouthed and offered the phone.

“Hey.” He stared at the open drawer, shook his head.

“I’ve already spent most of the time I have talking to the delightful Fiona. I don’t have much left for you.”

“You should’ve called my cell. Some of us work for a living.”

“I did call your cell.”

“Well, I was working for a living.” He opened the fridge, pulled out a Coke. “Everything good?”

“Everything’s very good. Simon, you’re living with a woman.”

“You’re not going to send a priest, are you?”

Her laugh rolled through the earpiece. “On the contrary, I’m pleased with this new step.”

“It’s just a thing because of that other business.”

“She thinks you’re wonderful, generous, supportive and patient.” Julie waited a beat. “Yes, I was speechless, too. Do you know what I see, Simon, with my mother’s super-vision?”

“What?”

“I see some rough edges smoothing out.”

“You’re asking for it, Julie Lynne.”

“When I ask for it, I get it. We’re good at that, aren’t we?”

Amused, he took a swig of Coke. “I guess we are.”

“I like the tone of your voice when you talk about her. And that’s all I’m saying about it. For now.”

“Good.”

“I’ll give you good, good and proper next time I see you. Do something for me, Simon.”

“Maybe.”

“Be careful. You’re the only second son I have. Take care of your Fiona, but be careful.”

“I can do that. Don’t worry, Ma. Please.”

“Now that’s a useless request for a mother. I have to go. I have more important things to do than talk to you.”

“Same goes.”

“You were always a difficult child. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Same to Dad. Bye.” He hung up, took another swig of Coke. “You’re organizing my kitchen drawers.”

“Yes. You’re free to disorganize them at your whim and will. But doing this keeps me sane. And you made the clever dividers.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I enjoyed talking to your mother. I like the way you sound when you talk to her.”

Brow creasing, he lowered the bottle. “What is this?”

“What’s what?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Turn around.”

“Why?”

“I want to see if the rottweiler bit you in the ass.”

“He did not bite me in the ass or anywhere else.”

“I’ll check it out later.” He pulled open a drawer at random. “Jesus, Fiona, you lined them.”

“I’m so ashamed.”

“Let me point out, neither of us actually cooks, so what’s the point of having lined, divided, organized kitchen drawers?”

“To be able to find things, whether or not you use them. And what’s the point of having all these things in the first place if you don’t cook?”

“I wouldn’t have all this junk if my mother didn’t... never mind that either.”

“I can jumble everything up again if it makes you feel better.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

And she grinned at him, quick and fun. “I’m going to do the cabinets, too. You can just consider it my little hobby.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to put things back where you think they belong.”

“See, look how well we understand each other.”

“You’re sneaky, and don’t think I don’t know it. I grew up with sneaky.”

“I got that impression.”

“That’s the problem. You’re not like her, but you are.”

“How about if I tell you I also understand you’re not really stewing about me organizing the kitchen drawers, but trying to gauge whether this is a prelude to me trying to organize your life.”

“Okay.”

“And in the spirit of why fuck around with it, I’ll tell you straight I can’t promise I won’t try, at least in some areas, to do just that. I like to think I know when to back off, give up or adjust, but that doesn’t mean I won’t irritate you with my deadly sense of order. At the same time”—she held up a finger before he could interrupt—“I think I get that at least part of your creativity feeds on disorder. I don’t understand it, but I get it. Which doesn’t mean that your apparently innate messiness won’t irritate me occasionally.”

He felt, tidily, put in his place. “I guess that’s supposed to be logical.”

“It is logical. And I’ll tell you something else. The occasional irritation works well for me as a distraction. But then it just fades. I don’t hold irritable well for long under most circumstances. But under the current? There’s just too much that’s bigger to worry about than whether or not you put the corkscrew back in the right drawer or kick your dirty socks under the bed.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“Good. I want to get in a workout. Is it okay if I use your stuff ?”

“You don’t have to ask.” Frustrated, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Don’t ask me things like that.”

“I don’t know where your boundaries are yet, Simon, so I have to ask or...” She closed the drawer he’d neglected to. “I’ll cross over them.” Then she stepped toward him, cupped his face. “I don’t mind asking, and I can handle no.”

When she walked out, he stayed where he was, hands in pockets, frowning after her.

Twenty-Five

He couldn’t figure out if they were fighting. Nothing ever seemed to fall into the nice clear areas of black or white with Fiona—and that drove him a little bit crazy. Because it fascinated him every bit as much as it frustrated him.

If he knew she was pissed and in fighting mode, he could gear up for it, wade into it or ignore it. But the uncertainty kept him off balance.

“That’s her point, isn’t it?” He wandered outside with the dogs. “I’m thinking about it, and her, because I don’t know. It’s fucking devious.”

He frowned at the back of his house. He could pick out the windows she’d washed. She hadn’t gotten to them all, he thought, but she would. Oh, yes, she would. Where the hell did she find the time? Did she get up in the middle of the damn night with a bottle of freaking Windex?

Now, with the way the sun glinted off clean glass, he couldn’t ignore the dull, weathered paint on the window trim. And just when was he supposed to find the time to paint the freaking window trim, which means painting the door trim?

And once he painted the trim, he knew damn well he’d have to paint the goddamn porches or they’d look like crap.

“It was fine before she cleaned the damn windows, and I’d have gotten to it sooner or later. Go up.”

At the command, Jaws cheerfully climbed the ladder of the slide and trotted down again with a hand signal. Simon gave the dog a treat, then repeated the skill a couple of times before moving to the teeter-totter.

The other dogs climbed, tunneled, jumped and navigated on their own, using the training equipment as enthusiastically as kids use a playground in the park.

Simon glanced over as Bogart barked, then watched as the Lab picked his way agilely over a length of board no wider than a gymnast’s balance beam.

“Show-off. You can do that.” Simon gave Jaws a pat on the head. “Go on up there and do that. What are you, a pussy?” He led the dog over, surveyed the beam. “It’s not that high. You can get up there.” Simon patted the beam. “Go up!”

Jaws gathered himself, then plopped his ass down. He gave the beam and Simon a look that clearly said, What the fuck?

“Don’t embarrass me in front of these guys. I’m spotting you, aren’t I? Up!”

Jaws angled his head, then his ears pricked when Simon took out a treat and set it on the beam.

“You want it? Come get it. Up!”

Jaws made the jump, scrabbled for purchase, then dropped off the other side.

“He meant to do that.” Simon gave the other dogs a cool stare, then leaned down close to Jaws. “You meant to do that. That’s your story. Let’s try it again.”

It took a few attempts, and a human demonstration Simon was grateful no one could see, but Jaws finally managed a landing.

“All right, fucking A. Now you’ve got to walk. Let’s walk.” He took out another treat, held it just out of reach until Jaws picked his way to the end of the beam. “Yeah, look at you. Circus Dog.”

Ridiculously pleased, he got down to give Jaws a full-body rub. “Let’s do it again. I’d give that one an eight-point-five. We’re going for the perfect ten.”

He spent the next ten minutes working on the skill, perfecting it before indulging in a wrestling contest in which he was outnumbered four to one. “She’s not the only one who can train. We got that one down, didn’t we? We—Well, shit.”

He shoved to his feet as it hit him. He was playing with dogs, working with dogs. He carried dog cookies in his pocket as habitually as loose change and his Leatherman. He was thinking about what color to paint his exterior trim and porches.

He’d made organizers for his kitchen drawers.

“This,” he said with feeling, “is nuts.”

He strode to the house. Boundaries? She didn’t know where his boundaries were? Well, she was about to find out.

He wasn’t going to be maneuvered and manipulated, and trained to be something he wasn’t.

There, he thought, was the black and the white.

He could hear her, breathing hard, as he stomped up the steps. Good, he thought, maybe the workout had worn her out and she wouldn’t have enough breath to argue her way out of it.

Then he stepped into the doorway, and just stood.

He didn’t notice the clean floor or windows, or that the sweaty shirt he’d peeled off when he’d done some lifting the day before wasn’t on the floor where he’d tossed it.

How could he? All he could see was her.

She executed some sort of martial arts routine and looked as if she could kick some serious ass. Lust added the final grip to interest and admiration to choke out temper.

Sweat dampened her face and the skinny tank she’d changed into. Those long legs, highlighted in a pair of snug black shorts, kicked, set, spun while the wiry muscles in her arms rippled.

He’d be drooling in a minute, he thought, as she balanced on one leg, kicked, then landed on the other in a graceful blur.

He must’ve made some sound because she pivoted, set into a fighting stance—eyes cold and fierce. Just as quickly, she relaxed and laughed.

“Didn’t see you there.” She sucked in air. “Scared me.”

She hadn’t looked scared, he thought. “What was that? Tae kwon do?”

She shook her head, gulped from the bottle of water she’d set on the weight bench. “Tai chi—mostly.”

“I’ve seen people doing tai chi. It’s like sissy New Age in slow motion.”

“First, it’s really old age, and the slow moves are about control, practice and form.” She crooked a finger. “It’s organic,” she said, “and about centering your power.”

“I’m still hearing sissy New Age, and that’s not what I was looking at a minute ago.”

“There’s a reason many of the moves have pretty names that come from nature. Like Push the Wave.”

She demonstrated, slowly, again gracefully pushing her hands out, palms toward him, then drawing them back, palms up. “But if I intensify that same move for defense, it’s—”

She shoved him back, knocking him off balance, then pulled him in and past her. “See?”

“I wasn’t ready.”

Grinning, she spread her legs, bent her knees and gave him a come-ahead gesture.

“Okay, you’ve seen The Matrix,” he said, and made her laugh.

“You’re stronger than I am, bigger, taller, longer reach. You may be faster, but we haven’t tested that yet. If I have to defend myself, I need to be able to center my power and use yours. I used to practice every day, in my obsessive way. Tai chi, power yoga, boxing—”

Interest piqued. “Boxing?”

“Yeah.” She put up her dukes. “Want to go a couple rounds?”

“Maybe later.”

“I did kickboxing, resistance training, hours of Pilates and whatever else you can think of every week. It made me feel capable and secure. Pro-active, I guess. Then I eased off, and I got rusty. I stopped pushing myself until... well, until.”

“You didn’t look rusty.”

“Muscle memory. It comes back. And the ever-popular motivation.”

“Show me. No, wait. This isn’t why I came in here. You did it again.”

“I did?”

“Distracted me. Sweaty, sexy body. You don’t need tai chi to throw a man off balance.”

“Wow.” She gave a little shoulder wiggle. “Now I do feel powerful.”

“It’s that.” He pointed.

“It’s... the window?”

“It’s the window. Why did you wash the window?”

“Because I like clean windows. I like to look outside, and it’s more pleasant to do that when I’m not looking through a film of dust.”

“That’s only part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

“The other part is getting me to notice the ones you haven’t gotten around to washing yet so I feel guilty. And so I see that the trim needs painting.”

She picked up her water bottle, uncapped it. “That’s a lot of motivation behind some Windex and a rag.”

“And there’s this.” He dug in his pocket, pulled out a handful of dog treats.

“Oh, thanks, but I’m trying to cut down.”

“Funny. I put these damn things in my pocket every day. I don’t even think about it, I just do it. I just spent a good half hour, maybe more, out there working with the dogs.”

All patient attention, she sipped her water. “Because I washed the window?”

“No, but it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing as the house smelling like a lemon drop or me thinking I should probably pick you up some flowers the next time I’m in the village.”

“Oh, Simon.”

“Shut up. And it doesn’t matter a damn that we’ve got bigger things to worry about because basic is basic. So...”

He strode to the window, slapped the palm of his hand against the sparkling glass. “Leave it,” he ordered, pointing at the smudged print he left behind.

“Okay. Why?”

“I don’t know why. I don’t have to know why, but if I want it gone, I’ll wash it off. You leave it alone.”

There, he thought. Now they’d get down to it.

She started to laugh, a full-out, up-from-the-gut roll that left her breathless again. She had to bend over, brace her hands on her thighs.

“Listen, it may sound stupid, but—”

Still bent over, she waved him off. “Not entirely, but enough. God, God! I’ve been up here working my ass off to make myself feel strong, capable of dealing with whatever comes at me so I’m not hiding under the bed trembling, and you accomplish the same thing in under five minutes.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You make me feel strong, capable, even ingenious because you just see me that way. I haven’t got you wrapped around my finger, Simon—far from it. And the fact is, I wouldn’t want you there. But because there’s this little part of you that worries I do, or I could, I feel I can take on anything that comes. Anything at all. I feel strong and sexy and capable and ingenious.” She flexed her left biceps. “It’s heady. I’m drunk on it.”

“Well, that’s just great.”

“And you know what else? That you would do that—that silly thing to make a point.” She gestured toward the window. “That you could do that without feeling foolish, but feel just a little foolish because you’ve spent time out there playing with the dogs? Simon, it just disarms me.”

“For God’s sake.”

“It disarms me and delights me. So I’m disarmed, delighted, strong and sexy and capable all at the same time. And no one has ever made me feel the way you do. No one. That.” She pointed to the window again, and let out a laugh that sounded as baffled as he felt. “That right there is why, as ridiculous, as incomprehensible as it is, it’s why I’m in love with you.

“Simon.” She walked to him, linked her arms around his neck. “Isn’t that a kick in the ass?” She pressed her lips to his in a hard, noisy kiss. “So, handprint stays. In fact, I think I’ll draw a heart around it first chance. Meanwhile, I can show you some basic moves before I dive into the shower and a glass of wine. Unless you want to yell at me for a while.”

“That’s it,” he muttered, and, grabbing her arm, pulled her across the room.

“That’s what? Are you throwing me out of the house?”

“Don’t tempt me. I’m taking you to bed. I ought to get something out of this.”

“Gosh, what a charming offer, but I really need that shower, so—”

“I want you sweaty.” He used the momentum, gave her arm a quick whip and more or less slingshot her onto the bed. “I’ll show you some moves.”

“I think you just did.” She pushed herself up, cocked her head. “Maybe I’m not in the mood.” And her breath caught when he yanked the damp shirt over her head, tossed it. “Or—”

“You can pick that up later.” He cupped her breasts, rubbed her nipples with calloused thumbs. “You made the bed.”

“Yes, I did.”

“A lot of good it did you.” When she shivered, he pushed her onto her back.

“And you’re going to show me the error of my ways?”

“Damn right.” He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her gym shorts, pulled.

Smiling, she trailed a fingertip from her collarbone to her belly, and back again. “Then come and get me.”

He stripped, watching her watching him.

“I should just keep you naked,” he considered as he straddled her. “I know what to do with you when you’re naked.”

“I like what you do with me when I’m naked.”

“Then you’re going to love this.”

He took her avid, inviting lips with his, roughening the kiss even as he deepened it. He used his weight to pin her as her heart began to gallop, used his hands to exploit her so that hot, damp skin trembled.

Strong and capable she was, down to the marrow, he thought. It was part of what made her irresistible. But now, just now, he wanted her weak, he wanted her helpless. For him, only for him.

He used his tongue, his fingertips, in long, slow journeys that made her sigh as he felt her body relax into pleasure.

Then his teeth so her pulses leaped.

When his mouth came back to hers, she sighed again, lifting her hands to his face in the way that always disarmed him, then sweeping her fingers through his hair.

Against his mouth her breath quickened when he trailed a finger up her inner thigh, retreated, stroked slowly back to brush, only to brush, the heat.

When she moaned his name, arched her hips, he retreated again.

She ached. Her body quivered, rising toward that lovely release, only to have it denied. Even as she said his name again, he feathered his fingers over her, made her writhe. And his mouth began the same torturous assault on her breasts.

He gave, gave, took her to within a breath of peak. Then eased away to leave her churning.

“I want you. Simon. Please.”

Still he played her until her gasps mixed with moans, until her hands pulled at the spread she’d so neatly smoothed that morning.

He drove into her, hard, fast, a shock to her tormented system. The orgasm tore through her, center to throat. She heard her own scream, heard it, felt it deepen into a shuddering moan of release. Her body roared through it, bucking beneath his, nails digging in until her hands simply slid bonelessly to the bed.

He dragged her up so her head fell against his shoulder.

“Put your legs around me.”

“I—”

“I want you around me.” His teeth scraped over her throat, her shoulders. “It’s all I can think about. You around me.”

She gave him what he wanted, held on through the storm. Rode it up again, yet again, until there was nothing left.

She all but melted onto the bed, might have lain there weak as water till morning. But he pulled her over, anchored her so she sprawled over him with her head on his chest over his raging heart.

She dozed off and the next thing she knew she was blinking awake and staring at four furry faces pressed to the deck door. Simon’s chest rose and fell steadily under her head, but his fingers played with her hair, sliding through it, twining it, sliding. Everything about the moment made her smile.

“The dogs want in,” she murmured.

“Yeah, well, they can wait a minute.”

“I’ll get them.” But she didn’t move. “I’m starving. I guess working out followed by working out hones the appetite.”

She snuggled in. One more minute, she told herself. Then she’d let the sad-eyed dogs in, grab that shower, and they’d figure out what to toss together for dinner.

She started to stretch, then her gaze landed on the bedside clock. “What! Is that clock right?”

“I don’t know. Who cares?”

“But... Did I fall asleep? For an hour ? That’s like a nap.”

“Fee, that is a nap.”

“But I never take naps.”

“Welcome to my world.”

“Well, God.” She shoved up, pushed her hands through her hair. Since it was the closest to hand, she grabbed his T-shirt, dragged it on.

It just covered her ass, he noted. Too bad.

She opened the door, and the room was immediately filled with dogs.

“Sorry, boys. Go on and talk to Simon. I need a shower.”

She dashed into the bathroom. And all four dogs lined up on the side of the bed, tails whipping, eyes staring, noses twitching.

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. I had sex with her. A lot of sex. What’s it to you? Only one of you has balls, and since everybody’s haranguing me, he’s not going to have them much longer.”

He recognized the gleam in Jaws’s eyes. “Don’t even think about jumping up here,” Simon warned, but cupped a hand around his own balls, just in case. “Why don’t you go get me a beer? Now that would be a useful behavior.”

Since none of them seemed inclined, he got up to get one for himself.

Once he got downstairs, he switched it to wine. She’d said she wanted wine, he remembered. He might as well go that route, too. He poured two glasses and sipped the first as he opened the refrigerator to study the contents.

They were going to starve to death, he decided, if one of them didn’t think about hitting the grocery store. He poked into the freezer and decided one of her frozen girl meals was better than starvation.

Marginally.

He picked up her wine and, with the dogs trailing him—again—started back for the stairs.

Beside him, Newman let out a quiet woof seconds before he saw the woman walk onto his front porch.

She beamed a smile through the screen door. “Well, hello.”

Simon took a moment to think she was lucky he’d bothered to pull on his boxers. “Something I can do for you?”

“I hope so. I’d love to talk to you for a few minutes. I’m Kati Starr, with U.S. Report. Isn’t that Fiona Bristow’s car—and her dogs, right?”

Slick looks, slick manner, he thought.

“Here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to tell you, once, to turn around, get back in your own car. Go away. Stay away.”

“Mr. Doyle, I’m just doing my job, and trying to do it as thoroughly and accurately as I can. My information is there might be a break in the investigation. As I’ve been told Ms. Bristow’s now living with you, I’d hoped to be able to get her thoughts on this potential break. I admire your work,” she added. “I’d love to do a feature on you sometime. How long have you and Ms. Bristow been involved?”

Simon closed the door in her face, flipped the lock.

He figured he’d give her three minutes to get the hell off his property before he called the sheriff and had the satisfaction of pressing charges for trespassing.

But when he got back upstairs, Fiona, wet hair slicked back, sat on the side of the bed.

“I saw her through the window, so you don’t have to wonder if you should tell me or not.”

“Okay.” He passed her the wine.

“I was going to say I’m sorry she came here, started on you, but it’s just not my fault.”

“No, it’s not your fault. She said she had information that there’d been a break in the case. I don’t know if she was just fishing or if she’s got a source leaking her information.”

Fiona let out a muttered oath. “I guess we’d better tell Agent Tawney, just in case. What did you say to her?”

“I told her to go away, and when she didn’t, I just closed the door.”

“Smarter than I was.”

“Well, I considered giving her a quote, but I thought ‘Fuck you, bitch’ didn’t have any real creative zing. And it was all I could think of. If you’re going into brood mode, it’s going to piss me off.”

“I’m not going into brood mode. I’m going into neener-neener mode by calling the FBI and the sheriff’s office and tattling on her. And I’m asking for a restraining order after all, just for the fun of it.”

He reached out, smoothed a hand over her hair. “I like that mode better.”

“Me too. Then what do you say we flip to see who cooks dinner?”

“Buzzing up sissy frozen dinners isn’t worthy of a flip.”

“I was thinking of the steaks we have in the meat drawer of the fridge.”

“We have steaks?” The day got brighter. “We have a meat drawer?” She smiled and got to her feet. “Yes, we do.”

“Okay, the meat drawer probably came with the fridge. How did we get steaks? Do you have a magic cow somewhere?”

“No, I have a fairy stepmother, who delivers. I asked Syl if she’d pick us up a couple steaks, Idahos, some staples I needed. She dropped them off today, including a bunch of fresh vegetables and fruit because she thinks we need those, too. That’s why there are fresh vegetables in the crisper. And yes, we have a crisper.”

He decided there was no point in telling her he’d looked in the fridge and seen none of those things. There’d just be some variation of his mother’s standard crack about Male Refrigerator Blindness Syndrome.

“You make the calls. I’ll start the grill.”

“Works for me. You do know you’re only wearing your underwear.”

“I’ll put on the pants you’ve already picked up and folded on the bed you’ve already made. But that means if we have to have any of those vegetables, you’re dealing with them. I’ll take the steaks.”

“That’s a fair trade. I’ll make the calls downstairs.”

When she went down, he put on the neatly folded work pants she’d laid on the bed.

Before he went downstairs, he stepped into his makeshift gym.

Okay, maybe, like the rest of the house, the room smelled like a lemon drop. But his handprint was still on the window.

It was, he supposed, a strange kind of compromise.

He started down, cursed, walked back up and yanked open a drawer. He pulled on a fresh shirt.

She’d gotten the steaks, he reminded himself.

Steaks, fresh shirt. It was just another kind of compromise.

Twenty-Six

Tawney studied Perry on the monitor. He sat at the steel table, shackled, his eyes closed, the smallest of smiles on his face—as a man might when listening to pleasant music.

His prison-pale face, doughier than it had been seven years before, expressed quiet contemplation. Lines carved brackets around his mouth, more spiderwebbed from the corners of his eyes, only enhancing the appearance of an ordinary, harmless man who’d use his senior discount for the Early Bird Special at his local Denny’s.

The indulgent uncle, the quiet next-door neighbor who tended his roses and clipped his lawn meticulously. The simple Everyman people passed on the street without a second glance or particular interest.

“He used that the way Bundy used his charming looks and fake arm cast,” Tawney murmured.

“Used what?”

“His I’m-somebody’s-grandfather mask. He’s still using it.”

“Maybe. But he’s talking to us without his lawyer, and that has to be another device.” Mantz shook her head. “What’s he up to? What’s he thinking? Nobody knows him better than you, Tawney.”

“Nobody knows him.”

He kept his eyes on Perry’s face and thought, He knows we’re watching him. He’s enjoying it.

“He’s good at making you think you do, saying what you want to hear, or expect to hear. It’s the layers that trip you up with him. The ones he has already, the ones he adds on to suit the circumstance. You’ve read the files, Erin. You know it was mostly just his bad luck and the heroism of a canine cop that we caught him.”

“You don’t give yourself or the investigative team enough credit. You’d have bagged him.”

“He stayed in the wind nearly a year, a year after we had his face, his name. Fiona gave him to us, and still, it took months and the murder of a police officer before we took him down.”

And for that he’d never completely forgive himself.

“Look at him,” Tawney added. “A paunchy man past middle age, chained, caged, and still he finds a way. He found Eckle and lit the fuse.”

“You’re not getting enough sleep.”

“I bet that bastard’s sleeping like a baby. Every night, with that goddamn smile on his face just like he has on now. He’s got an agenda. He’s always got an agenda, a purpose to everything he does. He doesn’t need the lawyer to talk to us because he’s only going to tell us what he’s already decided to tell us.”

“He doesn’t know we’ve got a line on Eckle.”

“I wonder.”

“How could he? And telling him what we want to tell him is our leverage. Eckle’s screwing up the plan, and that’s going to piss him off.”

“Well. Let’s find out.”

When they entered, Tawney nodded to the guard on the door. Perry remained still, eyes closed, the little smile in place as Tawney read the names, date and time into the record. “You’ve waived your right to counsel during this interview?”

Perry opened his eyes. “Hello, Agent Tawney. Yes, no need for lawyers between old acquaintances. Agent Mantz, you’re looking lovely today. It’s so nice to have visitors to break up the monotony of the day. We’re chatting so often these days. I look forward to it.”

“Is that what this is about?” Tawney demanded. “The attention, the break in the monotony?”

“It’s certainly a nice benefit. How goes the hunt? I’m hungry for news. The powers that be have narrowed my access to the outside. Understandable, of course, but unfortunate.”

“You get your ‘news,’ Perry. I don’t doubt your abilities.”

Perry folded his hands, leaned forward a little. “I’ll say that before my current situation, I enjoyed the article that bright young woman wrote. Kati Starr? I suspect that’s a nom de plume, or a clever gift from fate. Either way, I enjoyed her slant, we’ll say, and was delighted to catch up a little with Fiona. You’ll have to tell her I’m thinking about her.”

“I bet you are. It’s hard to forget a woman who kicked your ass.”

“My face, actually.”

“She’ll do the same to your apprentice,” Mantz put in. “If he’s stupid enough to try for her.”

“You give me too much credit.” Perry’s chains rattled as he waved the comment away. “I’m hardly in any position to train anyone, even if I were inclined. Which I’m not. We’ve talked about this before, and as I said then, you can clearly see from my record in this institution, I’ve accepted the punishment the courts, and society, meted out. I obey the rules here. Rather than look for trouble, I avoid it. My life on the outside being what it was, I don’t have many visitors. My sainted sister, of course. Or maybe you think she’s taken up where I left off.”

Saying nothing, Tawney opened a file, took out a photo. He tossed it on the table.

“May I?” Perry picked up Eckle’s photo, examined it. “Now, he looks very familiar. Give me a minute. I never forget a face. Yes, yes, of course. He came to teach here, several times. Literature and writing. You know how interested I am in books—and I do miss my work in our library. I took his courses. I hope to take more. Incarceration shouldn’t preclude education.

“I found him an average teacher. No spark, really. But beggars can’t be choosers, can we?”

“I bet he found you a better teacher,” Mantz said.

“That’s sweet of you. Is that your way of saying you believe I inspired him? That would be fascinating, but I can’t be held responsible for the actions of others.”

“You don’t owe him anything either,” Mantz pointed out. “We’ll stop him. We’ll put him in a cage just like yours, but you have an opportunity, and that should appeal to you. Give us information that leads to his arrest, and we can make things a little less monotonous for you.”

A thin shell of hard slid over his face. “What? You’ll see I’m served ice cream every Sunday, given an extra hour a week in the yard? There’s nothing you can do for me, or to me, Agent Mantz. I’ll spend the rest of my life in this place. I accept that. If beggars can’t be choosers, I choose not to be a beggar.”

“When we catch him, he’ll talk. Just like the minister you conned talked,” Mantz added. “It didn’t take us long to persuade him to admit he smuggled letters in and out for you, for more than a year.”

“Correspondence with my prayer group.” Perry folded his hands piously. “Reverend Garley sympathized with my need for spiritual comfort—and privacy for my soul, which the system fails to respect.”

“Everyone in this room knows you don’t have a soul.”

“Eckle will roll on you,” Mantz continued, “and you’ve already considered that. When he does, your life in here will get a little more—how did you put it?—narrow. You’ll be charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to murder. The years added to your time won’t mean a damn, but we’ll see to it your time in here is a fucking misery.”

Perry only continued to smile at her in his calm, pleasant way. “You think it’s not already?”

“It can be worse,” Tawney promised. “Believe me when I tell you I’ll make sure it’s worse. And for what, Perry? For this.” He flicked a hand at the photo. “He’s a screwup. Impatient, careless. You stayed ahead of us for years. We’re breathing down his neck within months. He’s not worthy of you.”

“Flattery.” Perry sighed. “I am susceptible to flattery. You know my weaknesses, Don.”

“He tied a red scarf to Fiona Bristow’s mailbox.” With her eyes trained on Perry’s, Mantz saw the quick flicker of irritation in his. There was something he hadn’t learned yet. “He’ll never get her for you now, never finish it for you.”

“That was... immature of him.”

“You know what he did to Annette Kellworth, beating her half to death before he ended it.” Tawney shook his head with a disgust he wanted Perry to see, a disgust he understood Perry would share.

“Not your style, George. Not your class. He’s losing control, and showing off. You never stooped like that. If we get him without your help, you’re going to pay a heavy price for his mistakes.”

“You know my weakness,” Perry repeated after a moment. “And you know my strengths. I’m an observer. I observed Mr. Eckle. Took an interest in him as there’s so little of interest here. It may be those observations would be helpful to you. I might have theories, speculations. I might even remember certain comments or conversations. I might remember something helpful, but I’d want something in return.”

“What flavor ice cream?”

Perry smiled at Tawney. “Something a little sweeter. I want to speak with Fiona. Face-to-face.”

“Forget it,” Mantz said immediately.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Perry kept his eyes on Tawney. “Do you want to save lives? Do you want to save the life of the woman he’s stalking even now? Or will she die? Will others die, all for the lack of a single conversation? What would Fiona say to that? It’s her choice, isn’t it?”

“We should push him harder,” Mantz insisted. “Dig under his skin. He responded when you said Eckle wasn’t worthy of him. It fed his ego.”

“It only affirmed what he’d already concluded himself.”

“Exactly, so we push that button. Let me do it. I’ll work him alone. Flattery and fear from a woman may turn it.”

“Erin, he barely acknowledges you.” Because it was his turn to drive, Tawney slid behind the wheel. “As far as he’s concerned, you’re not even part of this. You weren’t around during the investigation that brought him down, and this is all about that. All about him. Eckle’s just his vehicle, his conduit.”

Mantz slammed the buckle of her seat belt into the lock. “I don’t like being the ones making the down payment.”

“Neither do I.”

“Will she do it?”

“A part of me’s sorry to say, yes, I think she will.”

While the FBI flew east, Francis Eckle stepped in line a few places behind his prey. She’d worked late tonight, he thought. Just an hour or so, but it pleased him to know she was hard at work. Pleased him that, as usual, she made the stop at Starbucks for her evening pick-me-up.

Skinny latte, he knew, double shot of espresso.

Tonight was yoga class, and if she hurried, she could fit in twenty minutes on the treadmill in the upscale fitness club she treated herself to.

He’d noted, thanks to his thirty-day trial membership, she rarely did more than twenty, and often skipped even that.

Never touched the weights, never bothered with the other machines. Just liked to show herself off in one of the tight outfits she changed into.

No different from a street-corner whore.

Afterward, she’d walk the three blocks back to work, get her car from the parking lot, then drive the half mile home.

She wasn’t fucking anyone at the moment.

Career-focused. Self-focused. Nobody and nothing mattered as much to her as herself.

Selfish bitch. Street-corner whore.

He felt the rage rising up. It felt so good. So good. Hot and bitter.

He imagined pounding his fists into her face, her belly, her breasts. He could feel the way her cheekbone would shatter, smell the blood when her lip split, see the shock and pain in her eye as it swelled and closed.

“Teach her a lesson,” he murmured. “Teach her a lesson, all right.”

“Hey, buddy, move it up.”

His hands shook and fisted as he whirled on the man behind him in line. His rage quivered, and his pride spread as the man took an instinctive step back.

Paying attention now, he thought. Everyone’s paying attention now.

You have to blend, Frank. You know how. As long as they don’t see you, you can do anything you want. Anything.

Perry’s voice murmured in his ear. He made himself turn back, cast his gaze down. He was sick of blending. Sick of not being seen.

But... but...

He couldn’t think with all this noise. People talking about him, behind his back. Just like always. He’d show them. Show them all.

Not yet. Not yet. He needed to calm down, to remember the preparations. To focus on the goal.

When he glanced up again, he saw the prey already moving toward the door, her take-out cup in her hand. His face burned with embarrassment. He’d nearly let her walk away, nearly lost her.

He stepped out of line, kept his head down. It couldn’t be tonight after all. Discipline, control, focus. He needed to calm down, to calm himself, to box in the excitement until after.

She’d have one more night of freedom, one more day of life. And he’d have the pleasure of knowing she was unaware she had already stepped into the trap.

Fiona considered a voodoo doll. She could probably get one of Sylvia’s artists to make a doll in Kati Starr’s likeness. Sticking pins in it, or simply bashing its head against a table, might be childish, but she had a feeling it would also be therapeutic.

Simon didn’t seem to be concerned about the latest story with Starr’s byline. He was probably right. Probably. But the idea that she claimed to have sources stating the FBI was looking for a “person of interest” in the RSKII investigation grated.

She didn’t just pull that out of the air.

Someone was leaking information, and she was confident enough of the source to print it, and to have traveled to Orcas, again.

To have pushed Fiona’s name forward, again. And this time linking her with Simon. The hunky artist who traded Seattle’s urban flair for a quiet inlet retreat on Orcas.

The paper had even printed a sidebar on him, relating his work in the medium of wood, his practical applications with a creative flair, its organic center.

Blah, blah, blah.

She had a few dozen things she’d like to say to Kati Starr, which of course was just what the reporter wanted.

The continued publicity put her in a tenuous position with clients. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—answer questions, and they couldn’t help but ask them.

And because the questions, and the crazies, were popping up on her blog, she had to close the comments section and rerun old entries.

Desperate for something to keep her mind occupied, she focused on a new project. And hunted Simon down in his shop. Whatever he was making involved the lathe and the use of a small carving tool—and looked as though it required precision and focus.

She stood back and kept her mouth shut until he turned off the machine.

“What?”

“Can you make this?”

He tossed the protective goggles aside and studied the photo.

“It’s a window box.”

“I know what it is.”

“It’s actually Meg’s window box. I asked her to take a picture and upload it for me. Simon, I need something to do.”

“This looks like something for me to do.”

“Yes, initially. But I’ll plant them. If you could make four of them.” She caught the wheedling edge in her voice and hated it enough to change tones. “I know maybe you don’t actually want window boxes, but you have to admit they’d look good, and they’d perk up the front of the house. You could even decorate them for Christmas with—or not,” she said as he only stared.

“Okay, I guess I won’t mention an idea for some raised beds on the south side of the house. Sorry. Sorry. One look around here and anyone could see you’re already busy enough without me dreaming up more to keep myself occupied. What’s that?”

She gestured toward the tarp that covered the wine cabinet.

“That would be none of your business.”

“Fine. I’ll go clean something and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

“Fiona.”

She stopped at the door.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

“No, it’s fine. You’re in the middle of something, and my problem is I’m not. So I’ll get in the middle of something.”

“So, I’ll go for a walk by myself, and you can go in and sulk.”

She heaved out a breath before crossing over and putting her arms around him. “I was planning on sulking, but I can put it off.” She tipped her face up. “I’m restless, that’s all. I’m used to coming and going when I please. Heading off with the dogs, or jumping in the car and driving into the village. Stopping by Sylvia’s, or going by to see Mai. I promised I wouldn’t go anywhere alone, and I didn’t realize how stir-crazy I’d get when I couldn’t. So now I’m a pest, and it annoys me. Probably more than it annoys you.”

“Doubtful,” he said, and made her laugh.

“Go back to work. I’m going to go take some new pictures of the boys and update the website.”

“We’ll go out later. Go out for dinner or something.”

“I feel sanity returning. I’ll see you when you’re done.” She walked back to the door, opened it. Stopped. “Simon.”

“What now?”

“Agents Tawney and Mantz just pulled up.”

She tried to be optimistic as she walked across the yard. Tawney greeted the dogs, and was immediately offered a rope by Jaws as Mantz stayed several cautious steps back.

“Fiona. Simon.” Despite his dark suit, Tawney gave Jaws a quick game of tug. “I hope we’re not interrupting.”

“No. In fact I was just complaining I had too much time on my hands today.”

“Feeling hemmed in?”

“A little. Lie. A lot.”

“I remember how it was for you before. We’re making progress, Fee. We’re going to do everything we can to close this case and get things back to normal for you.”

“You look tired.”

“Well, it’s been a long day.” He glanced over at Simon. “Is it all right if we talk inside?”

“No problem.” Simon started toward the house. “You’ve seen the latest in U.S. Report,” he said. “It upsets her. She doesn’t need that added on. You’ve got a leak to plug.”

“Believe me, we’re working on it.”

“We’re no happier about it than you are,” Mantz added as they stepped inside. “If Eckle gets the idea we’re looking for him, he could go under.”

“That answers the top question. You haven’t found him yet. Do you want anything?” Fiona asked them. “Coffee? Something cold?”

“Let’s just sit down. We’re going to tell you as much as we can.” Tawney sat and, leaning forward, linked his hands on his knees. “We know he was in Portland on January fifth because he sold his car to a used-car lot on that date. There’s no other vehicle registered in his name, but we’re checking on purchases in the Portland area on or around that date.”

“He could have bought something from a private seller. Not bothered to register it.” Simon shrugged. “Or had fake ID. Hell, he could’ve taken a bus to anywhere and bought a car off Craigslist.”

“You’re right, but we check, and we keep checking. He needs transportation. He needs lodging. He needs to buy gas and food. We’re going to turn over every stone and use every means at our disposal. That includes Perry.”

“We spoke with him earlier today,” Mantz continued. “We know he and Eckle communicated, using a third party to smuggle letters in and out.”

“Who?” Simon demanded.

“The minister Perry bullshitted at the prison. The minister took Perry’s letters out and mailed them—they were to different names, different locations,” Tawney explained. “Perry claimed they were to members of a prayer group his sister belonged to, and the minister swallowed it. He brought Perry the responses, mailed to him, again from different names and locations.”

“So much for maximum security,” Simon muttered.

“Perry managed to get a letter out a few days after Kellworth’s body was found, but there’s been no correspondence to him for over three weeks.”

“Eckle’s distancing himself ?” Fiona glanced from agent to agent. “Is that what you think?”

“It plays. Eckle’s gone off script now,” Tawney added. “And that’s something Perry’s not pleased about. Now that he knows we’ve identified Eckle and we’re focused on him, Perry’s not pleased about that either.”

“You told him?” Simon interrupted. “So he’ll have a chance to confirm the damn news story with his pen pal?”

“Short of ESP, Perry’s not getting any more messages out or in,” Mantz insisted. “We’ve blocked his conduit. He’s been locked down, and now he’ll remain locked down until we have Eckle in custody. Eckle’s not living up to his standards, and Perry’s feeling the squeeze of losing some of the privileges he gained through good behavior.”

“You think he’s going to tell you, if he knows, how to find this Eckle?” Fiona demanded. “Why would he?”

“He wants to cut the cord there, Fee. He’s not happy his protégé is making mistakes, going his own way. Perry knows, because we made sure he knows, those mistakes will make it impossible for Eckle to get to you.” Tawney waited a beat. “You’re still his one failure, and the reason he’s in prison. He still thinks about you.”

“That’s not particularly good news.”

“We don’t have much to bargain with. Perry knows he’s in prison for life. He’s never getting out. Eventually, his pride will push him into telling us what we need, or we’ll take Eckle without him.”

“Eventually.”

“He’s offered us information. He’s careful enough to couch it as observations, speculations, theories, but he’s ready to turn on Eckle with the right incentive.”

“What does he want?” She already knew. In her gut she already knew.

“He wants to speak with you. Face-to-face. You can’t say anything I haven’t already thought,” Tawney said as Simon surged to his feet. “Nothing I haven’t already said to myself.”

“You’d put her through that, ask her to sit down with the man who tried to kill her so maybe he might toss you a few crumbs?”

“It’s up to her. It’s up to you,” Tawney said to Fiona. “I don’t like it. I don’t like asking you to make this decision. I don’t like giving him squat.”

“Then don’t,” Simon snapped.

“There are plenty of reasons not to do it. He may lie. He may get what he wants and claim he knows nothing after all, or give us information that sends us in the wrong direction. But I don’t think he will.”

“It’s your job to stop this bastard. Not hers.”

Mantz shot him a single hard look. “We’re doing our job, Mr. Doyle.”

“From where I’m standing, you’re asking her to do it.”

“She’s the key. She’s what Perry wants, what he’s wanted for eight years. The reason he recruited Eckle, and she’s the reason he’ll betray him.”

“Stop talking around me,” Fiona murmured. “Just stop. If I say no, he’ll shut down.”

“Fiona.”

“Just wait.” She reached up for Simon’s hand, felt the anger through his skin as clearly as she heard it in his voice. “Wait. He’ll say nothing. He’ll hold out for weeks, maybe months. He’s capable of that. He’ll wait until there’s another. At least one more, so I’ll know she’s dead because I wouldn’t face him.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s how I’d feel.” She squeezed Simon’s hand, hard. “He took Greg to hurt me, and he could do this. He’d like to do it. He expects me to say no. He probably hopes I do until someone else is dead. It would appeal to him. That’s what you think, too.”

“I do,” Tawney confirmed. “He can wait, and the waiting gives him more time to think. He considers us inferior. We wouldn’t have caught him but for a fluke, so he’d calculate Eckle may have time for one or two more.”

“There wouldn’t have been a fluke if he hadn’t killed Greg. He wouldn’t have been driven to kill Greg if I hadn’t gotten away. So it comes back to me. You need to make the arrangements. I want to do this as soon as possible.”

“Goddamn it, Fiona.”

“We need a minute.”

“We’ll be outside,” Tawney told her.

“I need to do this,” she said to Simon when they were alone.

“The fuck you do.”

“You didn’t know me when Greg was killed. You wouldn’t have known me in those weeks, months even, afterward. I shattered. My broods? They’re a shadow of it. They’re nothing compared to the guilt, the grief, the depression, the despair.”

She took both his hands now, hoping to transmit her need through his rage.

“I had help through it. The counseling, sure, but it was friends and family that pulled me out. And Agent Tawney. I could call him, day or night, talk to him when I couldn’t talk to my mother, my father, Syl, anyone else. Because he knew. He wouldn’t ask me if he didn’t believe. That’s one.”

She took a breath, steadied herself. “If I don’t do this, don’t try, and someone else dies, I think it’ll break something inside me. He’ll have won after all. He didn’t win when he took me. He didn’t win when he killed Greg. But, Simon, God, you can only take so many beatings and get up again. That’s two.

“Last. I want to look him in the eye. I want to see him in prison and know he’s there because of me. He wants to use me, he wants to manipulate me.”

She shook her head, the gesture as fierce as the sudden fury that lit her face. “Fuck him. I’ll use him. Maybe, I hope to God, he’ll tell them something that leads them to Eckle. I hope to God. But whether he does or not, I’ll have used him, and done what I needed to do to live with whatever happens after. I’ll be the one who wins. I’ll be the one who beats his sorry, motherfucking ass again. And when it’s done, he’ll know that.”

He pulled away, walked to the window, stared out, then walked back to look down at her. “I love you.”

Knocked sideways, she lowered to the arm of the couch. “Oh my God.”

“I’m so pissed off at you right now. I don’t think I’ve ever been more pissed at anyone in my life. And I’ve been pissed at plenty.”

“Okay. I’m really trying to keep up, but with my head spinning it’s hard to focus. You’re pissed off because you love me?”

“That’s a factor, but not the main thrust. I’m pissed off because you’re going to do this, because you, being you, have to do it. I’m pissed off because short of tying you to the bed, I can’t stop you.”

“You’re wrong. You could. You’re the only one who could.”

“Don’t give me the opening,” Simon warned. “I’m pissed at you. And I think you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known, and my mother sets a damn high standard for amazing. If you cry,” he said when she teared up, “I swear to God...”

“I’m having a hell of a day. Give me a break.” She got to her feet. “You don’t say what you don’t mean.”

“Goddamn right. What’s the point?”

“Tact, diplomacy, but we won’t get into that. Simon.” Needing to touch, she ran her hands over his chest. “Simon. Everything you just said to me—all of it—there’s nothing you could have said or done that could have made me feel better or stronger or more able to do what I need to do.”

“Great.” A few grains of bitterness came through. “Glad I could help.”

“Would you tell me again?”

“Which part?”

She rapped a fist on his chest. “Don’t be an ass.”

“I love you.”

“Good, because I love you. So we’re balanced. Simon.” She laid her hands on his cheeks, and when she kissed him it was strong and sweet. “Try not to worry. He’s going to try to mess with my head. It’s the only power he has now. And he can’t because I’m going in armed with something he’ll never have, and never understand. When I do what I need to do, and walk away from him, I know I’m coming back here. I know you’ll be here, and you love me.”

“You want me to buy that?”

“I’m not selling it. I’m giving it, and it’s truth. Let’s go out and make this deal. I want it done and over, so I can come back to the good part.”

They walked outside. “How soon can we go?” Fiona asked.

Tawney took a moment to study her face. “We’re cleared for tomorrow morning. Agent Mantz and I will see about getting a hotel here on Orcas, and we’ll fly out of Sea-Tac at nine-fifteen. We’ll escort you all the way, Fee. There and back, and be with you throughout the session with Perry. We’ll have her home by midafternoon,” he said to Simon.

Over and done and back, Fiona told herself. “I’ll have someone cover my classes tomorrow morning and afternoon. You don’t need a hotel. You can stay at my place. It’s there, it’s empty,” she added before Tawney could decline. “And it’ll save you some time.”

“We appreciate that.”

“I’ll get the keys.”

Simon waited until Fiona went back inside. “If he screws her up, you’ll pay for it.”

Tawney nodded. “Understood.”

Twenty-Seven

Normally, though opportunities to travel were few and far between, Fiona liked to fly. She enjoyed the ritual, the people-watching, the sensations, the anticipation of leaving one place and hurtling through the air to another.

But in this case, the flight was simply one more necessary part of a means to an end, just something to get through.

She’d thought carefully about what to wear, and hadn’t been able to figure out why her appearance, her presentation, took on such importance.

She considered and rejected a suit as too formal and studied. She contemplated jeans, her usual and most comfortable choice, but decided they were too casual. In the end, she decided on black pants, a crisp white shirt and added a jacket in strong blue.

Simple, serious and businesslike.

And that, she realized when she sat between Tawney and Mantz on the plane, had been the importance. What she wore, how she presented herself indicated tone.

Perry thought he was in charge, she reasoned. Though he currently resided in a maximum-security prison, he’d made a strong bid for alpha position.

He had something they wanted, something they needed, so that gave him power—power she intended to countermand.

The clothes would help remind her—and him—at the end of the day, she’d be the one walking out, going back to her life, to freedom.

He’d be the one going back to a cell.

Nothing he had to trade changed that. And that, she reminded herself, was her power. That was her control.

“I want to go over some of the procedure with you.” Tawney shifted toward her. “You’ll go through security, and there’ll be some paperwork.”

She knew by the way he studied her face he wondered if her nerve would falter. “There always is.”

“We’ll be escorted to an interview room rather than the visitation area. Perry will already be there. He’ll be secured with wrist and ankle shackles, Fee. You will never, not for one second, be alone with him. He won’t be able to touch you.”

“I’m not afraid of him.” That, at least, was true. “I’m not afraid of that. I’m afraid all this might be for nothing. He’ll get what he wants, get his rocks off on that, and not tell you anything that can help. I hate giving him the satisfaction of being in the same room with me, looking at me. But at the same time I’m getting the satisfaction of doing the same. And knowing I’ll walk away, go home—and he won’t.”

“Good. You keep that in your head. Keep it front and center, and know that if you want to break it off, at any time, it’s over. It’s your call, Fee. All the way.”

He patted her hand as they shimmied through some choppy air.

“He’s refused to have his lawyer there, he made a point of it. He thinks he’s in charge, in control.”

“Yes, I was just thinking about exactly that. Let him believe whatever he wants. Let him get a good long look at me.” Her voice hardened, edged with challenge. The turbulence, she thought, was all outside.

“He’s not going to see someone who’s afraid or subservient. And later today, I’ll be playing with my dogs. I’ll eat pizza and have some wine, and tonight, I’ll be sleeping with the man I love. He’ll go back to his cell. I don’t give a damn what he thinks, as long as he tells you what you need to know.”

“Don’t give him anything he can use against you,” Mantz added. “No names, no locations, no routines. As much as you can, keep your reactions steady. He’ll play you if he can, either to scare you or make you angry—anything to get under your skin. We’ll be in the room the entire time, and so will a guard. The entire session will be monitored.”

She let their reassurances, their instructions slide over her. No one, not even Tawney, could know what she felt. No one, she thought, could know that in some dark, closed part of herself she reveled in the idea of seeing him again, of seeing him restrained, as she’d once been. When she faced him again, she’d do it for herself, for Greg, for every woman whose life he’d taken.

He couldn’t know he’d given that dark, closed part of herself a reason to celebrate.

How could he, when she hadn’t known it herself ?

She considered it all a journey. The early morning ferry, the plane, the drive. Every leg brought her the comfort that she’d traveled farther and farther from home. That Perry would never know or see what she knew and saw every single day.

Southeastern Washington wasn’t just a trip away, but almost another world. These weren’t the fields and hills of home, the villages busy with tourists and familiar faces, the sounds and the sea. These weren’t her streams and woods and deep green shadows.

The red brick and thick stone of the penitentiary struck her as formidable and intimidating. The square, squat, unadorned block of the Intensive Management Unit that housed him added stark and cold. And that dark place inside her hoped his life had been, would continue to be, equally stark, equally cold.

Every length of iron, every foot of steel added to her comfort, and her secret celebration.

He believed he’d caused her pain and distress by bargaining for this meeting, she thought, but he’d done her an enormous favor.

Every time she thought of Perry now, she’d think of the walls, the bars, the guards, the guns.

She submitted to the security, the search, the paperwork, and thought Perry would never know that by forcing her to open this door he would help her, finally, to close it—lock off even that tiny chink she’d never been able to shut out.

When she walked into the room where he waited, she was ready.

It pleased her she’d worn that deliberate touch of bold color, that she’d worked her hair into a complicated braid and had been meticulous with her makeup. Because she knew he studied her when she came in, knew he took in those details.

Eight years since he’d locked her in the trunk of his car. Seven since she’d sat in the witness chair facing him. They’d both know the woman who faced him now wasn’t the same person.

“Fiona, it’s been a very long time. You’ve bloomed. Your new life obviously agrees with you.”

“I can’t say the same for you and yours.”

He smiled at her. “I’ve managed to find a tolerable routine. I have to tell you, up until this moment, I doubted you’d come. How was your trip?”

Wants to run the show, take the lead, she concluded. Requires a small correction. “Did you ask me to come here for small talk?”

“I rarely have visitors. My sister—you remember her from the trial, I’m sure. And, of course, in recent days our favorite special agent and his attractive new partner. Conversation is a treat.”

“If you think I’m here to offer you a treat, you’re mistaken. But... the trip was uneventful. It’s a beautiful spring day. I’m looking forward to enjoying more of it when I leave. I’ll enjoy it particularly knowing when I leave you’ll be going back into—what do they call it?—segregation.”

“I see you’ve developed a mean streak. A shame.” He offered her a sorrowful look, adult to child. “You were such a sweet, unaffected young woman.”

“You didn’t know me then. You don’t know me now.”

“Don’t I? You retreated to your island—condolences, by the way, on the death of your father. I often think people who choose to live on islands consider the water surrounding them a kind of moat. A deterrent to the outside world. There you have your dogs and your training classes. Training is an interesting endeavor, isn’t it? A kind of molding of others into your likeness.”

“That would be your take.” Lead him, she told herself. Lull him. “I see it as a method of helping individuals reach their potential, in my particular area of interest and expertise.”

“Reaching potential, yes. On that we agree.”

“Is that what you saw in Francis Eckle? His potential?”

“Now, now.” He sat back, chuckled. “Don’t segue so ham-handedly when we’re having such a nice time.”

“I thought you’d want to talk to me about him, since you set him on me. Of course, he’s made a mess of it. He’s diminished your legacy... George.”

“Now you’re trying to both flatter and annoy me. Did the agents prep you? Tell you what to say, how to say it? Are you a good little puppet, Fiona?”

“I’m not here to flatter or annoy you.” Her voice stayed flat, her eyes steady. “I’ve got no interest in doing either. And no one tells me what to say—or what to do or when to do it. Unlike your situation. Are you a good little puppet in your cage, George?”

“Feisty!”

He laughed out loud, but it wasn’t only humor that sparkled in his eyes. She’d hit a switch, she knew, and turned on the heat.

“I’ve always admired that about you, Fiona. That classic, and clichéd, redhead’s spunk. But as I recall you weren’t so feisty after your lover and his faithful dog took bullets.”

It hurt, brutally, and she held on to the pain.

“You needed medication and ‘therapy,’ ” he added, putting quotes in the air. “You needed your own fatherly special agent to protect you from me, and the drooling press. Poor, poor Fiona. First a heroine through a stroke of luck, then a creature of tragedy and frailty.”

“Poor, poor George,” she said in the same tone, and saw the temper flash, for just an instant, in his eyes. “First a figure to be feared, and now one forced to recruit the inferior to finish the job he couldn’t. Let me be honest. I don’t care if you tell the FBI anything about Eckle—a part of me hopes you won’t. Because he’ll try to finish what you couldn’t. You took mine, now I’ll take yours. If they don’t find him first, he’ll come after me, and I’m ready for him.”

Now she leaned forward, letting him see it. Letting him catch a glimpse of her will, and the secret inside her. “I’m ready for him, George. I wasn’t ready for you, and look where you are. So when he comes for me, he’ll lose—and so will you. Again. I want that more than I can say. You’re not the only one who sees him as a proxy. So do I.”

“Have you considered he wants you to feel so confident? He’s manipulating you into this sense of power and security?”

She let out a half laugh as she leaned back again. “Who’s being ham-handed now? He’s not what you thought he was. Judging character and abilities is one of the traits of a good trainer. Not just teaching, instructing, but recognizing the limitations and the pathology of those you train. You missed that one. You know you did, or I wouldn’t be here.”

“You’re here because I demanded it.”

She hoped she pulled off an expression between bored and amused because her heart thumped riotously. She was beating him.

“You can’t demand anything of me. You can’t scare me, and neither can the vicious dog you’ve set on me. The only thing you can do is try to make a deal.”

“There’s no telling who a dog might attack. No telling how many he may bloody along the way.”

She cocked her head, smiled a little. “Do you really think that keeps me up at night? I’m on my island, remember? I have my moat. I’ll only be sorry if he screws up before he gets to me. Feel free to let him know that—that is, if he’s still listening to you. I don’t think he is. I think your dog’s off the leash, George, and going his own way. As for me?” Deliberately, she glanced at her watch. “That’s really all the time I have to spare. It was good to see you here, George,” she said as she rose. “It really made my day.”

“I’ll escort you out.” Mantz got to her feet.

“I’ll find another. Sooner or later, I’ll find another.”

Fiona glanced back to see his chained hands fist on the table.

“You’re always in my thoughts, Fiona.”

She smiled at him. “George, that’s just sad.”

At Mantz’s nod, the guard opened the door. The minute the door closed behind them, Mantz shook her head, held up a hand. “We’re going to be escorted to a monitoring area where you can wait.”

Fiona held on to her composure, following Mantz’s example, saying nothing, keeping her eyes straight ahead. The sound of the thick electronic doors opening, closing, made her want to shudder.

They entered a small room holding electronic equipment, monitors. Mantz ignored them and the officials running them and gestured to a couple of chairs set up across the room.

She poured a glass of water, handed it to Fiona.

“Thanks.”

“Do you want a job?”

Fiona looked up again. “Sorry?”

“You’d make a good agent. I’m going to tell you, I had my doubts about this, about bringing you here. I thought he’d play you. I thought he’d twist you up and wring you out to dry, and we’d walk out empty-handed. But you played him. You didn’t give him what he wanted, and you sure as hell didn’t give him what he expected.”

“I gave it a lot of thought. What to say, how to say it. How to... wow, look at that,” she said when she saw her hands shaking.

“I can take you out of here altogether. There’s a coffee shop not that far away. Tawney can meet us there.”

“No, I’ll stick. I want to stick, and I know you want to be in there.”

“Here’s fine. He’s not going to take another woman in his face after that. Tawney’s better finishing this up without me. How did you know what to say, how to say it?”

“Truth?”

“Yeah, truth.”

“I work with dogs, and do one-on-ones with dogs and owners with behavioral problems—some of them fairly severe and violent. You can’t show fear—you can’t even feel it, because if you do it will show. You can’t let them get the upper hand, even for a minute. You don’t want to lose your temper, but always maintain the position of power. Alpha position.”

Mantz considered a moment. “You’re saying you thought of Perry as a bad dog?”

Fiona let out a shuddering breath. “More or less. Do you think it worked?”

“I think you did your job. Now we’ll do ours.”

Perry strung it out, dribbling out information, stopping to request a meal, dribbling more. Fiona fought off a rising sense of claustrophobia from being shut up in the small room for so long, and wished—more than once—she’d taken Mantz up on her offer to leave the prison and wait elsewhere.

In for the whole shot, she reminded herself, and sat, sat while Mantz listened on an earpiece, when Tawney came in to confer with her. To wait it out, she thought, refusing an offer of food she wasn’t entirely sure she could keep down.

They approached the time Tawney had predicted she’d be home before they left the prison behind. Fiona kept the window of the car open, breathed in the air.

“I can use my phone now? I need to let Simon and Sylvia know I’m delayed.”

“Go ahead. I contacted your stepmother,” Tawney told her. “I left Simon a voice mail. He didn’t answer his phone.”

“Between the machines and the music in his shop, he never hears the phone. But Syl would let him know. She’s taking my classes this afternoon. I’ll wait until we’re about to board the plane.”

“Erin said you didn’t eat.”

“Still a little unsteady in that area. You have to tell me something. You have to tell me if this helped.”

“You’re going to be disappointed.”

“Oh.”

“Disappointed that Erin’s back there on the phone right now, checking out some of the information Perry gave us, coordinating agents to various mail drops Perry said he lined up to contact Eckle over the next few weeks. He gave us locations, trolling sites they agreed on and the two alternate identities Eckle’s using.”

“Thank God.”

“He wants Eckle to go down. One, because he’s no longer subservient, no longer obedient. And two—and I believe this cemented it—he doesn’t want you to win again. He doesn’t want to risk you going up against Eckle and winning. You convinced him not only that you could, that you would, but that you were looking forward to it. Hell, you convinced me.”

“I’d just as soon not have to try to prove it.”

Mantz returned. “We’ve got agents on the way to the locations he gave us, and a team to the trolling site, which geographically should be next on Eckle’s list. We have another taking Kellworth’s college, as that should have been his target for this time frame. He could repeat there if he decides to go back to Perry’s game plan.”

“I don’t see that,” Tawney said, “but it’s better to cover it.”

“We’ve issued a BOLO for Eckle, including his aliases. And we got a jackpot, Tawney. We have a 2005 Ford Taurus, California plates, issued to one of those aliases. John William Mitchell.”

Tawney reached over to lay a hand briefly on Fiona’s. “You’re not going to have to prove anything.”

Midafternoon , my ass, Simon thought. At this rate, they’d be lucky if she made it home by six. Hearing her on his voice mail helped, but he wasn’t going to be able to relax until he saw her for himself.

He’d kept busy, and having Syl pinch-hitting on the classes saved him from a trip to town as she’d hauled off the new stock he’d finished. Plus, she’d made him lunch. Not a bad deal.

He set the last of the window boxes he’d spent most of his day making on its bracket, then walked back into the front yard, surrounded by the pack of dogs who’d rarely left his side all day, to view the results.

“Not bad,” he murmured.

He hadn’t used the design Fiona cadged from Meg—what would be the point in making something you could buy in a damn catalog? Anyway, his were better. He liked the marriage of mahogany and teak, the slightly rounded shapes, the interest of the Celtic design he’d carved into the wood.

Needed hot colors in the flowers, he decided. And if she tried to do some wussy pastels, she’d have to try again.

Strong, hot colors—nonnegotiable. What was the point in planting flowers if they didn’t make a statement?

When the dogs turned as one, he swung around himself. He thought, Thank God , when he saw the car on his drive.

He had to force himself not to race to the car, pluck her right out through the window and check every inch of her to make sure she was untouched, unhurt, unchanged.

He waited, with roiling impatience, while she sat, speaking to the agents. They’ve had you all day, he thought. Say good-fucking-bye and come home. Be home.

Then she got out, walked to him. He barely noticed the car drive away.

He heard her laugh as the dogs surged to greet her, watched color bloom in her cheeks as she stroked and ruffled. My turn, he thought, and moved toward them.

“Back off,” he ordered the dogs, then just stood looking at her. “Took you long enough.”

“It feels even longer from this side. I need a hug. A really long, hard hug. Crack my ribs, will you, Simon?”

He put his arms around her, gave her what she needed short of snapping bones. Then he kissed the top of her head, her temples, her mouth.

“Better, better.” She sighed it out. “So much better. You smell so good. Sawdust and dogs and the forest. You smell like home. I’m so glad to be home.”

“You’re okay?”

“I’m okay. I’ll tell you all about it. I want to shower first. I know it’s completely in my head, but I feel... I just need a shower. Then maybe we can toss a frozen pizza in the oven, crack a bottle, and I’ll... You made window boxes.”

“I had some spare time today since you weren’t around interrupting me.”

“You made window boxes,” she murmured. “They’re so... just exactly right. Thank you.”

“They’re my window boxes on my house.”

“Absolutely. Thank you.”

He yanked her back into his arms. “Making them kept me from going crazy. Syl and I worked on keeping each other from going crazy. You should call her.”

“I did. I called her, my mother and Mai from the ferry.”

“Good, then it’s just you and me. And them,” he added as the dogs sat at their feet. “Have your shower. I’ll deal with the pizza.” But he caught her chin in his hand, held it while he searched her face. “He didn’t touch you.”

“Not the way he hoped, no.”

“Then I can wait for the rest. I’m hungry anyway.”

They ate outside on the back porch with the sun beaming through the trees and the birds trilling like mad things. Outside, Simon thought, where it made a point. They were free. Perry wasn’t.

Her voice stayed steady as she took him through it, step-by-step.

“I don’t know where some of it came from. I’d worked it out in my head, the approach, the tone, the basic thrust, but some of it was just there, coming out of my mouth before it really seemed to plant in my head. Telling him if Eckle kills other women it has nothing to do with me. I’m usually a lousy liar. It’s just not natural to me, so I tend to fumble it. But it just flowed right out, smooth and cold.”

“And he bought it.”

“Apparently so. He gave them what they were after: locations, mail drops, aliases. They tracked a car and plates with one of the aliases. They’ve got agents scrambling out to do what they do.”

“And you’re out of it.”

“Oh God, Simon, I really think I am.” She lifted her hands, pressed her fingers to her eyes for a moment. “I really think I am. And more, it was so different from what I expected, what I’d prepared for.”

“How?”

“He was so angry. Perry. I expected him to be smug, full of himself and his ability to pull all these strings even from prison. And he was, on one level. But under it there was all this anger and frustration. And seeing that, knowing that, seeing where he is, how he looks, it felt—feels...”

She fisted a hand on the table, studied it. “Solid. It feels hard and strong and solid.” She lifted her gaze again, the soft blue clear again, calm again. “It feels over. What was between him and me, still there in the shadows and the dark, it’s done now. We’re finished.”

“Good.” He heard the truth of it, felt it—and realized that until that moment, he’d carried those shadows inside him, too. “Then it was worth it. But until Eckle is in the same place, things stay the same here. No chances, Fiona.”

“I can live with that. I’ve got window boxes, and pizza.” She unfisted her hand, reached for his. “And you. So.” She took a long breath. “Tell me something else. What did you do besides window boxes?”

“I’ve got a few things going. Let’s take a walk.”

“Beach or woods?”

“Woods first, then beach. I need to find another stump.”

“Simon! You sold the sink.”

“I’m keeping that one, but Syl got a look at it and says she’s got a client who’ll want one.”

“You’re keeping it.”

“Half-bath downstairs needs a bump.”

“It’ll be fabulous.” She glanced over at the dogs, back at Simon. Her guys, she thought. “Come on, boys. Let’s go help Simon find a stump.”

Eckle felt something, too. He felt freedom.

A new task, a new agenda. New prey.

He knew he’d severed the strings that held him to Perry, and rather than falling limp, an untethered marionette, he stood strong and vital. He experienced a new sense of self, one he’d never felt before, not even when Perry had helped him reach inside to the man he’d hidden for so many years.

He owed Perry a debt for that, and one he fully intended to pay. But the debt was one of student to teacher. A true teacher, a wise teacher knew the student must step away, must carve his own path once the roadbed was laid.

He’d read, with interest and pride, the article in U.S. Report. He critiqued the style, the voice, the content, and gave Kati Starr a solid B.

As he would have done in his other life, he edited, corrected, made suggestions in red pen.

He could help her improve, he had no doubt of it. And he’d considered communicating with her, collaborating, so to speak, to give her series of articles more depth.

He’d never realized how addictive notoriety could be, how piquant the flavor once tasted. But his new self wanted more sly licks and nibbled bites before the end. He wanted to feast. To gorge.

He wanted to sate himself on legacy.

As he’d studied his potential student’s habits, routines, read her other articles, researched her personal and professional data, he detected in her what he’d often seen in his own students.

Particularly the females.

Whores. All women were whores at their slippery, wet roots.

Bright, clever Kati was, in his opinion, too headstrong, too rash, too sure of herself. She was a manipulator, and wouldn’t take instruction or constructive criticism well.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t be useful.

The more he observed, the more he learned, the more he wanted. She would be his next and, in a very real way, his first even as she might be his last. His own choice, rather than a mirror of Perry’s needs.

She was older, not particularly athletic. More inclined to hours at a desk, a keyboard, a phone than physical pursuits.

Playing in her fancy fitness club so she could show off her body.

Yes, she showed off her body, he thought, but didn’t tend it, didn’t discipline it. If she lived she’d grow soft and fat and slow.

Really, he’d be doing her a favor, ending it while she was still young and smooth and tight.

He’d been busy during his time in Seattle. He’d changed his license plates twice and had the car painted. Now when he returned to Orcas any cops watching the ferry traffic wouldn’t note the return of the car—not that he gave barely educated hayseeds that much credit.

Still, Perry had schooled him carefully on precaution.

He considered the best time and location to take her, then simply waited for Seattle’s weather to give him the final element.

Kati shot up her umbrella and stepped out into the drenching rain and gloom. She’d worked late, polishing up some details on her next article. For now, she didn’t mind inhabiting a cubicle in a small building in the rainy Northwest.

It served as a stepping-stone.

Her series was gaining her the attention she wanted, not only from readers but from the powers that be. If she could keep the heat turned up, just a little longer, she had every reason to believe she’d be packing her laptop and looking for an apartment in New York.

Fiona Bristow, George Perry and RSKII created and stamped her ticket out of Seattle and into the Big Apple. And it was there she’d shop her book.

She needed to crack Fiona open a bit, she thought as she dug for her keys. And it wouldn’t hurt for RSKII to take another coed, keep that flame high—and her byline front and center.

Of course, if the feds broke the case, that wouldn’t hurt either. She had sources primed, including the one who’d fed her the information that the Tawney-Mantz team had interviewed Perry again that day—and the fresh, hot juice that Fiona had joined in.

Face-to-face with the man who abducted her, killed her lover. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in that room. But even without the access, she’d gotten enough from her sources for a solid piece—above the fold—for tomorrow’s edition.

She hit the unlock button on her key ring and in the flash of lights saw the flat rear tire.

“Crap. Crap!” She hurried closer to make certain. Even as she turned, digging into her bag for her phone, he boiled out of the gloom.

Out of nowhere, no more than a blur.

She heard him say, “Hi, Kati! How about an exclusive?”

The pain shot through her, an electric bullet that sizzled in every cell of her stunned, seizing body. The rainy gloom burst into blinding white as a scream gagged in her throat. In some shocked part of her brain she thought she’d been struck by lightning.

The white sliced to black.

It took less than a minute to bind her, to lock her in the trunk. He stowed her bag, her computer, her umbrella in the back, for now, carefully turned off her phone.

Filled with power and pride, he drove off into the rainy night. He had a lot of work to do before he slept.

Twenty-Eight

Kati’s phone provided a wealth of information. Scrolling through, Eckle carefully copied down all the names and numbers, studied her incomings, outgoings, her calendar, reminders. It fascinated him that virtually every communication, every appointment in her logs—but for an upcoming dentist appointment—dealt with professional interests.

Really, he mused as he wiped the phone clean, he and Kati had a great deal in common: no real connection to family, no particular friends and an absorption with rising in their chosen field.

They both wanted to make a name for themselves, leave a deep mark.

Wouldn’t that make their brief time together all the more important?

He tossed the phone in the trash at the rest stop where he’d parked, then backtracked, exited the interstate and drove the wandering twenty miles to the motel he’d chosen for this leg of the work.

He paid cash for a single night’s stay, then parked away from the lights. Though he doubted he’d need it, he angled her umbrella to shield his face as he climbed out of the car. People who frequented motels of this type didn’t sit around their shitty little rooms looking out the window at a rain-swept parking lot, but it paid to be cautious.

He opened the trunk.

Her eyes were wide open, full of fear and pain with that glaze of shock he found so arousing. She’d struggled, but he’d learned a thing or two and had linked the bindings on her wrists and ankles together in the back, hog-tying her so she could do little more than hump like a worm. Still, it was best to keep her absolutely still, absolutely silent through the night.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” he told her as he pulled a syringe from his pocket, removed the tip. Her screams were no more than harsh whispers swallowed by the rain as he gripped her arm, shoved up her sleeve. “Sleep tight now,” he said, and slid the needle under the skin.

He replaced the tip. She, like the others, wouldn’t live long enough to be bothered about any infection from shared needles. He watched her eyes dull as the drug took her under.

After securing the trunk, he got his suitcase and her belongings out of the back and carried them across the broken pavement of the lot to his room.

It smelled of old sex, stale smoke and the cheap detergent that couldn’t mask the brew. He’d learned to ignore such annoyances, and he’d learned to ignore the inevitable groans and thumps from adjoining rooms.

He switched on the TV, scrolled until he found local news.

He entertained himself first with a pass through Kati’s wallet. She carried nearly two hundred in cash—for payoffs? bribes? he wondered. The money would come in handy, another advantage of changing his target type. The coeds rarely had more than five or ten, if that.

He found the current password for her computer hidden behind her driver’s license. He set it aside for later.

He made piles of what he could keep and what he would dispose of from her handbag, and munched on the M&M’s she had in an inside pocket, toyed with her bag of cosmetics.

She carried no photos, not his all-work-and-no-play Kati. But she had a street map of Seattle and one of Orcas, tidily folded.

On the Orcas map she’d marked several routes from the ferry. He recognized the route to Fiona’s, wondered about the others. If time permitted, he’d check them out.

He approved of the fact that she carried several pens and sharpened pencils, a small cube of Post-its, a bottle of water.

He saved her breath mints, towelettes, pack of tissues, removed her IDs and credit cards to be cut up and disposed of along the way.

He used the money in her change purse to buy a Sprite and a bag of Lay’s potato chips from the vending machine outside the room.

Organized and settled, he opened her computer. As with her phone calls and texts, all of her e-mails centered on work and many were cryptic. But he could follow the dots, as he’d been following her.

While he, Perry and Fiona weren’t her only stories, they were, unquestionably, her focus. She’d pushed, and was pushing, for nibbles and bites from numerous sources.

Tenacious, thy name is Kati Starr.

She did well, he thought, digging, digging, digging, amassing details and comments from Perry’s past, from Fiona’s, from past and present victims.

She had files full of information on Fiona’s search unit, on the other members, on her training business, on her mother, her stepmother, the dead father, the dead lover. The current lover.

Thorough. He respected that.

And he understood she’d gathered and was continuing to gather more information, more deep background and areas than a reporter could possibly use in a series of articles.

“Writing a book,” he murmured. “You’re writing a book, aren’t you, Kati?”

He plugged in one of the two thumb drives he’d found in her case. Rather than the novel or true-crime book he’d expected to find, he brought up the file containing her next article.

For tomorrow’s edition.

He read it through twice, so engrossed he barely noticed when the couple next door began to fuck.

The betrayal—for he had little doubt Perry had betrayed him—slashed. A whip across the throat that strangled him so he shoved up to pace the miserable little room, his fists clenching, unclenching.

His teacher, his mentor, the father of who he’d become turned on him, and that turning could—almost certainly would—hasten the end of him.

He considered running, simply abandoning the plans he’d so meticulously set in place and driving east. Kill the reporter along the way, he thought, far along the way, out of what he knew the police would call his hunting ground.

Change his looks, his identity again. Change everything—the car, the plates and then...

What? he wondered. Be ordinary again, be nothing again? Find another mask and hide behind it? No, no, he could never go back, never be the pathetic shell again.

Calmer, he stood, eyes closed, accepting. Perhaps it was true and right and inevitable that the father destroy the child. Perhaps that formed the circle, brought the journey to its better, bitter end.

And he’d always known it would end. This new life, this sharpness of being was transient. But he’d hoped, he’d believed he had more time. With more time he could, and would, surpass Perry, in song and story, thought the teacher, the lover of books.

No, he would not go back, could not go back. Would not hide like a rat in a hole. He’d go forward, as planned.

Live or die, he decided. But he would never, never simply exist again.

He sat and read the article again, and this time felt a sense of destiny. Of course this was why he took the reporter. Everything was happening as it was meant to happen.

He was at peace with that.

By the time his neighbors finished and had checked out to go home to, he assumed, the spouses they’d cheated on, he’d found the book. He read through the draft, noting she worked in what he thought of as patchwork style—scenes and chapters mixed out of order that she’d link and weave together in another draft.

He looked at her key ring with some regret. How he wished he could risk going through her apartment. She’d have more there—files, notes, books, numbers.

He began to read again, this time making some changes, some additions. He’d keep the computer, the drives, and merge her work with his if he survived the next stage.

For the first time in months he felt a bubble of excitement over something other than killing. He’d include the portions of his own book, the draft he’d begun in the first person, with her third-person reporter’s point of view. Juxtaposing his parts of the story with hers.

His evolution and her observations.

And with Kati’s help, he would create his own song and story. Death, even his own, would be his legacy.

In the conference room where she and Tawney worked together, Mantz held her phone in one hand and tapped her keyboard with the other. “Yeah, got it. Thanks, Tawney.” She set the phone down, gestured. “I just got word that U.S. Report is hyping Starr’s article for tomorrow. They’ve got a teaser online. You should see this.”

He stepped over to her desk, read over her shoulder.

Under “Sneak Peeks” the headline glared:

FACE-OFF

Fiona Bristow Goes to Prison to Confront Perry

A Kati Starr Exclusive

“Son of a bitch.” Tawney murmured it, the low tone more violent than a shout. “The UNSUB will read this and it puts Fee right back in the crosshairs. Front and center.”

“And Starr’s billing’s going up. She’s piling up career capital with this. Whatever she’s invested to get information, it’s paying off for her.”

“We need to find the leak. And we need to see this goddamn story. I’m going to push on her editor, her publisher. She’s hampering the investigation by printing sensitive information, information she may have obtained by illegal means.”

“Yeah, we try that, and ball it up with lawyers on both sides. I’ve got a more direct idea. I can move on that while you try the push. I’ll try a little face-off myself, with Starr.”

“No way she’ll reveal her sources.” Tawney stalked over to the coffeemaker. “She’ll lap it up.”

“Yeah. But I’ll go see her, now. Off-hours, late. Try to pump her while she’s trying to pump me. I might get something.” Mantz checked her watch as she outlined the scenario in her head. “Either way, I bring her in, tonight. Obstruction of justice, interference with a federal investigation, harassing a federal witness. I’ll pile it on while she makes her noises about the Fourth Estate and freedom of the press.”

Tawney sipped his coffee. “Okay, then what?”

“We sweat her awhile. She’ll want a lawyer, she’ll call her boss, but we might be able to get her to hold off, just a bit. She wants attention, and she wants information. If we make it seem like we have more, she might try to play us. Buy us time.”

“For?”

“For letting it leak she’s talking. That we’re breaking her down.”

Considering, Tawney edged a hip onto Mantz’s desk. “So her source or sources start to sweat.”

“Worth a shot. It’s probably a waste of time, but why shouldn’t she lose some sleep over this, feel some pressure? She’s shortcutting her way through this, Tawney, and using Bristow every chance she gets. We can work with the media. We do. We use them, they use us. That’s the way it’s done. But she’s not interested in cooperation. She’s just looking for the byline.”

“You’re not going to get an argument from me. I’ll work from here, play the game with her bosses. You go direct. Let me know if and when you’re bringing her in, and I’ll set it up.”

He rubbed the knots of tension at the back of his neck. “Maybe he won’t see the paper. Maybe he’ll make a move tomorrow, one of the mail drops, or we’ll spot his car at one of the trolling sites.”

Mantz nodded as she put on her jacket. “If he’s following current events, and we know damn well he is, Starr’s telegraphing our leads, or enough of them to put him on alert. The mail drops are a long shot. I think he’s done with Perry, and if not, he will be once he knows Bristow went to see him.”

She paused at the door. “Are you going to let her know what’s coming?”

“Like you said, it’s late. Let her get a decent night’s sleep. Tomorrow’s soon enough for that. Work Starr, Erin, then bring her in and we’ll work her harder.”

“Looking forward to it.”

It felt good to be outside, to do something that didn’t involve the keyboard or the phone. Mantz didn’t mind the rain. In fact, Seattle’s weather suited her perfectly. She enjoyed catching sight of Mount Rainier on sunny days, just as she enjoyed the cozy sense of intimacy the rain offered her.

Tonight, she considered it an added bonus. Pulling Starr out of her office or dry apartment into a downpour piped a little icing on the cake.

She really wanted a go at the reporter on a personal level as much as professional. While she wasn’t a one-for-all-because-we’re-women sort, she saw Starr’s barrel-ahead style on this story as a woman climbing over the bodies of other women—dead and alive.

She’d climbed her own rocky cliff to get where she was in the bureau, Mantz thought, but by God she hadn’t taken shortcuts, she hadn’t stepped on anyone’s back to do it.

Those who did deserved to be kicked down a few rungs.

With her windshield wipers swishing and the lights blurring wet on the glass, she drove toward the paper first. Most likely Starr had called it a night by this time, but the building was en route to the apartment. Might as well do a check there.

As she drove she considered her strategy. Go in soft first, she thought, let the fatigue and the stress show. Try the girl-to-girl appeal. Her instincts said that approach would bomb, and Starr would see it as a weakness.

That was just fine. It would add an element of what-the-fuck? when she kicked in, bore down and charged Starr with obstruction, maybe tossed in suspicion of bribing a federal employee.

She’d see how it went.

She turned into the parking lot and lifted her eyebrows when she spotted the apple-red Toyota. A scan of the plate verified it as Starr’s car.

Burning the midnight oil? That was just fine.

As she pulled up beside it, she noted the flat right rear tire.

“Bad luck,” Mantz murmured and smiled as she parked beside the Toyota.

Even as she reached for her umbrella something tickled in her gut. She sat for a moment, studying the lot, the rain, the building. Dark but for the security lights on the main level, she noted. You’d need a light in your office to burn the midnight oil.

She left the umbrella in the car, hitched her jacket back for easier access to her weapon.

She heard nothing but the rain and the wet whoosh of sporadic traffic when she got out. Traffic light enough, she observed, distant enough so the lot, the position of the car wouldn’t be in clear view. And the rain? There was that icing again.

She circled the car, studied the pancaked tire and, going with impulse, tried the door.

That tickle went to a buzz when she found it unlocked.

Following the buzz, she hiked to the building, banged on the locked glass doors. When the security guard crossed the tiled lobby floor, his walk, his body language said retired cop.

Sixty-couple, she judged, and sharp-eyed.

She held her ID up to the glass.

He studied it, and her, then used the intercom.

“Problem?”

“I’m Special Agent Erin Mantz. I’m looking for Kati Starr. Her car’s in the lot, rear right tire’s flat. It’s unlocked. I need to know if she’s in the building, or what time she logged out.”

He scanned the lot, then her face again. “Hold on.”

Mantz took out her phone. She gave her name, her ID number, and asked for the numbers for Starr’s home phone, cell and office.

The cell transferred her to voice mail as the guard came back.

“She signed out at nine-forty. There’s nobody here. Even the cleaning crew’s finished up.” He hesitated a moment, then unlocked the doors. “I tried her home phone and her cell,” he said as he opened the glass. “Straight to voice mail.”

“Did she leave alone?”

“According to lobby security she walked out on her own.”

“Is there security video on the lot?”

“No. Stops at the doors, and she walked out the door alone. That’s usual for her,” he added. “She doesn’t travel in groups or socialize much with coworkers. If she had car trouble, she’d have used her key pass and come back in to call for service. No reason she’d have done otherwise. Nobody else signed out within twenty minutes of her, either side.”

Mantz nodded, keyed in the number for her partner. “Tawney? We’ve got a problem.”

Within an hour, agents had convinced the building super to open Kati Starr’s apartment, roused her editor and took statements from the guard and the cleaning crew.

The editor blocked the request to open her desk computer.

“Not without a warrant. Look, odds are she’s following a lead or she’s banging her boyfriend.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?” Mantz demanded.

“How the hell should I know? Starr keeps her personal life private. So she got a flat tire? Probably called a cab.”

“None of the local cab companies made a pickup at this location.”

“And you want me to leap from there to foul play? So you can poke around in her files? Not without a warrant.”

Mantz pulled out her phone when it signaled and turned away in disgust to answer. “Where? Keep on it. We’re on our way there. We got a ping on her cell phone.”

“There, see?” The editor shrugged. “With a boyfriend, or out having a drink. She’s earned it.”

“Out having a drink,” Mantz said between her teeth as they stood in the rainy parking lot of the rest stop. She snapped on protective gloves. “He left the phone turned on so we’d get a signal. So we’d come out here.”

She waited impatiently while the forensics team documented the scene.

She took the iPhone. “We’ll need to dump the data, go through it.” She looked over at Tawney. “It’s got to be Eckle. It’s not a damn coincidence she gets taken from her office lot. He’s got her. He grabbed her right under our noses. She doesn’t fit his victim profile, but she fits him. Like a glove. We didn’t see it.”

“No, we didn’t see it.” He handed her an evidence bag for the phone. “He’s got a couple hours on us, but he expected more. A lot more. Nobody would notice she’s not around until morning, and even then... maybe her editor gets pissed when she doesn’t show, but he’s not going to call the cops. Maybe not for hours more, until somebody notices and mentions her car’s in the lot.

“He figures he’s got twelve, maybe fifteen hours on us. He’s only got two. We need boots on the ground. Now. I’ll drive, you work the phone.” He swung toward the car. “We want badges checking every hotel, motel, vacation rental. Focus on out-of-the-way spots first. Cheap. He’s used to living frugally. He doesn’t need shine. He wants a place where nobody looks too close, nobody cares.”

Tawney peeled out. “He needs supplies, food,” he continued even as Mantz relayed the orders. “Fast-food joints, places he can pick up road food. Gas. Gas marts would work best, get everything in one stop, move on.”

“He’s got her computer. She walked out with it, so he has it. Maybe he’ll use it. We can trace that. He thinks he’s clear, at least until morning. Maybe we send her an e-mail. We set up a name, a URL, send her a message. A tip. I’ve got information on RSK Two, what’s it worth to you?” Mantz flicked Tawney a glance. “He might bite on that. If he answers, we can track it.”

“Bargain with him, keep him involved. It could work. Get the geeks working on it.”

Eckle slept on top of the thin bedspread, fully dressed. Still his mind raced. So much to do, so much to relive, so much to imagine. His life had never been so full that even his sleep swirled with color and movement and sound.

He dreamed of what he would do with Kati—bright, sharp Kati. He had the place for it, just waiting for him. The perfect spot—all the privacy he’d need. And the irony of it tasted sweet as candy.

Then when he was finished with her—or maybe not quite—he would take Fiona. While they looked for one, he’d take Perry’s lost prize.

Maybe he’d make her watch while he did things to Kati. Make her watch while he turned her from alive to dead. He’d have so little time with Fiona, wouldn’t that enhance the brevity?

So he dreamed of two women, bruised and bleeding. Dreamed of their pleading eyes. Dreamed of them begging him, bargaining with him. Doing whatever he told them to do, saying whatever he told them to say. Listening to him as no one ever had.

He’d be the single focus of their life. Until he killed them.

He dreamed of a room shuttered from the light, a room washed with red, as if he looked through the thin silk of a red scarf. Dreamed of muffled moans and high, thin screams.

And woke with a jerk, breath wheezing in, eyes wheeling.

Someone at the door? His hand shot under the pillow for the .22, the gun he’d use to put a bullet in his own brain should there be no escape.

He would never go to prison.

He held his breath, listening. Only the rain, he thought. But it hadn’t been only the rain. A click, a click, like the turn of a knob, but...

His breath eased out again.

E-mail. He’d left the computer on while he charged it.

He pulled the laptop back onto the bed, studied the unopened e-mail. The subject line read RSKII, and reading it sent a thrill over his skin.

Cautious, he checked the sender’s address against Kati’s contact list.

A new one.

He sat studying the subject line, the sender’s name, while the thrill ebbed and flowed like a tide. And he opened it.

Kati Starr:

I’ve read your stories on RSKII. I think you’re pretty smart. I’m smart, too. I have some information on our mutual interest. Information I think you’ll want for your next article. I could go to the police, but they don’t pay. I want $10,000, and to be reported as an anonymous source. The girl’s already dead, so I can’t help her. I’ll help you and help myself. If you want what I have, let me know by noon tomorrow. After that, I’ll send my offer to someone else.

EW (Eye Witness)

“No. No.” He shook his head, jabbed the screen with his finger twice. “You’re lying. Lying. You didn’t see anything. Nobody sees me. Nobody.”

Except them, he thought. Except the women he killed. They saw him.

A trick, just a trick. He pushed off the bed to pace the room as the tide over his skin rose high and fast. People were liars. Tricksters.

He told the truth, in the end he told them the truth, didn’t he? When he tightened the scarf around their neck, he looked them right in the eye and told them. He gave them his name, and told them who killed them and why.

Simple truth. “My name is Francis Eckle, and I’m going to kill you now. Because I can. Because I like it.”

So they died with his truth, like a gift.

But this EW? He—or she—was a liar. Extorting his work for money.

No one saw him.

But he thought of the man in line at Starbucks. Of the pimply-faced clerk at the gas mart whose eyes had passed over him with boredom. Of the greasy-haired night clerk at the motel who’d smelled of pot and smirked at him as he handed over the key.

Maybe.

He sat again, studied the e-mail again. He could answer it, demand more information before any discussion of payment. That’s what she’d do.

He poured himself a short glass of whiskey and thought it through.

He composed a response, editing, deleting, refining as carefully as he might a thesis. When his finger hovered over send, he hesitated.

It could be a trap. Maybe the FBI was poking a finger in, trying to trap Kati. Or him. He couldn’t see it clearly, so he rose and paced again, drank again, thought it through again.

Just in case, he decided. Safety first.

He took a shower, brushed his teeth, shaved the faint shadow over his skull, his face. He stowed all his things in his duffel.

Moments after he hit send, he left the room. He bought a Coke at vending for the caffeine jolt, but realized he didn’t need it.

The idea of being seen, the vague possibility of being tricked, energized him. Excited him.

In some secret part of his heart he hoped he had been seen. It made it all the more worthwhile.

He gave the trunk a little pat as he passed it. “Let’s take a drive, shall we, Kati?”

“Jesus, he answered it.” Mantz leaped toward the tech. “He bit. Can you track it to the source?”

“Give me a minute,” the tech told her, tapping keys.

EW,

she and Tawney read:

I’m very interested in good information. However, I can’t negotiate any sort of payment without more data. Ten thousand is a lot of money, and the paper will require a show of good faith on your part. You claim to be an eyewitness. To what? You’ll have to give me some details, of your choosing, before we can go to the next step.

I can meet you, in a public place—again of your choosing—if you don’t want to put those details in writing or on the record at this time.

I’m eager to discuss this.

Kati Starr

“Smart enough to know she wouldn’t jump without having more,” Tawney commented. “But curious enough not to ignore it.”

“And not mobile,” Mantz added. “He has to be holed up somewhere with Internet access. Awake but not moving. It took him less than an hour to answer, and he’d have thought about it first. He was on top of her computer when we sent it.”

“Got him.” The tech gestured to the screen.

They set it up on the move. Agents, snipers, hostage negotiators—all with orders to surround, to go in silent.

“The agent who roused the night clerk said four single men have checked in tonight,” Mantz relayed as they raced through the night. “Two paid in cash. He’s got no holdovers from yesterday, or any day. He can’t make Eckle from the photo, didn’t see any of the cars and can’t say if any of them went into the rooms alone. Basically, he’s stoned and could give a rat’s ass.”

“Let’s get a team in rooms next to the four check-ins. Hold positions. There’s always the chance he took her in with him.”

They parked in the lot of the all-night diner next to the motel, donned their vests. As Tawney assessed the lay of the land, he nodded to an agent.

“Cage, give me the word.”

“We’ve got it down to two rooms. The other two have dual occupancy of the consenting kind. One’s got a couple banging like it’s the Fourth of July, and the other’s got a woman ragging on a guy about leaving his bitch of a wife. Teams said the walls are like paper. It’s like being there.”

“The other two?”

“One’s got somebody snoring loud enough to peel the paint off the walls.” He paused, held up a finger to his earpiece. “Just heard a woman’s voice saying, ‘Shut the fuck up, Harry.’ I’d say that leaves the one. Number four-fourteen. Corner room, back, east side. Team on that says it’s dead quiet. Not a sound.”

“I want the other rooms covered, and the parking lot blocked off. He doesn’t slip through.”

“Affirmative.”

“Desk clerk have a problem with us taking down the door?”

“He’s stoned to the eyeballs. Said do what we got to do—and probably went back to his bong and porn.”

Tawney nodded as they walked. “I want to take it down fast. I want lights in there the second it goes down. Blind his ass. The team’s in there and on him like a wolf on a deer. How about the car?”

“None matching the description or plates on the lot, or in the diner lot.”

“Could’ve switched it,” Mantz put it. “She could be in one of these. Any of them.”

“She won’t be for long.”

He had to hang back, let the take-down team move into position. He wanted to take the door, wanted it like he wanted breath. But he wanted it done clean and fast and safe just a little more.

It went exactly as he’d ordered. With his weapon drawn, he moved forward as the sounds of Clear! Clear! rang out of the room. His stomach dropped. That wasn’t the response he’d wanted. He knew before he reached the door that Eckle had already slipped through their fingers.

Twenty-Nine

Fiona slathered cream over her damp skin and hummed a tune that got stuck in her head in the shower. She couldn’t quite pin down the song, the lyrics, but the cheery melody suited her mood.

She felt she’d turned a corner and closed a door. She liked the philosophy that by closing one she could—and maybe already had—opened another.

Maybe it was naive, but she had every confidence the FBI would track down Francis Xavier Eckle, and quickly, with the new information. Information she’d helped generate.

She’d kicked her way out of the trunk again, she decided.

Still humming, she stepped into the bedroom. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise when she saw the bed empty. Usually she’d find Simon sprawled in it, pillow over his head as he clung to those last minutes of sleep—until she went down and made coffee.

She liked the routine, she thought as she dressed. The easy give and take of it. Liked knowing the dogs were outside for their morning romp, and that Simon would stumble downstairs, with uncanny timing, when the coffee was ready so, in this lovely weather, they’d have it and whatever food came readily to hand on the back deck.

She supposed the siren’s call of coffee had been too loud for him to resist that morning, or she’d taken too long to suit him in the shower.

She pulled on her army green Chucks, then spent a few minutes on her hair, her makeup in anticipation of her morning classes. There was a window in the afternoon, she calculated, just wide enough for a trip to the nursery.

If she couldn’t go alone—not yet—Simon would just have to go through the window with her. She wanted to plant her window boxes.

She jogged downstairs, the tune in her head juggling with geraniums and petunias and the planned session of obstacle training.

“I smell coffee!” Her voice danced into the kitchen a few steps ahead of her. “And I’ve got a yen for Toaster Strudels. Why don’t we—”

She knew the moment she saw his face, and the shadow blocked her sun. “Oh God. Goddamn. Say it fast.”

“He took the reporter. Kati Starr.”

“But—”

“I said it fast.” He pushed the coffee he’d poured into her hands. “Now take this. We’ll sit down and I’ll give you the rest.”

She made herself sit. “Is she dead?”

“I don’t know. They don’t know. Tawney called while you were in the shower. He’d hoped to get out here, tell you in person, but he can’t get away.”

“Okay, that’s okay. They’re sure?” She shook her head before he could speak. “Stupid question. He wouldn’t have called if they weren’t sure. I’m trying to shut up, let you tell me, but words keep shoving into my throat. She’s not the right type. She’s five years out of the age group, at least. She’s not in college, not the right body type. She’s—”

For the second time, she shook her head. “No, I’m wrong. She’s not Perry’s type. He’s already shown he wants to make his own mark, hasn’t he? He’s tired of doing it Perry’s way. Boy’s all grown up now and wants his own. And she—the reporter—she’s made him a star, she made him important. She gave him a name. She knows him, wouldn’t he think? That makes it more intimate and exciting. More his.”

She took a breath. “Sorry.”

“You’re the behavioral specialist, not me. But that’s how I see it.” He studied her face, judged her ready to hear the rest. “He grabbed her last night, from the parking lot where she works.”

She bit back the urge to interrupt as he took her through it.

“They nearly had him,” she murmured. “They were never that close with Perry, not so soon after an abduction. She’s still alive. She has to be. Do they think he knows?”

“They’re going on the theory that he was just being careful, or he was planning to leave the motel before morning anyway. They sent another e-mail claiming they’d seen him burying the last victim while they were camped illegally in the park. He hasn’t responded. Yet.”

“She’s still alive. The dogs are at the door, wondering what’s taking us so long. Let’s go out. I could use the air anyway.”

She rose, left her untouched coffee where it was.

Sensing her mood, the dogs whined, pushed against her legs, shoved noses in her hands.

“I have such a violent dislike of her,” Fiona told him. “It’s still there, just as intense even though I’m sick knowing what she’s going through right now. It’s a weird tug-of-war.”

“It’s natural. What she’s going through doesn’t change what she is.”

“Oh, it will.” Briefly, she pressed her fingers to her eyes, then let them fall. “If she lives, it will. She’ll never be quite the same. He’ll hurt her more than the others because he’s got a taste for that now. Like a dog who bites and gets away with it. If he answers the e-mail, they’ll be able to track him again, even if he keeps moving. They’ll do that stuff they do. Analysis, triangulating, calculating. So she has a better chance than the others. She’ll need it.”

“They have a little more. They interviewed everybody at the motel, and there was one guy who saw him. He was keeping an eye out for the woman he was meeting and looked out when he heard the car. Mostly he noticed because Eckle parked across the lot, and it was raining hard so it seemed weird.”

“He saw Eckle? He saw his face?”

“He didn’t really get a look at him. Eckle had an umbrella, had it angled so his face was behind it—and the guy only glanced out for a few seconds. But he’s sure the car was a dark color—black, dark blue, dark gray—too hard to tell in the rain.”

“He changed cars, or the color anyway. More they know that he’s unaware of.”

“The guy’s going to work with an FBI artist. He’s even agreed to try hypnosis. Apparently, he’s into it. They’re working the desk clerk, too. They’re pretty sure he’s ditched the beard.”

“Okay, that’s as good as it gets.” She tried not to think about the miles of back roads and interstates a beardless man in a dark-colored car could travel or the acres and acres of parkland he could wander.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to go pull the covers over my head, brood and curse God. What I’m going to do is take my morning classes, then drag you to the nursery this afternoon so I can pick out flowers for the window boxes.”

“Crap. If we’re doing that, I’m going to stop and pick up some lumber and drop some designs off at the Inlet Hotel.”

“Fine. I have to be back by four.”

“Then we’ll be back by four.”

She worked up a smile for him. “Let’s go by and rent a movie while we’re at it. Something fun.”

“Can it be porn?”

“No. You have to buy porn movies off the Internet so they come in plain mailers and nobody on the island knows for sure you’re watching porn. Those are the rules.”

“I’ll settle for nudity and adult language.”

“Deal.” She laid a hand on his cheek. “I have to prep.”

He covered her hand with his before she could step back. “We’re stuck now because you wheedled me into falling in love with you. So we get through whatever there is to get through.” He kissed her. “With or without porn.”

“If I could needlepoint, I swear I’d make that into a sampler.” She kissed him back. “Come on, boys, it’s time for work.”

Eckle bought a copy of the paper to read at his leisure on the ferry. He’d given Kati another dose that morning before she’d fully come out from the first.

He needed her nice and quiet and peaceful. That was one of the mistakes Perry made that he hadn’t—and wouldn’t. Perry had wanted them at least semi-aware while they were trapped—and that’s how Fiona had beaten him.

Eckle liked the idea of Kati unconscious and helpless in the trunk, appreciated the fresh terror she’d experience when she woke in a different place entirely. As if by magic.

But for now, he’d just enjoy the ride on the ferry busy with tourists and summer people. He might have preferred to sit in his car the entire way, but he understood that might rouse some suspicion if anyone paid attention. Besides, wandering, mingling, even speaking to people here and there was good practice, and better cover.

He made a point of talking to a pair of hikers who’d boarded the ferry on foot. In preparation for his time on Orcas he’d studied the trails and parks and campgrounds, and had already visited several on previous trips. So he was able to speak knowledgeably—and gained their gratitude by buying them coffee.

He waved it off. “I know what it’s like to be your age and hitting the trail. I’ve got a boy about your age. He’s coming out with his mother next week.”

“You baching it till then?”

Eckle smiled. The hiker’s name had nearly escaped him. He saw them both as tools to be used. “That’s right. Just me, some peace and quiet and a six-pack.”

“I hear that. If you decide to hit the trail today, we’re going to start at Cascade Lake.”

“I might. But I think I’m more inclined to...” He knew the expression. What was it? What was it? He felt the back of his neck start to burn as the boys looked at him oddly. “Drown some worms,” he said, imagining pushing both their heads underwater. “Listen, if you’re heading for the lake, I can give you a lift as far as Rosario. Save you the boot leather.”

“Seriously? That’d be cool.” The boys looked at each other, nodded.

“Thanks, Frank.”

“No problem at all. We’re nearly there. Why don’t we go ahead, get your gear in the car?”

He was Frank Blinckenstaff from Olympia. A high school teacher with a wife, Sharon, and a son, Marcus. Of course they hadn’t asked him about Sharon and Marcus—they were too self-involved, too egocentric to care about him. He was a means to an end—but so were they.

“Trunk’s loaded,” he said with a bright, bright smile that sent a skitter of ice down one of the boys’ spine. “But there’s room enough in the back.”

The boys hesitated, then shrugged.

In the end he drove off the ferry and passed the vigilant gaze of the deputy checking cars, looking, he imagined, like a father heading out on a little vacation with his two sons.

Nobody saw him, he thought again. And that was perfect.

He dropped his passengers off and forgot them. They were ghosts, like the students who’d passed in and out of his classroom. Transient, insubstantial, meaningless.

His more important passenger would be stirring soon, he thought, so he’d have to keep on schedule if he wanted to have her, and himself, all settled in before she regained full consciousness.

It was time for the next act.

Excitement frothed in his belly. No one would see him. They would see only Frank Blinckenstaff from Olympia. He drove through the busy village, along the twisting roads and into the park. He had to wipe damp palms on his jeans as he thought of Fiona. So close now, nearly close enough to touch.

He could’ve told the watchful deputy at the ferry she had a few days left. Days to eat and sleep and teach. Days left to wonder. Days left before he repaid his mentor, and made both her and Perry other ghosts who’d passed in and out of his life.

And once that was done, he’d fully become. His own man, at last.

Live or die, his own man.

He navigated the winding roads, easing carefully on the switchbacks, and smiled as the trees thickened. Like curtains, he thought, green curtains he’d keep snugly closed as he worked.

He turned into the narrow drive—wound his way back as his excitement grew till his hands wanted to shake.

He spotted the car in front of the picturesque cabin shrouded by those green, green curtains. His landlady waited, as promised.

He noted the windows were open—airing it out for him. There were planters of flowers on the porch. He’d have to remember to water them, in case she slipped by to check.

As he parked beside her car, she stepped out. He had to repeat her name over and over in his head to make her real.

“Mrs. Greene!”

“Meg,” she reminded him and walked down to offer her hand. “Welcome. Smooth trip in?”

“Couldn’t’ve been smoother. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here.” He kept his smile pasted on his face as the dog trotted up to greet him. “Hey, boy, how’s it going!”

“Xena and I spruced the place up for you a little.”

“Oh now, you shouldn’t have bothered. It’s just going to be me for a few days. Wait till Sharon and Marcus get here. It’s going to be love at first sight.”

“I hope so. Now we’ve laid in some basics for you. Don’t say we shouldn’t’ve bothered. It’s part of the package. Why don’t I help you in with your things, show you through again. Xena! Come on away from there.”

“She must smell my fishing tackle,” Eckle said as the dog sniffed around the trunk of the car. His voice went flat. He imagined kicking the dog bloody, strangling its master. “I’ll get my gear later. No need to show me through again, Mrs.—Meg. I think the first thing I’m going to do is take a long walk, stretch out my legs.”

“If you’re sure. I left the keys on the kitchen counter, and there’s a list with all the numbers you should need right on the refrigerator. Booklet in the living room has all the information on the cabin, restaurant menus, shops, park information. Now you’re sure you don’t want the cleaning service?”

“We’ll be fine.” He would kill her if she didn’t leave him alone. Yes, he would kill her and her sniffing dog if she didn’t leave within one minute. Really, he’d have no choice.

“Well, if you change your mind, or you need anything, you just call. Otherwise, enjoy the cabin, and the quiet. Good luck with your writing.”

“What?”

“Your writing? The travel piece you’re going to do.”

“Yes, yes. My mind was wandering.” He let out a heh-heh-heh, the closest he could get to a laugh. “Not enough coffee this morning.”

“There’s a fresh pound of beans in the freezer.”

Thirty seconds, he thought. Live or die.

“Appreciate it.”

“I’ll let you get to your walk. Come on, Xena.”

He waited and, because his fingers had begun to tremble, slipped his hands in his pockets while the dog followed her to the car. He watched the dog look back at the trunk, nose quivering.

Kick you bloody, then carve you up and bury you with the bitch who owns you.

He spread his lips in a smile, pulled his trembling fingers out of his pocket to answer Meg’s wave.

And he breathed and breathed, the air charging out of him like an engine as she drove down the lane and disappeared into the trees.

Nosy bitches better stay away.

It took him time to get settled. All the windows had to be closed, locked, the curtains drawn. In the cozy bedroom his chatty landlady had shown him on his previous visit and deemed perfect for his imaginary son, he covered the bed with plastic.

He unpacked, tidily arranging his things in the closet, the dresser, on the bathroom counter while he enjoyed the quiet and the generous space. He’d gotten too used to tiny motel rooms, shabby beds, ugly sounds and smells.

This was a treat.

Satisfied with his preparations and his privacy, he walked back outside. For a few moments he simply stood basking in the quiet, in the peace.

Then he opened the trunk.

“We’re home, Kati! Let me show you to your room.”

She trembled toward consciousness, ill, aching, confused. She felt as though she was floating in some freezing river with slabs of jagged ice scraping and stabbing along her skin. Red and black dots spun in front of her eyes, tilting sickeningly. Through the rush of blood in her head, she heard someone humming. A sudden burning pain in her arm brought on a shocked gasp, but the air wouldn’t come.

As she began to struggle, as her eyes wheeled, the humming stopped.

“So, awake at last. You slept right through your bath. Believe me, you needed it. You’d made a mess of yourself and stank to high heaven. No wonder that idiot dog was sniffing around.”

She tried to focus on the face over hers, but everything about it was too hard, too bright. The eyes, the smile. She cringed away.

“I didn’t have time to introduce myself before. I’m Francis Eckle. But you can call me RSK Two.”

Fear drenched her like sweat, and as she shook her head in denial that bright, hard smile only widened.

“I’m a big fan! And I’m going to give you an exclusive interview. It’s the story of your life, Kati. Just think of it. You’ll know everything, experience everything.” He patted her cheek. “I smell Pulitzer! Of course, it’s going to cost you, but we’ll talk about that. I’ll leave you to settle in.”

He leaned down close to her ear and whispered, “I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to enjoy it. Think about that.”

He leaned back, beamed that smile again. “Well, all this excitement has worked up my appetite. I’m going to go down and have some lunch. Want anything? No?” He laughed at his own joke while tears leaked down her cheeks. “See you soon.”

It felt good to do something normal, something fun. Better yet, Fiona thought, to wander around the nursery and stop and catch up with neighbors. It struck her just how isolated she’d become over the past week, tethered to the house.

She missed outings, she realized, and errands and the bits of easy gossip gathered up at routine stops.

She’d even enjoyed the interlude with lumber and hardware.

Simon spent his time vetoing choices or shrugging his assent. Until she dawdled over dahlia.

“Pick one. They all have stems, leaves, petals.”

“This from a man who just spent half a lifetime over drawer pulls.”

“The drawer pulls won’t die in the first hard frost.”

“Which makes the choice of dahlia more important, as its time’s brief.”

“This one.” He snatched one at random. “I can’t live without this one.”

She laughed even as she grabbed two more. “Perfect. Now I want some of that blue stuff.” She gestured toward a flat of lobelia. “Then we’ll be—Hey, hi, Meg, Chuck.”

Her friends turned, with Meg’s hands full of dianthus.

“Hi! Oh, aren’t those pretty.” Meg beamed at Simon. “You must’ve built those window boxes.”

“Yeah,” he confirmed as he and Chuck exchanged brief yet long-suffering glances over the women’s heads.

“Are you putting in another bed?” Fiona asked.

“No. I had to run over and open the cabin for a new tenant, and Chuck stayed back, started cleaning out the shed.”

“If I try it when she’s around, nothing gets thrown away.”

“You never know, do you? He was going to toss this old washtub.”

“Piece of junk,” Chuck said under his breath.

“It won’t be, once I fill it with these and put it in the yard. I’m thinking of sort of digging in one end, so it looks like it just got tossed there. It’ll be a bit of lawn art instead of a piece of junk.”

“Meg’s always figuring out how to repurpose things.” Fiona set the flowers in the cart.

“I hate waste.”

“I guess it saves us in the long run,” Chuck put in. “She mostly furnished the cabin out of thrift store and yard sale junk she fixed up.”

“So you’ve got a tenant,” Fiona said as she picked through the lobelia.

“A two-weeker. Husband’s down by himself this week. His wife and son are coming down next.” Meg picked up some lobelia, held it next to the dianthus and deemed it good. “The boy’s got some swim meet or some such thing he didn’t want to miss. The dad’s a teacher and writes travel articles. We’re hoping he does one on the cabin and Orcas. It couldn’t hurt. Kind of an odd one,” Meg added as they wandered through. “He came in a couple months back, asked to see it. Wanted a quiet place, private, so he could write.”

“That’s natural enough, I guess.”

“I guess he likes his solitude because he sure gave me the bum’s rush this morning. Wouldn’t have the housekeeping service, so I’m already feeling for his wife. But he paid cash, up front and in full, and that buys a lot of washtub flowers.”

“What kind of screening do you do on tenants?”

Meg blinked at Simon’s question. “Oh, well, there’s really not much you can do there. Most people take a week or two, or even a weekend off-season. You take a security deposit and hope for the best. We haven’t had any serious problems there. Are you thinking of buying a place for rentals?”

“No. Do you get many who pay cash?”

“Not a lot, but it happens. Some people just feel uncomfortable giving us their credit card number.”

“What did he look like?”

Meg glanced at Fiona, who’d gone uncharacteristically silent. “Ah, he’s... Oh my Jesus, you’re thinking he might be... God, Simon, you’re freaking me out. He’s, well, he’s in his mid-forties somewhere. I’ve got his driver’s license on file because we ask to see ID, but I can’t remember the birthday. He’s clean-shaven, bald as a hard-boiled egg. He’s well spoken, friendly enough. He talked about his wife, and how his boy was going to love the place. He even asked if his boy could bring a friend with him for a few days if he wanted.”

“We’re all just a little jumpy.” Fiona rubbed a hand up and down Meg’s arm.

“Do you want to go by the place, check him out?” Chuck asked.

“We can’t check out everybody who’s rented a place, or who’s camping or spending a few days at one of the hotels or B-and-Bs,” Fiona pointed out. “They’re watching the ferry.”

It had to be enough.

She waited until they were in the truck, heading back. “I forget, or don’t always realize, how worried you are. Don’t shrug it off,” she said when he did just that. “This thing has been there almost from the start with us. Like a shadow in the room, all the time. And I’m so busy thinking about it, or telling myself not to think about it, I can forget it’s weighing on you, too.”

He said nothing for nearly a mile. “I didn’t want you. Got that?”

“Simon, I hold that sentiment close to my heart.”

“I didn’t want you because I knew damn well you’d get in my way, and you’d find a way to make me like it. Need it. And you. So, now I do. I keep what’s mine, and I take care of it.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Like a puppy?”

“Like however you want to see it.”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

“Cops, feds, that’s all fine. They do what they do. But nobody’s getting through me to you. Nobody.”

This time Fiona fell silent, stayed silent until they made the turn to his house. “You know I can and will take care of myself. No, wait—you know that. And because you know that, hearing you say that to me, knowing you mean it, it makes me feel more cared for than I have in a very, very long time.”

She drew a breath. “So I’m going to plant window boxes, then I’m going to teach my evening class. And I’m going to hope with everything I’ve got they find Kati Starr, alive, and that soon—really soon—we’ll be rid of the shadows so it’s just you and me.”

“And a pack of dogs.”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

Eckle stepped out of the bathroom, freshly showered, in clean boxers and a T-shirt. On the bed, Kati whimpered behind the tape as her eyes, the left nearly swollen shut, ticked in his direction.

“That’s better. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about rape as I’ve never found sex to be particularly important. But I liked it. It was an entirely new experience for me, and every new experience is important to the whole—thanks for that. With rape, all the pressure’s off as there’s just no need to worry about pleasing the whore spreading them for you.”

He pulled the little desk chair over and sat beside the bed. “I like giving pain. I always knew it, but since it’s not acceptable under the rules”—he gave the word quick air quotes—“I buried the urge. I was not a happy man, Kati. I was just going through the motions, living a life in the gray. Until Perry. I owe him for that. I owe him Fiona for that. But this, all the rest? You? That’s mine, entirely. Now.”

He tapped the mini tape recorder he’d taken from her bag and set on the nightstand. “I’m going to turn this on, and we’re going to have a conversation. You’re going to tell me everything you know, everything your source or sources have leaked to you. If you scream, even once, I’ll put the tape back on and I’ll start breaking your fingers. There’s no one to hear you, but you’re not going to scream. Are you, Kati?” As he asked her he reached up and bent the pinkie of one of her bound hands backward until her face went bone white. “Are you, Kati?”

She shook her head, arching up as if to escape the pain.

“Good. This is going to hurt.” He ripped the tape away, viciously, nodded with satisfaction as she bit back the scream. “Very good. Say thank you.”

Her breath shuddered out, in, her chest trembled with it, but she managed a barely audible whisper. And licked her dry lips. “Please. Water. Please.”

“This?” He held up the bottle. “I bet you’re parched.” He pulled her head up by the hair, poured water into her mouth so she choked, gagged, wheezed. “Better? What do you say?”

She said thank you.

Thirty

They had more than he’d expected, but not more than he’d prepared for.

Tawney and his partner had been to College Place, though Kati couldn’t confirm they’d gone to his school or apartment. Even when he broke two of her fingers she couldn’t give him the exact locations. Her source hadn’t given her the data, or hadn’t had the data to give.

But they’d been there, he was sure of it. They’d pawed through his things, through the daily life of the person he’d once been. Not that it mattered, he thought. They weren’t his things any longer. They belonged to another life—the gray life.

They were, as he’d expected, watching the ferries. And Fiona had moved into her lover’s house. She was never alone.

He’d taken care of the first, and had plans for the second complication. The centerpiece of that plan lay unconscious on the plastic sheet.

He thought of the e-mail. A trap, just as he’d suspected. He was sure of it now. They thought they could trick him, outwit him, but he was much too smart for that.

He considered, briefly, tossing the reporter back in the trunk and taking the morning ferry back to the mainland or one of the other islands. But that would leave Fiona undone, and a debt was a debt.

More, the student would surpass the teacher when he killed Fiona. Correcting Perry’s mistake would be part of his legacy.

His song and story.

The pity was he could no longer take his time with Kati, no longer risk two or three days with her as he’d hoped. It left him little time for their collaboration on the book.

He’d need to do the lion’s share of that himself as he had to start the next phase sooner than originally planned.

He studied her, shrugged. Really, there wasn’t much more he wanted to do with her.

He decided he’d study his maps again, then get a few hours’ sleep, fry up a good breakfast. He’d want to get started well before dawn.

As he went out, he decided it was a good thing he’d broken her fingers instead of her toes. He didn’t want to carry her the whole way.

Simon kept his music turned off and found work he could do on the shop porch. That way he could see, and hear, who came and went.

Just something else he owed Eckle, he thought. The fact that he couldn’t focus on his work, couldn’t blast his music.

He’d already decided to give it one more week, then whatever Fiona’s schedule, he was taking her away for a while. Nonnegotiable. They’d go visit his parents in Spokane, which would kill two birds as his mother would stop nagging him about meeting Fiona every time they talked on the phone or e-mailed.

He’d already selected the hammer to drive home that nail. He’d sacrifice his dog’s balls. Fiona wanted Jaws neutered—and kept leaving information about it all over the house. He’d give her that; she’d give him this.

Sorry, pal, he thought.

Then they’d drive—the whole pack of them if she wanted—to Spokane. He’d rent a damn van if he had to. Driving took time, the more the better as far as he was concerned.

If Tawney and Mantz couldn’t run Eckle to ground by the time they got back, they didn’t deserve their badges.

He glanced up at the sound of a car, then set aside the brush he’d been using to stain a pair of bar stools when he saw the police cruiser.

He hoped to hell it was good news.

“Davey.” Fiona stepped out of the house. “You’ve got the timing down. My last clients left ten minutes ago. The next aren’t due for twenty.” She pressed her knuckles between her breasts where the breath wanted to stick. “Is she alive?”

“They haven’t found her yet, Fee.”

She just sat down where she stood, on the porch steps. Her arms went around dogs as they crowded around her.

“They sent us a picture. The best they could get from the two witnesses at the motel. I brought you a copy.”

He took it from the file he carried, offered it.

“It hardly looks like him—or like he did. The eyes, I guess. The eyes do.”

“The witnesses were shaky there. They’ve done a composite.”

“His face looks... beefier, and he looks younger without the beard. But... the cap covers a lot, doesn’t it?”

“The night clerk was next to useless—that’s the word we got. The other guy, he did his best. But he barely saw Eckle. He left prints in the motel room—Eckle did. They matched them with prints from his apartment. He’s not biting on the e-mail again, at least not so far.”

He nodded to Simon as Simon walked up. “They don’t think he will now so they’re releasing his name and this sketch to the media this afternoon. It’s going to be all over the TV and the Internet in a couple of hours. Somebody’s going to make him, Fee.”

Simon said nothing but took the sketch out of Fiona’s hand to study it.

“We’re going to plaster those on the ferries, at the docks,” Davey continued. “Starr’s paper’s offering a quarter-million reward for information that leads to her or Eckle. It’s blowing open in his face, Fee.”

“Yes, I think it is. I only hope it blows hot and fast enough to save Starr.”

He’d made her walk. Even with the speed and the protein drink he forced down her throat it took a full three hours. She fell often, but that was fine. He wanted to leave a good trail. He dragged her when he had to, and enjoyed. He knew where he was going and how to get there.

The perfect spot. Brilliant, if he said so himself.

By the time they stopped, her face was filthy, purpled with bruises, hatchmarked with scrapes and nicks. The clothes he’d washed and put back on her were little more than rags.

She didn’t cry, didn’t fight when he lashed her to the tree. Her head just fell forward, and her bound hands lay limp in her lap.

He had to slap her several times to bring her around.

“I have to leave you here awhile. I’ll be back, don’t worry. You may die of dehydration or exposure, infection.” He lifted his shoulders in a what-can-you-do? gesture. “I hope not because I really want to kill you with my own hands. After I kill Fiona. One for Perry, one for me. Jesus, you smell, Kati. All the better, but phew. Anyway, when this is done, I’m going to write the story for you, send it in, in your name. You’ll get that Pulitzer. Posthumously, but I think you’re a shoo-in. See you soon.”

He popped one of the black pills himself—he needed the kick—and started off in a brisk jog. Without the dead weight, he calculated he could make it back in under half the time it had taken to drag her pitiful ass alone. He’d be back at the cabin before dawn, or just after.

He had a lot of work to do before he made the return trip.

Simon watched her push herself through her next class, and decided enough was enough. When he’d done what he needed to do, he waited until the last car pulled away and she walked back into the house.

He found her in the kitchen running a cold can of Diet Coke over her forehead. “Hot today.” She lowered the can, popped it. “It feels like the sky’s dropped down a few thousand feet so the sun’s pressing against the tops of the trees.”

“Go take a shower, cool off. You’ve got time,” he said before she could answer. “Sylvia’s coming over to take your last two classes.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you look like hell and probably feel worse. You got fuck-all for sleep last night, and I know because I was the one trying to sleep beside you. You’re wound up and worn out. So take a shower, take a nap. Brood, if you need to, as long as I’m not around. I’ll order some dinner in a couple hours.”

“Just hold it.” She set the can aside, very deliberately. “My classes, my business, my decision. You don’t get to decide when I’m capable of running my business or when I need a goddamn nap. You’re not in charge.”

“You think I want to be? You think I want to take care of you? I damn well don’t. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“Nobody asked you to take care of me.”

He grabbed her arm, dragged her out of the kitchen.

“If you don’t let go of me I’m going to deck you.”

“Yeah, you do that.” He shoved her in the powder room, pushed her in front of the mirror. “Look at yourself. You couldn’t deck an unconscious toddler. So be as pissed off as you want because I’m right there with you. And I’m bigger, I’m stronger and I’m meaner.”

“Well, excuse the hell right out of me for not looking my best. And thanks so much for not sparing my feelings and letting me know I look like warmed-over crap.”

“Your feelings aren’t my priority.”

“Oh, there’s news. You do your work, and I’ll do mine, and I’ll do you a favor. When I’m done I’ll take myself off to your slobfest of an excuse for a spare room and sleep there so I don’t disturb your beauty sleep.”

He recognized by the pitch of her voice she jiggled midway between fury and a crying jag. It damn well couldn’t be helped.

“If you try to run this next class I’ll make a scene and you’ll lose every client in it. Believe me, I’ll make sure of it.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” She shoved him with considerably more strength than her pale face advertised. “Giving me ultimatums, threats, blackmail. Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’m the one who loves you. Goddamn it.”

“Don’t use that on me.”

“It’s what I’ve got.” Stupid, he realized. He’d let temper bump aside sense—and strategy. This wasn’t the way to handle her, and he knew it. “I can’t stand it.” He gave her the truth, harder for him than the threats. “I can’t stand seeing you like this.” He pulled her in. “You need a break. I’m asking you to take a break.”

“You weren’t asking.”

“Okay. I’m asking now.”

She sighed, hugely. “I look like shit.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t handle my work, or that you get to call in the reserves without asking me.”

“We’ll make a trade.”

“What?” She pulled back. “A trade?”

“You take the break, Mai gets to cut off Jaws’s balls.” An ace in the hole, Simon figured, needed to be used sooner rather than later.

“Oh! That’s ridiculous. That’s wrong. That’s...” She fisted her hands at her temples. “Low. You’re using my belief in responsible pet ownership.”

“A couple hours down for you, a lifetime of never knowing the thrill of a woman for him. You get the shiny end on this.”

She shoved him back, strode out of the bathroom. Then she turned and scowled at him as he leaned against the doorjamb. “You’re going to do it anyway.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Part of me figures he ought to at least have a shot at a couple of willing bitches first. A guy should have some memories.”

“You’re stringing me.” But he only shrugged, let the silence hang. “Damn it. You’ll call Mai now, today, make an appointment?”

He opened his mouth and swore he felt his own balls shrink up. “No. You do it.”

“Okay, but no backing out.”

“What do you want, a pinkie swear? A deal’s a deal. Go take a shower.”

“I will, after I call Mai—and give Sylvia the roundup for the classes she’s taking.”

“Fair enough. You know how they have those weird-ass dog spas and dog salons and boutiques?”

She huffed, struggling to settle... somewhere. “Not everyone thinks they’re weird-ass, but yes.”

“They ought to have dog bordellos for times like this. A guy could at least have a bang before he becomes a eunuch.”

“You ought to look into that. There are enough people who think like you do that you’d probably make a fortune.” She glanced toward the front door as the dogs gave the alert. “That’s Syl now.”

He moved to the door ahead of her, checked for himself.

“Are you that worried?” she asked him.

“I don’t see any reason to take chances. Meg’s with her.”

“Oh.” She stepped out. “Hi. First, sorry, second, thanks.”

“First, don’t be sorry. Second, you’re welcome. It was my afternoon off, and Meg and I were doing a garden exchange. I’m overrun with daylilies and she’s got extra purple coneflowers.”

“So, I tagged along.” Meg spoke with calculated cheer. “You’ve got co-instructors.”

“And Simon’s right. Honey, you do look tired.”

“So I’ve been told,” Fiona said, shooting him one burning stare, “in less tactful terms. Come on in. I’ll give you the overview for the classes—and we’ve got some sun tea.”

“Sounds good.” Sylvia walked onto the porch, rose to her toes and kissed Simon on the cheek. “Good job.”

He smirked at Fiona over Sylvia’s head.

“Don’t encourage him.” Fiona went inside. “The first is a beginners’ class, and we’re working on the basics. You’re going to want to keep the sheltie mix away from the Goldendoodle. He’s determined she’s the love of his life, and he’ll hump her every chance he gets. There’s a border collie,” she continued as they reached the kitchen. “She’s honor-bound to try to spend the entire class herding everyone.”

“Any snappers?” Sylvia asked while Fiona got out glasses.

“No. They run in age from around three to six months, so there’s short attention span and some screwing around, but pretty good temperaments. In fact there’s... Meg?”

Fiona paused when she caught the stunned look on Meg’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“This is him.” She pressed a finger to the sketch on the counter. “The guy in our cabin. This is Frank.”

The glass started to dissolve in Fiona’s hand. She set it down before she dropped it. “Are you sure? Meg, are you sure?”

“It’s him. It’s not perfect, but it’s him. The eyes, the shape of the face. I know this is him. It’s a police sketch, isn’t it? Oh my God.”

“This is a police composite of what Eckle looks like now?” Sylvia’s voice was utterly calm and seemed to come from inside a wind tunnel. “Fee!”

“Yes. Yes. Davey brought it over earlier. Tawney sent it in to the sheriff.”

“Meg, go out and get Simon. Right now. Right now. Fee, call Agent Tawney. I’m calling the sheriff.”

But before she called the FBI, Fiona went upstairs and got her gun.

When she came down she’d found her calm, and ignored the quick look of distress on Sylvia’s face when her stepmother saw the gun strapped to her belt.

“The sheriff’s on his way.”

“So’s the FBI. They’ll coordinate with the sheriff en route. Everything’s under control.” Fiona laid a hand on Meg’s shoulder as her friend sat at the counter.

“I was alone with him in that cabin. I showed him through it last spring, chatted with him. And yesterday... Oh sweet Jesus, that poor woman was in the trunk while I was making small talk. That’s why Xena kept sniffing all around it. I should’ve known—”

“Why? How?” Fiona demanded. “Let’s just be grateful you’re okay, and you’re here, and you recognized the sketch.”

“I shook his hand,” Meg murmured, staring at her own. “And that makes me feel... God, I have to call Chuck.”

“I already did.” Sylvia moved behind Meg and began to rub her shoulders. “He’s coming.”

“You may have saved that reporter’s life,” Fiona pointed out. “You may have saved mine. Think of that. Simon.” She walked out of the kitchen to the living room, kept her voice low. “I know what you want to do. I can see it. You want to go over there, drag him out of that cabin and beat him to a pulp.”

“The thought crossed. I’m not stupid,” he said before she could speak. “And not willing to risk even the slim chance that he’d get away from me. I know how to wait.”

She took his hand, squeezed it. “He doesn’t. Not like Perry. It was wildly stupid to come here like this, and to bring her—he must’ve brought her.”

“Stupid, yeah, but if he got away with it? A big splash if they found the reporter dead all but in your goddamn backyard. Perry just wanted to kill. This guy wants to be somebody.”

“He’ll never get away.” Still, she rubbed her arms to warm them as she checked through the front window again. “He won’t get off the island. But he’s had her for two days now. She may already be dead.”

“If she’s got a chance, it’s because of you.”

“Me?”

“You’re not stupid. He brought her here to unravel you, to hurt you. He’s boxed himself in, and he may have hurt you, but he hasn’t unraveled you.”

“I like having you around.”

“It’s my house. I have you around.”

She didn’t think she could laugh, but he brought it out of her. And with it she put her arms around him and held on until the sheriff pulled into the drive.

When they stepped out to meet him, Sheriff McMahon didn’t waste time.

“We’ve got the road to the cabin blocked off. Davey was able to get close enough to get a look through binocs. The car’s there, all the windows in the cabin are closed, the curtains drawn.”

“He’s inside. With her.”

“It looks that way,” he said with a nod to Fiona. “Feds are coming in by chopper, and I called in for some backup. Ben Tyson over on San Juan’s heading in now with two of his deputies. Feds don’t want us moving in, but I’m going to argue some on that. It would help us out, Simon, if we could use your place here as a base for now.”

“It’s yours.”

“Appreciate it. I need to talk to Meg, and keep the line open with Davey and Matt. They’re watching the cabin.”

Fiona felt the minutes dripping like syrup, so slow, so thick.

No movement, the deputies reported, again and again. Each time she imagined what moved inside, behind those shuttered windows.

“The problem is, there just aren’t enough of us, and goddamn it, Matt’s still green.” McMahon scrubbed his fingers over his head. “We can keep watch, but I can’t argue with the feds that if we go in, he might get through us. It doesn’t sit well, I can tell you, but sit’s what I have to do. At least till Tyson gets here.”

“I’ve got a shotgun.” Chuck stood, his arm around Meg’s shoulders. “We could have half a dozen men here in ten minutes willing to help out with this.”

“I don’t need a bunch of civilians, Chuck, or to be worried about maybe having to tell somebody’s wife she’s a widow. He killed the others where he buried them—I can’t argue that fact, either. Odds are she’s alive, and we’re going to get her out the same way.”

He pulled out his phone when it signaled and walked outside to take the call.

“He’d have her up here, wouldn’t he?” Fiona gestured to the printout of the floor plan they’d gotten off the cabin’s website. “In one of the bedrooms. Not downstairs, just in case somebody got in. But where he could lock her in. So they not only have to get into the cabin but up the stairs—if he’s with her.”

She tried to think of it as a search and applied the same principles of most likely behavior. “The master has the little deck off it. I don’t think he’d keep her there. He’d use the smaller room, the one with less access. But they could get men on that deck from the outside, and they could go through the slider, into the cabin on the second floor. Then—”

She broke off when McMahon strode back in. “Chopper just landed, they’re on the road. And Tyson’s on island, on his way. I’m going out to meet them. I need all of you to stay here. Right here. I’ll keep in touch best I can.”

From his perch in the trees on the rise well beyond Simon’s house, Eckle watched the sheriff through his field glasses. The third time the man paced the back porch, with the phone at his ear, Eckle knew they’d made him.

He pondered how. The e-mail he’d composed wasn’t set to send for another two hours. Maybe there’d been a glitch.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. Things would just get started sooner. He heard it, faintly—the whir of a helicopter.

The gang’s all here, he decided. The chances of his escape, of going under long enough to write the article, finish the book, dropped dramatically.

He’d most likely die on Fiona’s island.

That didn’t matter either. If formerly pretty Kati wasn’t dead by now, she’d likely be before they found her, so he’d have had his own.

And while they were looking, he’d find Fiona and accomplish what his teacher never did, never could.

They went in much as she’d imagined—fast, silent, covering every door and window. As one unit rushed through the first floor of the cabin, another rushed the second.

Tawney swept into the second bedroom steps behind the team.

He didn’t need the calls of Clear! to know Eckle had moved out, and taken Starr with him.

“He’s on his own script now. He’s tossed Perry’s and he’s on his own.”

“The trunk’s empty.” A little breathless, Mantz joined him. “He had her in there. It’s lined with plastic, and it’s bloodstained. Jesus,” she added with a murmur when she saw the plastic, and what stained it, covering the bed.

“He left us plenty of her scent.”

He wondered why.

Fiona wondered the same as her search unit reported to the cabin. She listened to the theory speculating he intended to come back, clean up, clear out—he’d left clothes behind as well—after he’d killed and buried Starr.

She didn’t argue. Her unit had a job to do, and the focus was to find the reporter.

“We’ll use the buddy system,” she said. “None of us goes in alone. Meg and Chuck, Team One; James and Lori, Team Two; Simon and me, Team Three. Two people, two dogs per team.”

She took a breath. “There are going to be armed police and federal agents swarming everywhere. You’ll keep in regular contact with Mai, and with Agent Tawney. They’re running the base. We’ve got about three hours before we lose the light. There’s a strong chance of a storm hitting before dusk. If we don’t find her before dark, we call it until morning. Everybody’s back to base at dusk. We don’t risk ourselves or our dogs.”

She glanced toward Tawney. “We all heard what Agent Tawney told us. Francis Eckle is a killer. He may be armed, he’s certainly dangerous. If any of you want to opt out of this search, it’s not a reflection on you or the unit. Just tell Mai, and she’ll recoordinate.”

She stepped aside as Mai signaled. “I don’t like you going in, Fee. You’re a target. He’s fixed on you already, and if he got any sort of a chance—”

“He won’t.”

“Can’t you convince her to take the com on this?” she said to Simon. “I’ll take Newman in, go with you and Peck.”

“I’d be wasting my breath, just like you, and Tawney, for that matter. But she’s right. He won’t get the chance.”

Mai swore, then caught Fiona in a hard hug. “If anything happens to you—anything—I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Fear of that alone will keep me safe. Let’s get started,” she called out. Signaling the dogs, she moved off toward her sector.

“Aren’t you supposed to give them the scent?” Simon asked her.

“Not yet,” she murmured. “I need you to cover me here. I’ll explain.”

When she judged the distance enough, she drew the scent bag out of her pack. “We’ve got four experienced search people and dogs looking for Starr—and cops and feds. They’ll find her, or they won’t.”

She looked up into Simon’s eyes. “We’re not going to look for her. We’re going to look for him.”

“That suits me fine.”

This time she blew out a breath. “Good. Okay, good.” She opened the bag. “This is his. He wore this sock and it hasn’t been washed. Even I can smell him on it.”

She gave both dogs the scent. “This is Eckle. It’s Eckle. Let’s find Eckle. Find him!”

As the dogs scented the air, noses twitching, heads lifted, she and Simon followed.

Thirty-One

As they covered the first quarter mile, Simon swore the dogs consulted each other. Ear flicks, tail wags, a duet of sniffing. The temperature eased down under the cover of trees, along ground soft with its bed of needles, and rose again in the open, through wild grass and juts of rock.

“If he brought her this way,” Simon wondered, “why didn’t he use the road, keep her in the trunk until he found his spot? And if he did that, why is the car back at the cabin, and the cabin empty?”

“He didn’t bring her this way. At least I don’t see any sign of it.” Fiona trailed her flashlight over the ground, over brush and branch. “He left tracks, he wasn’t being careful. But I don’t see any that could be hers. It doesn’t make any sense, but I know damn well we’re following his route. His solo route.”

“Maybe he spotted the cops, or got wind of them somehow and got out. It could explain why he left everything.”

“Panicked, ran.” She nodded. “We’ve only been on a couple of searches where the person didn’t want to be found. A pair of teenage lovers, and a guy who stabbed his wife during an argument when they were here on a camping trip. The teenagers had a plan, such as it was, and covered their trail, hid out. The man just ran, and that made him easier to find. I wish I knew which category Eckle falls into. If either.

“I have to check in with Mai.”

Simon watched her take out the radio. “Decide yet what you’re going to tell her?”

“We’re still in our sector, so I’ll tell her the truth. Just not all of it yet.” She stared at the radio in her hand. “I should tell her all of it. I know that in one logical part of my head. Tell Agent Tawney or at least the sheriff. I could tell Meg to tell Sheriff Tyson. We could pull a couple of the deputies in on this trail.”

“You could,” he agreed. “And spend time arguing with them when you’re told to go back to base.”

Which wasn’t an entirely bad idea, Simon considered. “Can any of them—Davey, McMahon, Tyson—handle the dogs on a search?”

“Davey might. That’s a maybe. The reality is he hasn’t had much more training or experience than you have. Which isn’t enough, not without an experienced handler on the team. I know how to read my dogs. I can’t guarantee any of them can.”

“I guess that’s the answer.”

She called in, gave their location. “I’ve made some tracks,” she told Mai, “and the dogs have a good scent.”

“Tawney wants to know if you’ve spotted any blood trail, or any signs of struggle.”

“No, none of that.”

“James and Lori found blood, and strong signs of someone falling, possibly being dragged. Their dogs have multiple alerts. I’m working on narrowing the sectors.”

Fiona looked at Simon. “I’d like to follow this for now. I don’t want to confuse the dogs when they’re alerting.”

“Understood, but... hold on. Stand by.”

“I gave the dogs Eckle, and they took his route. It must be fresher than the trail James and Lori picked up. I can’t lie to Mai, to any of them,” Fiona told Simon. “The unit’s built on trust.”

“So give it to her straight. Argue it out. You’re still going to do what you have to do.”

Even as she nodded, the radio crackled. “All teams, Agent Tawney’s just relayed that Eckle sent a timed e-mail from Starr’s computer. They’re speculating that he wanted it traced, wanted the authorities to find the cabin. Fee, he wants you to head back, now. They think this might be a lure to get you out there.”

“I am out here,” Fiona responded. “And we’re tracking him. Eckle, not Starr.”

“Fee—”

“The dogs are alerting, Mai, and I’m not coming back in while the rest of my unit is out here. I’ll stay in contact, but I need a minute to think this out.”

She shoved the radio back onto her belt, turned down the volume. “I have to see this through.”

“I’m standing right here,” Simon pointed out. “That makes it we. Where are we in connection to James and Lori’s area?”

“Give me a minute.” She pulled out her copy of the map. Okay, okay,” she murmured as she studied. “They’re east of us, here. Plenty of places off the trails or on private property. But if they’ve got the scent, and found blood, he had to cross this road.”

“So he had to do it at night. He’d need the dark, and the relative assurance he wouldn’t be seen.”

“Yeah, but we’re here. Well west. In fact, he veered west all along, which is more like panic, more like trying to distance himself from wherever he took her. But...”

“New element,” Simon put in. “If he sent the e-mail to bring the cops in, and to bring you out, where’s he going? He thinks you’ll be following Starr’s scent, not his. If he’s set a trap for you, it’s not here.”

“You think she’s bait,” Fiona murmured. “He brought her here, to my place, even used the cabin of a friend, a partner. God, of course she’s bait.” How, she wondered, did that make it worse? “He walked her, dragged her, left a blood trail because he wanted to lead us—or me—to wherever she is. But he can’t be sure I’d be the one to find her.”

“He’d need a place where he could watch. If you’re the one who finds her, he takes or kills you there. If you’re not, he moves over to your location, does the same.”

“But... No, I see. He doesn’t need to abduct me, to string it out. He just needs to kill me. I’m Perry’s. I’m payment.” She stared straight ahead, spoke calmly. “We need to water the dogs.”

He crouched down with her to fill the bowl. “Fiona, you don’t have to be a cop or a shrink to figure out this guy’s gone over an edge. Once he slipped over, changed Perry’s agenda, method, criteria—whatever the hell—for his own, he went over.”

“Yes.”

“Starr had information, some she’d printed, some she probably was still trying to confirm. He probably knows they’ve got his name, his face, everything there is about him. He probably knows Perry turned on him.”

“Yes,” she said again. “And she’d have told him anything, I imagine, anything he wanted to know if he told her he’d let her live. Maybe he didn’t need to ask. He had her laptop, her phone. He knew the FBI was closing in.”

“Where does he go, Fiona? When he’s paid his debt to Perry, where does he go? How does he get off the island? Steal a boat? A car? How does he get through all the search teams to manage that? Long odds. Even if he did it, how does he get through more cops to get on the ferry or get a boat off the island?”

“He doesn’t.” She picked up the empty bowl, stowed it. “It’s not panic, it was never panic. Maybe, back in April when he rented the cabin he thought he could get to me, take care of it and move on, but all that changed when he took Starr. When he brought her here knowing I’d gone to see Perry, when he read her article. It ends with me, one way or the other. Maybe he tries to kill the dogs, and you. Maybe as many as he can manage. But he knows it ends with me.”

“Blaze of glory.”

“He’s never had it.” She took out the scent bag. “But he’s tasted it now. Starr gave it to him, so he made her part of it. This is Eckle,” she said, forcing enthusiasm into her voice as she freshened the scent. “Let’s find Eckle! Find him!”

As they started again, she turned up her radio, winced at the chatter and the demands that she respond.

“Let me do it.” Simon held out his hand. “You need to focus on the dogs.”

He was right. There wasn’t just one life on the line but many. Starr was either alive or she was dead—that depended on Eckle’s whim.

Her unit, her friends, they were subject to that whim, too. As Greg had been to Perry’s.

But for Eckle it had never been about her, she realized. Despite the taunts, the terrorizing. She was no more than an IOU, and his twisted sense of honor demanded he pay that debt before the ugly new life Perry had given him was finished.

“He’s cutting back east now.” She flagged the next alert. “If he keeps the direction, he’s going to cross into James’s sector. I need to—”

“I’ll do it. You missed that.” He took another flag, marked a discarded candy wrapper. “You’re letting yourself get distracted. Stop it.”

Right again, she thought, and paused for a moment. She shut her eyes, let herself hear, scent, feel.

Orcas was a small island, a lot of ground to cover, yes, but limited. If his goal was to lure her into a trap, he’d have to have cover, and a vantage point.

“His route had to cross with the route he took with Starr. Somewhere he has to cross it, or parallel, but crossing from this direction...”

She had the map in her head, but took the one from her backpack to study again. No chances.

“Perry took high ground when he killed Greg. That was another kind of payment.”

“Perry got caught, put in prison. I don’t think Eckle is looking at prison as an option.” Over Fiona’s shoulder, Simon scanned the map, the trails, the routes. “Neither does Tawney.”

“He’s got work to do first,” she murmured. “He’s traveled in an arc—a wide curve, rounding west, now rounding east. Taking himself away from Starr, moving back toward her. Not to her. That doesn’t make sense. But near enough to watch. Maybe even hear the dogs, the radios when they get close enough. And in this direction, he’s going to start running into houses, Gary and Sue’s farm.”

“I don’t have your sense of direction, but your place is before the farm. How far are we out?”

“From my...” Her breath caught. “My place. You said it before. My own backyard. He’s taken everyone, even Starr, from their own place—school, routine area, work. He’s never deviated from that.”

She gripped Simon’s hand as certainty, and urgency, coursed through her in fast streams.

“Not just the island, my home. It’s empty, my house, because I’m out here looking for him. Or maybe he knows I’m at your place. Either way, he’d have the woods for cover.”

“And if he could get you inside, a place to take that last stand. How far, Fiona?”

“Maybe a half mile. Less. It depends on how far he circles, which point he’s picked for his hide.” She scanned the shadows, pools of gray and green. “The wind’s picking up, and that’ll affect the scent cone. We’re going to be crossing into James and Lori’s sector if we keep going east. We have to make the dogs stay in the trees, even if the trail goes into the open. We have to keep them quiet. And once we contact base, we have to turn the radio off.”

He considered telling her to stay there, but she wouldn’t. Considered telling her they’d both stay where they were and give Tawney her best guess of Eckle’s location. He knew the answer to that, too, but gave it a shot.

“We stay here, call it in, give Tawney the information.”

“And if Eckle changes direction? We can’t tell them where he’s going until we’re sure. We can only theorize.”

“That’s what I figured. Take out your gun. It’s in your hand from this point on.” He took out the radio. “Mai, put Tawney on.”

“They’re alerting again.” Fiona moved forward to flag the location.

“He wants to talk to you.” Simon passed her the radio.

“This is Fee. Over.”

“Fiona, I want you to listen to me. Stay where you are. We’ve triangulated your route with the other two search teams. We believe he’s on your property, or close. We’re dispatching a unit to your house, and pulling officers off search to join you and your unit. Do you copy?”

“Yes, I copy, Agent Tawney. Do any of your men know this area, have dogs who are giving stronger and stronger alerts? We’re just crossing into Team One’s sector. I see one of their flags.”

Getting closer, she thought and her blood pumped hard.

“He crossed here, too, crossed the area where he took her. James and Lori could... He could kill them. Simon and I are approaching from what should be his blind side. Send the cavalry, please God, but we’re following the dogs. I have to turn off the radio. We can’t risk him hearing us.”

She turned it off, handed it to Simon. “James won’t hold back. He might argue with Lori and convince her to wait, but he won’t. Not when there’s a chance he could find Starr alive. And I can’t wait, Simon, and take the chance someone else I love gets killed because of a vendetta against me.”

“Who’s arguing?”

It settled her, she realized, that faint edge of irritation in his tone. “We need to leash the dogs. Keep them close. And quiet.”

She glanced up when thunder rumbled. “We’re going to lose the light. It’s nearly dusk anyway. The wind’s good cover. Rain would be better. But both are affecting the scent. We’re all going to be going on instinct soon.”

“I want you behind me. That’s my instinct,” he said before she could object. “I need you to respect it.”

“I’m the one with the gun,” she pointed out.

“That’s right.” He kissed her lightly. “And I’m the one who’s counting on you using it if you need to.”

They continued in silence through air that cooled with the wind. The rising surf of wind through the trees made good cover, and would—she hoped—mask their approach. But she couldn’t hear over it either. And every sigh and shake of the trees caused her heart to jump.

They used hand signals, for each other and the dogs.

They came to the edge of the clearing where Simon found the stump. She saw the young sapling he’d planted without telling her. It made her galloping heart calm.

She touched her fingertips to him, just a brush of thanks.

She spotted another flag, and when the dogs wanted to cross into the open, she ordered them back.

Her blood froze when she heard the crackle of the radio, but even as her gaze flew to Simon’s belt she realized it wasn’t theirs.

James, she thought. Closer than she’d realized. She couldn’t make out the words, not all of them, but the excited tone translated. As did the happy bark.

“They’ve found her,” she whispered.

And a shadow moved in the shadows.

Her breath stuttered in her throat. He’d been sitting behind a tree, she saw, on the far side of the clearing. And now he used the wind, the gloom, those first quick patters of rain to mask his movements.

Simon laid his hand over her mouth, leaned close to her ear.

“You stay here. You keep the dogs right here. I’m going to circle around, cut him off. Stay here,” he repeated. “He won’t get past me. Cops’ll be here in minutes.”

She wanted to argue; couldn’t risk it. She ordered her confused dogs with a down and stay, a firm, angry hand signal that had their heads drooping, their eyes casting up at her whining with hurt feelings.

The game wasn’t over. The prize was right there, lurking in the shadows. Her unexpected anger had them letting out low whines until she silenced them with a furious look, a jabbing finger.

Satisfied, she eased out a little to look, and saw the gun in Eckle’s hand. His head cocked to the side—listening—as he turned slowly in the direction Simon took.

She thought, very simply, No. And stepped out into the clearing.

She held the gun up and aimed. Cursed that it trembled as he completed the turn and looked into her eyes.

“Drop your gun, Francis, or I swear on every life you and Perry took, I’ll shoot you.” She would live with it, could live with it. Had to live with it.

“He told me not to underestimate you.” As she did, Eckle held the gun up and aimed. But it didn’t tremble. He smiled as he might at the unexpected appearance of a friend. “You know when I kill you, your partner will rush in this direction. Then I’ll kill him, too. His dog. Yours. Where’s your dog, Fiona?”

“Put the gun down. You know the police and the FBI are coming. They’re spread all over this area. You’ll never get through them.”

“But I’ve finally lived. In a few short months I’ve lived and experienced more than I did in all the years before. All those gray years. I hope Tawney’s with the ones who come. If I have a chance to take him, it would be like a parting gift for Perry.”

“He betrayed you.”

“But first he freed me. I wish we had more time, Fiona. Your hand’s trembling.”

“It won’t stop me.” She drew a breath in, prepared to kill.

Simon charged out of the trees, his body low and between hers and Eckle’s. He rammed Eckle’s right side, making Fiona think briefly, crazily, of a speeding train.

The gun fired, the bullet digging a trench in the soft earth an instant before the gun flew from Eckle’s hand.

She rushed forward, grabbed it. Even as she aimed both guns she heard James shouting, and thrashing through the brush. Just, she thought, as Eckle had predicted. When he broke through, she shoved the guns at him.

“Hold these.”

“Fee, Jesus. Jesus.”

She simply dropped down beside Simon as he viciously, methodically battered Eckle’s face with his fists.

“Stop. Stop that now.” She struggled for the firm, no-nonsense tone she used with misbehaving dogs, and nearly succeeded. “Simon, stop. He’s finished.”

He flicked one furious glance at her. “I told you to stay under cover. I told you he wouldn’t get past me.”

“And he didn’t.” She took one of his balled fists, the knuckles bruised and bloody, and laid it on her cheek as her dogs shoved against her. “I told them to stay, but they didn’t. We all protect each other. That’s how it works.”

She barely spared Eckle a glance. “Is she alive?” she asked James.

“Yeah. But I don’t know if she’s going to stay that way. She’s in bad shape. I have to get back to Lori. You scared the shit out of us.”

He, however, took a long study of Eckle’s battered, slack face. “You do nice work, Simon. Here.” He handed the guns back to Fiona. “I hear the cops, or feds. Whichever. We’ve got to get the victim out and to the hospital. We’re going to do some serious talking in the debriefing,” he added, then shoved through the brush.

“I didn’t know if you saw the gun,” she told Simon. “I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t take a chance.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t just blast away at you. What if he hadn’t wanted to chat for a minute?”

“I’d have shot him.” She put her own gun back in her holster, then Eckle’s in her belt. “Another fraction of a second... I’m glad I didn’t have to. Glad you broke his goddamn face instead.”

She let out a long breath, then crouched. “Good dogs! You’re such good dogs. You found Eckle.”

She had her arms around the dogs and her head on Simon’s chest when the cops rushed the clearing.

It took hours more, hours that seemed like days. Questions, reports, more questions, the briefing.

Mantz walked over to shake her hand. “I still say you’d make a good agent.”

“Maybe, but I’m really looking forward to the quiet life.”

“Good luck with it.” Bending, she petted Newman, who’d yet to leave Fiona’s side. “Good dog,” she said, and when Fiona cocked a brow, laughed. “I guess they’ve changed my mind about the species. See you around.”

From Tawney, she got a hug.

“Don’t wait until there’s trouble to come see me,” she murmured. “Because I’m done with trouble, but not with you.”

“You gave me a whole new patch of gray hair today. I’d say take care of yourself, but you already do. We’re going to need to do some follow-ups.”

“Anytime.”

“Go home.” He kissed her forehead. “Get some sleep.”

Since she nearly dozed off on the drive home she didn’t think that would be a problem.

“I’m going to have a shower, then I’m going to eat whatever’s in the refrigerator, then I’m going to sleep for twelve hours.”

“I’ve got a couple things to do, then we’ll both eat whatever’s in the fridge.”

She started out, stopped. “Would you check, see if there’s any update on Starr’s condition? I know it looks bad for her, but maybe... We hate losing one.”

“I’ll check. Have your shower.”

She wallowed in it, basked, lingered. Then, tying her wet hair back in a tail, pulled on cotton pants and a soft, faded tee. Comfort, she thought. She wanted nothing but comfort.

And the start, please God, of her quiet life.

She picked up the little penknife she’d set on her dresser, pressed it to her cheek. “You’d be happy for me,” she murmured. Setting it down, she studied herself in the mirror. She looked a little tired, she thought, but she didn’t look like hell.

She looked, she thought with a smile, free.

As she started downstairs, she frowned at the quick toot of a horn. She loved her friends, but God, she just wanted to eat and sleep. No more talk.

But she found Simon in the kitchen, alone with the dogs.

“Who was here?”

“When? Oh, James. I needed a hand with something. Here.” He shoved a cracker with a thin slice of cheese on top into her mouth.

“Good,” she managed over it. “More.”

He shoved a second in. “That’s it. Now you make your own. Here.” He pushed a glass of wine in her hand.

“Did you call the hospital?”

“She’s critical. Exposure, dehydration, shock. She’s got broken fingers, a broken jaw. There’s more. He had considerable time to pound on her, and he used it. She’s got a decent shot.”

“Okay.”

“Eckle’s got a few problems of his own.” He glanced at his own bandaged hands.

“He earned them.” She took those bandaged hands and made him mutter to himself when she kissed them.

“He was writing a book.”

“What?”

“You took a long shower,” Simon pointed out. “Davey filled in some blanks. She was, too. It looks like Eckle did some editing on hers, added some material.”

“God.” Closing her eyes, she pressed the wineglass to her brow. “You were right. He wanted to be someone.”

“Still does. According to Davey, he waived a lawyer and hasn’t shut up. He wants to talk, wants to give details. He’s proud of himself.”

“Proud.” She repeated the word, gave in to one shudder.

“And he’s finished. He’s done. Like Perry.”

“Yes.” She opened her eyes, lowered the glass. She thought of the prison walls, the bars, the guns, the guards. “He didn’t get that blaze of glory, not the kind he wanted. I think we should sit outside, watch the dogs, drink this wine, then eat like maniacs. Because we can.”

“Not yet. Bring the wine. I want to show you something.”

“Is it more food?”

He took her arm and pulled her into the dining room—where the table, she noted, was sadly empty of food. “Okay. I really hope you don’t want fun on the dining room table because I don’t think I’ve got it in me tonight. Now tomorrow—” She broke off as she spotted the wine cabinet. “Oh!”

She rounded the table in a flash. “Oh, it’s wonderful. The wood’s like chocolate silk and heavy cream. And the doors? Those are dogwoods. It’s just, oh...” She opened the doors, danced in place. “It’s just absolutely fabulous. Every detail. It’s charming and fun and beautiful.”

“It suits you.”

She spun around. “Is it mine? Oh my God, Simon—”

Before she could rush him, he held up a hand. “It depends. I’m thinking a trade. I’ll give it to you, but since it’s going to stay here, that means you stay, too.”

She opened her mouth, shut it again. Picked up the wine she’d set on the table, sipped. “I can have the cabinet if I live here, with you?”

“I’m the one who lives here, so yeah, with me. This house is bigger than yours. You’ve got the woods, but I’ve got the woods and the beach. The dogs have more room. And I need my shop.”

“Hmmm.”

“You can keep doing your classes here, or you can move them back. Keep the house for the business. Or sell it. Or rent it out. But if you want that, you stay.”

“That’s some interesting bartering.”

“You started it.” He slid his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. “I figure we got through some of the worst anybody gets through. And here we are. I don’t see the point in wasting time. So, you want the cabinet, you live here. We should probably get married.”

She choked, managed to swallow the wine. “We should probably?”

“I’m not coming up with some fancy proposal.”

“How about something between we-should-probably and fancy?”

“Do you want to get married?”

Now she laughed. “I guess that’s between. Well, I want the cabinet. I want you. So... yeah, I guess I want to get married.”

“It’s a good deal,” he said as he stepped to her.

“It’s a very good deal.” She laid her hands on his cheeks. “Simon.”

He pressed his lips to her right palm, then the left. “I love you.”

“I know.” She slid into his arms. “It’s the best feeling in the world, knowing. And every time I look at that cabinet, put a glass in, take a bottle out, I’ll know it. It’s an incredible gift.”

“It’s a trade.”

“Of course.” She laid her lips on his, lingered.

She was free, she thought, and she was loved. And she was home.

“Let’s go tell the boys,” she murmured.

“Right. I’m sure they’ll want champagne and cigars.” Still he took her hand to walk out. “Let’s make it fast. I’m starving.”

He made her laugh, and that, she thought, was another very good deal.