Blue Heaven

Friday, 4:28 P.M.

IF TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Annie Taylor had not chosen to take her little brother William fishing on that particular Friday afternoon in April during the wet North Idaho spring, she never would have seen the execution or looked straight into the eyes of the executioners. But she was angry with her mother.

Before they witnessed the killing, they were pushing through the still-wet willows near Sand Creek, wearing plastic garbage bags to keep their clothes dry. Upturned alder leaves cupped pools of rainwater from that morning, and beaded spiderwebs sagged between branches. When the gray-black fists of storm clouds pushed across the sun, the light muted in the forest and erased the defining edges of the shadows, and the forest plunged into a dispiriting murk. The ground was black, spongy in the forest and sloppy on the trail. Their shoes made sucking sounds as they slogged upstream.

Annie and William had left their home on the edge of town, hitched a ride for a few miles with Fiona, the mail lady, and had been hiking for nearly two hours, looking in vain for calm water.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” ten-year-old William said, raising his voice over the liquid roar of the creek, which was angry and swollen with runoff.

Annie stopped and turned to William, looking him over. A long fly rod poked out from beneath the plastic he wore. He had snagged the tip several times in the branches, and a sprig of pine needles was wedged into one of the line guides.

“You said you wanted to go fishing, so I’m taking you fishing.” “

But you don’t know anything about it,” William said, his eyes widening and his lower lip trembling, which always happened before he began to cry.

“William…”

“We should go back.”

“William, don’t cry.”

He looked away. She knew he was trying to stanch it, she could tell by the way he set his mouth. He hated that he cried so easily, so often, that his emotions were so close to the surface. Annie didn’t have that problem.

“How many times did Tom tell you he was going to take you fishing?” Annie asked.

William wouldn’t meet her eyes. “A bunch,” he said.

“How many times has he taken you?”

He said sullenly, “You know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I sort of like him,” William said.

Annie said, “I sort of don’t.”

“You don’t like anybody.”

Annie started to argue, but didn’t, thinking: He may be right. “I like you enough to take you fishing even though I don’t know how to fish. Besides, how hard can it be if Tom can do it?”

An impudent smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, I guess,” he said.

“Look,” she said, raising her plastic bag to show him she was wearing Tom’s fishing vest. She had taken it without asking off a peg in their house. “This thing is filled with lures and flies and whatever. We’ll just tie them to the end of your line and throw ’em out there. The fish can’t be much smarter than Tom, so how hard can it be?”

“… if Tom can do it,” he said, his smile more pronounced.

That was when they heard a motor rev and die, the sound muffled by the roar of the foamy water.

THE BETRAYAL occurred that morning when Tom came downstairs, asked, “What’s for breakfast?” Annie and William were at the table dressed for school eating cereal-Sugar Pops for William, Frosted Mini-Wheats for her. Tom asked his question as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but it wasn’t. Tom had never been in their home for breakfast before, had never stayed the night. He was wearing the same wrinkled clothes from the night before when he’d shown up after dinner to see their mom, what he called his fishing clothes-baggy trousers that zipped off at the thigh, a loose-fitting shirt with lots of pockets. This was new territory for Annie, and she didn’t want to explore it.

Instead, she found herself staring at his large, white bare feet. They looked waxy and pale, like the feet of a corpse, but his toes had little tufts of black hair on their tops, which both fascinated and disgusted her. He slapped them wetly across the linoleum floor.

“Where’s your mom keep the coffee?” he asked.

William was frozen to his chair, his eyes wide and unblinking, his spoon poised an inch from his mouth, Sugar Pops bobbing in the milk. William said, “On the counter, in that canister thing.”

Tom repeated “canister thing” to himself with good humor and set about making a pot of coffee. Annie bored holes into the back of his fishing shirt with her eyes. Tom was big, buff, always fake-friendly, she thought. He rarely showed up at their house without a gift for them, usually something lame and last-minute like a Slim-Jim meat stick or a yo-yo he bought at the convenience store at the end of the street. But she’d never seen him like this-disheveled, sleepy, sloppy, talking to the two of them for the very first time like they were real people who knew where the coffee was.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He turned his head. His eyes were unfocused, bleary. “Making coffee.”

“No. I mean in my house.”

William finally let the spoon continue its path. His eyes never left Tom’s back. A drip of milk snaked down from the corner of his mouth and sat on his chin like a bead of white glue.

Tom said, “Your house? I thought it was your mother’s house.” All jolly he is, she thought angrily.

“Is this it for breakfast?” Tom asked, holding up the cereal boxes and raising his eyebrows.

“There’s toast,” William said, his mouth full. “Mom makes eggs sometimes. And pancakes.”

Annie glared at her brother with snake eyes.

“Maybe I’ll ask Monica to make me some eggs,” Tom mumbled, as much to himself as to them. He poured a cup of coffee before it filled the carafe. Errant drips sizzled on the hot plate.

So it was Monica, not your mother, Annie thought.

He came to the table, his feet making kissing sounds on the floor, pulled out a chair, and sat down. She could smell her mother on him, which made her feel sick inside.

“That’s Mom’s chair,” she said.

“She won’t mind,” he said, flashing his false, condescending smile. To him they were children again, although she got the feeling Tom was just a little scared of her. Maybe he realized now what he’d done. Maybe not. He pointedly ignored Annie, who glared at him, and turned to William.

“School, eh?” Tom said, reaching out and tousling the boy’s hair. William nodded, his eyes wide.

“Too bad you can’t take the day off and go fishing with me. I really got into some nice ones last night before I came over. Fifteen-, sixteen-inch trout. I brought a few to your mom for you guys to have for dinner.”

“I want to go,” William said, swelling out his chest. “I’ve never gone fishing, but I think I could do it.”

“You bet you could, little man,” Tom said, sipping the hot coffee. He gestured toward the cluttered mudroom off the kitchen where he’d hung his fishing vest and stored his fly rod in the corner. “I’ve got another rod in my truck you could use.”

Suddenly, William was squirming in his chair, excited. “Hey, we get out of school early today! Maybe we could go then?”

Tom looked to Annie for clarification.

“Early release,” Annie said deadpan. “We’re out at noon.”

Tom pursed his lips and nodded, his eyes dancing, now totally in control of William. “Maybe I’ll pick you up and take you after school, then. I’ll ask your mom about it. I can pick you up out front. D’you want to go along, too, Annie?”

She shook her head quickly. “No.”

“You need to ease up a little,” Tom told her, smiling with his mouth only.

“You need to go home,” she replied.

Tom was about to say something when her mother came down the stairs, her head turned away from the kitchen and toward the front door. Annie watched her mother walk quickly through the living room and part the curtains, expecting, Annie thought, to confirm that Tom’s vehicle was gone. When it wasn’t, her mother turned in horror and took it all in: Tom, Annie, and William at the kitchen table. Annie saw the blood drain out of her mother’s face, and for a second she felt sorry for her. But only for a second.

“Tommmmm,” her mother said, dragging his name out and raising the tone so it was a sentence in itself meaning many things, but mostly, “Why are you still here?”

“Don’t you need to get to work?” her mother finally said.

Tom was a UPS driver. Annie was used to seeing him in his brown uniform after work. His shirt and shorts were extra tight.

“Yup,” Tom said, standing so quickly he sloshed coffee on the table. “I better get going, kids. I’ll be late.”

Annie watched Tom and her mother exchange glances as Tom hurried past her toward the front door, grabbing his shoes on the way. She thanked God there was no good-bye kiss between them, or she might throw up right there.

“Mom,” William said, “Tom’s going to take me fishing after school!”

“That’s nice, honey,” his mom said vacantly.

“Go brush your teeth,” Annie said to William, assuming the vacated role of adult. “We’ve got to go.”

William bounded upstairs.

Annie glared at her mother, who said, “Annie…”

“Are you going to marry him?”

Her mother sighed, seemed to search for words. She raised her hands slowly, then dropped them to her sides as if the strings had been snipped. That answered Annie’s question.

“You told me…”

“I know,” her mother said impatiently, tears in her eyes. “It’s hard for you to understand. Someday you’ll see, maybe.”

Annie got up from the table and took her and William’s bowls to the sink, rinsed them out. When she was through, her mother was still standing there, hadn’t moved.

“Oh, I understand,” Annie said, then gestured toward the stairs. “But William doesn’t. He thinks he’s got a new dad.”

Her mother took a sharp breath as if Annie had slapped her. Annie didn’t care.

“We’ll talk later,” her mother said, as Annie avoided her and went straight outside through the mudroom to wait for William in the yard. She knew her mom would be heartbroken because she hadn’t kissed her good-bye. Too bad, Annie thought. Mom had been kissed enough lately.

AT NOON, Annie waited with William at the front of the school for Tom. They looked for his pickup and never saw it. When a UPS truck came down the block, William pumped his fist and growled, “YES!”

But Tom wasn’t driving the truck, and it never slowed down.

After taking Tom’s fishing rod and vest, Annie and William walked along the damp shoulder of the state highway out of town. Annie led. She knew there was a creek up there somewhere. A woman driving a little yellow pickup pulled over in front of them.

“Where are you two headed with such dogged determination?” the woman asked in a high-pitched little-girl voice. Annie disliked her immediately. She was one of those older women who thought they were young and pert instead of squat and wide.

“Fishing,” Annie said. “Up ahead, on the creek.”

The woman said her name was Fiona, and she delivered rural mail, and she would be going that direction if they needed a ride. Even though William shook his head no, Annie said, “Thank you.”

While they drove deep into the forest and began to see glimpses of a stream through the trees, Fiona never stopped talking. She acted as if she was interested in them, but she wasn’t, Annie thought. Fiona was determined to convince them that delivering mail was a very important job and not just anybody could do it. As if she expected Annie to say, “Wow-you deliver the mail?” Fiona’s perfumed scent was overpowering inside the small cab. Annie’s eyes began to water, and she threw an elbow at William, who was pinching his nose shut.

“Can you let us off here?” Annie asked at no particular landmark except that she could see the creek.

“Are you sure this is okay with your folks?” Fiona asked, well after the time she should have.

“Sure,” Annie lied.

They thanked her and got out. William was concerned that the fish would be able to smell him because his clothes were now reeking of perfume, but Annie convinced him fish couldn’t smell. Not that she knew anything about fish.

MAYBE, ANNIE THOUGHT, the men didn’t notice William and her because the dark green plastic they wore over their clothes blended in so well with the color of the heavy brush. Maybe, the men had looked around for another vehicle, and not having seen one, assumed no one else was there, certainly not on foot. But Annie could certainly see them; the profiles of four men parked in a white SUV in a campground space.

Everything was wet and dark under the dripping canopy of trees, and it smelled of pine, loam, and the spray of the creek. Other than the white car, the campground looked empty. There was a picnic table next to the SUV, and a low black fire pit.

Annie watched as the driver got out and shut his door, looked around the campsite, then turned back to the vehicle. He was middle-aged or older, lean, fit, and athletic in his movements. He had short white hair and a tanned, thin face. Three more doors opened, and three more men climbed out. They wore casual rain jackets, one wore a ball cap. The man in the ball cap put a six-pack of beer on the picnic table and pulled out four bottles and twisted the tops off, putting the tops into his jacket pocket.

The men seemed to be comfortable with one another, she thought, the way they nodded and smiled and talked. She couldn’t hear what they said because of the sound of the rushing creek behind her. The Ball Cap Man offered bottles of beer to everyone, and took a long drink of his own. They didn’t sit down at the table-too wet, she thought-but stood next to each other.

Annie felt William tugging on her arm through the plastic. When she looked over, he gestured back toward the path they had come by, indicating he wanted to go. She gave him a just-a-minute nod and turned back to the campsite. It thrilled her to spy on the men. Men fascinated and repulsed her, maybe because her mother attracted so many of them.

What happened next was terrifying.

The Driver circled the group of men, as if returning to the car, then he suddenly wheeled and jabbed a finger into the chest of a wavy-haired man and said something harsh. The wavy-haired man stumbled back a few feet, obviously surprised. As if a signal had been given, both the Ball Cap Man and a tall, dark man stepped back, and stood shoulder to shoulder with the Driver, facing down the wavy-haired man, who pitched his beer bottle aside and held his hands out, palms up, in an innocent gesture.

“Annie…” William pleaded.

She saw the Dark Man pull a pistol from behind his back, point it at the Wavy-Haired Man, and fire three times, pop-pop-pop. The Wavy-Haired Man staggered backwards until he tripped over the fire pit and fell into the mud.

Annie caught her breath, and her heart seemed to rush up her throat and gag her. She felt a sharp pain in her arm, and for a second she thought that a stray bullet had struck her, but when she glanced down she saw it was William’s two-handed grip. He had seen what happened in the campsite, too. It wasn’t like television or the movies, where a single shot was a deafening explosion and the victim was hurled backwards, dead, bursts of blood detonating from his clothing. This was just a pop-pop-pop, like a string of firecrackers. She couldn’t believe what had just happened, couldn’t believe it wasn’t a prank or a joke or her imagination.

“Annie, let’s get out of here!” William cried, and she started to backpedal blindly, toward the creek.

At the water’s edge, she looked over her shoulder, realizing they had lost the path and could go no farther.

“No,” she yelled at William. “Not this way. Let’s get back on the trail!”

He turned to her panicked, eyes wide, his face drained of color. Annie reached for his hand and tugged him along, crashing back through the brush toward the path. When they reached it, she looked back toward the campsite. All three men stood over the Wavy-Haired Man, firing pistols into his body.

Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

Suddenly, as if Annie’s own gaze had drawn him, the Driver looked up. Their eyes locked, and Annie felt something like ice-cold electricity shoot through her. It burned the tips of her fingers and toes and momentarily froze her shoes to the ground.

William screamed, “He sees us!”

SHE RAN like she had never run before, pulling her brother along behind her, yelling, “Stay with me!”

They kept to the trail that paralleled the lazy curves of Sand Creek. The stream was on their left, the dark forest on their right. Wet branches raked her face and tugged at her clothing as she ran. She could hear her own screams as if someone else was making them.

Pop-pop. A thin tree in front of them shook from an impact, and half-opened buds rained down. The men were shooting at them.

William was crying, but he was keeping up. He gripped her hand so tightly she could no longer feel her fingers, but she didn’t care. Somewhere, she had lost a shoe in the mud, but she never even considered going back for it, and now her left foot was freezing.

How far were they from the road? She couldn’t guess. If they got to the road, there was the chance of getting a ride home with someone.

William jerked to a stop so suddenly that Annie was pulled backwards, falling. Had one of the men grabbed him?

No, she saw. His fly rod had been caught between the trunks of two trees. Rather than let go of it, he was trying to pull it free.

“Drop it, William!” she cried. “Just drop it!”

He continued to struggle as if her words hadn’t penetrated. His face was twisted with determination, his tears streaming.

“LET GO!” she screamed, and he did.

She scrambled back to her feet and as she did she saw a shadow pass in the trees on their right. It was the Ball Cap Man, and he had apparently found a parallel trail that might allow him to get ahead so he could cut them off.

“Wait,” she said to William, her eyes wide. “We can’t keep going this way. Follow me.”

She pushed herself through heavy wet undergrowth, straight at the path she had seen the Ball Cap Man running on. She hesitated a moment at the trail, saw no one, and plunged across it between two gnarled wild rosebushes, pulling William behind her. This time, she didn’t need to prompt him to keep running.

They were now traveling directly away from the river through heavy timber. Annie let go of her brother’s hand, and the two of them scrambled over downed logs and through masses of dead and living brush farther into the shadows. Something low and heavy-bodied, a raccoon maybe, scuttled out of sight and parted the fronds in front of them.

They left the roar of the river behind them, and it got quieter in the forest. At one point they heard a shout below them, somewhere in the trees, one of the men shouting, “Where did they go, goddammit?”

“Did you hear that?” William asked.

She stopped, leaned back against the trunk of a massive ponderosa pine, and nodded.

“Do you think they would shoot us if they found us?”

She implored him with her eyes not to talk.

William collapsed next to her, and for a few minutes the only sound in the forest was the steady dripping of the trees and their winded breath. Even as she recovered from exertion, the terror remained. Every tree looked like one of the men. Every shadow looked momentarily like a man with a gun.

She looked down at her brother, who had his head cocked back on the trunk, his mouth slightly open. His clothes were wet and torn. She could see a cut oozing dark blood where a bare knee was exposed by an L-shaped rip. His face was pale white, streaked with dirt.

“I’m sorry I brought you here,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“They killed that man,” William said. “They shot him and shot him again.”

She didn’t say, They’ll do the same to us. Instead: “If we keep going in this direction, we should find the road.”

“What if they’re already up there?”

She shrugged, sighed. “I don’t know.”

“How will we get home?”

“I don’t know.”

“They just kept shooting him,” he said. “I wonder what he did to make them so mad?”

THEY DIDN’T SEE the road so much as sense an opening in the canopy ahead. Annie made William squat down in the wet brush, and they remained still for a few minutes, hoping to hear the sound of a car or truck.

“We’re like rabbits,” he said, “just sitting here scared.”

“Shhh.” She thought she heard a motor. “Stay here.”

She pushed through the low brush on her hands and knees. She could no longer feel her bare foot, which was cut and bleeding. The grass got thicker as it neared the road, and she crawled on her belly to the edge of it. For the first time since the initial pop, she felt a twinge of relief.

Then she felt a tug on her pant leg, and gasped.

“It’s just me,” William said. “Man, you jumped.”

She hissed, “I told you to stay back there.”

“No way,” he said, crawling up next to her. “What are we doing?”

“We’re going to wait until we hear a car,” she said. “When it gets close, we’re going to jump up and try to get a ride to town.”

“What if it’s the white car?” he asked.

“Then we keep hiding,” she said.

“I thought you heard something.”

“I thought I did. Maybe not.”

“Hold it,” William said, raising his head above the grass, “I hear it too.”

ANNIE AND WILLIAM looked at each other as the sound slowly rose, the baritone hum of a motor spiced by the crunching of gravel beneath tires. The vehicle was coming from the wrong direction, from town instead of toward it. But Annie figured that if someone was likely to stop for them, they would be just as likely to turn around and take them home. And if the vehicle was coming from the direction of town, it was unlikely it could be the white SUV.

She inched forward, parting the grass. She could feel the approach of the vehicle from the ground beneath her, a vibration that made her feel more like an animal than a girl.

She saw an antenna, then the top of a cab of a pickup, then a windshield. She raised her head.

It was a new-model red pickup with a single occupant. Whooping, she scrambled to her feet and pulled William along with her, and they stood in the road.

At first, she wasn’t sure the driver saw her. He was going slowly, and staring out into the trees off to the side instead of at the road. But just as she began to step back toward the shoulder, the pickup slowed and she recognized the driver as Mr. Swann. Mr. Swann had once dated their mother, and although he was much older than she, and it didn’t work out, he had not been unkind to them.

As Swann stopped and leaned over and opened the passenger door, Annie Taylor began to weep with absolute relief, her hot tears streaming down her face.

“Whoa,” Mr. Swann said, looking them over, “are you two all right? Did you get lost out here?”

“Will you please take us home?” Annie said through her tears.

“What happened?”

“Please take us home,” William said. “We saw a man get killed.”

“What?”

As William climbed into the truck, Annie heard another motor. She looked up the road where it curved to the right and could see a vehicle coming, glimpses of it flashing through the trunks of the trees.

It was the white SUV.

“Get on the floor,” she yelled to her brother. “It’s them!”

“Annie, what’s going on here?” Swann asked, frowning.

“They want to kill us!” Annie said, hurtling inside and shutting the door behind her. She cowered with William on the floor of the pickup.

“Oh, come on now,” Swann said.

“Please, just drive,” Annie said, her voice cracking. “Please just drive ahead.”

Swann slid the truck back into gear, and she could feel it moving, hear the gravel start to crunch.

“Maybe I should just stop them and ask them what’s going on?” Swann asked. “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.”

“NO!” Annie and William howled in unison.

She looked up at Swann as he drove, saw the confusion on his face. What if the men in the SUV waved Swann down to talk? It wasn’t unusual on these back roads to see two vehicles stopped side by side as the drivers exchanged information and pleasantries.

“Please don’t stop,” Annie said again.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Swann said, “but it has you two scared to death, that’s for sure.”

Swann pursed his lips and looked ahead. She wished she could see how close the white SUV was, and what the men inside were doing. Instead, she wrapped her arms around William and watched Swann.

“They want me to stop,” Swann said, not looking down.

“Don’t. Please.”

“If I don’t stop, they’ll wonder why.”

Annie felt another imminent, choking cry, and tried to stifle it.

The pickup slowed. She tried to push William down even farther into the floor, and herself as well. She could feel his heart beating, fluttering, where her hand held his chest. She closed her eyes, as if by not seeing the men they couldn’t look in and see her.

“Afternoon, Mr. Singer,” Swann said as he rolled his window down.

“Afternoon,” Singer said. Singer was the Driver, Annie guessed. Mr. Swann knew him.

Singer said, “Hey, did you see some kids anywhere along the road?”

“They yours?” Swann asked.

“No, not mine. Mine are grown and married, you know that. I don’t know who they are. Me and my two compadres here were fishing and horsing around down on the river, and we scared a couple of kids. We were target shooting, and we didn’t know they were there. We think they might have thought they saw something they didn’t.”

“Target shooting?”

“Yeah, we try to get out every couple of months to stay sharp. Anyway, we want to make sure those poor kids know we meant no harm.”

Annie cracked an eye to look at Swann. Don’t do it, she wanted to shout.

“Scared ’em pretty good, eh?” Swann said.

“I’m afraid so. Anyway, we want to find them and let ’em know everything’s okay.”

“Is everything okay?” Swann asked.

Singer didn’t respond.

“It will be when we find those kids,” another man said with a trace of a Mexican accent. Annie guessed it was the Dark Man with the mustache.

“So you haven’t seen them?” Singer asked again.

Swann hesitated.

Annie closed her eyes again and tried to prepare to die. She didn’t hear the bulk of the conversation that followed because it was drowned out by the roar of blood in her ears, although she did hear Swann say someone had come up behind him and was waiting for him to go.

“Yes,” Singer had said, “you had better go home now.”

She couldn’t believe her luck-their luck-when she realized the truck was moving again.

“I think you kids should stay down,” Swann said.

Annie asked, “Where are you taking us?”

“My place is just up the road, and I need to make a call.”

“Why aren’t you taking us home?”

“Because I don’t want to run into those boys again,” Swann said. “I know them from back on the force, and that story they just told me doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“That’s because we’re telling you the truth,” Annie said, feeling the tears well up in her eyes.

“Maybe,” Swann said. “Keep your heads down.”

Friday, 4:40 P.M.

JESS RAWLINS was doing groundwork with his new horse Chile in the round pen near the corral when a new-model Lexus emerged from the timber on the southern hill and drove down the access road toward his ranch house. It caught him by surprise because he was concentrating so fully on his horse, a fourteen-hand three-year-old red dun. He had fallen into a kind of hyperalert trance, mesmerized by the rhythmic sound and cadence of her hoofbeats. Jess had forgotten how much he loved the sound of hoofbeats, the solid soft pounding rhythm of them, how he could feel them through the ground as the eleven-hundred-pound animal trotted, how the sound lulled him, took him back. A few moments before, when he was lunging her to the right, he’d picked out the sound of a series of sharp rapid-fire percussions along with the thump of her hoofbeats, a snapping sound that alarmed him for a moment before he realized they were from far up the valley and had nothing to do with the gait of his horse. He had stopped her suddenly, and she had turned nicely into an abrupt stop, facing him like she was supposed to, looking at him with both eyes, breathing hard, licking her lips with compliance. He listened and heard no more pops in the distance.

If the wooded valley he lived in was indeed a saddle slope, his house and outbuildings were located just under the pommel. From there, he could see anyone coming down from the state highway toward his ranch. At dusk, he often watched mule deer graze their way to the valley floor to drink at the stream.

He kissed the air and sidestepped to the right, and Chile responded instantly with the correct lead, trotting in a circle to the left on the end of the lead rope Jess held loosely in his left hand. In his right was a stiff coil of rope used to signal the mare, keep the invisible pressure on her to keep moving in a nice smooth stride. Sometimes, to get her attention, he whapped the rope against the leg of his Wranglers. Mostly, though, all he had to do was raise it to get her moving. He had never hit her with it. As Chile circled, Jess stayed on her left flank. Jess was falling madly in love with this horse, a short, stout, heavily muscled little mare with a kind eye and two white socks. People who watched horse races and thought horses should be aquiline and sleek would find Chile ugly. Jess didn’t. She was a classic foundation quarter horse, a cow horse. In his peripheral vision, he noted the slow progress of the car.

The Lexus crawled down the access road, the afternoon sun gleaming off the windshield and the chrome grille, the car slowing even more as it neared a cow and calf in the meadow, as if the driver expected the cattle to bolt across the road. There was only one way into the Rawlins Ranch from the state highway, and the road ended at the ranch house.

Jess Rawlins was tall, stiff, all sharp angles: bony elbows and knees, prominent hawklike nose, pronounced cheekbones. The only thing soft about him, his wife Karen told him once, were his eyes and his heart, but not in a good way.

When the Lexus parked between his house and the barn and the driver’s side door opened, Jess shot his first glance over while Chile circled. The man who climbed out was slim, well built, with thick blond hair and a bristly mustache. He was wearing khakis and a purple polo shirt that draped well on his frame. He looked like a golfer, Jess thought. No, worse. A Realtor.

Jess brought the coil of rope down sharply, and Chile stopped. Like all horses, it didn’t take much to convince her to stop working. Jess liked the way she looked at him, though, waiting for the next command. Sometimes, horses could stare with contempt. Chile, though, respected him. He respected her back. He thought, We are going to have a long relationship, Chile and me.

Jess waited for the man to approach the round pen. Then he heard it again, two distinct pops from far up the valley. Gunshots. Not an unusual sound at all in North Idaho, where everyone had guns.

The man-his name was Brian Ballard, Jess recognized him from his photo in the real estate pages of the newspaper-appeared not to hear the gunshots. Instead, he stopped on the other side of the railing and put a tasseled loafer on the lower rail and draped his arms over the top rail. As he did it, Jess’s eyes slid from Brian Ballard to the Lexus and saw the profile of the passenger inside for the first time. It was her, all right.

“How’s it going, Mr. Rawlins?” Ballard asked with false good cheer. “I see you’re training a horse there.”

“Groundwork,” Jess said. “I have to hand it to the new breed of horse trainers out there who stress groundwork above all. They know their stuff, and they’re right.” He looked over at Brian Ballard: “What do you want?”

Ballard smiled and his eyebrows arched and his mouth pursed. He was uncomfortable, despite the smile. “I don’t know much about horses. I’m allergic to them.”

“Too bad.”

“I’m Brian Ballard, but I guess you know that.”

“I do.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, finally,” Ballard said, nodding toward Jess. “This is a pretty place, all right.”

Jess didn’t move.

“I saw Herbert Cooper in town this morning. He said you had to lay him off at the ranch.”

Herbert Cooper had worked for Jess for thirteen years. The day before, Jess had to tell his longtime foreman that he couldn’t pay his wages anymore, that there was not enough income for both bank loan payments and an employee. It was one of the hardest things Jess had ever had to do, and he hadn’t slept well. Plus, it was calving season, and he was now on his own.

Jess noticed Ballard looking at Chile. Jess could tell what he was thinking, and it made him angry.

“This horse came to me as payment for leasing out a quarter section for grazing,” Jess said, wishing he hadn’t said it. There was no need to justify himself, certainly not to this man.

“Oh.”

Jess nodded toward the Lexus. “I see Karen in there. She put you up to this?”

Ballard looked back as if confirming it was Karen in his car, even though he knew it was. It took a moment for Ballard to turn back to Jess.

“Let’s leave her out of this, if you don’t mind. There’s no reason you and I can’t be gentlemen about this.”

Jess said, “There are plenty of reasons. So why don’t you get back in your car and get the hell off of my ranch?”

“That’s not necessary,” Ballard said, his eyes almost pleading. Jess felt sorry for him for a moment. Then it passed.

“You can get out the same way you came in,” Jess said. “Remember to close the gate.”

“Look,” Ballard said, showing Jess the palms of his hands. “Everybody knows the situation out here. It’s a struggle, a real hard struggle. You had to let Herbert go, and everybody else is”-he searched for the right word and came up with a wrong one-“gone. I’ve been sending you offers for months now, and you know my reputation. I’m a fair man, and in this case more than generous. I was hoping we could have a discussion man-to-man, feelings aside.”

Jess paused, felt his chest tighten. He looked down at his hand and saw that his fingers were white from gripping the lunging rope so tightly that it hurt.

“To have a man-to-man discussion,” Jess said, “you need two men. So we’re out of luck in your department. I’ve asked you twice to leave. If I have to say it a third time, it’ll be from behind the sights of my Winchester.”

Ballard’s mouth opened as if to speak, but nothing came out. Jess glared at him, heat rising. Then he took a step forward in order to tie Chile up to the rail. When he moved, Ballard flinched and took his foot off the rail.

“You don’t need to threaten me. I can buy this place from you or I can wait and buy it from the bank.”

“Git,” Jess said.

Brian Ballard backed up, then turned. He said over his shoulder,

“You’re making a mistake, Jess. I’ll be more than fair, I told you that.”

Jess tied up Chile and watched Ballard walk toward his Lexus. He saw Karen turn in her seat toward Ballard as he opened the door. Jess could tell what she was saying by the tilt of her head. He heard Ballard say, “No. You tell him if that’s what you want.”

Ballard swung into the vehicle and made a U-turn in the gravel, and Jess watched the car drive away for a while up the hill on the access road. It took him a few minutes before his hands stopped trembling.

“We need to get a saddle on you,” he told Chile, running his hand along her stout neck.

JESS WATCHED them go over the back of the horse. The afterimage of Karen’s profile seemed to hang in the dust whorls left by the tires.

So that was Brian Ballard, the man she left him for. The man she married after him.

He had not fought back when she announced she was leaving, said she had outgrown him and that he not only hadn’t kept up but had regressed. Said that just being on the ranch with him made her claustrophobic. That he had to get past what had happened to their son. That he was an anachronism. How could he fight that?

Karen got their savings and the feed store in town, which she promptly sold. And she got the Lincoln and his horse. Sold them, too.

Jess kept the ranch.

THE TREK up the hill and through the timber to the mailbox seemed longer than it ever had, he thought, and his legs felt heavier. For years, Jess never got the mail. Herbert or Margie did it, or another ranch hand, or his wife Karen did it. She used to love to get the mail. Later, he found out why.

To make matters worse, it seemed that more often than not he ran into Fiona Pritzle, the woman who had the rural mail route, at his mailbox. She was a vicious gossip, he thought, the woman who had spread the word when his wife left, and for whom. Fiona would feign concern for his health and well-being, and try to pump him for news and information. Had he heard from his ex-wife? Did he know she had moved back to town? Was it true the ranch was in trouble? So when he heard a vehicle coming up the road, he stopped in the wet foliage. There had been a time when there was little traffic on the road, and Jess knew everyone on it.

In fact, there was a time, in Pend Oreille County, when everybody knew Jess Rawlins and Jess knew everyone else. That was when the lumber mills were running and the silver mines were hiring. It was rough, isolated, fiercely rugged country then, and the people who lived there were subjugated by the mountains, the weather, the deep forests, the isolation, and the unenlightened corporations who came there to extract everything they could, including the goodwill and civility of their employees. The profligate, rough-and-tumble wildness of the environment and atmosphere beat people down. The exception were people like Jess, families like the Rawlinses, who had come from poor stock themselves but managed to build an enterprise-the Rawlins Ranch- rather than simply remove commodities to be shipped elsewhere. They built their own legacy, and by doing it moved up in status and respectability. Unlike the logging company managers and mining executives who were sent to the Idaho panhandle from places like Pennsylvania and West Virginia to do their time and to take as much as they could as ruthlessly and efficiently as possible so they could put in for a transfer to a more hospitable post, the Rawlinses built a bulwark and established a heritage that was shared and celebrated.

Jess grew up feeling like a local hero. His grandfather and father had bequeathed the mantle of exceptionalism; that he was of the people, not better than them, but he had a special something because his name was Rawlins. The exceptionalism was a result of hard work, honest but tough business dealings, and high moral character.

The Rawlins Ranch was all the more admirable because North Idaho was not optimal cattle country. There were too many trees, not enough prairie and pasture. It rained too much. Unlike the vast ranches to the south or in bordering states Montana, Wyoming, and eastern Oregon, the Rawlins Ranch had to be carved out of the forest and managed carefully like a temperamental machine. They couldn’t just let cattle go to forage for themselves for months, like ranchers could do in more wide-open country. If they did, the cattle got lost in the timber. So they moved their herds from park to park, plateau to plateau, keeping careful count. The rain and lushness of the terrain invited hoof-rot and disease born of moisture, so the cattle needed to be inspected and handled more than usual. Jess’s grandfather had established the procedure for counting, moving, and inspecting his cattle. From Washington State he’d bought seed bulls who were bred for wet ground and heavy snow. The quality of Rawlins beef became widely praised, and the ranch prospered due to its management. The high price of beef helped, too.

Jess, like his father and grandfather, felt proprietary toward the valley, the community, and the ranch. After serving in the Army, he had no doubt, ever, that he would return. Which he did.

Jess often wondered if he had made the right choice, knowing what he knew now. He also wondered if he’d been the catalyst for things to come, for the decline. Had the spark of exceptionalism died in him? He’d been unable to pass along the sense of eminence he had always felt.

Maybe, he thought, it had just played out.

FIONA PRITZLE, behind the wheel of her little yellow Datsun pickup, had a stern, pinched look on her face until she saw him. The change in her demeanor was instantaneous, though for Jess her self-focused scowl remained as an afterimage, even when she stopped at his mailbox and climbed out and grinned at him. How did she know when he would be there, he wondered? He didn’t even know from day to day. Fiona had a wide, pockmarked face obscured by heavy makeup. A cloud of perfume was released into the air when she climbed out, and she leaned over the top of the hood, fanning his mail across it as if laying down a winning hand of cards, smiling at him with nice teeth, her best feature. He had, of course, noticed that in the last few months she had been dressing better, putting her hair up, adding lipstick to her mouth. Apparently, she now felt the need not just to deliver his mail but to oversee it.

“Catalogs,” she said, “three of ’em today. Two for women’s clothing, so you’re still on their list even though they don’t know…”

He looked at her grimly.

“And a property tax notice, again,” she said in her little-girl voice, eyeing him suspiciously. “I know I’ve delivered a couple of these to you already.”

He nodded, nothing more.

“Jess, I saw Herbert in town.”

“He moved to town,” Jess said.

“He waved, but he didn’t stop. Is something wrong?”

Damn, he thought. But he repeated, “Just moved to town.”

She looked at him suspiciously, then gathered up his mail in a stack and handed it to him.

“This road is getting busy,” she said. “I almost rear-ended a vehicle back there when I came around the corner.”

He raised his eyebrows, hoping his lack of response would signal her to go away. She had designs on him, he knew. He was over women, though.

“A Cadillac Escalade with three men in it. They were barely crawling down the road, looking into the trees.”

He shrugged.

“Brand-new Idaho plates. Probably more transplants.”

“There’s a lot of them moving up here,” he said.

“Most of them are retired cops from L.A.,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “I’ve heard that there’s more than two hundred of them overall, and about a dozen on my route alone.”

“How do you know that?”

She puffed up. “I put the pension checks in their mailboxes, and police newsletters, things like that. Some of them meet me every day, like you. A couple of real nice guys, real personable. But some of them are just like hermits or something. Like they don’t want to mix with somebody like me. If it wasn’t for their mail, I don’t know if they’d ever come out of their houses. They call North Idaho ‘Blue Heaven’ at the LAPD. Did you know that?”

Herbert had told him that, but he didn’t want to bring it up. Jess didn’t object to the idea of ex-policemen moving in. In fact, if he had to choose the kind of people to move into the valley-not that he had a choice-he would have opted for retired police officers. It seemed to him that ex-cops were similar to the original settlers, men like his grandfather. They had been workingmen in crowded cities with blue-collar backgrounds. After years of dealing with the dark underbelly of crowded conditions and the worst of civilization, they’d opted to move to fresh, green country where they could be left alone. Better ex-cops than actors or dot-com heirs, he thought. The kind who came in, took over, and transformed the place. There were some of them, for sure. Too many for Jess’s taste.

“Hundreds,” she said. “Buying up everything. But it sort of makes you feel safer, doesn’t it?”

Jess said nothing. She went on, “But I don’t like the way some of them keep to themselves, you know? Like they think they’re better than everybody else. Why did they move here if they just wanted to keep to themselves? They could have moved anywhere for that. You’d think they’d want to be friendlier, you know, since a lot of them are divorced and all. I mean: Here I am!” She did a clumsy little twirl that made Jess cringe. “One of them might steal me away from you, Jess Rawlins, if they pulled their heads out of their butts long enough to, you know, look around…”

Enough, he thought. Seeing Karen had filled him with darkness. He didn’t want to talk with Fiona Pritzle, but he didn’t want to be rude, either.

“I better get back,” he said, gesturing toward his mail as if he couldn’t wait to read through it.

“You wouldn’t believe how many retirement checks and LAPD newsletters I deliver these days,” she said, repeating herself. “They’re all up and down this road.”

“Then you better get after it,” he said cheerfully.

She reacted as if he’d slapped her. “Just being neighborly,” she huffed. “I guess I caught you in one of your moods, Jess.”

He didn’t like it when she used his first name, or that she studied his mail before she gave it to him. She was too familiar with him, he thought. She should be more professional.

Her back tires spit gravel as she roared away. Maybe if I pick up my mail at night? he wondered.

He had turned back to his road when he heard another vehicle coming. She was right about the traffic. He looked over his shoulder and saw a red pickup with a male driver. Jess didn’t know him. As he passed, the driver appeared to be talking to someone or something in the passenger seat or on the floor, but Jess saw no passengers, and no dog. He waved at the driver, but the driver didn’t wave back. These new ones didn’t wave back.

As he walked down the hill toward his ranch house, he listened to the silence and the soft watery sound of a breeze in the treetops. He heard no more shots.

Friday, 4:45 P.M.

EDUARDO VILLATORO pressed his nose against the window of the Southwest Airlines flight to Spokane from Los Angeles, via Boise. Below him was an ocean of green broken up only by lozenge-shaped lakes that reflected the sky, and snowcapped mountains that rose in the distance, the tops of the peaks at eye level as the 737 descended. He had only seen so much green once in his life, years before, when he had flown to El Salvador to bring back his mother. But that was jungle, and this was not, and El Salvador had silvery roads slicing through the green and an ocean holding it in, and he could see no roads, and that realization began to create anxiety in him that was only released, slightly, when squares and circles of farmland finally appeared and the flight attendant asked the passengers to put their tray tables in the full-upright and locked position.

He had been keenly aware as he boarded the connecting flight in Boise that he was the only passenger wearing a suit, even though it was his old, lightweight brown one. He had removed his tie on board, folded it neatly, and put it in his pocket. The other passengers, mostly young families and retirees, seemed to pay no attention to him, but in a deliberate way. He was very aware of them, and it took him a while to realize why. He was the only person on the plane who wasn’t Anglo. This phenomenon was new to him, and he couldn’t decide what he thought about it. A big part of his success in his career had always been that he didn’t stand out. This allowed him to study the people around him and the situations they were in without being observed himself. The last thing he could be called was exotic or flashy, not where he came from. This wholly white world might be a little tough to blend into.

He raised his arm and shot his cuff to look at his new gold watch. He was grateful he didn’t need to reset the time, since Spokane was Pacific time as well. He didn’t yet know how his watch worked. There were several knobs and buttons, and he assumed he would need to work a combination of them to reset the time, date, alarm, and other functions if he needed to. The dial would light up at night, someone pointed out to him. Unfortunately, he had left the instructions for the watch in the packaging it came in, after he’d opened it and slipped it on to the apparent delight of his former coworkers, who clapped while he did so. They had all contributed to buy the retirement gift, and Celeste, his longtime partner, had taken it to a jeweler to have the back inscribed:

FOR 30 YEARS OF SERVICE

WHILE WAITING for his two bags to arrive on one of three carousels in the airport, Villatoro continued to study the people around him. Families had rejoined, and there was excited chatter. A soldier in desert fatigues had returned from Iraq, greeted by balloons, hand-drawn posters, and his extended family. Villatoro nodded at him, said, “Thank you for your service.” The marine nodded back.

If Villatoro were to characterize the residents in a general way, he would say they were plainspoken and blunt. Flinty, maybe. He noted how many of the men wore cowboy hats and big buckles and pointed boots, and how it looked like clothing on them and not a costume. Women and children wore bright colors and opened their mouths wide when they talked, as if it didn’t matter to them if anyone heard their conversations. As the bags began to spit out onto the carousel, he saw the flashing of their clear blue eyes.

At the rental car counter, a boy with moussed hair and a starched white shirt and tie told him the company could upgrade his reservation from a compact to a midsize for only five dollars more a day.

“No thank you.”

“But it looks like you’ll be in the area for a week,” the boy said, looking at the reservation on his computer monitor. “You might be more comfortable in a larger car. I’m sure your company would understand.”

“No,” Villatoro said. “There is no company. I’m retired, as of two days ago. The compact, please.”

The boy looked hurt. Villatoro could see a blackboard in the office behind the counter that listed all of the employees by name with check marks to indicate how many upgrades they’d sold. He looked at the boy’s name tag, saw his name was Jason, and saw that Jason was leading the pack.

“Arcadia, California,” Jason said as he keyed Villatoro’s license number and address into the computer. “Never heard of it.”

“It’s a small town,” Villatoro said. “About fifty thousand people.”

“Is it near L.A.?”

Villatoro smiled bitterly. “It was swallowed by L.A. like a snack.”

The boy didn’t know how to answer that, and Villatoro wished he hadn’t said it. Too much information.

Jason said, “You wouldn’t believe how many folks from L.A. we rent to.”

“Really?” Villatoro said.

“A ton of them have moved up here,” Jason said, pushing the button to print out the contract. “Have you ever been here before?”

“Spokane?” Villatoro said.

Jason corrected his pronunciation, “It’s ‘Spoke-Ann,’ Mr. Villatoro, not ‘Spoke-Cain.’ ”

“And it’s ‘Vee-Ah-Toro,’ not ‘VILLA-toro,’” Villatoro said back, smiling.

WITH HIS KEYS and an agreement for a red Ford Focus in his hand, Villatoro started to pull his bags through the door to the rental lot but stopped until Jason looked over.

“May I please get a map to Kootenai Bay?”

“I’m sorry,” Jason said, tearing one off a pad and using a highlighter pen to mark the route. “It’s easy. You just take a right out of the airport and follow the signs to I-90 East.”

“Thank you,” Villatoro said.

Jason handed him the map and a thick, four-color real estate booklet. “I assume you’re looking for property.”

“No,” Villatoro said, taking the booklet anyway, “I’m here on business.”

“Really? What do you do? I thought you said you were retired?”

“I am,” Villatoro said, not really lying, just not telling the entire story. The boy was more forward than he thought proper.

“Oh,” Jason said, puzzled.

As he walked out onto the sun-baked lot, Villatoro thought he’d said half-again too much, and chastised himself.

VILLATORO POINTED his little red Ford Focus toward the mountains to the east and eased onto the interstate through tree-shrouded on-ramps. He passed a large sign and fountain that read:

WELCOME TO THE INLAND NORTHWEST

Spokane itself seemed surprisingly old and industrial, the downtown buildings rising out of the trees with a sense of purpose that had likely been forgotten, Villatoro thought. He saw an exit for Gonzaga University-he had heard of it, something about basketball-and another that said Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was only fourteen miles away.

As he drove he pushed the scan button on the AM radio in the car. As it swept the stations, he heard snippets of Rush Limbaugh, Laura Schlesinger, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Mark Fuhrman, famous from the O. J. Simpson trial, who obviously had a local talk show. That discovery astonished him.

Acres of outlet malls marked his entrance into Idaho, as well as strip malls that looked just like the strip malls in L.A., with the same fast-food places and convenience stores. He had replaced palm trees with pine trees, but this was all familiar. In a way, he was relieved.

But when he turned north at Coeur d’Alene, the strip malls thinned, and the forest seemed to shoulder its way back toward the road, as if to intimidate the drivers, he thought. It certainly worked with him. Forty miles later, the trees broke, and he was on a long bridge crossing a huge lake, the sun streaming through the windshield with an intensity he wasn’t used to. On the other side of the lake, twinkling through a pine forest, was the town of Kootenai Bay, and beyond that, thirty-five miles north, was Canada.

THE DOWNTOWN was small, the vestige of another era, when it was more of a railroad outpost than what it had become. The primary route into Kootenai Bay stretched three tree-covered blocks, then ended with a sharp turn to the left. Old brick buildings-none above two levels-sported signs for snowboards, espresso, bicycling, fishing, real estate. He turned right, away from downtown, dipped under a railroad trestle, and emerged on the lakefront near the Best Western where he had a reservation.

Pulling under a slumping veranda, he uncoiled from the small car and stretched, heard his spine pop with a sound like shuffling cards. The boy at the car rental counter had been right, he thought. A larger car would have been better for his back. As he entered the small lobby, he instinctively hit the remote control lock button on his key ring.

Three people were waiting to check in before him, two large men with crew cuts and a short, heavy woman with big hair and lime green shorts. All three held sixteen-ounce cans of Budweiser and spoke loudly, and he gathered they were in town for some kind of reunion. While he waited, Villatoro looked over the rack of real estate brochures near the door, and took several because they contained maps of the area. When the guests got their keys and left to find their rooms, Villatoro stepped up to the counter.

The check-in clerk was flustered from the three conventioneers, and she blew back a strand of graying hair away from her face and sighed loudly. “You’d think they’d put another person on the desk at check-in time, wouldn’t you?” she said. “Especially when there’s a Navy ship crew reunion in town.”

He shrugged, and smiled. Checking in four guests didn’t seem to be an exhausting task.

She nodded at the brochures he had picked up. She was in her late forties, he guessed, and had lived a hard life. Blooms of small threadlike veins mapped her cheeks. Alcohol. Nevertheless, she had an attractive, open face and smile.

She said, “A girlfriend of mine sold her house for $189,000 last week, and the guy who bought it resold it the next day, the next day, for $250,000.”

“Goodness,” Villatoro said.

“Damn right,” she said, finding his reservation card. “Makes me wonder what my place is worth. I bought it for forty grand twenty-five years ago.”

These people, he thought, talk to you like they’ve known you all their lives.

“Probably a lot,” he said, thinking how familiar it sounded. His own community was filled with tales like that, as longtime homeowners sold their homes to new residents for three or four times what they had originally paid.

“Business or pleasure?” she asked, looking up at him. He felt her eyes sweep over his wrinkled brown suit, his cream-colored shirt, his olive skin.

“Business,” he said.

“What kind of business?” she asked pleasantly.

“Unfinished business,” he said, a little amused at how it sounded.

“Sounds interesting and mysterious.” She laughed. “Come on, fess up.”

He felt his face flush. “I’m retired,” he said. He was still having trouble actually saying it without being self-conscious. It reminded him of the weeks after his wedding thirty-two years ago, when he stumbled as he introduced Donna as “my wife.” It just didn’t sound natural at the time, just as retirement didn’t sound natural now.

“How long?”

He flushed. “Two days. I was a police detective in Arcadia, California. ” As soon as he said it he didn’t know why he had volunteered the information.

“You have a badge and a gun?” she asked, making conversation.

“Not anymore.” He was very conscious of not having either. Like he was walking around without pants. Not that he’d ever drawn his gun, except at the range.

She scribbled something on the reservation card. “You held this with a credit card,” she said. “You want to keep it on that card?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Do you have a real estate agent yet? I can recommend a couple of good ones.”

“Excuse me?”

She looked at him. “I assume you’re looking for a house or land up here. You don’t need to sneak around. Half of the guests who stay here are looking to buy and retire. And believe me, not all of the real estate agents are trustworthy. There are some real crooks, and they don’t care if you’re a cop. Or an ex-cop. They’re used to ex-cops, believe you me.”

“I’m not interested in retiring here,” Villatoro said, somewhat defensively.

“Hmmm.” She clearly wasn’t sure she believed him. “Mr. Mysterious, you are.”

“No one ever said that before.”

“You seem like a nice guy. How about I cut you a deal, then,” she said, almost whispering. “I’ll give you the AAA rate instead of the rack rate. Saves you $20 a night.”

He wanted to refuse. But $20 a night for six nights would be helpful. “Thank you,” he said.

“You bet, Mr. Villatoro.”

She pronounced it “VILLA-torro.”

IN HIS ROOM, which was on the lower of two floors, Villatoro opened his curtains and looked out. While the hotel itself was tired and dowdy, the view was magnificent. Through a sliding glass door was a lawn that led to a beach, and a marina half-filled with boats. The lake was smooth as a tabletop all the way to the mountains on the other side that were white with snow. The afternoon rain clouds opened up, and columns of sun lined up across the horizon. He expected an orchestra to swell at the sight.

He dug in his pocket for his cell phone and powered it up. He had forgotten to turn it back on after the airplane landed, to check for messages. Maybe something from his wife, he hoped.

There was no signal. He had not even considered this possibility. He tossed the phone on the dresser.

He turned and looked around his room. Nothing special. A television, two double beds with worn bedspreads, a telephone on the desk with a phone book no bigger than a quality paperback beside it. Faded prints of elk, deer, and geese were on the walls.

Sitting on the too-soft bed, he opened his briefcase. After placing the hinged photos of his wife and daughter on the bed stand, he pulled out a manila file and laid it near the pillow. The file was two inches thick, the edges worn, the tab stained by his own fingerprints. The writing on the tab was smeared, but he remembered sitting at his desk, eight years before, and inscribing:

SANTA ANITA RACETRACK

Case File: 90813A

This is what had brought him to Kootenai Bay. This was the unfinished business. This is what had imposed such a strain on his marriage and family and the last few years in the department. The file contained the black cloud that loomed over him, blocking sunshine, preventing him from truly retiring and starting his new life.

Eduardo Villatoro got up and went to the sliding glass door and looked out on the lake and across it to the mountains. What a different world it was than the one he had left that morning. He could not imagine fitting into this world, or wanting to. He wished he still had his badge and gun.

Friday, 5:30 P.M.

THEY SHOULD BE home by now,” Monica Taylor said to Tom, who had just come into the kitchen from the living room where he was furtively watching an NBA game with playoff implications. He was wearing his brown UPS uniform shirt untucked over dark shorts. He had muscular legs that were already tan, she noticed. She wished, though, that he didn’t shave them. But he had explained that it was what bodybuilders had to do before a competition: shave, wax, and oil.

Tom stopped on his way to the refrigerator and looked at the digital clock on the stove. It said 5:30. He shrugged, opened the refrigerator door. The look of absolute alarm on his face mirrored her own, but for a different reason, and he said, “What, no beer? Do I have to go get some?”

“It’s going to be dark in two hours,” she said, wiping her hands on a paper towel. “I wonder if I should call somebody.”

Three place settings were on the table. Lasagna-Annie’s favorite-was baking in the oven. The kitchen smelled of garlic, oregano, tomato sauce, and cheese. Tom had pointed out that she needed another plate. “No,” she said, “I don’t.”

Against her better judgment, she’d let him in the house when he showed up after work and said he was there to apologize for not leaving early that morning. He said when he got up he didn’t want to leave. He was trying to flatter her.

He was good at flattering her. That was part of the problem-she liked being flattered, even when she knew better. She’d first heard about Tom when she started work as the manager of her store. The three women who worked the registers out front tittered like schoolgirls when they described the UPS man. His arrival at three-thirty was the highlight of their afternoon, they said. Monica learned why. He was tall, well built, charming, chatty, and single. As he carried the shipments in through the back door, he made a point of flirting with each of the women in turn, complimenting them on their clothes and hair, telling them it looked like they’d lost weight. Monica was on to his act instantly, but she admired his endless good cheer, undeniable charm, and transparent élan, which he soon turned full force on her. Although she tried to deny to herself what she was doing, she found herself checking her hair and lipstick to make sure both were in order before three-thirty. She didn’t object when he lingered after his delivery, engaging her in small talk, offering to help stack boxes, move displays, or shovel snow from the sidewalk. Once, he caught a bat that had somehow gotten into the storeroom and impressed her by releasing it outside, unharmed. When the employees on the registers started gossiping about the amount of time Tom was spending in the store, Monica asked him to stick to business. He would, he told her, if he just wasn’t so darned attracted to her. When she said she had kids at home, he said he liked kids, and would love to meet them, and hey, how about dinner sometime? That was four months and a dozen dinners ago. Her eyes were open the whole time, until last night, when she deliberately closed them, looked away, and allowed herself a soft moan.

Tom shut the refrigerator door and turned toward her with his arms crossed. His forearms were massive. “I wouldn’t worry so much,” he said. “When I was growing up here people didn’t worry so much. I remember staying out after school fishing, shooting hoops, generally fucking around, until all hours. I’d get home when I got home. If I missed dinner, well, that was my fault. Now, it’s a damned federal case if kids just get out of sight for a minute.”

“Are you talking about me?” she asked.

He started to say yes, she could tell. But he caught himself. “No, not necessarily. I just mean people in general. Everyone’s so goddamned paranoid. We live in such a nanny state now. If a kid is late getting home from school, they put out an Amber Alert. It didn’t used to be like this around here. We trusted each other, you know? It pisses me off, is all. She’s probably just staying away to make a point,” Tom said. “She’s a prickly little number.”

“Tom,” Monica said, measuring her words, “Annie and William had early release today. They should have been home at two if they couldn’t go fishing with you.”

Something washed over him, the look of a guilty man.

“What?” she asked. “You showed up at the school, didn’t you? I assumed they weren’t there.”

Tom took a deep breath, closed his eyes. “We had two guys out sick today, so they gave me extra routes. I was busier than hell. I guess I forgot.”

Monica’s face tightened.

“I said ‘maybe,’” he pleaded. “I didn’t promise anything.”

“William thought you did.”

He shrugged. “Things happen, Monica.”

Monica had spent the day at work in a kind of stupor. All day, her throat felt constricted, and she excused herself to go to the back room and cry. She’d thought about calling the school, asking for Annie. She would explain what happened with Tom, but how could she possibly put it?

Your mom screwed up.

Your mom broke her word.

Your mom drank too much wine with Tom after you and William went to bed and invited him up to her bedroom. He swore he’d get up early and be out of the house by the time you and Willie got up. He promised!

But she could hear Annie reply that Monica had sworn she’d never let a man-a stranger-into the family unless it meant they’d really have a father. Annie didn’t ask for the vow; Monica had volunteered it. Now she’d betrayed her own children with this man. How could she let herself do it? How could she ever fix things?

Annie was tough and smart beyond her years. The girl was grounded in bedrock and would forgive her eventually. But she wouldn’t forget. Willie, though, poor Willie. This was the kind of thing that could scar a child, send him down the wrong path. A breach of trust was a serious thing. Dashed expectations were just as crippling. She’d give anything if only she could somehow erase Willie’s memory of the morning when Tom joined them at the breakfast table.

And Tom’s way of dealing with it was to say, “Things happen, Monica.”

He was an idiot, and it would be easy to blame him for what had happened. But she was the one who’d brought him into their home.

“I need to be alone and wait for my children,” she said. “They are probably the only thing I’ve ever done right.”

He responded by visibly softening, and approached her, wrapping his arms around her. She remained stiff, refusing to give in to his physicality. With his grip on the back of her head, he pushed her onto his hard shoulder.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, cooing into her hair. “They’re your kids, so they’re important to me, too. Of course you’re worried about them.”

“I’m sorry, too, Tom,” she said. Sorry she’d ever met him.

As he hugged her she opened her eyes and saw her reflection in the glass door of the microwave oven. She was still slim, blond, with oversized eyes and a wide mouth, and an overbite most men liked. She knew she didn’t deserve her looks; she had done nothing to earn them. It was the fault of genetics that she looked ten years younger than she was. She wanted to push away and run somewhere. How could he not read her in the slightest?

Tom was talking, saying, “I’d like to think you consider me one of the things you’ve done right.”

She didn’t respond, hoped he wouldn’t press her for an answer. He didn’t.

“It’s not often we’re alone without your kids here, honey,” he said. “We could, you know, use this time just for us.”

Of course, she knew what he meant, but she couldn’t believe he’d said it. She could feel him getting hard against her. He had moved his hips so his erection rubbed her abdomen.

She looked at the clock above the stove-5:45.

“Tom…”

He didn’t let go.

“Tom,” she said, pushing away with more force than necessary, alarmed at the revulsion she felt for the same man who had been in her bed the night before, “why don’t you go home now? I need to talk with Annie and William. You shouldn’t be here. You’ve done enough for today.”

A shadow passed over his face, and his eyes looked harder than she could ever remember them.

“Okay,” he said, flat. “I’ll get out of your sight.”

She didn’t correct him.

“This is all about not taking Willie fishing?” he asked. “Is that what this is about?”

What had she ever seen in him? she wondered. How could she have ever let his looks and steady job cloud the fact-the glaring fact-that he was a self-absorbed ass?

“Go,” she said.

Tom rolled his eyes, started to say something, but stopped himself. “Later, then,” he said, heading toward the mudroom and the back door. “You know, it’s hard to walk when you get me all riled up like this.”

“Don’t ever come back,” Monica said, her tone flat. “It’s over. It’s so very over.”

He snorted and shook his head in disbelief. “And I came here to apologize.”

Turning back to the stove to check the lasagna, she said, “No, I don’t think so.” The cheese was bubbling and turning brown. She reduced the heat to keep it warm.

“Hey,” Tom yelled from the mudroom. “That little bitch took my fishing rod and vest!” He filled the doorframe, his face red, his lovely mouth contorted.

“What?”

“That’s a six-hundred-dollar Sage fly rod,” he said. “I’ve got hundreds of dollars of flies in my vest. And the little bitch took it.”

It was as if the two bulbs in the overhead light had been replaced with red ones. She looked at him through a curtain of deep crimson, thinking she had never seen such an ugly man before.

“Leave,” she said, her voice rising into a screech, “and just keep going. Don’t you ever come back in my house!”

“Oh, I’m coming back,” he shouted. “I’m coming back for my rod and vest, goddammit.”

“LEAVE!”

For a second, she thought he would come back in after her. But he stayed within the doorjamb, veins popping on his neck and at his temple. Without turning her head and looking, she noted the block of knives on the counter next to her hand.

“Monica,” he said, “you’re a pretty good fuck. Not great, but good. You’ve got a nice mouth. But you’ll never get any man to stay around here as long as you’ve got that little bitch here. And that mama’s boy, Willie.”

It felt as if she had grabbed one of the knives and plunged it into her own chest. She gasped for air.

“GET OUT!” she screamed raggedly.

He shook his head, glaring at her, and went out the door, slamming it behind him.

She put her face in her hands and sobbed, calling him every name she could think of, feeling her heart break, terrified by the fact that she didn’t know where her children were and she was utterly alone now.

Knowing it was her fault they were gone.

Friday, 6:15 P.M.

WHAT ANNIE had noticed first, as they’d driven up the road toward Mr. Swann’s house, was the smell. Something ripe and bold coursed through the pine-scented air, and it got stronger as they neared his home in the thick trees. He had allowed them to get off the floor once he’d turned from the service road onto his private two-track drive, and Annie had seen what it was that made the odor: hogs.

“There’s my family,” Swann said, smiling. “They know Daddy’s home.”

“Look at the pigs,” William said, leaning over Annie toward the open window of the pickup. “Man, they’re excited.”

When the hogs saw the red truck coming, they squealed and ran about in their pen, racing up and down a sloppy track, splashing through coffee-with-cream-colored puddles. Annie counted at least twenty hogs, maybe more. One was huge, tan and bristly, and looked to be the size of a small truck. She didn’t know hogs could get that big.

“The big one’s name is King,” Swann said, winking as if he assumed she knew who King was, which she didn’t. “I named him after a guy who gave us a lot of trouble once. King won me a blue ribbon at the Pend Oreille County Fair this summer.”

“He’s awesome,” William said. “I bet he can eat a lot.”

Annie had stopped trembling, although she still felt numb. She couldn’t wrap her mind around what she and William had seen at the campsite. Was it possible the man who was shot was still alive? No, she thought, it wasn’t. The image of those men standing over him and firing again and again would never leave her. The eyes of the Driver locking on to her own sent a spasm through her, even now.

“Are you okay?” William asked, feeling her shiver.

“Yes,” she said, not interested in the hogs the way he was. How could he be interested in hogs after what had just happened? Boys were different, all right. Even William.

Swann had thumbed a remote control, and one of three garage doors had opened. Slowing to a crawl, he’d parked inside. Annie had started to open her door when Swann had said, “Wait just a minute.”

She’d waited inside until the door had closed, and watched as Swann had walked back to the window in the garage door and looked down his road. Apparently satisfied that no one had followed them, he’d said, “Okay, you can come out now, kids.”

SWANN’S HOME was clean and light, with one big room after another. It was as unlike her mother’s house as it could be, Annie thought. He was alone, with his family of hogs, and except for the kitchen and the den, the house seemed not to be lived in at all. There were photos of Mr. Swann in his police uniform above the fireplace, and a framed set of medals and ribbons. Other than that, the walls were bare.

He opened a bag of cookies and poured two glasses of milk and set them on the table, saying, “I’m not used to much company way back here.”

Annie wondered if her mother had ever been in the house before, when they were briefly together.

“Just stay here,” Swann said. “I need to go make a couple of calls. Eat up. There’s more milk in the fridge if you want it.”

“Are you going to call our mother?” Annie asked, while William fished three cookies out of the bag.

Swann’s expression darkened and became serious. “Not immediately,” he said. “If those men figure out who you are-and they might real quickly-the first thing they’ll do is go to your house. If your mother knows you’re here, she’ll probably tell them, or they’ll make her tell them. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

Annie felt herself nod yes, felt the cold ball of fear knotting in her stomach again.

“I need to make a couple of calls,” he said again. He was one of those adults who thought he had to overexplain and overenunciate, as if she and William were an alien species. “There are a couple of guys I know who might have a little bit of an idea what is going on. I don’t want to put any of us in more danger than we are now, including your mother.”

“Are you going to call the sheriff?” Annie asked. “They’ll want to know what happened.”

Swann looked at her for a few moments before answering. “After I get a little more information, I’ll call the proper authorities,” he said.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“You’ll just have to trust me on this,” he said, padding down the hallway to, she presumed, his office. She heard the door close, and the sound of a lock being thrown. Why did he feel it was necessary to do that? she wondered.

She turned back to her brother. “How can you eat?”

“I’m hungry,” he said, spewing crumbs across the tabletop.

AFTER A few minutes, Annie left the table and washed her hands and face in the kitchen sink. As she dried her face with a dish towel, she looked out the window and watched the sun drop from beneath the clouds and flash a brilliant wink before plunging into the tops of the trees. It would be dark soon. She didn’t want to be in Mr. Swann’s house in the dark, but she wasn’t sure why she felt that way.

The house was still and quiet, something their own home never was. She could hear the hogs grunting outside and the trill of a bird from somewhere in the shadows. Inside, there was only the rhythmic crunching of William finishing off another cookie.

“You should wash up, too,” she told William, noticing how filthy his fingers were.

He shrugged a nonresponse and continued eating.

“Mr. Swann is nice,” William said. “I’m happy he picked us up.”

Annie nodded toward the photos above the fireplace in the living room. “He’s a policeman, too.”

“He probably has a few guns around here,” William said. “I wonder if he’ll show them to me?”

“Why do you want to see his guns?”

William arched his eyebrows. “Guns are cool.”

Annie glared at him. “Didn’t you see what guns did today? To that poor man?”

“That’s why we need ’em. So that won’t happen to us.”

“Oh, brother.” She didn’t want to argue about this.

“I’m ready to go home, though,” William said, sitting back. “When do you think he’ll take us home?”

Annie looked down the hall at the closed door. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should knock,” William said.

Annie shook her head. “I need to find the bathroom,” she said.

“Hurry back,” William called after her.

She paused at the closed office door as she went down the hall. She could hear Swann’s voice inside. It was deep, but she couldn’t make out any words, as if he were deliberately speaking softly.

The bathroom was at the end of the hallway. She turned on the lights and shut the door. Like the rest of the house, it was spare and spotless. The only thing on the wall was a fake old sign that said baths cost a nickel and shaves cost a dime. Even the towels were folded neatly and hung over the bar. She thought she could see why Mr. Swann and her mother probably hadn’t gotten along.

She looked at herself in the mirror and was shocked at how pale and wild she looked. Her blond hair was tangled, with bits of leaves in it. Her eyes stared back from hollows. Her clothes were crusted with dried mud. There was a scratch across her cheek she didn’t remember getting, and it hadn’t hurt until just that second, when she saw it. Now it stung.

When she was through, Annie left the bathroom as quietly as she had entered it. Mr. Swann’s bedroom was dark and large, and she peeked in. His bed was made neatly, and there were no clothes on the floor.

Even though she knew she shouldn’t, she stepped into the room and looked around. The walls were bare except for several framed photos over a dresser. A phone was on a nightstand next to the bed, and she stared at it. What if he was talking to the sheriff? Or her mother?

The phone seemed to draw her, and she put her hand on the receiver. She knew it was wrong, but she wanted to know who he was talking to. As slowly as she could, she lifted the receiver and covered the mouthpiece with her hand.

“You’ve got him with you now?” Swann asked someone.

“Wrapped up tight,” the other man said. “Leakproof packaging.” Swann chuckled nervously.

Who was this, Annie wondered. What did it have to do with anything?

“Everybody’s with you?” Swann asked.

“Almost,” the man said. “I’m waiting on Gonzo to get back.”

“I hope he doesn’t take too long. I don’t know how long I can keep them entertained.”

Annie’s eyes shot open wide. Keep them entertained.

“Yeah, I know. Wait, I think I see his car now.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, it’s him. We’re ready.”

“Let’s get this over with, then,” Swann said. “This is bad, you know?”

“I know. Newkirk is wavering on us. He looks like he’s about to shit.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“That was a good move, taking them home with you. God help us if some citizen saw us on the road with them.”

Annie eased the phone down and hung it up, which was difficult because her hand was trembling.

She realized when she looked up that her eyes had adjusted to the dark of the room. She could see the photos above the dresser, and she approached them. More shots of Mr. Swann in his police uniform, another of him on a fishing boat somewhere on the ocean or a big lake, and another of a group of men, fellow police officers. She looked carefully at it, and her heart began to race.

Mr. Swann stood in the middle of a group of five men. They had their arms around each other, and several had big grins. But not the Dark Man, who scowled. Singer, the Driver, stared at the camera with the same ice-blue intensity she had seen in his eyes at the campsite. The Ball Cap Man grinned. And the Wavy-Haired Man who had been killed that afternoon looked to be laughing so hard his face was blurred in the photo.

As she ran down the hallway she heard the office door being unlocked by Mr. Swann.

William saw her coming. Luckily, he had left the table and was standing next to the door. He was obviously surprised to see her running so fast, and there must have been something in her face because his eyes widened and his mouth contorted into the look he got before he started to cry.

“Let’s go,” she hissed at him. “Run!”

He didn’t argue but threw open the door to the garage. Annie slammed it behind her. She heard Mr. Swann holler “HEY! Where are you going?” from down the hallway.

The garage was completely dark except for the nine blue squares of the garage door windows. She didn’t know where the button was for the garage door opener but saw a faint pink glow next to the doorjamb and pushed it. A dull light came on, and the middle door began to open.

“Go!” she yelled, and the two of them ran toward the opening and rolled under it as it rose.

“Stop!” Mr. Swann threw open the door to the garage and snapped on the overhead lights. “Get back here, now!” he yelled after them.

It was raining again. Annie had William’s hand, and they ran past the hog pens. A huge mass blasted out of the shadows and hurled itself against the fence and squealed-King-causing them both to veer away and plunge into the dark brush.

As they ran, climbing over downed logs and pushing through bushes that clawed back at them, Annie could hear Mr. Swann shouting back at the house.

“Stop running from me! You’ll get lost out there! Get back here, now! I talked to your mother! Everything’s okay, she’s coming to get you!”

“Annie…” William gasped, winded.

“He’s lying,” she answered, not stopping. “He’s friends with those men we saw today.”

William said something she couldn’t understand. It sounded more like an animal noise. He was crying. She stopped and turned to hug him.

“No…” he said, pushing her away.

She reached out and grabbed him, holding his thin shoulders in her hands, thrusting her face into his. “William, I heard him talking to them, those men we saw today. Mr. Swann is friends with them. They’re on their way up here to find us because we saw them kill that man today. We can’t trust anybody, do you understand?”

He started to argue but looked away. “I just want to go home,” he said in a little-boy voice that stabbed her in the heart.

“We can’t go home yet,” she said. “That’s where they’ll look for us first. That’s the one thing Mr. Swann told us that wasn’t a lie.”

“Where do we go, then?”

She pulled him close, wrapping her arms around him, speaking into his ear. “As far away from here as we can get.”

Friday, 10:30 P.M.

OKAY,” Ex-Lt. Eric Singer said to Dennis Gonzalez and Jim Newkirk at the rear table in the Sand Creek Bar. “At least we know who they are.”

Their names were Annie and William Taylor. Newkirk would rather he didn’t know their names because it made what they were trying to do so much more personal.

The Sand Creek Bar was a dark, close, run-down local place just out of Kootenai Bay on the old highway, the kind of place silver miners and loggers used to stop at on their way home. It was a good place for the men to regroup. It had seen better days and stood as a remnant of an earlier time. Now, there were just a few vehicles outside in the gravel parking lot, two pickups and a UPS truck. The Sand Creek offered three kinds of beer on tap-Coors, Bud, and Widmer Hefeweizen from Oregon. Anything else was considered exotic and would be served in dusty bottles from the back. The ceiling bristled with hundreds of knives that had been hurled up there over the years into the sooty paneled wood. Seventy years’ worth of pocket knives, hunting knives, fishing knives, survival knives. A few rusty bayonets and an ax in the corner. Occasionally, a knife would drop and stick into a tabletop, the floor, or a drinker’s thigh. Newkirk had been told by local friends that the credo of the Sand Creek was “Drink hard and fast because you never know when you might get cut and die,” a maxim that applied to the general atmosphere of North Idaho’s rough-and-tumble blue-collar past as well. He’d been there previously a couple of times with his softball team, but Singer and Gonzalez had not. Those two never went anywhere. When he was with them, Newkirk served as their guide even though he hadn’t been in the area any longer than either of them.

They’d spent the last three and a half hours patrolling the state highways and old logging roads near Oscar Swann’s house, looking for a sign of Annie and William Taylor. They’d found nothing. The timber was so thick and dark in places, they couldn’t see into it, even with their spotlight. Some stands were old and dense, so crowded with tree trunks a man would have to turn sidewise to enter and walk through. Those kids could be anywhere in the forest and were small enough to be able to speed through it like rabbits. They would be impossible to find-unless they could have caught them on the move near a road. Swann had shown them their tracks near his pen of hogs, but the pine needles were so thick a quarter mile from his place that the tracks wouldn’t hold. They could be anywhere, those kids.

Singer had a police scanner in his SUV, and as they patrolled the forest near Swann’s they’d listened to the sheriff’s dispatcher. Monica Taylor had called repeatedly. The dispatcher told a deputy of the calls from the mother saying her children weren’t home yet from school. The calls were treated as routine, the assumption was the kids would likely show up later that night. There was no sense of urgency yet.

Newkirk felt numb, as if he weren’t really there. He was tired, dirty, hungry. He hadn’t been home all day. The first glass of beer from the pitcher Gonzalez had brought to the table affected him on an empty stomach. He poured another and topped up Singer’s and Gonzalez’s glasses. The beer tasted crisp and good.

“This is a critical time,” Singer said, keeping his voice low, “before all hell breaks loose. If those kids stop someone for a ride or show up at a house…”

“We’re fucked,” Gonzalez said, finishing the sentence for his former boss.

“Yes.”

“Where could they be?” Newkirk asked.

Singer and Gonzalez simply stared at him, as they did whenever he asked an unanswerable question.

“The sheriff probably won’t take it seriously until tomorrow,” Singer said. “He’ll give it some time. It’s obvious they think those kids will show up at home tonight.”

That was why he’d ordered Swann to go into town and stake out the Taylor house. Swann knew where they lived and could contact Singer via cell phone if the kids showed up. Sofar, there had been no call.

“I think they’re hunkered down in the woods,” Gonzalez said. “There’s a lot of country out there to get lost in. Nothing but trees all the way to Canada.”

While they’d patrolled, Gonzalez had kept remarking on the absence of houses, the lack of lights back in the forest. It struck Newkirk as an odd observation, but understandable given the circumstances. Gonzalez and Singer kept to themselves. They rarely ventured out of their trophy homes, and made it a point not to get to know their neighbors. The thick forest insulated them from human interaction, and their locked gates kept out passersby. Both lived in woodland fortresses with satellite television and Internet, wells for water, backup power generators at the ready. The only time they went to town was to transact necessary business-banking, groceries, whatever-and get back. They socialized with each other and the other ex-cops who’d come up together. Newkirk was different, and proud of it. He was the youngest of them, was married, and had kids at home. Two boys and a girl, all involved in school and sports. Newkirk and Maggie had met other parents, other families. They traveled to soccer and basketball games with locals, had gotten to know and like some of them. Newkirk liked to think of it as “making an effort.” In a sense, he felt he was the only one of the ex-officers who actually lived here. The others were strangers by choice, although Swann was known to roam around town occasionally. Not Singer or Gonzalez. That’s why they were always asking him where to find things, like the Sand Creek Bar.

Newkirk often thought bitterly that Singer and Gonzalez, by keeping to themselves the way they did, could create unwanted suspicion. It was as if they were bunkered in their hilltop mansions, looking down on everyone below them. Especially Singer, who rarely ventured out. It was as if he’d done his time with the human race and had no more use for it. And while people up here minded their own business, they didn’t like being held in contempt-they wanted to be liked. Newkirk, for his part, found himself liking them, getting along. Singer, by holding himself above them, could create unnecessary animosity. It just hadn’t happened yet.

“So what the fuck do we do?” Gonzalez asked Singer.

“Just let me think,” Singer said.

After taking his baseball cap off, running his fingers through his hair, and putting it back on, Newkirk watched Singer. Singer was the man in charge. The lieutenant was the most icily efficient commander Newkirk had ever served under, even in the Army. Singer was the man the department turned to when a case was spiraling in the wrong direction. The man was a fixer, the guy you brought in when a situation had turned into a cluster fuck. Singer brought his calm with him, but the downside of his façade was that palpable feeling of something tightly coiled up just beneath the skin, like a high-tension spring that continued to wind tighter, capable of being released with a snap to strike out like a serpent’s head. Newkirk had seen that happen twice and never wanted to see it again. Singer was preternaturally unflusterable, his voice rarely over a whisper. He was the kind of guy who got quieter and colder the worse things got, as if his concentration alone would cut a swath of reason through chaos; that only he was capable of thinking with clarity. Thing was, he was right. When Singer was in charge, like he was now, he was a marvel to watch. There were no wasted motions, no wasted words. He absorbed the vagaries of the situation, processed them, then flicked out commands and expected them to be obeyed. He missed nothing. But there was a profound deep-seated bitterness in Singer, and Newkirk had been there, on the LAPD, as it happened.

There had been a minor scandal, one of many, within the department. That particular one involved the loss of impounded vehicles. Several vocal inner-city leaders had complained to an on-the-make television news reporter that cops were taking or selling cars owned by racial minorities that had been impounded due to traffic violations. The station led with the story for four nights straight, and Singer was assigned the interdepartmental investigation. He determined that the people at fault weren’t officers but city contractors charged with towing the vehicles. Despite this finding, the television news reporter had his own agenda and edited Singer’s comments in such a way that he sounded not only incompetent, but complicit. The edited report, complete with new questions asked by the reporter that were dubbed in after the interview, aired during sweeps week in Los Angeles, and Singer was referred to as “Stammering Singer” in news columns. The lieutenant, who had never had his reputation questioned before, was furious and asked the department to take action against the reporter and the television station, to at least defend him in public. The outgoing police chief, who later wound up being hired as an expert commentator for the network affiliated with the local station, bunkered down. Singer felt betrayed, and the dedication and passion he had felt toward the department took a 180-degree turn. He was never the same after that, and the quiet and effective hatred he had once focused on criminals and spineless politicians pointed inward toward his employers. Only those close to him-his immediate subordinates-knew of the sea change. Like everything about Singer, the shifting of loyalty from the department to his small circle of men was swift, decisive, and devastating. The LAPD never knew what hit it.

Although Newkirk was physically outmatched by Ex-Sergeant Gonzalez, who sat at the table beside him, it was Singer, a head shorter than Newkirk, he feared the most.

Gonzalez let Singer think and sipped his beer. As always, he had chosen the chair with his back toward the wall so he could keep an eye on everything in front of him. Gonzalez was a big man. He worked out daily in his home gym, and he wore jeans and tight black T-shirts that called attention to his thick arms, barrel chest, and massive hard belly. Gonzo was dark, smoldering, and violent. He fostered his image and persona. He was the kind of police officer, and man, who projected a dark malevolence even when he performed a simple, normal task like opening a door for someone or smiling at a joke. People around him, even strangers, always seemed relieved that Gonzalez had not decided to harm them. He had a way of looking up from hooded eyes that chilled the blood. Gonzalez was never troubled by doubt in his own judgment and never hesitated to follow up with his own kind of justice. He was the creator of the infamous L.A. mutilation known as the “guilty smile,” where a man’s cheeks were ripped back from the corners of his mouth to his ears. When the victim’s face eventually healed, the mutilation made it look like a wide, clownish smile.

Singer had barely touched his beer. Newkirk and Gonzalez had emptied the pitcher, and Gonzo tried to get the attention of the bartender by lifting it whenever he thought the man looked over.

“What we’ve got to do is get control of the situation,” Singer said softly, almost to himself. “We can’t wait for things to happen, then react. We’ve got to get ahead of it so we can steer things in our favor.”

“Like waiting for that motherfucker to look over and get us a pitcher,” Gonzalez said.

Newkirk sighed. “I’ll get it.”

He approached the bar. There were only two other drinkers, a skeletal man in stained Carhartts who looked like an old miner, and a much younger man in a brown UPS uniform. Newkirk perched between them and put the pitcher on the bar.

“What was it? Coors?” the bartender asked, rousing himself from where he leaned against the backbar and watched Sportscenter on the television mounted to the ceiling.

“Yes,” Newkirk said. He shot a glance at the old miner, who nodded at him then went back to watching the television. The UPS man seemed to be waiting for Newkirk to say something. Oh no, he thought; a talker.

“Don’t get too close to me,” the UPS man slurred. “I’m radioactive.”

“You are?” Newkirk asked pleasantly, but in a way he hoped would be dismissive.

“I’m fucking poison. I might rub off on you, and you don’t want that.”

Newkirk shifted to look him over. He was built; solid, tight clothes, thick thighs, but a broad friendly face. Newkirk guessed six-two, two-twenty. A brass-colored name tag on his uniform read TOM BOYD. It was unusual to see a package delivery employee in uniform so long after the workday was over. He remembered the truck outside.

“Don’t you have to turn your truck in at night?”

Tom snorted. “S’posed to. But instead I pitched camp right here on this stool when I got done with my route. Right, Marty?” he said to the bartender, who had tilted the empty pitcher to fill it with beer from the tap.

“Yes, Tom,” the bartender said wearily. Newkirk got the impression Tom had already talked Marty’s ear off.

“I’ll take care of that pitcher,” Tom said, fishing a wad of bills out of his pocket and slapping them on the bar. “And another double Jack for me.”

“You sure you need another one?” Marty asked.

“What are you, a bartender or my fucking counselor? A knife could drop out of the sky at any second and kill my poor, pathetic ass. So pour ’em!”

Marty shrugged, and Tom shook his head in drunken exaggeration. “That’s right. That’s right.”

Neither Newkirk nor Marty said anything, not wanting to encourage him.

“I’m poison,” Tom said again. “I’m fucking radioactive. Everything I touch turns to crap.”

Tom was one of those guys, Newkirk thought, who was practically begging to be asked what was wrong and wouldn’t give up until he was.

“Women problems, eh?” Newkirk said, not really interested.

“Is there any other kind? I mean really?”

“Just call her. Let her talk it out and keep your mouth shut while she does. That’s what works for me.” To emphasize his point, Newkirk raised his hand and rotated the wedding band on his finger.

Tom said, “I tried to call her a while ago, and she hung up on me. She said she was waiting for the sheriff to call back and to get off her line. It’s bullshit. That kid is just getting back at her by not coming home. I used to do that shit all the time.”

Newkirk felt a trill race down his spine. “Why is she waiting for the sheriff to call her?”

“Her kids didn’t come home from school,” Tom said, rolling his eyes, smiling ruefully. “Somehow, that’s my fault.”

“What did you say her name was?” Newkirk asked, knowing Tom hadn’t said it yet.

“Monica.”

“Monica Treblehorn? I know her.”

“No, Monica Taylor.”

“Don’t know her,” Newkirk said.

“Consider yourself lucky.”

“What’d you do?” Newkirk asked conversationally.

“Pissed her off,” Tom said. “Forgot to take her little mama’s boy fishing, so she fucking threw me out. Threw me right out. Her and that little bitch daughter of hers-they conspired against me.”

Boy and girl, Newkirk thought. Taylor.

“So they went on their own, huh?” Newkirk said, realizing as he said it that he should have kept quiet. Tom hadn’t told him the kids were on their own. But no matter, Tom didn’t catch it.

“Took my SIX-HUNDRED-DOLLAR SAGE ROD, too!”

“That sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Let me give you a little bit of advice, my friend,” Tom said, reaching out and gripping Newkirk’s arm. “Don’t go out with a woman who has kids.”

“I’m married,” Newkirk said. “I’ve got kids of my own.”

“Then don’t go out with her,” Tom said, smiling stupidly. “They’ll all conspire against you. They’ll win, too. We’re outnumbered by the women and the kids and the pansies. We’re endangered species, us men, just like that fucking owl that stopped all the logging in the woods.”

“Hear hear!” the old miner shouted from the end of the bar, raising his glass.

“Tom,” Marty said, handing the pitcher to Newkirk, “advice is frowned on in this place.” To Newkirk, Marty said, “Keep it on the tab?” Ignoring Tom Boyd’s offer.

“Yes, and buy my new friend here another,” Newkirk said.

When he returned to the table, Newkirk said, “You won’t believe who I just met. Monica Taylor’s boyfriend. And we’ve got a problem. He said she’s waiting for the sheriff to call her back. Things might be moving faster than we thought. I’m guessing they’ll form a search team to look for those kids. What if they find them?”

“Jesus Christ,” Gonzalez whispered angrily. “Does everybody know?”

“Not like that. He just talked with her,” Newkirk said, shaking his head. “He says she threw him out of her house tonight.”

Singer looked at Newkirk, his face expressionless. Then, oddly, a tight faint smile.

“This isn’t a problem,” he said. “It’s an opportunity.”

“What?”

“See how his mind works?” Gonzalez said with admiration.

THEY WAITED until Marty cut Tom off. While Tom pleaded for a last drink, Gonzalez and Singer slipped outside.

Newkirk settled the tab at the bar while Tom stumbled from table to table on his way to the door.

When he got to the parking lot he saw Singer and Gonzo standing with Boyd in the light of the single pole light. Tom was leaning back against the UPS truck. He heard Gonzo say, “You sure you should be driving, mister?”

“I’m fine,” Boyd slurred. “Besides, I ain’t going home. I’m going to Monica’s. We got some things to straighten out.”

Newkirk approached them. He could see something square and long protruding from Gonzalez’s back jeans pocket. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he recognized what it was from his days on the force. It was called a “Stun Monster,” 650,000 volts. The department had banned them after some guy died, but that never mattered to Gonzo.

Boyd said, “It’s nice of you fellows to help, but I gotta go. Where you guys from, anyway?”

“Guess,” Singer said.

Boyd cracked a drunken smile. “I’d guess L.A. Like half the new fuckers up here.”

“Right you are,” Gonzalez said, stepping toward Boyd as if to assist him into the UPS truck. Newkirk saw the stun gun in Gonzalez’s hand and caught a glint of the metal electrodes wink in the lamp’s light. Gonzo plunged it into Boyd’s neck, and the electricity arced and snapped like furious lightning. Boyd dropped like a sack of rocks half-in and half-out of his driver’s door.

Boyd’s muscles twitched violently as they pushed him all the way into the truck and dragged him between the rows of parcels in the back. Boyd’s leg kicked out spasmodically, and his boot caught Newkirk on the shin, nearly dropping him. Newkirk could smell the awful stench of burnt flesh in the truck from Boyd’s neck. The stun gun had short-circuited Boyd’s neurotransmitters, so the UPS man had no control over his muscles and limbs. Or sphincter, which released.

“Strong motherfucker,” Gonzo grunted, rolling the body over and cuffing him. “Stinky, too.”

“You drive,” Singer said, handing Gonzo the keys to the UPS truck. “Follow me.”

“Cool. I’ve always wanted to drive one of these things,” Gonzo said.

In his white SUV, with the headlights of the UPS truck filling the rearview mirror, Singer turned to Newkirk, said, “This was a gift. Now we can control the situation.”

Newkirk had no idea what he was talking about. He shoved his hands under his thighs so Singer couldn’t see them shaking.