The Angel Maker

"Lamoia!" Shoswitz chastised, stopping the man. "The Situation Room is the other way! I said nowill Lamoia switched directions abruptly. He shoved the memo into his pocket. The two sergeants increased their strides, attempting to catch up with Lamoia. They entered the large, open room with its folding chairs and tables.

Daphne rushed to a spot along the wall closest to the room's only other door, hoping to sneak out if necessary. Shoswitz could be long-winded. Sharon couldn't afford long-winded.

The room was in a temporary state of chaos, as investigators of all ranks flooded the seats and established leaning zones. There were two other women in the room besides Daphne, both detectives: Bobbie Gaynes and Anita Desilva. The two women on loan from Sexual Assault for the pawn shop sting were back on their regular assignments. "Sit down and put a lid on it!" Shoswitz ordered.

Lamoia reached them and stood behind Daphne, leaning against the door. Facing Shoswitz along with the two men, she said, "What have you got, John?"

"The name of the courier," he whispered.

He pulled out the memo again, and Daphne snatched it from him without looking, stunning him. "The employee lists arrived on my E-Mail while you two were in Interrogation. I called over to Port of Seattle Police and they started running the names through the airliner computers. We got luck on two counts: One, she used an airline early in the alphabet, which was how we started our search-Alaska Air; two, she was greedy-she credited every single flight to her mileage program. It was my buddy's idea, the first place he tried, because the data is essentially already sorted for you, and barn: Twenty-some-odd flights stacked right in a row, all to Vancouver International, all on the dates of the previous harvests."

"What's the name?" Boldt asked anxiously, cocking his head just slightly over his shoulder. "Listen up, people, and listen up good. Come on. Quiet!" Shoswitz roared. "Meyers, put a sock in it! Boldt, you done having your meeting? I'd like to get on with mine."

Daphne, who was just about to read the name to Boldt, slipped the memo back into her pocket. She felt her face burn.

Shoswitz became intensely serious. "Listen up. Five minutes ago, a little after 4 P.m., a male Caucasian entered the Stoneway Safeway and opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon as yet unidentified."

"The guy or the gun?" an anonymous, disguised voice shouted out. It won some limited laughter.

Shoswitz wasn't having any of it. His face remained rigid and impassive as he continued, "Eleven known dead." A hush swept the room. Maybe no one was breathing. "Including two children, an infant and seven women. One of those women was the daughter of state Senator Baker. SPD and County Police vehicles are presently in pursuit of the suspect-five-foot-eight inches, brown hair, camo clothing, jump boots-believed to be headed north on Aurora around the Eighty-fifth Street crossing. You're all assigned to this one, people." There was a major grumbling of protest throughout the room. "All other investigations, except-" he pulled out a cheat sheet, "the docklands bombing, the Toyland rape/assault, and the harvester kidnapping take backseat to this. On those cases just mentioned, only, I repeat-ONLY!-the lead detective remains active." More grumbling from his audience. "All support activities, including surveillance, are terminated until notified." That really stirred up the crowd. "Listen! Listen! This is from the top down okay? Don't kill the fucking messenger-excuse the French. I want you all to roll to the crime scene immediately, but watch your driving, especially you, Lamoia-no stunts. We want witness reports, a full ID workup; you know the drill. "We're going to be under a microscope on this one, people. National news affiliates are already working with Public Information. This has got to be first-class police work. Let's see that it is. Let's zip it up. I will be coordinating along with the Bureau's boys-those experts in homicide." This finally won him some sympathy. A ripple of laughter swept the room. The FBI, who taught homicide investigative techniques, annually conducted fewer homicide investigations on a national basis that a even a small experience, they occasionally caused bad blood by exerting that authority. "Matthews, we'll want you to interface with the FBI on a psych-" He paused. "Where the hell is Matthews? Matthews, pipe up. Raise your hand or something! Boldt!" he hollered, "wasn't she standing right behind you?"

"I'm not sure, Lieutenant," Boldt lied cautiously, his hand curled around the note she had slipped there. He had felt her writing against him, using his back as a desk, just before she slipped out. "Maybe the little girls' room," Lamoia offered. He knew better.

"Gaynes, find her!" Shoswitz ordered. The detective hurried from the room. "Don't look too hard," Boldt advised from the corner of his mouth as Gaynes passed. She turned and winked at him. Wherever Daphne was headed, she would make it.

He opened his hand and read the crumpled note, written in mascara on the back of Lamoia's pink memo. It read: "You take Maybeck. I've got her." An arrow lead around the note to the other side where the name was boldly circled: Pamela Chase.

Boldt aimed his back squarely at Lamoia and asked, "Hey, did she get any of that stuff on my coat?"

Situated in the northern reaches of the university district, Pamela Chase's apartment building was around the corner from a Greek restaurant, a stationery store and a sewing shop. It looked more like a double-decker motel. Daphne was driving her own Honda Prelude because her assigned vehicle had yet to be returned by the airport security personnel; she would probably never see the car again. As she was checking to make sure her Beretta semiautomatic was secured in its holster up under her jacket, her pager began beeping. She unclipped it from her waist, studied it a moment, and dropped it casually between the seats, muting its tones and distancing herself from it. Shoswitz; wasn't reassigning her that was all there was to it. For several years of her life she had never gone more than thirty days without a trip to the firing range. Ever since that scar, more often than that. Only now, as she faced the possibility of actually using the weapon on a human, did she worry whether or not she could go through with it.

She climbed a flight of cement stairs, a dozen thoughts crowding her brain, paused at the top to catch her breath and clear her head, and approached number six. The mail slot to number six had Pamela Chase's name on it. Daphne felt like a detective now, not just a desk jock: Her stomach was nauseated, her eyes burning, her fingers cold. She had two bold lines of tension running up the back of her neck, as if an eagle had sunk its talons there. Her mouth tasted salty and dry, and she couldn't hear because of the humming in her ears.

Everything seemed to be riding on this moment. If Pamela Chase would go against Tegg, then Sharon might still have a chance.

She knocked on the door. The woman who answered it was overweight, in her-twenties. She carried a surprised innocence in her eyes, a piece of jellied toast in her right hand. "Pamela Chase?" Daphne asked. Although she looked like a pushover-someone easily broken daphne put herself on guard. Maybeck's strength had surprised her. With only hours to go until Friday, February 10, Pamela Chase seemed the last link to Elden Tegg.

There was no time to play sweet, no time to nibble at the edges.

Daphne had to take a big bite, right away, and make this woman hurt, make her panic. "I'm with the police, Miss Chase." She offered her a look at her identification. "I'm investigating a kidnapping, four homicides, and a series of organ harvests that date back at least three years."

The toast slapped onto the forest-green shag carpet in a wet landing. She had pinched it too hard. There was still a piece lodged between index finger and thumb. She was far from tan to begin with, but she was paler now. She had locked into a squint as if the sun were shining brightly over Daphne's shoulder. The sun was down, the sky a kind of glowing charcoal gray, like a colorless stained-glass window backlit by a low-watt bulb. Twice, Chase started to say something, tried to get a word out, but something was lodged in her throat. Something like guilt, thought Daphne. The kind of thing, try as you might, you can never swallow away. "What do you say we give your furnace a rest?" The girl didn't get it. "May I come inside?"

"What do you want?"

She felt like saying, "I want Sharon back alive!"

"I want more time in which to operate."

"I want our surveillance people back. A fighting chance."

She said, "I want Elden Tegg behind bars." The door swung open.

The girl staggered into the center of the dormitory-decorated room, dizzy and disoriented. It wasn't exactly an invitation, but Daphne followed, closing the door behind her. As it thumped shut, the girl glanced over at her, still in that painful squint. "I don't ... I don't know anything," she said.

Daphne replied, "it would be nice if we had time to talk about it, wouldn't it? You could lie to me, I could lie to you. We call that 'the dance' in my business. I make promises I can't keep; you repeatedly tell me that you have no idea what I'm talking about. But you're small potatoes to me, Pamela Chase. You hardly count. I haven't got time for you.

Neither does my friend-the one you kidnapped. Time is the one I'm chasing now, and you're in the way, and I don't much care what happens to you, as long as you pay for what you've done and I get my friend back. This really isn't like me, but it's the way I feel, and I'll be damned if I can be any different right at the moment."

The girl's mouth sagged open. Dumbfounded, she again tried say something. Again, she failed.

Daphne smelled success brewing. "What it boils down to is whether or not you're willing to go to jail for the crimes he committed." Maybeck hadn't responded well to this line of reasoning, but Daphne sensed more chance in a girl like this. "Have you ever seen the inside of a women's prison? You know what they do to each other in there? All we ever hear about are the abuses in the men's prison system, but that's because we're in a male-dominated society. You know what the guards do to the women prisoners? They sell them goods--drugs and cigarettes mostly. And do you know what the women pay with? Why don't you sit down, Pamela? You're going to faint if you don't watch it. That's better. You feel okay? No? You shouldn't. You're not okay. You're in the deep stuff. You're in the stuff that hardens and turns to cement and never lets you go, and you know that all I need from you is a little talk. That's all. How you got into it? What he's done? just tell me that Elden Tegg is the harvester and tell me you'll sign a warrant to that effect. You do this for me and you may walk away from it. I don't much like that. If it were left to me, Id make you suffer for what you've done, but the law acts in strange ways. I'll play along, if you will. You buy yourself a big chunk of freedom by cooperating. You buy yourself nothing but trouble if you play it any other way." She took off a shoe and rubbed the sole of her foot.

"Tell me about it, Pam. Tell me how it works. Tell me where Maybeck fits in. And Connie Chi. Did you read in the paper about Connie? She's dead, you know? We think it was Maybeck, but it might have been Tegg. Someone killed her. That could have been you, girl. It may yet be you. That's something else I would think about if I were you. Life expectancy in this business of yours is on the backside of the curve." That kind of talk was going to lose her. She looked confused. Daphne didn't want her confused, she wanted her terrified. As terrified as she was. What if she failed with Pamela as well? What then? She spread her fingers into a church steeple, as if she were praying-maybe she was-and stared over nails that needed attention. All of her needed attention. "Sit down!" she shouted.

Pamela stumbled backward and fell to a sitting position on the couch. She was crying. "Better," Daphne said. She felt about as bad as she had ever felt. "I don't know what you're talking about," Pamela mumbled again. "Tell me about your flights to Vancouver. Who asked you to make those deliveries?"

"Am I under arrest?"

Daphne sensed this wasn't pamela Chase speaking, but Elden Tegg.

The girl had been coached. She couldn't arrest her for taking plane flights to Vancouver, and she couldn't very well bring her downtown for further questioning. Not given Shoswitz's edict. The policewoman Daphne Matthews couldn't lie, but she didn't have to answer.

Pamela stood quickly. Daphne instinctively reached for her weapon, as Pamela trundled off toward the kitchen. "Where are you going?" Daphne asked. "Just a minute," Pamela muttered. The carpet was wom in a straight line between that couch and the kitchen alcove.

Daphne pulled the weapon now, for Pamela had moved so quickly, she was already out of sight and around the corner. Her heart suddenly in her throat, Daphne edged toward the kitchen.

Noises! A cabinet door? A weapon? With the Beretta gripped tightly in both hands, its barrel trained at the floor, Daphne began to level it as she rolled gently around the edge of the corner.

Pamela attempted to hide the large jar of peanut butter, but her cheeks were bulging with it. She swallowed it away, gaping eyes glued to Daphne's gun. "Did Tegg ask you to make those trips for him?" She returned the gun to her holster. "I go there for study and research."

"Did he tell you to say that? We know why you go there. We know the flights you connect with there. It's only a matter of time before we uncover the other courier, the one making the international flights. Tegg is going to be mad at you when he finds out how we caught you: It was your frequent flyer miles, Pam. Every trip you took to deliver those organs is listed on your frequent flyer records."

"And why shouldn't they be? I go there for research."

"Kidnapping is a federal offense. A capital offense. You understand that? Prosecuting attorneys will often trade with one of the suspects, but only one. The others get the full charges. We already have Maybeck in custody." This shocked Pamela. She reached for the peanut butter and scooped out some with a spoon. Daphne said, "Tell me about Elden Tegg."

When Pamela spoke, her lips smacked with peanut butter.

"He's the best vet in the city. Ninety percent of our new business is based on referrals-cases other vets couldn't solve." This seemed more recited than spoken. Daphne could picture Tegg proudly, arrogantly, announcing these statistics to his assistant and staff.

Pamela Chase had been carefully indoctrinated. Such people couldn't easily be broken; they had to be worn down over repeated sessions, and Daphne didn't have the time for that. Panic seeped through the cracks. Pamela Chase had to talk. People on the fringes of criminal activity could often be compromised, but those at the heart proved far more stubborn. Those who stood directly in the shadow of the power were the most difficult of all to break: a dangerous combination of too loyal and too naive. Pamela Chase seemed to fit this latter category.

Daphne quickly adjusted to her new role. Her only hope now was to use Pamela as a conduit, to manipulate her into doing Daphne's work for her. Pamela was anything but cool, calm, and collected; she was panicked inside. They both were! Daphne could see it in the woman's frantic consumption of peanut butter, the perspiration on her upper lip, and her nervous eyes. If Daphne pushed her hard enough, if she pushed her over, Pamela would go running to Tegg, whether physically or by telephone, and that would lay the groundwork for an appearance by Daphne at Tegg's home.

She reminded herself that people who served as other people's assistants were accustomed to taking orders. She needed to be more authoritative with this girl. "Leave that on the counter and come into the other room. You're disgusting me."

Pamela's face flushed red. She hesitated. "Now!" Daphne pronounced. Down went the jar of chunky.

Daphne didn't carry a purse during working hours; she kept as little on her as possible, divided among several pockets: her wallet, her I.D. and shield, lip gloss, a small comb. The picture of Sharon Shaffer was in the left pocket of her coat, along with some notes, phone messages and her car keys. She handed the photograph to Pamela Chase and watched as those eyes squinted tightly and the girl's neck flashed crimson.

It was Daphne who felt light-headed now. Strangely, until this moment, she had clung to the hope that Sharon's disappearance might be explained some other way-any other way-that they had it wrong. But there was no mistaking the recognition in Pamela's reaction, although she also seemed surprised, and this confused Daphne who stated, "Her harvest is scheduled for tomorrow, isn't it." "Tomorrow?" Pamela questioned, still puzzled. Then she thought better of it. "I d-don't ..." she stumbled on her words, "I don't know this person."

"That's a lie, Pamela.

Lying to the police is a serious crime. You can go to jail just for lying to me. Tell me about Sharon. Where is Tegg keeping her? Why has he kept her for so long, when Cindy Chapman was kept less than thirty-six hours?" There was recognition of that name as well. Daphne's palms were damp, the muscles in her upper back and neck had frozen into an unforgiving knot. So close now She rotated her head trying to free them. Pamela Chase continued to stare at the photograph.

Daphne said, "You think he's wonderful, don't you? You probably even think that what you've been doing is right, at least on some level. You don't strike me as a criminal. Now you're protecting him. Why? He uses you. Don't you see that?"

Pamela's head snapped up from the photo.

"He's using you and Maybeck to do the criminal work while he takes all the money. Do you know the kind of money we're talking about?"

"Shut up!"

"Hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"Quiet!" She dropped the photo and pressed her hands to her ears. The photo glided to the carpet and landed face up. Sharon looked up to Daphne for help.

Daphne asked, "Is she at the clinic? Is that where he's keeping her? If you take me to her, if you helped me to find her, you'll get off scot-free. I promise you." Pamela shook her head no, but Daphne pressed on. "Think! You're a smart woman.

You can see Tegg has used you. What laws has he broken? But you can take me to Sharon, can't you? You can save her. Take me to her now. What do you owe him?" A look of defiance came over the suspect. Her eyes flashed hatred and she said strongly, "I owe him everything! What do you know about it? Nothing! It's all lies. You're the police. You tell nothing but lies. Little people is what you are. Public servants, nothing more. You get out of my house. You get out of my house now!"

"I can bring you downtown for questioning."

"Then do it.

You're not going to do it, are you? If you were, you would have done it right away, wouldn't you have?" Pamela stepped toward her.

Daphne challenged. She too stepped forward, preventing Pamela from stepping on Sharon's photograph. "She's AB-negative," she said, displaying the photograph once again, "not O. Our experts tell us that her rare blood type indicates the harvester is after a major organ-something that will kill her. A liver maybe. A liver, like Anna Ferragot. Were you part of that?" Pamela stopped cold. Her eyes filled with tears. Her hurt and horror were palpable.

Sensing a nerve, Daphne pushed harder. "Tell me about Anna. We found her bones, you know? We found them buried by the Tolt River. You can't run away from any of this. There's no running away from this kind of thing. This is murder. At least three others besides Anna Ferragot. You think Elden Tegg is the best? Well, not on humans, he's not. These three died of incompetence-of hemorrhages. They bled internally. Bled to death on the streets. Runaways. No one cares, right? Is that what he told you? Well, he was wrong. We care. I care. Little people? is that what you called me? Where does that leave you, Pamela? Where in the hell does that leave you and Dr. Elden Tegg?"

"Out! Get out of my house!" She stepped forward and the two of them were face to face, though Daphne stood taller. The girl smelled like a combination of department store perfume and peanut butter.

Given Daphne's present situation, there was nothing more to be done. She ached with this realization. Was Pamela strong enough to act on her own? Daphne decided she wasn't. With Boldt keeping an eye on Maybeck, that left only Elden Tegg. Pamela would have to turn to one or the other. "You can still save yourself, Pamela."

"Get out."

Daphne slid the photograph into her pocket. As she stood in the open door, the sun now fully set, she said, "If you let her die, if you help him, what kind of person does that make you?" She added, "You're the only one who can save her. Tell me where she is. Tell me about Tegg. Tell me something. Think, Pamela, think!"

"Go away." Pamela pushed the door closed. Daphne kept her foot wedged in it briefly and the two met eyes. Then the door pushed shut completely. She heard crying on the other side of that door. She lifted her hand to knock-to try one last time, but thought better of it. The phone was quicker than the car.

She had to get to Tegg's as quickly as possible.

J When Donnie Maybeck returned from his ordeal with the police, he found an unusual delivery awaiting him. Outside his apartment door in the drearily lighted hallway sat a dog cage containing a pit bull. His name and address were written on an envelope taped to the outside of the cage. This cage helped explain a smaller parcel that had arrived earlier, a parcel he had received just prior to heading off to the pit bull fight that had ended in such complete and total disaster. In that earlier package he had found a padlock key and a remote device for a shock collar. The accompanying note, printed by a computer printer, read: More To Come.

Had to be from the Doc. It was just like him to It do something this anonymous. The Doc didn't trust anyone. Didn't trust the phones. Didn't trust nothing. Did he intend for him to use the dog on Pamela? Something like that? No one needed to warn Donnie Maybeck about the danger that these dogs represented.

Donnie lugged the cage inside and shut the door, taking a second to lock it as well. He tore the envelope off the outside of the cage and ripped it open. The note inside read: Travel money.

His heart beat a little quicker. Cash? The payoff? The Doc was telling him to get the hell out of Dodge and do it now.

Maybeck practically dove at the cage. He peered into the dark hole, the dog growling at him, and spotted a manila envelope taped to the back wall. Then he understood: If you tried to open the cage without the key, without the remote wand to this shock collar, you were toast-you were never going to see that money. Genius! Leave it to the Doc!

Maybeck was beside himself with excitement. He had never been long on patience, and now he found himself moving so quickly he was bumping into things. Fifty? Would the Doc pay him the full fifty? Half would suit him fine. Even ten grand would make him happy for a long time. Why be greedy? But it was greed that drove him to act with such haste.

He found the key and the remote device by the telephone, where he'd left them. He rushed to the cage, the electronic wand at his ready, and frantically went about unlocking the wire door. He was so excited that he forced the key, and damned near broke it off. He tried again and the lock came unsprung. He kept one hand firmly against the cage, to hold the dog inside, and readied the shock collar's wand.

How was he going to do this? He needed to get the dog out, the money out, and then the dog back inside. He hit the button, just to make sure it worked. The collar buzzed. The dog looked terrified in there. It looked mad as all hell. /istay," Maybeck commanded. He showed the dog the remote device, believing this would serve as a warning. The dog growled.

Maybeck swung open the cage door.

The dog sprang out of the cage like a thirty-pound bullet.

Maybeck triggered the wand. He heard the collar buzz, but the dog was on him now and had him by the forearm. Maybeck let out a roar and hit the button again. Again the collar buzzed, but there was clearly no shock delivered. As a training device, the remote could be set either way-to deliver just the sound of the warning buzz or the sound and the shock. The Doc never set the remote to buzz the collar without delivering a shock, because the dogs weren't that well trained.

But he had this time. Maybeck knew how a pit bull worked its opponent: fast and dirty. It went for your arm if you were holding an object. Once that object was dropped, it went for your heels and calves. Once you were down, it went for your throat.

it was for this reason he seized the dog by the collar and pulled, struggling with his wounded hand to maintain hold of the wand. The dog's jaws were gripped onto him like a bear trap. How many times had he witnessed this death grip in their backwoods contests? How many times had he wondered what it must feel like to have one of these things locked onto you? And now he knew! If he let go of the wand, if he dropped it, would he have time to get out that door? If not, then what were his choices?

The teeth were through the muscle now and into the bone and nerve, like two saw blades heading for each other. On his knees, Maybeck continued pulling against that collar, trying to choke his adversary to pull him off, but it was useless. The thing was like a pain machine. Instinctively, Maybeck sounded the collar repeatedly, until his fingers stopped working. The remote tumbled out of his hand.

Before the wand reached the floor, the pit bull was already going at the rest of him. It got a good piece of his front thigh. Maybeck deflected its next attempt and made it to his feet. He completed two full steps before the dog severed his right Achilles tendon. Maybeck cried out again, but fear stole his voice. No sound came out. His right foot flopped uselessly, like it didn't belong there. The leg dragged behind him. He stumbled, but bounced back up; if he went down, it was all over.

He danced his way toward the window, trying to give his adversary a moving target, but the dog's reactions were ten times as quick as his. When he swung his leg left, he felt a bite. The calf muscle. Kicked it right. Calf muscle again. He fell to his knees. The fucking dog bit him right square in the ass and held on tight.

He rolled hard to his left, right on top of the thing. It yipped and briefly let go. Free! Maybeck used every last bit of his strength to come to his feet. He aimed his head low and dove, throwing himself out of the second-story window. Nothing out there but sidewalk, parked cars, and pavement.

The last thing he heard was breaking glass.

It Lou Boldt was watching Maybeck's apartment when the guy came out of the window doing a swan dive. He was followed by some kind of dog. It seemed to him to happen in a kind of eerie slow motion. The guy was waving his arms as if it might slow him down. Good luck. He looked bloody, he looked bad, even before he hit the fire hydrant.

Boldt didn't have the kind of reactions necessary for field work; he didn't have any business being out here on surveillance. He sprung open his car door, pivoted, and was going for his gun when it occurred to him that maybe it was a bomb that had made the guy jump. Maybe the place was about to blow.

Boldt ducked behind the shield of his car door, waited a beat, and trained the gun on the window from which Maybeck had just exited. Maybe someone had thrown him out. That was more how it looked, now that he thought about it. In situations like this there was no explaining the way he thought. Fragments of ideas attached themselves and then let go, replaced by another consideration. This by another and another. He considered his own self-defense, he considered the welfare of the innocent people on the street around him. The dog flew out the window like a smart bomb. Straight down.

It It literally bounced off the sidewalk, came to its feet-a front leg bent sideways and broken-and attacked Maybeck. It was like nothing Boldt had ever seen.

There were shrieks of hysteria. There was the sickening sound of the dog at work, of car motors nearby, and a motorcycle in the distance-Boldt was ... aware of all the sounds. There was this nauseating moment when an active imagination couldn't help but fill in what was happening to the fallen man, and a terrifying moment as Boldt raced across the street, weapon drawn, debating whether or not to shoot the dog.

The decision was made for him: As he cleared a parked car, the dog looked over-actually seemed to focus on the gun, not him-and charged.

He came on low to the ground, and he came fast, as if that broken leg attached to him was nothing but a prosthesis.

Boldt fired once and missed. Fired again and missed. The dog closed the distance faster than Boldt could calculate his next shot. He fired again wildly, missed again. There was blood on its whiskers-he could see that clearly-and a spirited determination in its eyes that pushed Boldt to turn and run.

But Boldt held his ground, his training kicking in. A man with a gun could beat an attacking dog, but not two dogs. The rule was: Two, screw; one, use the gun.

Boldt steadied his weapon-waiting, this time; waiting-preparing to fire.

The blast hit the dog sideways. One minute the dog was there, the next gone-just like that. Dead under the car, if the trail of blood was any indication.

Boldt had not fired. The boy was no more than seventeen, Asian, wearing a winter overcoat. The brief look Boldt got of the gun convinced him it was a large-bore .45 semiautomatic-the gangs called them Cop Killers after a hit record. The gun was there, then it wasn't-just like the dog. The boy stuffed it out of sight and went off at a run.

Boldt knew the kids in gangs carried guns sometimes serious guns but it had never occurred to him that they knew how to shoot at anything but each other. Hitting that dog, even from the side, was no easy shot. But maybe-just maybe-the kid had saved Boldt's life. "Hey!" Boldt called after him; he wasn't sure whether he intended to arrest him or thank him. The kid's pace increased. Boldt ran half a block on instinct but stopped himself when his thoughts caught up to him. What was he going to do, shoot the kid?

A siren wailed in the distance. Someone had called the cops. I am a cop, Boldt thought. Then he took a look at Maybeck. He didn't feel anything. No nausea, no remorse, no sympathy. Nothing like he had felt at the sight of Connie Chi's body. His brain registered that this too was probably a homicide, though it would be one hell of a kill to prove. This mess before him was also a victim. But justice had been served here, at least in the eyes of Lou Boldt, and nobody was going to make him feel wrong about feeling good, Nobody. It was later now. Maybe forty-five minutes had passed, he wasn't sure; he had lost track. It was dark. The neighborhood wasn't interested in the killing any longer. He'd been upstairs, had taken some notes. He had bought a disposable camera at a local Quik-Mart and had tried to photograph the scene himself because SPD was so focused on the Safeway killing that only a single patrol car and a body bag team from Dixie's office arrived to help out. In this light, he wasn't likely to get any decent shots.

He took a picture of the fire hydrant. It was a gravestone now as well. How appropriate that Maybeck had hit a fire hydrant, Boldt thought, taking one last shot. Where this guy was going maybe he was there already-he'd be putting out fires day and nigt for the rest of eternity.

His pager rang. He hoped it was Daphne with news of Pamela Chase or Tegg. He had a hell of a time shutting the thing off, but he finally hit the right button.

He called in on his cellular. The message was from Lamoia, who had obviously abandoned the Safeway investigation at some point; Lamoia had a way of getting away with things like that. He was slippery without being sleazy. Nothing from Daphne. That worried him.

The message was read to him by the dispatcher: "Administration building, 8 P.m." Boldt checked his watch: 7:45. He jumped in his car and took off. The body bag boys were screaming something at him, but Lou Boldt wasn't listening. Donnie Maybeck was yesterday's news.

Dressed in a navy blue cashmere blazer, a white pinpoint Oxford and a multi-colored Italian silk tie, Elden Tegg warmed with the sight of his guests enjoying themselves. He loved the role of host, of provider, although secretly, in his innermost thoughts, he despised the pretensions of these people. Tonight was Peggy's opera dinner. Five of their twelve guests were voting members of the opera board, including its chairman, Byron Endicott. Despite Maybeck's earlier problem with the police and his own discovery that the county police had dug up Anna Ferragot's grave, Tegg attended his wife's dinner, clinging to a plan set in motion earlier in the day with a call to Vancouver. The harvest would take place tomorrow morning as planned. Tegg would deliver the organ himself. He had a noon flight booked out of Vancouver for Rio via Mexico City. His life as a veterinarian was finished; when he hit Rio he would be carrying Wong Kei's money and would have access to several accounts here in the city. If he worked quickly enough, that money could be electronically transferred before the little people had figured out how to even spell his name. That money was his ticket to buying his way in as a transplant surgeon. A new life.

A part of him recognized this as delusion. Fantasy. It all seemed too simple. It all worked out too easily, too perfectly. And yet he convinced himself that people did this kind of thing all the time. He read about them in the paper: Executives vanishing with the entire corporate pension; secretaries disappearing with their bosses; housewives cleaning out the joint accounts, never to be heard of again. All it took was a little courage, a little planning, and a lot of quick decisions.

He was focused on the upcoming harvest and his own escape. All he had to do was maintain a certain pretense of normality for the next few hours-fool everyone-and by tomorrow noon he would be gone, off to his new life. This was the way it was done, wasn't it? "The way what is done?" the woman in front of him asked.

Had he said something to her? Was he thinking aloud, speaking his thoughts for everyone to hear? "Sorry?" he asked, trying to remember her name, distracted by a piece of mushroom at the corner of her lips.

"What's that?" she asked, her napkin finding the mushroom.

Tegg's eyes found her breasts. Right out there for everyone to enjoy. There was more silicon in this room than hors d'oeuvres.

More tucks than in a Scottish kilt.

His wife signaled him so that this guest could see. What a lifesaver! He excused himself and dashed off to her side.

Peggy looked radiant, though somewhat awkward, in a Japanese tea dress cut so tightly around her hips and knees that she moved from guest to guest like a hobbled horse. Most of the other women in the room fell noticeably short of Peggy's high standards for presentation, though not for lack of trying.

His wife mouse-stepped past him and whispered, "T.J.'s having trouble with the company, but he won a Pro-Am in Scottsdale last month." She scooted over to the champagne and had a word with one of their white-gloved servers.

Tegg wasn't up to this pandering and politicking. For years he and Peggy had worked so hard to acquire this kind of social acceptance, but now that it was here, especially at a time of such nerve-racking decisions and potentially catastrophic problems, it all seemed so fake to him. They had bought this acceptance, by throwing his harvesting money at the arts-ballet, summer dance, the opera-by being seen. By blending in.

Ridiculous nonsense. What would Peggy say if she found out her substantial contributions to the arts came not from his work at the clinic but from the harvested kidneys of degenerate runaways? "Wonderful to see you again, Elden. How's the practice?" Thomas-T.J.-Harper owned the second-largest retail department store in the Northwest. He had white hair, white teeth, and wore a tailored suit from London. "Keeps me in stitches," Tegg answered, waiting for the rag merchant to see the humor. The man responded with a slight grin, though it seemed forced. Everything was forced at occasions like these. Tegg wasn't sure what to say next. He drank some champagne. "You did a fine job on Ginger's leg," Harper said.

Ginger was the Harper's terrier mutt. Tegg felt his face flush.

These kinds of comments made him feel like cheap labor, a gardener, or a house cleaner. A little person. Tegg felt he was groveling, and he hated himself for it. He forced kind words from his mouth, for Peggy's sake. "I understand your golf game is in top form. Congratulations on Scottsdale."

The man glowed. "We ought to go out sometime."

"I'd love to," Tegg replied. He wasn't much for golf, although they belonged to the club-more for appearances and for Peggy's sake than his own. Tegg excused himself and headed straight for Tina Endicott, whose eyes betrayed a restlessness that Tegg interpreted as sexual urgency. Byron Endicott had incited a great deal of envy in the hearts of the males in his social set by marrying this twenty-eight-yearold stunner, forty-odd years his junior. It was anybody's guess as to how long it would hold together, how much loose play Byron was willing to tolerate. Endicott had asked for a telephone twenty minutes earlier and had yet to reemerge from the study. Tina had legs that didn't stop and lush auburn hair.

As he was revving himself up for his conversation with Tina, his wife again caught his eye and offered a glance at the diminishing caviar that told him his guests had gone through twenty-five hundred dollars worth of fish eggs in half the allotted time. Message received: The soup course would be advanced and served any minute. He and Peggy could work a party the same way he and Pamela could handle a harvest.

It just wasn't as much fun. Tegg nodded toward the study indicating he would fetch Byron Endicott. Peggy acknowledged and tottered off toward the kitchen.

As Tegg crossed the foyer, a waitress answered the front door.

Facing him, her features twisted in anxiety and her swollen limbs trembling with trepidation, stood the piggish Pamela Chase. What was she doing here? More problems? Tegg felt a tic coming on and reacted quickly as his shoulder and head attempted to meet, by hurrying to greet Pamela. The young waitress flinched with his tic and glanced quickly away, as if she hadn't seen it. He saw a fear in Pamela's squinty little eyes that he didn't care for one bit, "Pamela? Problems?" he questioned. "It's important," she said, maintaining her cool surprisingly well, glancing sideways at the uniformed caterer. "An emergency at the office." The electricity in her eyes told him this required immediate action.

He motioned her toward the study, well aware he would have to evict Byron Endicott. If he didn't handle this carefully, rumors of a scandal would be started before the fish course.

As he ushered Pamela into his study, his mind sorting through possible explanations for her arrival-had Maybeck opened his little package?-he tried to see this young woman through the eyes of Byron Endicott. He knew damn well the kinds of things that would be said about them if he failed to handle this correctly. But he didn't care. Let them talk. By tomorrow, a new life.

Control, he reminded himself, feeling another tic coming on but refusing it, as if slamming a door in its face. Unknowingly, he slammed the door to his study. It made a tremendous crash. Pamela jumped. old man Endicott mumbled into the receiver and hung up. He rose to his feet and came around the desk with a suspicious, irreverent expression. "And who is this lovely creature?" he asked Pamela.

Tegg experienced a flash of embarrassment. He said, "This is my surgical assistant, Pamela Chase. Byron Endicott," he said, indicating the old man. "I'm afraid something has come up at the clinic, Byron. We'll need the study for a moment if you don't mind."

"Enchanted," Endicott said, taking her hand. "Not Douglas Chase's little girl?" "Yes " Pamela said, looking to Tegg nervously. "An such a lovely young woman!" he lied. "Last time I saw you ... But just look at you!" he said, leering artificially.

She blushed. Endicott grinned at Tegg. "I'll leave you two," he said, his implication obvious. "But you must introduce her around, Elden, or I'll raise a stink. I promise." To Pamela he said, "We are all very close friends of your parents. You really must say hello before you leave."

Endicott smirked, gave Tegg a teasing, nasty look, and let himself out of the room. "I'm sorry for coming," she said. "Not to worry," Tegg replied. "You look awful. What is it?" He closed the door tightly, a dozen thoughts crowding his brain. "The police came to my apartment asking about my trips to Vancouver."

At first he couldn't be sure he had heard her right, but from her grave expression, from the constriction in his own chest, he knew that indeed he had. He felt the betraying savagery of two. tics overcome him-like two sharp bolts of electricity. He fell into a chair. His blood banged so loudly in his ears he couldn't hear what she said next. First Maybeck, now Pamela. Too close. Much too close. There was no time to waste. He began plotting immediately. "They know about everything," she said. "They offered me a deal if I gave them you."

Had Maybeck talked? His attorney, Howard Chamberland, had assured him everything was fine-Maybeck had been released on a misdemeanor charge. His palms went clammy. Control! he reminded himself again, answering her perplexed and ghostly gaze with a squaring of his shoulders and a lifting of his chin. The police moved about as fast as languishing sea lions, certainly no match for his latest plans. No reason to panic. Evaluate the situation. Analyze. Indecision was anyone's biggest enemy. He had contingencies.

He looked into her dark, squinting eyes and thought about telling her of his plan to escape. But that would include the harvesting of the heart, and she didn't approve of that-she might even betray him if she knew about the heart. No, better to calm her and be rid of her. Tomorrow morning would come soon enough. "Sit down," he told her. "Good. Can I get you something to drink? A pop? I want you to relax, calm down. You're with me now, you're all right."

"She's pretty. More than pretty. Dark hair. Taller than me. Beautiful eyes."

"A woman?" he asked stupidly. The idea that a woman had questioned her seemed so much less threatening to him than had it been a man. Why, he wasn't sure.

He knew how she hated pretty women. She felt betrayed by her weight problem, failing to see it as a disease, but instead as a weakness of character, an attitude that had been drummed into her by her inept parents. "I have to interrupt here," he said, doing so. "Forgive me, please, but the details are quite unimportant to me. They didn't arrest you, did they? And there's a reason for that: They haven't got anything of any value on us. Suspicions is all. We've talked about this before, but what's important to remember with the police is that if you don't talk to them, there's nothing they can learn from you. It's hard, I know," he said, reaching over and touching her knee. "Terribly difficult. But true."

"She mentioned the harvests. She said three of the donors had died from hemorrhaging."

He couldn't catch his breath. Failure? Footsteps in the foyer, drawing closer. They wanted him at the table, no doubt. it suddenly felt as if the room were smaller, the walls closing in. Yes. He could feel the walls moving closer. Control!

A knock like a knife in his chest. Not now! He glanced toward the door, tried to lift himself from his chair, but couldn't move. Such helplessness was foreign to him: It was always the patient that was paralyzed, never him. Pamela rose effortlessly to answer the door, and this inspired Tegg's limbs to obey. He reached out and stopped her as he came to his feet, reminding himself that the sure sign of superiority is the ability to overcome. Performance-appearance-was everything.

When he opened the door he felt relief to find one of the waitresses staring back at him. He had somehow expected his wife and had no desire to face her at this particular moment. He could picture her at the end of the dining table, facing his empty place, crazed with rage and yet politely fielding conversation and graciously offering the bread basket to her guests. "The soup is served, Dr. Tegg. Mrs. Tegg asked me to tell you."

"Please have them start without me, would you? just a little business matter to clear up. I won't be but a minute." It was an easy absence to explain. As the only vet in the clinic, he was constantly on-call. He responded at all hours to emergencies of every sort. It was perfectly normal for him to be summoned in the evening hours to handle an emergency. Tonight, rather than drag him downtown, when he was in the midst of an important dinner party, his assistant had had the good sense to seek his advice in person so as to occupy as little of his time as possible.

He shut the door and asked Pamela, "Hemorrhaging? That's impossible! Must be some sort of trick, saying such a thing. Trying to rattle you."

"I don't think so. She sounded serious.

She said the investigation is being run by Homicide."

The word reminded him of Maybeck, of sending that package to the man. He regretted that now. He had regretted that only a moment after he had turned it over to the delivery boy. But it was done. "Maybeck's fault," he said, the idea taking hold, and coming as a great relief. "If he mistreated the donors in any way ... Once the patient is out of our control, out of our care, we can't be expected to monitor his or her every move, can we?

Of course not! The wrong activity too soon and something is bound to come loose. They were told how to take care of themselves. We can't babysit every last patient, now can we?" Pamela said flatly, "She showed me a picture of a woman. Sharon, the same woman we did the kidney on last Saturday. I remember her name. I remember that night very-well, very clearly, as you can imagine I would. And I remember seeing a sponge, and her chest being damp, and now I have to wonder, with Betadyne? Was that why her kidney wasn't prepped? Was that why you did what you did to me, what we did, to distract me? She said that Sharon had disappeared, and that's not right for a kidney. It's a heart, isn't it, Elden? A13-negative, she said, and all I could think of was a heart."

His own heart responded like a chorus of timpani. "You don't need to answer because I know. How many times have you tried to convince me to do a heart? And just yesterday, you took that dog's heart. What's happening? Have you done it already? Have you?"

"This doesn't involve you," he warned. "Doesn't involve me?" she questioned. "Where is that coming from? Get a clue!"

His anger surfaced but he contained it. She was just a child.

"We have talked about this. I don't accept your arguments. You know that. I have heard them a dozen times. What you can't face is that I might be right! Admit it!"

"I won't tell them anything. You know I won't. I owe you that. But I'm scared. For you. For me. I'm not sure what to do. They know about the trips to Vancouver. They know about all of it. We have to do something! They're not just going to go away."

"You're missing the central point."

"Which is?"

"Which is that if they had anything, you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me."

Panic struck him. What if she had already cut a deal with them?

What if she were wearing a microphone, the police standing ready outside his door?

He stood and edged around his desk, taking a quick but useless look outside. It was rainy and dark. He couldn't see anything but a driveway full of cars. He approached her from behind then and stroked her hair. She liked it. She leaned her head back and looked up at him. He bent over feigning a kiss and ran his hand over her chest and abdomen, secretly searching for an unwarranted bump that might alert him to a wire or a microphone. He leaned her forward and massaged her neck and back, searching here as well. Nothing. Perhaps she was loyal to him after all.

He continued, "If they had anything at all, they would be doing more than asking questions. They're nosing around, is all. They earn their living nosing around. Our tax dollars, mind you!" He was losing focus. "Granted, they're obviously on the right track. I'll give you that. I'll concede that much. But where are the charges? Why haven't they questioned me? You see? They're tiptoeing around, is all. We mustn't give in to that. And besides, we've talked about this before, haven't we? Of course we have. We have even anticipated such a moment. Hmm? The lab at the farm can be dismantled in a matter of a few hours. We're prepared for that. No problem. Where's the evidence to come from?" It was true: If he dismantled the farm's surgical facility, if Pam remained loyal, what was left for the police? He said, "I don't think this is nearly as bad as it looks, my dear. Hmm? Not nearly as bad as it looks. The important thing is to stay calm. With that in mind, stay where you are. I'll be right back."

No matter what his plans, he needed Pamela sedated for the rest of the night. Out of the way. Incapable of fouling the waters.

He hurried out into the garage and rummaged through the veterinarian supplies he kept in the refrigerated insert in back of the Isuzu. The only sedatives he had on hand were for intravenous use, but he located an oral supply of Valium in dosages strong enough for a mastiff. He grabbed two capsules and hurried back to the study, carefully avoiding the dining room and his guests. "There's nothing to worry about, I promise," he said upon returning. He extended the pills to her. "Take these, they'll help you relax."

"No thanks."

"Take them.

Go on." He handed her his champagne glass. "They'll put your mind at rest. There is a course through every storm. Go home. Put your feet up."

She studied the pills. "That's a lot of Valium."

"Trust me."

"I'd rather ... "Pamela, take the medicine!" She tossed the pills into her mouth and chased them down with the champagne. "Drive directly home. Have you eaten anything?" She nodded. "Good. Drive straight home for safety's sake, though you're unlikely to feel them for forty-five minutes or so. Take a hot bath. Relax. We'll talk in the morning. Okay?" He lifted her chin with his finger and looked her in the eye. "It was smart of you to come here. I'm not mad at you at all. But it's important to keep perspective. Hmm? You must not speak with the police again. Not for any reason. They will only attempt to unsettle you. You mustn't allow that. Do you hear me, Pamela?"

She nodded again. "Good. Any problems?" She shook her head.

She looked a little angry. A little sad. She hadn't wanted to take the pills-that was it. Or was it? He couldn't tell. "Off you go," he said, offering her his hand.

She said nothing. He had wounded her. Oh well, the Valium would improve things shortly.

He saw her to the front door. She hurried through the rain toward her car.

Tegg heard the idle chatter of his guests from behind him. Could he endure a meal with these people given his present state of anxiety? Did he have any choice?

Sitting behind the wheel of her Honda Prelude, taking notes by the limited light of a Shore Drive streetlamp in the Broadmoor Estates, Daphne heard a man's voice call out. She looked up in time to see Pamela Chase hurry through the rain and climb into her car.

Daphne felt impatient, isolated, angry, and even a little afraid.

Shoswitzs cut in manpower was going to cost Sharon her life.

That was the way it now seemed. The political pressures and responsibilities resulting from the Safeway killings had proved too much for him to bear. The one loser in all of this was Sharon. The frustration of being confined to a front seat, taking notes, drove Daphne into a rage. It was time to do something.

Pamela's car started. The lights went on, illuminating the thick landscape vegetation that separated the large, water-view homes from their neighbors. Tegg's house was rich with arched leadedglass windows, a full turret and a section of battlement along the roof to complete the look of a castle. It had a red slate roof, two chimneys and a weather vane. This wasn't the Volvo and Cherokee set, but the Beamers and Jags. Second homes on Decatur Northwest, twenty-year anniversaries, Ralph Lauren to wear for the Saturday chores, private clubs and political contributions. These were the people that as a cop you were careful with, the kind who knew how to make trouble.

Daphne faced a difficult decision: Pursue Pamela Chase or stay with Tegg? When Pamela had arrived here only minutes after she had, Daphne had felt an initial sense of accomplishment and success in her interrogation of the woman. This was the exact pressure she had hoped to effect: to send Pamela running to Tegg. Her notes carefully marked the time of the girl's arrival, duration of stay, and time of departure. The courts weren't going to catch Daphne on any technicalities. She intended to cover herself well. But now what?

Her impatience urged her to follow, to do something. She ignored it, staying with her earlier belief that not Pamela Chase but either Tegg or Maybeck would be responsible for holding Sharon hostage. Her hunch was that Tegg would insulate himself by using Maybeck; Boldt had that assignment, and she, had every confidence in him. Pamela had alerted Tegg; now perhaps Tegg would alert Maybeck, who in turn would lead Boldt to Sharon. Maybe they would get lucky. Maybe it was just too much of a long shot to hope for.

She checked her watch: in four hours, at midnight, it would be February 10, the day listed in the database for Sharon's harvest. Sometime in the morning seemed a more likely time for Tegg to do the harvest, given that a party was now under way in his house. She would fight to keep herself awake.

She wished like hell she had either her police radio or cellular phone-being out of communication was the hardest thing of all.

The taillights of Pamela Chase's car receded and then disappeared from view.

Daphne longingly watched them go, wondering whether along with them went Sharon Shaffer's only chance of survival.

Please pass the butter." Tegg handed the butter dish to the woman with the showy breasts, still unable to recall her name. He had no idea what the table's present topic was and didn't care. Planning his escape occupied him fully. Peggy was happily yukking it up with Byron Endicott. She would do anything for this opera board seat. Strange how petty it all seemed to Tegg now. Why on earth had he ever given that kind of money away? What had possessed him to try to be the philanthropic veterinarian of King County? What an absurdity! All so that his wife would play in the right bridge circles? What did any of it matter? There was life and death at stake here. There was that package he had sent to Maybeck. The police!

Homicide? Had they traced the pit bull back to Tegg that quickly? He refused to believe it! He had taken such care to wipe down the cage, wear gloves, print everything on the HP printer, write nothing by hand, neither the collar, its batteries, or the wand had any kind of serial number. There was no paperwork with the delivery company; he had used one of those fly-by-night outfits in the International District, dropping it off with them to avoid a pickup. He has thought it through so carefully. "Salt please."

The salt was about six inches from this fool's hand! What did he want, someone to shake it for him? Losing his temper, Tegg did just that. He seized the shaker and sent salt flying all over this man's food. He caught himself, but too late. He apologized, poured the man some Pine Ridge Merlot and, empty bottle in hand, excused himself from the table. He didn't dare look at Peggy.

On his way into the kitchen, he sorted back through his brief but intense encounter with Pamela, searching for any possible mistakes he might have made.

He sat down at a stool in the kitchen. One of the kitchen help said something to him, but he waved him away. Then he thought better of it and asked for some more wine. "And the table's out too," he told no one in particular.

The Valiums were a hell of a good idea, he congratulated himself.

That dosage would knock her sideways. He decided that it might be a good idea to check up on her-to make sure she got home okay, to calm her down if the pills hadn't already done so. She wouldn't be feeling them for another few minutes; maybe she needed someone to talk to.

He took his wine with him into the garage, electing to use the cellular in the Isuzu because of his belief in the difficulty the police had listening in on such lines. He eased the seat back, dialed the number, and pushed SND. God, it felt good to be away from those hypocrites in there. He took a big swig of wine and felt his first sense of real relief in hours.

Her answering machine answered.This troubled him. His heart quickened. He thought himself stupid for forcing the Valium on her while she still had to drive home. He should have just given them to her for her to take once there. But, he recalled, he had wanted to ensure she had taken them. He didn't want her mucking about tonight, messing things up.

Had the cops gotten hold of her? He sat up and spilled some wine into his lap. In that condition she might tell them everything! What had he been thinking by giving her Valium? Another thirty minutes, she'd be a tongue-wagging wreck. He should have stuck with his plan to sedate her! He had wanted her out, not brain-impaired!

A voice from within told him to calm down. Control! She was probably just on the can and couldn't make it to the phone.

He dialed her number again. It rang four times and the machine answered. "Shit," he said into the receiver.

Maybe, his voice of reason argued, she was high already and had simply turned the phone off. Yes, that made some sense. Lying back with headphones on, or watching a movie on the tube. Valium behavior.

He sipped what was left of the wine, not feeling good about any of this. Slowly, his mind reconstructed a vivid memory of their final few minutes together. He could see her, could hear the conversation like a videotape playing inside his head. Had she ever spoken, ever opened her mouth after he had fed her those pills? Had she in fact swallowed them?"

What if she had not taken the Valium but tricked him into believing she had Where would she go What would she do?

The police? The farm!

A tic hit him so hard he heard his neck crack. The wineglass jumped from his hand, struck the gear shift and shattered.

The farm! He tripped the garage door automatic opener. It groaned open slowly. He couldn't believe how slowly. This thing had never run this slowly! What would he need? Had he forgotten anything?

The party! The garage door opened far enough to reveal four cars parked in the drive, more out on the road. Trapped?

The door to the kitchen opened. Peggy, in her red Japanese tea dress and her scarlet red face.

What could he say? At this point, what could he do?

Take control. There was a pretty good gap between the first parked car and the garage. Maybe just enough.

Tegg backed slowly across the wet lawn, the tires cutting deep ruts in the grass, his guests observing him through the window. The four-wheel-drive banged out onto the street, and he was off.

To Pamela's? No, he decided. Priorities. He would keep calling. The farm was far more important.

Indeed, the farm was everything.

Lto The Isuzu backed across the lawn, its tires spraying mud in all directions. Daphne could barely make out a bearded man's face behind the wheel. Elden Tegg.

She slumped in her seat, dropping low, placed her fingers on the key and waited. His headlights washed the interior of her car, hurting her eyes. She remained absolutely still. She thought her heart might explode.

He passed. She counted to three and started the car, lifting just high enough to watch his departure in her door mirror. The second he passed out of sight, she dropped the Honda into gear and pulled one of the quickest three-point turns she had ever made.

Only a few seconds later, she was following. Instinctively, she reached for her police radio and came up empty. Once again, the impact of her isolation from the department bore down on her. She needed to get to a pay phone. She needed a way to alert Boldt or the department that it was going down.

It was going down! She could feel it: Sharon was at the end of this ride.

It wasn't going to be Maybeck; it was going to be Tegg. It wasn't going to be Boldt; it was going to be her.

"I appreciate this, Loraine," Lamoia said to the attractive black woman opening the James Street entrance to the administration building. Boldt guessed her to be in her mid-thirties and just shy of six feet tall. She had beautiful almond eyes and a dancer's figure. She wore jeans and a khaki windbreaker. Boldt knew her face from somewhere-maybe she had worked at one of the civilian jobs for the department a few years back. "I could get screwed for doing this. You know that, John."

"Yeah, I know."

"Don't ask me why I'm doing this, 'cause I'll be damned if I know."

"And I thought it was because you loved me," Lamoia teased. "Don't get me thinking about it, lover, or I'll march your ass right out of here."

"We are the police, after all," Lamoia reminded. "It's not as if we're a couple of crooks or something."

"Yeah, yeah. Hey, Ernie," she greeted the security guard coming down the hall to intercept them.

Boldt and Lamoia took out their shields before the man even asked. "Hey, Lori," the former weightlifter answered. His arms were too big for the uniform he was required to wear. He'd gone a little soft around the middle. "These here are a couple of Seattle's finest homicide dicks." She introduced everyone all around. He checked their identification carefully. "They need a look-see at some of the records in the assessor's office and can't wait for nothing."

"Homicide? Sure thing," Ernie said.

He kept looking at Boldt as if he recognized him. "They got the elevators off, for inspection. You'll have to take the stairs." On the way up the steep stairs she said, "This place gives me heebeejies with no one in it. Know what I mean?" A few steps later she added, "Nah.

"You guys probably don't know what I mean."

"The deal is," Lamoia said down to Boldt, who was slower going up the stairs than the other two, "it occured to me that the first time I asked Loraine to run a few names into the computer-what was that, yesterday?-I was a little sexist in my approach."

"You?" she said sarcastically. "I can't imagine such a thing."

"I'm talking to him, if you don't mind," Lamoia complained. "You?" Boldt asked, mimicking the woman's sarcastic tone.

Lamoia continued, undaunted, "I didn't have the time to do the job right. I did check to see if either of the three vets owned land out near where Dixie dug up Farragot, but this was before we were tuned in to Tegg. When I got the employee lists I had Loraine try those names as well."

"And that was a bunch of names," she complained, as if he owed her something for it.

Boldt was out of shape, that's all there was to it. His legs seemed to weigh a few hundred pounds. "How much farther?" "Seventh floor, sugar. Two more to go."

"One way to do this," Lamoia explained, "is to use the county maps, because they identify each parcel of private land by name of the taxpayer." "But that's a huge job," Loraine said. "And it's random.

There's so much land out there by the Tolt: private, public, private usage, timber lease, water district, you name it." She seemed to be floating up the stairs barely noticing them. Boldt was beginning to wonder whether he would make it.

She reached the door first. She held it open for Lamoia and waited for Boldt. "You all right?" she asked.

Boldt nodded, too winded to speak. Embarrassed. "When Matthews nailed it down that it was Tegg for sure, it occurred to me we should try-"

"His wife," Boldt answered, interrupting.

It annoyed Lamoia. Boldt explained his reasoning as they turned right, then left, and Loraine unlocked the door to room 700A for them. "We know Tegg is originally from Vancouver. He later studied here, married here, and stayed here. if he didn't buy the land, then maybe his wife bought it or inherited it." "Exactly," Lamoia agreed. "One name?" Loraine asked. She switched on the lights. The room had a long counter and several oversized signs explaining who was properly served by the assessor's office. In the center of the space allotted to the public was a long table. Against the near wall was a slanted shelf holding three-foot-by-two-foot leather-bound tax maps of the city and King County. According to the gold lettering, they were made by the Kroll Map Co.

Along the far wall were a half-dozen computer terminals and more signs explaining how to use them. The computer screen warmed. Loraine stood ready at the keyboard. "I did this for one name?" She hit several function keys, changing the menu. "Okay, okay. Lay it on me, and let's get out of here before I get a permanent case of the creeps. "You did this to save a woman's life, Boldt wanted to say. You did this to stop a man who has gone mad with a scalpel.

Lamoia handed her a piece of napkin with some writing on it.

"Peggy Schmidt Tegg," Loraine read off, typing it in. "just Schmidt," Lamoia corrected. "Peggy Schmidt. This is the info off of her DMV slug-her driver's license. We're hoping like hell she uses her maiden name as her middle name, otherwise we've got to dig up a marriage license."

Loraine protested, "I don't have access to any marriage licenses, John Lamoia. Don't go asking me to get that as well, 'cause that's the second floor, and I've got nothing to do with those people. You want that, you're just gonna have to come back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's too late," Lamoia said, meeting eyes with Boldt. "No kidding?" Loraine asked, looking up at Lamoia, the seriousness of the situation sinking in. "Schmidt," he directed her, pointing to the keyboard. "What else could that be but a maiden name?"

"Some other kind of family name," Boldt suggested, hoping he was wrong. Lamoia's face tightened. They both looked on as the woman typed in the name and issued several menu-driven commands. "Here goes," she said.

The screen went blank. Boldt felt a sickening depression overtake him. He was exhausted, hungry, and now he was stuck in a dead end. "Don't get all stinky, lover," she said to Boldt. "This thing can be slow."

The screen filled with a long list of Schmidts, starting with Alfred. "Next page," Lamoia instructed. "I know."

Screen after screen of Schmidts. Dozens of names. "There!" Lamoia said. He pointed to: Schmidt, Priscilla. "That could be her."

Loraine's painted nail ran across a line to a box that was a jumble of dozens of capital letters and numbers. "Legal description of the property," she said. "John, read it off for me, will you?"

She jumped out of her chair. Boldt followed her over to the row of bound maps. She selected the one for King County-North. "Read slow now, lover," she said.

Lamoia read the first coordinates. Loraine found the corresponding latitude number on the edge of the map. She turned to page forty-two. She located the same number here. "Next," she said.

Lamoia read off the next number. Spreading her fingers like the points of a drafting compass, Loraine found this number as well. Her fingers closed in on each other, each representing a grid coordinate. There were dozens, hundreds, of boxes representing land parcels, each with a name inside. Most read Hollybrook-one of the largest timber/paper companies in the Northwest.

Boldt heard himself say, "Come on. Come on," as he watched her fingers come together. She moved her finger out of the way, and there was the name: Schmidt. "Skykomish River quadrangle," she announced. "Snoqualmie National Forest, Tolt Reservior. Bingo!""We're there?" Lamoia asked incredulously. "We're there?" he repeated excitedly. She answered, "I'll make you a photocopy, lover. I'll put you in her backyard."

Pamela Chase drove as if she were on her way to a fire. She reached the unpaved county road that accessed Tegg's farm, lost the back end of the car in a skid, and nearly put the car in the trees. He had tried to drug her' She couldn't get over that She had swallowed one of the Valiums, but had managed to snag the other in her teeth. It was in his front yard now. She was driving fast, not only to reach the farm quickly, but to beat the Valium. It was already taking effect: Her anxiety level had lessened noticeably in the last few minutes-her fingers were no longer welded to the steering wheel; she was no longer grinding her teeth. The more relaxed she felt, the more terrified she became. He had said that he would call her in the morning, but what for? He acted like he owned her, as if she were one of his trained dogs. She felt dirty. She felt foolish. How had she allowed herself to be carried along by him for so long? What kind of person was she?

Not the kind of person to condone a heart harvest, she answered herself. She intended to put an end to that, but quick!

She pulled in to the farm and shut off her car. From the Quonset hut came the ferocious barking of the dogs.

Sight of the small turn-of-the-century cabin and its accompanying sheet-metal Quonset hut gave her a renewed sense of the extreme seclusion of this place. She was glad for his dinner party: She wouldn't want him to catch her out here.

She left the car and approached the cabin slowly, despite the urgency she felt. Her feet floated along. The Valium, subtle in its approach, was difficult to resist. Confusion reigned, for she still wanted to believe in him. That belief had given her several years of happiness. By coming here, she hoped as much to disprove her suspicions as prove them. She couldn't get him out of her mind-it was as if he were right here with her, disapproving of each step she took toward betrayal. She could hear his arguments. He could be so convincing. She glanced over her shoulder nervously. The clouds were breaking up; there was a moon out tonight. A black-and-white patchquilt played over the meadow. She caught herself staring; she was feeling impossibly good.

The spare key was missing. Why would he remove it? Unless ... She found a rock and smashed it through the window. She had to hurry. The Valium was taking hold. "Things work out for the best," a voice inside her called. "Relax." She tried her best to ignore it. The glass shattered into the kitchen. She reached through the hole, knowing where to find the release, but nicked her forearm in the process. It hurt, but it didn't bother her. The door swung open. To a stranger, the cabin might appear abandoned, the spare amount of leftover furniture from another era. A former hunting cabin, perhaps. Tegg had kept it looking this way intentionally, to discourage trespassers from breaking in. He was paranoid about trespassers discovering the basement lab-the ad hoc surgical suite-though she didn't know why. She had never seen another soul anywhere around here.

Although the recovery room they used was in the cellar next to the surgical suite, he could be keeping this woman in any of the bedrooms. She decided to search the cabin top to bottom.

Unless he had fixed them, the upstairs lights didn't work. She tried them. He hadn't fixed them. He kept a flashlight at the top of the cellar stairs. She banged her way through the kitchen and found it, switched it on. She moved quickly through the rooms on the first floor. Nothing. No one.

She climbed the stairs, feeling strangely light and disconnected from her body. Happy. On the top landing, she faced two small bedrooms and a tiny bathroom, the floor of which was an old, chipped linoleum, burgundy red with black fleur-delis prints.

The sink and toilet were discolored and mineralstained. The flashlight's yellow beam wandered the walls. The cold faucet dripped into a patinated teardrop. She twisted the handle and it stopped dripping. Something stirred within her-she could feel the danger here. Like an animal lifting its head in the forest, she sniffed the air. It smelled metallic, tangy. Worse, she knew that smell: blood. She felt lightheaded as she stepped toward the wicker hamper the source of that smell. She had never known him to use the hamper, and this added to her confusion and anxiety. Typically, she brought the surgical laundry back to the clinic from here. It then went out with the regular service. Standing alongside the hamper now, towering over it, she stopped herself; she didn't want to know what was inside.

It frightened her to imagine what she might find. She reached out tentatively, took hold of the hamper's lid, hesitated, and then yanked it open suddenly. She aimed the flashlight inside. At the sight of its contents, she shrieked at the top of her lungs and jumped back. There, in a heap, covered in an unbelievable amount of dried blood, lay his surgical smock. She felt instinctively that this was human blood-Sharon's blood. He had already done the heart. Something had gone.horribly wrong with the procedure.

The hamper lid thumped shut. Pamela felt half crazy, the panic and terror rising from inside her attempting to supersede the ever-increasing medicated bliss of the Valium. As she raced downstairs to confirm her suspicions, she wondered: Was he the only one to blame? Couldn't he blame her, as well, for refusing to assist? Her head swam.

She hurried down the narrow steps that led to the cellar. When she reached the bottom, she aimed the flashlight at the wall switch as she reached to turn on the lights. Dried blood.

The operating room was unlocked! impossible! Suddenly the various evidence she was collecting added up to something else entirely: the bloody clothes left in the hamper, the unlocked door. Not like Elden. Someone else must have broken in here and vandalized the place.

She was afraid to look any farther. What was on the other side of the operating room door? Tentatively, using the toe of her shoe, she encouraged it to open slowly, prepared for a quick retreat.

Light poured into the room from the bare bulb over her head. A mess! A nightmare. A bloody terror! It looked like a city hospital emergency room after a gang war. She switched on the lights.

The instruments had not been cleaned up. The sternal retractor, the scalpels, the hemostats, the table, the floor, all covered in an unbelievable amount of dried blood. The policewoman had used the term victim. Pamela had resented it, had misunderstood it at the time, but now it rang true.

Panic stormed her system, contained in part by the drug coursing through her veins. She felt pulled in two directions by everything around her. On one level she loved Elden Tegg, but now she feared him; she felt a loyalty to him, but knew she would betray him; she wanted to blame him, but in part she blamed herself; she felt frightened and terrified, she felt impossibly at peace.

A massacre. A murder? A shock collar. It was resting alongside the hemostats. She felt a bubble of nervous laughter escape her. A shock collar. It could mean only one thing: a dog. Not a human, not murder. No human victim. A dog! Part of his research?

She had mistrusted him. She had doubted his intentions. She had allowed the police to sway her, just as he had warned. How could she have made such assumptions? How could she have lost her faith in him so quickly? She hated herself for it.

Excited by her discovery, thrilled to prove her earlier suspicions incorrect, she hurried into the recovery room. Its walls and ceilings were also encased in plastic. The flashlight caught the narrow cot pushed up against the wall and then the window to the outside. Even at this distance the barking of the dogs from the kennel sounded unnaturally loud. She had never noticed this before. Perhaps it was the Valium hearing that barking. Perhaps she had never listened.

Why wasn't Sharon here, as she half expected? The flashlight illuminated the painted window again, and she had her answer.

Then the barking of the dogs registered fully: There were no windows in the kennel, no chance at escape.

Out the cellar door. Up the steps. Across the field toward the Quonset hut. She clung to the hope that the presence of the shock collar meant something a dog, not a human. Not Sharon. One less dog in the kennel would prove it. And she, for one, would not feel too sad about that. These pit bulls of his were terrors-many of them trained that way well before he had "saved" them from death. His surgical experiments on them did nothing to improve their disposition.

Having forgotten the key to the kennel, she had to run back to the operating room to get it. In the process she grew more elated at her discovery of the shock collar. She no longer attributed her bliss to the drug she had taken; she had forgotten all about it. Losing her awareness of the fact, she crossed a threshold. The Valium owned her for now.

Elden had done no wrong. Everything was going to be fine." In fact, the way she felt, things were really looking up.

The Isuzu rode high in the traffic, making it an easy target for Daphne to follow. Wherever possible, Daphne kept at least one car between herself and Tegg, though by his hurried, nearly reckless driving, she doubted he was paying much attention to what was behind him. He seemed hell-bent on getting to where he was going.

He took 1-5 north but stayed on it only briefly, heading east on 90. He stayed on the Interstate through Bellevue, continuing on toward the 901. She had followed him out of the city limits, had driven right out of her legal authority as a policewoman.

She was a Seattle cop; out here police authority was divided between King County Police and the police departments of the incorporated townships. She was technically a civilian now.

He drove seventy wherever possible. The farther away from the city, the more isolated she felt. If he would only stop for gas-if he would only give her a minute or so to make a phone call, to call in some backup. But he barreled along into the night, and she followed a hundred yards back.

At Preston he left the interstate and took the 203 north toward Fall City.

The farther they went, the more nervous she became. She was in over her head and she knew it. What if he did lead her to Sharon? What then? The gun? A confrontation? In the last six years she had negotiated eleven hostage situations for the department and had a perfect record. But those had been team efforts, team pressures, team resources. The only hostage situation she had failed at-one that wasn't counted on the department records-had been her own. Boldt had solved that one with his weapon, but only after the abductor had drawn his knife across her throat.

Was she capable of using the gun as it was made to be used?

Cardboard silhouettes were one thing, a human life another thing entirely.

Only minutes later she followed Tegg into the small town of Fall City, and shortly thereafter he turned south on 202. She was alone with him now, and she worried he would spot her. She fell well behind, but with the increased distance she risked losing him.

They passed Spring Glen, crossed over the dark and sullen Tokul River and turned left toward Snoqualmie Falls. They drove through town, crossed the railroad tracks, and headed south, following the tracks.

Less than a mile later, his blinker signaled a left turn and the Trooper disappeared from sight. Had he taken this turn with the sole intention of losing her? Of trapping her? Was he waiting to see whether she followed? Or was he oblivious to her presence? There were glimpses of moonlight tonight, the sky a grid of broken clouds. She couldn't continue to follow him as she had been; they were too far off the beaten track for that. What to do? They had passed a tavern on the outskirts of town. Should she go back and telephone for help? Risk losing him?.

She slowed, a headache beating unmercifully at her temples.

She switched off her headlights and turned down the darkened lane, following his taillights just barely visible a half-mile in front of her. It was a macadam road, tar mixed with crushed stone. When the moon passed behind the clouds it forced her to slow to a crawl. When it reappeared, she drove quickly, closing the distance between them. Cat and mouse, she caught him and lost him, caught him and lost him. Her headache drove spikes down into her neck. Her calf muscle cramped from carrying the tension there as well.

The road turned to mud. Twice she drove past side roads where his taillights and his tracks said he'd gone. She backed up, worried he might spot the backup lights, made the turn, and followed. It was a spiderweb of dirt roads out here; mud sprayed loudly onto the undercarriage. The front-wheel drive held the car close to the road. A left. A right. She would never find her way out of here. If this was a spiderweb, she thought, then he was the spider and she was the prey. Perhaps he had her exactly where he wanted her. Perhaps he had known she was back here all along.

Pamela Chase fumbled awkwardly nervously-with the oversized brass padlock, finally inserting and turning the key. The dogs were going crazy in there. The lock came open with a loud pop. She leapt away as a dog's nose and teeth jammed through the crack in the door surprising her. Biting at her. She placed her hand out for the dog to smell. It whined. It tried for her again, and she recognized that nose. "Felix?" she said. "Did you get out of your cage, boy?" She eased the door open, her hand-her scent-leading her. Felix approached and nuzzled her. A few of the other dogs stopped barking. She closed the door behind her.

It smelled horrible in here. He hadn't been keeping it clean.

It smelled wrong. Not exactly like dogs. It was dark, and she could not see clearly.

She switched on the lights. The very first pen she looked at was unoccupied, and her mind jumped to the immediate conclusion that this dog had been the one to receive the surgery. Finding an empty pen was exactly what she had hoped for-it exonerated Elden; another warm wave of tranquility passed through her at the sight of it.

Behind her and farther into the structure, she heard a collar sound its warning beep, and one of the dogs smash into the cage wall. She turned to see who was being so rambunctious.

A woman! Her hair tangled and matted, one eye bandaged, her mouth gagged, lips worn raw, a shock collar locked around her neck.

Pamela screamed. The woman screamed soundlessly. The dogs began barking ferociously again.

A bandage covering a kidney scar. Badly infected, by the color.

"Sharon?" Pamela asked tentatively.

The woman's one good eye cocked toward her suspiciously.

Untrusting.

Pamela felt weak, unable to move, without strength. This roller coaster between euphoria and horror was nearly intolerable. Only a moment before...

The kidney bandage cried out to her. How could she have done such a thing? Was she to be party to a murder? And what did that mean about Elden? Had he ever told her the truth about anything? She felt sick to her stomach-the smell, the pleading expression on this poor woman's face. And then another wave of calm swept through her, and she felt much less upset. She could handle this; everything was okay.

And then it struck her again that she was at least partly responsible. Where did her own involvement stop and Tegg's begin?

The woman in the cage-Sharon-laced her fingers through the wire cage and shook, deliberately ignoring the punishment of the shock collar that beeped its warning.

No apparent pain. The dogs were wild with excitement, but Pamela was used to the dogs, she hardly heard them; it was this woman's exceptional behavior that impressed her and held her interest. Pamela took several steps closer. How could she inflict that kind of punishment on herself and endure it?

"I'm coming," she announced, wondering why she was walking, not running. Wondering how she could feel this comfortable.

Pamela seized hold of the lock attempting to communicate to Sharon that she intended to get her out of here.

Sharon pointed and nodded violently. "The key?" Pamela asked.

"Is there a key in this building?"

The woman shook her head. "I'm going to get you out," Pamela said confidently, unsure where such confidence came from.

The captive nodded enthusiastically. She looked around. Without a key, then what? The shovel? Could she beat the lock apart? She walked over to the shovel, knowing she should hurry, but strangely in no hurry. it was okay. Everything was okay.

Sharon became frantic. Shouting. Waving her arms. Slapping the cement floor. Hopping up and down. God, she looked like one of the animals.

What was this? Several of the dogs quieted; they all began pacing their cages at once.

Sharon kept slapping the cement, in an ungainly primitive dance.

Pamela struck the lock with the end of the shovel. Nothing.

She tried again. "I'm trying," she told the frantic woman inside. This woman's behavior was making her nervous. "Stop it!" she said. Only when she identified this fleeting nervousness did she realize what a huge dose of Valium it must have been-there was a gulf between how she should have been, and what she actually was, feeling.

She struck the lock with the shovel again. Nothing.Now Sharon was shaking her wrist toward the main door. Pounding the cement again and pointing hysterically toward the door.

Finally, Pamela understood as she felt a rumble under her feet.

The dogs barking had covered the approaching sounds, but now Pamela heard them distinctly.

A car! But if a car, it could only be one of two people: Maybeck or Elden. And if either of them caught her in here doing this

Sharon grabbed hold of the cage again. Her collar sounded and Pamela watched as the collar punished her. She held on an impossibly long time. She pointed emphatically toward the door.

Close the door! Of course! Pamela moved quite quickly now, surprising herself. First toward the door; then, stopping, she returned to the cage and started in with the shovel again.

She should have never come here, she thought. All a mistake.

She glanced toward the door. Sharon pointed furiously. "I know," Pamela said. "I know." What Sharon didn't understand was that there was no way to lock that door from the inside. The only hope now was to get her free of the cage.

She never should have gone against him, she realized. He was too powerful for her.

She dropped the shovel, abandoning her efforts. It clanked to the floor. She felt terrified of him before she ever saw him. The Valium did little to help with this fear.

Sharon let out a muffled, anguished cry. The dogs went completely hysterical. Pamela wanted to disappear, to vanish. Anything but face his wrath. She had glimpsed his anger before. She shook with fear, unable to imagine how he might react to this.

The door creaked. Sharon retreated, curling back into a ball in the center of her cage.

Pamela felt like hiding, too. She watched as a hand pushed open the door.

She knew that hand.

Daphne had the Prelude up to forty, which in the dim light of an inconsistent moon seemed more like twice that. She careened through puddles, sending water up in a torrential spray, blurring her windshield and demanding the wipers.

She had lost him. A few seconds earlier his taillights had been distant but visible. She had slowed to avoid pressing herself on him. When she caught herself giving him too much leeway, she had sped back up. Now, he was nowhere to be seen.

She pushed the car a little harder, a little faster. Dangerous at best, given the slippery conditions and the lack of visibility. They had been on these backroads for the better part of fifteen minutes-it seemed more like an hour.

There! She just caught a glimpse of some lights out of the corner of her eye. She craned her neck to look out the mudsplattered side window. Was that a road?

A painful cramp stabbed into her neck and locked. She cried out.

Her hand just barely tugged the wheel. She forced her head back around as the car began a weightless crabbing to the right, drifting slowly on all four tires, the front end surrendering to momentum and releasing its careful grip. Like a rock tossed out onto a frozen pond. She corrected the wheel to the right. Waited. Nothing. Cut it back. Nothing. Drifting, like a chain was pulling her off the road. She tapped the brakes tentatively, and that did it: The car seemed to snap; the back end swung completely around on her-she was looking back from where she had just come, flying backwards now. Pitch black. Vertigo. Perilously close to the ditch. Mud flying everywhere. The horrible sound of machinery doing what it wasn't designed to do.

She jerked the wheel to the right with authority and bounced her foot off the brake again. A rear tire caught on something. The front end of the car jumped so fast, so hard, that it stole the wheel from her hands. The front end bounced into the shallow drainage ditch. Her head slammed hard against the side glass. The car came to a grinding halt, its engine still running.

She just sat there for a moment collecting herself, checking herself with small movements, the flexing of a muscle, the movement of a joint. She got control of her breathing, though her heart was lost to adrenaline. It took the better part of a minute to get her vision down to one image.

No time! it suddenly occurred to her. In the heat of the moment she had forgotten what she was even doing out here. She forced the car into first gear-it didn't want to go-and let out the clutch. There was a bad noise, but then the front tires suddenly spun. She felt the tire dig a hole in what seemed like a fraction of a second. The front end sank perceptibly.

She tried to back up, tried to go forward: mired. The car rocked once, and then dug in deeply one final time. She climbed out. The car was beached, high centered on the lip of the ditch, both front tires rutted in up to their hubs.

She grabbed the keys. She kept jumper cables, snow chains, and a heavy-duty black rubber flashlight in the trunk' She grabbed the flashlight, pocketed the keys, and took off at a run through the sloppy mud.

The flashlight showed her the path of her car: an improbable tangle of deep ruts, crisscrossed and pretzled, that led back to two perfectly straight tire tracks and the arching curve of Tegg's tires where the four-wheel drive had turned. She followed Tegg's tracks up a road that quickly narrowed.

She found the edge of the road easier for running, though her TopSiders became heavy with mud. After about fifty yards it narrowed again, and the texture became more gravel than mud, although it remained spongy. The flashlight caught an occasional boot print, washed by the recent rains, but clearly distinguishable. Now that she caught onto it, it was one long line of boot tracks coming right at her-someone either exceptionally tall or running fast.

It was then that for some reason it occurred to her that this was in fact not a road at all.

It was a driveway.

The Keeper stood in the doorway, backlit by moonlight and a finger of fog that reached to the ground. Sharon had witnessed his entry several times, but only once before had he paused there like that, emanating a menace that even the dogs seemed to feel.

Sharon's eye stung badly. A hot, shooting pain bit into her side where the bandage covered her scar. Her neck was hot from the collar. Her ears were ringing.

Only a few short minutes ago she had been on the verge of being rescued, but she shrank from that hope now. The Keeper was too powerful. This young woman was no match for him, even though by the way they looked at each other there seemed to be a strong connection between them.

The dogs remained silent, though they continued to pace anxiously. The Keeper stepped inside and closed the door firmly behind him. He called, "Heel!" The guard dog obeyed, circling behind the man and sitting quickly by his side.

Sharon, who had lived through hundreds of dangerous incidents while out on the street, felt the impending threat that dog represented. "I'm sorry," the young woman mumbled, head down. Subservient. "But this isn't right," she dared voice. "I expected so much more of you," he said, his voice reverberating eerily in the steel building. Sharon felt invisible. He had yet to even glance in her direction. Instead, his full concentration remained focused on this other woman.

The Keeper continued, "You didn't do as I said. You have failed me."

"This is wrong, Elden," she countered.

For the first time Sharon could attach a name to this man, this monster. It was a strange name and somehow fitting. Strange to be fully prepared to kill a man whose name you don't even know. The needle warmed in her palm. "You could help me, you know. You could prove yourself. There's work to be done."

"You've gone way too far," she said to the cement. "It's over." She wouldn't look at him; she knew better than to look at him.

Sharon couldn't keep her eyes off him. He drew her into himself like a hypnotist. "Pamela," he said-and now this young woman had a name as well-"since when do you refuse me?"

The woman looked up at him.

Pamela's face felt hot. Her brain was like jelly. She wanted to resist him, but it was so difficult. She had worshipped him for so long, and now her anger, mingled with shame and fear, felt like spikes in the middle of her chest. Her emotions wouldn't stay focused for long; another wave of warmth would drive them away. "Who do you think you are?" she asked, clinging to a shard of righteousness. "A woman's life is at stake!" His face and neck reddened. Felix panted impatiently. "How can you say such things? Hmm? I suggest you consider your situation more carefully," he said, gripping the dog's collar. "Are you frightened? The police frightened you, didn't they?"

The police? Sharon thought. Was it possible?

Pamela stepped up to Sharon's cage and took hold of the lock.

"Open it," she said to him. "Get away from there!" Tegg warned in that sharp voice. He gave the dog's heavy collar a tug, and it came to its feet. "Give me the key. I'll do it," Pamela said, her voice shaking. "We can give her the electroshock, can't we? Some Ketamine and electroshock. We can leave her at a hospital, no one the wiser. We dismantle everything here and what's there to find?" It took every bit of her strength to address him like this. "You said it yourself: The police don't have anything. They're fishing is all. We can still do this, Elden. We can still get out of this."

"We most certainly cannot. I told you: There's a contract. There are things of which you have no idea. I have a plan! It's all settled." "Settled? It can't be settled. Give me the key."

"Of course I won't. Use your head."

Pamela picked up the shovel. "We can still save her, Elden.

Contracts can be broken." She felt as if she were dealing with a child. This wasn't the same man of even a week ago. "You're not well," she told him. "Away from there!" he roared.

She had chosen the wrong words. Her knees trembled. His strength was overwhelming, almost like a bright light you can't look at. She wanted to please him, to help him.

He stepped toward her. Felix followed. "Stand back," he ordered. Her heart sank, but she felt her feet refuse to obey. What was happening to her?

She raised the shovel and delivered another blow. To her joy, although the lock remained closed, the latch broke a rivet and the door came partially open.

Sharon felt the hair on her arms stand at attention. Freedom?

Was it possible?

The Keeper mechanically jerked his head toward her and shouted, "Stay right where you are!"

Sharon thought of the needle in her hand. She'd never managed to come up with a plan for the dog, but one step at a time, she reminded herself.

Pamela said, "How can you justify taking one life in order to save another? What sense is there in that?"

The Keeper's expression hardened. "What sense?" His shoulders went military and he shook his head. "Lift your shirt, Pamela."

He repeated, "Remove your shirt. Now! Don't question me, Pamela. Show it to me!" His tone was that of a doctor-clinical and authoritative. Pamela stunned Sharon by removing her jacket and unbuttoning her shirt, allowing it to hang open.

From that moment on, Sharon knew it was over. Pamela had given in. She was his.

Below her ribs was a five-inch scar. "Touch it for me," he instructed. Pamela shook her head in one last try at defiance. "No, I won't."

"Do it!" he thundered. Tears came to her eyes.

She reached down and traced the long scar with a quivering fingertip.

He nodded. "I saved you. Hmm? I delivered, when no one else was able. Let me tell you this, when one faces losing a young friend as precious, as individual as you, one becomes capable of things he never dreamed possible." He experienced one of those tics then-his head jerking, his shoulder lifting, his eyes squinting shut. Sharon had witnessed this once before. He straightened himself, like a man adjusting his tie, and continued as if nothing had happened. "I told you a little white lie, a little fib back then, because to do otherwise would have caused you undue anxiety and might have interfered with your recovery. Hmm? Do you remember asking me about where I had located your liver? Hmm? I may not have done the actual transplant, but I saved your life-you know that's true. The truth is inescapable, is it not? It is the biggest burden of all. Hmm? Did you sense the truth? I suspect you did. You must have thought at some point that it hadn't really come from a trauma patient ... No, of course it didn't. But I protected you from the truth because I knew how it would hurt you."

Pamela sobbed and sank to her knees. She was mumbling to herself, but Sharon couldn't understand a word. "That's what I'm offering you now, you know. Protection. But you don't seem to see that. Protection from them: the police; your parents; your fears. But you must join me. Hmm? Not go against me. I can protect you. Believe me." "You lied to me?" she asked incredulously. "What did you think happened to Anna?" he asked.

Pamela covered her ears. The man raised his voice to her ear.

"Did it ever strike you as odd that Anna just up and disappeared at the same time you were seriously ill? You must have thought of that!" He said, "There was an accident-a fatal accident-and there she was." He pointed to the floor. "What was I to do? I tested her blood type, that's what! A godsend is what it was. She was your blood type ... You live because another died, and yet you would deny it for someone else?"

"Nooooo!" she screamed. She came at him with the shovel raised high.

Sharon broke for the door to her cage. "Stop!" he commanded Sharon, his finger pointed at her ominously.

The Keeper flickered his wrist next to the dog's eyes. He uttered but a single word: "Hit!"

The pit bull sprang forward. The Keeper dodged the swing of the shovel. The dog leaped several feet into the air and knocked Pamela to the cement. "Back!" The Keeper ordered, but the starving dog would not obey. "Back!" he demanded, sensing his loss of control. "Off of her!!" The dog was wild with hunger and the scent of the blood. The Keeper lifted the shovel and went after the dog.

Sharon looked away. The sounds of the slaughter echoed throughout the building. The Keeper shouted, he struck the dog again and again, but the dog's will overcame it all.

Sharon fainted. When she awakened, it was dark in the kennel.

She heard a car racing away.

Moving arrows of white light shot through the trees, followed by the growing whine of a car engine advancing steadily toward her. Daphne switched off the flashlight and darted into the trees as that sound grew increasingly louder. Tegg or some stranger? Maybe this wasn't a driveway after all, the way it seemed to go on forever.

She hid behind a tree, standing completely still as the vehicle passed, her breathing competing with the sound of tires in the mud. It was the Troopertegg. Wherever he had been for the last half hour, he was now leaving.

She headed back onto the road and took up running again, though this time with the light off, guided only by the glow of a broken moon. She checked over her shoulder repeatedly: If he returned the way he had come, perhaps he was gone for good; if, however, he turned left at the end of this long road, he would come across her car and most certainly return.

She ran faster, rounding two long turns. All at once the road spilled out into a clearing. The moon played its game of hide-and-seek, disappearing and denying her any sight of what lay ahead. It was far too dark to see anything clearly, but she edged her way tentatively out into the muddy, rutwormed driveway and followed it slowly up a rise. A large, heavy shape loomed to her right, another smaller, more angular shape directly ahead.

The moon cleared the clouds and it was like someone turning on the stage lights: ahead of her an old two-story homesteader log cabin; to her right, the large arcing curve of a Quonset hut.

No lights in the cabin. A single vehicle parked that she recognized immediately as belonging to Pamela Chase. A sense of dread filled her-had there been two people in the Trooper? She had seen the outline of only one. Had it been Tegg or Pamela Chase? Could she be certain?

She switched on the flashlight and sprinted to the cabin, drawing her weapon as she went. She could feel her heart clear up in her throat. She tried to swallow the lump away. Was Sharon here? She attempted to blink away the annoying white sparks that interfered with her vision. It had been two long years since she had tasted terror.

She climbed the wooden stairs, slipped off the gun's safety, and made herself alert for the slightest noise. A board creaked slightly underfoot.

The Quonset hut exploded in barking. It so startled her that she dropped to one knee and trained her gun in that direction, the flashlight tucked immediately beneath the weapon. For a moment she couldn't catch her breath, she was so surprised and startled. Frightened.

The dogs howled constantly for the better part of a minute and then gave it up to silence. Daphne, winded from the exhausting run, collected herself. She stood and circled the perimeter of the cabin, sliding her back against the logs, rushing quickly across the windows, weapon pointed through the glass. The kitchen door was open, its window broken. She edged it open with the toe of her shoe, and stepped inside, glass crunching beneath her shoes. She moved stealthily room to room, her weapon and flashlight held as a team, jerking around door frames and leveling the gun.

She climbed the stairs to the tightly confined second floor and continued her search. She entered a very small bedroom, the floor dotted with mouse pellets and dust balls. A mass grave of dead flies was collected at the bottom of the window frame from which one of the panes of glass was missing, the wood around it moldy.

She stepped up to this window and looked out on the Quonset hut below, hearing a loud hum coming from the building. At first she couldn't place it. His car returning? she wondered, panicked by the thought. As the moonlight intensified, a shadow raced from one end of the Quonset hut to the other, as if someone had yanked away a huge cover, and she identified the source of the sound as a vent stack plugged into the corrugated roof. A furnace.

Why heat a Quonset hut-even a kennel, if that's what it was?

They hadn't had frost in six weeks.

She hurried down the stairs, wondering whether to check the cellar before the Quonset hut. She had to! She descended slowly, her pulse thumping in her ears. It smelled like Dixon's autopsy room down here, and it terrified her. Light from the flashlight played off the stone walls. The storm doors to the outside were open, letting in the night. She reached the bottom of the stairs, gun poised, and turned right. Nudged open a door. Stepped inside.

The light revealed a plastic room, a shiny gray. It found the overhead surgical light and lowered onto the bloodstained operating table.

She was sure then what the furnace was for. She went off at a sprint. Up the cellar stairs, out into the cool night air. She fell to her knees and vomited. She stood and ran harder. The Quonset hut seemed to fade away from her. Her vision dimmed. Hyperventilating. Her feet sloshed through the wet grass.

She reached the door to the shed, the dogs barking frantically, and found an enormous padlock containing it. She stepped back, aimed her weapon, and shot four consecutive rounds. Two hit the lock but did nothing to open it, boring holes through the metal to no effect. Two others penetrated the galvanized metal, lost to the inside of the shed.

When she heard a rhythmic banging, obscured by the barking, she caught herself immediately and stopped firing. What had she been thinking? "Sharon?" she shouted, paying no consideration to the possibility of someone-a guard, Tegg-being nearby.

Daphne reared back and kicked the door repeatedly. It didn't budge. She grabbed hold of the lock. It was hot. One shot had struck it cleanly, damaging the casing, but the lock itself remained intact.

She circled the building, beating on the walls with the butt of her gun. Three quarters of the way down one wall, a return signal echoed back. Tears streaming from her eyes, Daphne shouted to the wall, "I'm coming in!" She came completely around the building: no other doors.

Deciding the structure's only door was far enough away from Sharon's location inside, Daphne elected to use the gun one more time. She placed the barrel's opening directly in contact with the brass lock, stretched her arm straight out, averted her eyes, leaned fully away, and squeezed the trigger. The dogs were barking so loudly that the discharge sounded more like a hand clap.

A piece of shrapnel sliced into her lower leg, barely noticed as she inspected her target. An oversized bullet hole was bored through the center of the lock, which otherwise remained intact. She slammed it against the door repeatedly, frustrated and angry.

She checked her leg. It was a pea-sized wound, the metal lodged inside. It was bleeding, through not badly. With each passing second, the pain intensified.

She knew then that she had to find another way inside. That lock wasn't coming off. She hurried to Pamela's vehicle and climbed inside. No key! She pounded her fist on the dashboard in frustration. She spotted an old tractor, grass growing up around it, but even from thirty yards away it was apparent that it hadn't run in years.

She came out of the car. Limping, she circled the building again. There had to be another way inside.

When the furnace kicked off, she looked up and realized there was.

Tegg knew the exact location where his cellular came back into range, a small rise in the road just prior to Maud Lake. He pulled over, leaving the Trooper running, and dialed Wong Kei's cellular number, which was now routed through the Vancouver telephone system. Wong Kei answered coldly, "Speak." Tegg said, "This is me." He looked down at the hand trembling in his lap and wondered if it really belonged to him, if anything was really as it seemed.

Felix had massacred Pamela, one of the few persons he had seen as a part of his future-his budding young protege. Had turned her into a bloody pulp. She was now inside the first pen, contained in two black garbage bags. Pamela. Witnessing the slaughter, attempting to stop it, had drained him. "Our plans are moved forward," Tegg advised. "What? Impossible!" the man protested. "Tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning!"

"Tonight.

Now," Tegg declared. "I'll call from the airport. Expect me around," he checked his watch, "midnight, maybe a little after. You'll have to move quickly: It will be two hours and counting by the time I reach you. We will have used up half our time." "Impossible!" the tight voice complained. "Make it happen. I'm on my way." He pushed: END. He stared at the button's simple message.

He could find ice in Snoqualmie Falls. He would chain and lock the main gate, use the old fire trail at the back of the property as his escape route. If he got into a panic about time, he could put the harvest off until later; sedate Sharon, hide her in the back seat under a blanket. in the far back of the Trooper he carried everything necessary for field surgery.

Why not? Head north-enter Canada through the logging trails, do the harvest somewhere out there. Get the money from Wong Kei-he needed that money now more than ever. Stick with the plan.

The old saying was right: There was more than one way to skin a cat.

A human, too, if it came to that.

With the gun returned to its holster and the flashlight protruding awkwardly from her pocket, Daphne used a planter box stood on end as a ladder and scaled the Quonset hut's wall to the roof. The constant howling of the dogs served to remind her what awaited her inside. Optimism fueled her: Sharon was alive!

When she reached the lower lip of the curved roof, she hooked one leg up and over the edge and slid herself carefully onto it. It was cold and wet, and her clothes were immediately soaked through.

Her cheek pressed to the galvanized roof, her fingers groping for purchase, she inched her way up to the ridge, where she pulled herself up to a straddle. With her hands now free, she trained the flashlight onto the vent stack and inspected it, finding her first bit of encouragement: It was surrounded by a poor patchwork of rubber, sheet metal and caulk, all applied haphazardly.

Through the hole, the barking grew louder.

She stuffed the light under her knee, leaned down and pulled on the stack. It popped loose almost effortlessly. She tore at the materials, bending the stack to one side, prying open a hole large enough to stuff herself into. She poked her head into the hole and gasped with the smell, coming up immediately for air. She aimed the flashlight inside, locating the steel frame of the propane furnace suspended from the ceiling. The furnace itself was about the size of a dishwasher. Beneath it she saw the cyclone-wire cage of a dog kennel, the dog's red eyes trained up at her. The furnace's superstructure offered her a platform for her descent.

She lowered herself inside. Her gun snagged on one of the furnace's angle-iron struts and threw her off balance. The gun ejected from the holster and disappeared into the dark, banging somewhere below her. Instinctively, she reached out to try to catch it, but hit the hot face of the furnace instead and burned herself. She let go and fell, crashing onto the top of the dog cage.

Directly below her the dog leapt up, snapping viciously at her through the wire. She moved and heard the flashlight rolling away from her. She pounced for it, but only managed to knock it off the cage. When it hit the cement floor it flickered off and then back on as it bounced and rolled.

There, across the room, the light found a woman, stark naked. A bandaged eye. Another bandage on her side. Leather straps around her head holding a gag in her mouth, a heavy collar around her neck. Sharon was up on her knees, her one good eye staring hopefully at Daphne, an I.V. running from a bag overhead. A large bloodstain was smeared in front of the cage. "Sharon?" Daphne called out in horror. Could it be?

Sharon Shaffer cried with joy.

Daphne saw the other dog then; he was not in a cage but loose in the aisle. And he was coming right at her, teeth bared.

Unable to stomach these speeds, Boldt chose to look over at Lamoia instead. The blue police light, stuck haphazardly to the dash, pulsed a sterile wash across the car's hood, reflected back onto their faces. The siren wailed loudly but did little to part the traffic ahead of them; people ignored sirens for the most part.

Boldt jerked to one side as Lamoia cut the wheel sharply and passed another slow-moving vehicle. "Asshole," he cursed under his breath. This car honked angrily at them, as if they were in the wrong. Lamoia honked back and flipped the guy the bird.

They had made two stops prior to this: Pamela Chase's apartment and Elden Tegg's home. The former was deserted, the latter in the midst of a dinner party, though the front lawn looked as if some teenager had driven across it.

Tegg's wife had been evasive but under pressure from Boldt had admitted that her husband was not at home, having left about an hour earlier. When Lamoia asked about use of their property in Snoqualmie, the woman said she wanted to phone her lawyer. "Let me guess," Boldt said. "Howard Chamberland."

"Why, yes," she admitted, her face reddening.

Boldt, worried about Daphne, called a patrol car to check the clinic as he and Lamoia headed for 1-90 and Snoqualmie Falls. When it came back to them that no cars were parked in the back lot and that the clinic was locked up tight and dark, he telephoned the King County Police to alert them that SPD Homicide had a possible hostage situation north of Snoqualmie Falls and would appreciate cooperation. Five minutes later a call came back saying that two four-wheel-drive cruisers would rendezvous with them at the intersection of the Burlington Northern tracks and state highway 202. An Air Rescue helicopter, an ambulance, and the local hospital were all oncall. Boldt requested that the ambulance join the cruisers at the rendezvous. "Done," said the dispatcher. "Not quite," mumbled Lamoia as he cut the car across three lanes and just barely caught the exit for 203 north.

Boldt shut his eyes and said, "Tell me when it's over."

Daphne jumped back, avoiding the jaws of the dog. His ear was cut, his face covered in dried blood. Her gun was lost, having fallen inside the dog pen through a gap between the two cross supports onto which she had dropped.

From across the room, Sharon attempted to shout at her through the gag. It filled Daphne with a sickening pity. Sharon inched forward on stiff legs and seized hold of the chain-link cyclone fence with both hands. A loud buzzer sounded. Her entire body shook with the jolt of electricity.

She let go and smiled. Numb to the current? Daphne wondered.

Conditioned to the pain?

Sharon nodded proudly. Daphne wondered: Insane? Could she get her out of here? Could this woman be expected to climb through the hole in the roof?

One thing at a time! she resolved. Her problem at the moment was making it over to Sharon's cage while staying out of the jaws of this guard dog.

She studied her situation thoughtfully, recalling from her training so ingrained in her: Assess the situation.

Difficult but not impossible. The roof of the cage stood four to five feet off the cement-low enough that the dog could snap at her but too high for it to actually jump up onto. She had to stay at this level, up above the dog. And she had to get over onto Sharon's side of the building-it seemed her only hope to help her, though by the lock on the cage it wouldn't be easy.

She squatted, prepared to jump across the wide aisle, when Sharon took hold of the cage again, sounding her collar. She did this apparently only to get Daphne's attention, for she immediately let go and gestured toward the overhead funnel light suspended in the middle of the aisle.

Seeing it, Daphne understood immediately that Sharon had considered every possibility of escape even crossing the aisle. They were a team.

Indeed, the light looked like a good idea. She would try it.

It was deafening in here. Frightful. The dogs wouldn't stop barking. Had Cindy Chapman once been inside this building? Daphne tried to tune them out, to concentrate, but it wasn't easy. She risked the leaping dog just long enough to reach out and touch the funnel light and get it swinging. With each pass, she increased its arc until she could grab hold of it, which she did. She tested it, giving it a little of her weight, and then tugged down on it. It held firm.

She threw her weight into it and swung across to the other side like Tarzan, letting go in time to land painfully on the top of the opposing cages. The guard dog followed her across-dancing, nipping at her shoes.

The light bulb broke and fell. The pit bull leaped high for it, caught it mid-air, and shattered it in its teeth, unfazed.

Seeing this, Daphne thought: Hungry? The flashlight barely threw off enough light to see anything but the few feet immediately in front of it: Sharon's cage. Daphne opened her eyes wide and moved from one cage to the next, reaching Sharon's. Unsure how the collars worked, Daphne carefully lowered her finger through the wire mesh, not making contact with it. Sharon, crying now, raised her finger and the two touched. Their fingers hooked and Sharon squeezed.

Daphne fought back her own tears. She had no idea how much time she might have-all night? an hour? a few more minutes?-and knew that she had to make the most of it.

Her top priority was getting the guard dog out of the aisle, so she could get herself down to ground level and Sharon's cage.

Food seemed her most promising weapon. She discovered that the farthest pen on this side was stacked high with unopened bags of dried dog food. The latches were a mechanism that lifted via a small finger trigger, freeing a steel bar bolted to the hinged door. Sharon's was the only cage padlocked.

Daphne slipped off her belt and fished with its buckle for the gate latch but was interrupted by the dog, who got his teeth on it.

Seeing this, Sharon distracted him by banging on her cage and hopping up and down. This agitated the other dogs as well. The guard dog, head lifted and barking, patrolled the center aisle, irritated and confused.

Daphne hooked the latch, and the door came open. The guard dog approached her, stretching his neck and barking. "Get in there," she said, lowering her hand to tempt him. He snapped at her and she pulled back, but he did not enter the cage, despite the bags of food. He barked erratically, one distrustful eye on the stacked contents, the other on Daphne. She tore loose a bloodied piece of her pant leg and stuffed it between the chain link, landing it directly on top of one of the bags. The suspicious dog stopped barking and edged his way forward, nose twitching. The other dogs went silent as well.

Inside! Daphne leaped down into the center aisle-reeling from her wounded leg-and slammed the cage door shut, trapping him.

Sharon applauded, hopping around her cage like an ape.

The dog lapped up the piece of pant leg and then tore open a bag of food and gorged himself.

The latch on Sharon's cage was broken, the small padlock now secured to the chain-link wire. Daphne wondered whether, unlike the padlock outside, this smaller one might succumb to being shot open. She turned and studied the placement of her gun inside the occupied cage below the furnace. There was a gap between a vertical post and the chain link that appeared wide enough to shove her arm through. But in the time that would take, it seemed the dog would win the contest.

She retrieved a shovel that was leaning next to Sharon's cage and poked the handle through this gap. The pit bull locked onto the handle, pulling and pushing, preventing Daphne from properly directing it. She wrestled it free and then tried again but with the same frustrating results-the pit bull interfered, and the gun remained at bay.

She hooked the shovel's handle on the gun and pulled, managing to skip the gun a foot closer to her. It was within an arm's length now, within reach, if she dared endure the punishment that dog would give her.

The flashlight went dead. Daphne grabbed for it, shook it, and it came back on.

Sharon hopped up and down again. Frightened. She pointed alarmingly toward the door. She placed her hands against the cement. Daphne felt the cement.

It was vibrating. The dogs, still quiet, starting pacing in their cages.

A car! Her thoughts raced ahead: He would see the damaged lock, but it would appear no one had made it inside. She looked up at the furnace's exhaust stack-the ceiling was black tar paper, the hole there impossible to distinguish.

How much time did she have? Seconds? She took a deep breath, steeled herself for the pain, and went for the gun, shoving her hand into the dog pen.

The dog came after her arm! Her fingers brushed the weapon's handstock.

The jaws opened. White teeth. A dark throat. She grabbed hold of the gun-she had it! The dog took a piece of her arm. The gun snagged on the wire and bounced back inside. Lost.

The vibration stopped. He was here! The dogs circled their cages. She had to hide! She crossed over to the food pen. The guard dog would have to be released in order to return things as they were before.

The flashlight! She retrieved the flashlight, placed the shovel back, and ran to the far cage where Felix was still feeding. From outside came the high-pitched whine of a car engine revving.

She swung open the cage door and ducked in behind it as the dog spun and charged out.

Sharon shook her cage savagely and briefly diverted the dog's attention away from Daphne, who came around the door and pulled it shut, closing herself inside.

She switched off the flashlight and hid herself between the columns of stacked dog food bags.

There was a tremendous crash. Edlen Tegg's Trooper broke through the far end of the kennel, blowing a six-foot hole in the wall. He left the headlights on as he climbed out, carrying an oversized pistol that it took Daphne a moment to recognize as a dart gun.

The dogs went absolutely silent. Daphne's ears were ringing as Tegg said calmly to Sharon Shaffer, "I'm back!"

He glanced quickly and nervously around the structure, waving the dart gun before him. "I see we had a visitor while I was gone. Hmm?" He spun around and faced the Trooper and the headlights, worried that his adversary might attack him from the gaping hole the car had caused. "Off for reinforcements or waiting for me?

Hmm?" He remained extremely distracted, jerking his head back and forth between Sharon and the Trooper. "Cat got your tongue?" he asked Sharon, inching toward her cage. "Come on, come on, come on," he encouraged, waving her forward in the cage, clearly intending her for his hostage-for cover. "Hurry!"

He was forced to switch the dart gun to his right hand while he fished for the key, and this made him extremely nervous. He waved the oversized pistol around, attempting to cover both sides of the car. Paranoid.

He managed to get the key in the lock. "Stay"' he directed Felix as the dog edged toward freedom. "Heel!" he commanded, The dog obeyed, though cautiously. Tegg removed the lock, grabbed the collar's remote wand, and shocked Sharon immediately.

Daphne lost sight of Sharon briefly as she fell back to the cement. "Disconnect the I.V.," Tegg directed, "needle and all."

She obeyed. He shocked her again, apparently to weaken her; and she looked weakened, although Daphne had seen her take much more than this by grabbing hold of the fence. A ruse?

He shocked her yet again. "You'll do exactly as I say," he commanded. She nodded eagerly. "Good. We're going to get in the car, you in front of me. You'll be weak on your feet, but you must not fall. Hmm? I'll punish you," he said, tripping the warning button. She nodded.

He opened the cage. Sharon moved tentatively forward. "We're going away," he said. "It's better this way, anyway," he added.

Daphne glanced across at her gun: a second or two to get out of this cage, another one or two to cross the aisle. Yet another to go for the gun. Five seconds at the least, possibly longeran eternity for that guard dog.

A lifetime, she thought. Without that dog in the equation, she could take on Tegg by herself. Hand-to-hand if necessary. But the dog swung the equation heavily in his favor. Even so, if they made it to the car, Sharon was gone. Everything lost.

Sharon came out of the cage. Daphne could feel her pain as she forced herself to stand. She took one tentative step forward. Tegg, carrying the remote in one hand, the dart pistol in the other, followed her slowly. "Doing fine," he said.

Daphne went for it. She leapt forward, wormed her fingers through the chain link and opened the latch. She swung the door open and dove across the center aisle, shoving her arm beneath the chain link and straight into the opposing pen. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tegg's reaction. Her hand groped for the gun. The pit bull attacked, but this time she got the safety off and fired. The dog squealed and retreated.

Daphne freed the gun and turned in time to aim at the guard dog, who skidded to a stop as Tegg hollered, "Sit!" He had Sharon by the neck, using her as a screen, the dart gun aimed around her.

He was at a disadvantage here: He had but one shot, and it wouldn't kill her immediately. His only trump was Sharon.

That dog was aching to charge. Tegg dragged Sharon toward an adjacent cage. Two dogs? Daphne thought. "Don't do it!" she advised, her attention split between the guard dog, only a few feet from her, and its master.

His hand groped for the latch-he too, knew that two dogs were nearly impossible to stop. "Don't!" she warned, switching her aim from Tegg to the dog in front of her. "Would you actually shoot a dog?" he asked.

She shot Felix dead. Once to drop him. Once more to finish him off.

Tegg cried loudly in protest, "You killed him!" He stared down at the dog in disbelief and repeated it. "Take your hand off that cage," she instructed.

He obeyed. Good, they were getting somewhere. She added up her previous shots-five outside, one in the pen, two for the guard dog: eight-only to realize she had but one bullet left. But Tegg didn't know that.

She raised the gun and aimed it directly at Tegg. Sharon wrestled to get free. "No!" Tegg ordered. Two years ago, Daphne had been in the clutches of a madman, Boldt with the gun.

Now the roles were reversed. She faced up to the reality of killing Tegg. She glanced down at the poor dog. God! It was still alive! Its paw twitched. "What's the use?" she asked Tegg. She had to get him talking now. She resorted to negotiation, the only solution she knew to such a standoff. "What if my partner's outside?"

The headlights almost blinded her. Could she get off a clean shot? "Then he's a little bit slow," Tegg said. "Slow?" she asked. "How long for whatever's in that toy to take effect?" she asked, indicating the dart pistol. "This is no toy," she said, placing her other hand onto the Beretta, prepared to risk a kill shot to the head. It was a tricky shot, easy to miss even in the best light, the most controlled environment. But no matter what, he wasn't going to put Sharon into that car with him. "The dog is still alive," she said, "you can help him. "You've struck a lung. He will suffocate on his own blood. Finish him."

"You can still save him, Doctor. Let Sharon go," she advised. It was a good distance for a head shot the light was bad, but the distance good.

She couldn't hold the gun up like this much longer. It grew heavy quickly. But with it lowered to her side, she'd have no chance of hitting him cleanly. She kept it elevated. "Tell me about Thomas Kent," she said, using the name of the man he had killed on the operating table in medical school Stunned, he loosened his hold on Sharon. Daphne took another step forward. Another few feet and she could risk the head shot. "You're a wicked little woman, aren't you?" he said, raising his own weapon. "It was you with Pamela, wasn't it? Of course it was. You killed her, you know? Without you, she would still be alive."

The news of Pamela's death shocked Daphne, and his attempt to stick her with guilt worked, for she understood she had pushed Pamela hard-too hard?-knowingly.

She was going to lose the gun-she couldn't hold it up any longer.

If she lowered it, he would shoot her.

Sharon winked her one good eye and looked down.

Only then did Daphne notice the needle in her hand.

Sharon leaned her head back against Tegg and looked up at him.

Briefly, he glanced down at her.

She grinned through the leather muzzle and drove the needle into Tegg's eye. Sharon broke loose.

Daphne fired, but missed wildly, as Tegg dropped the dart gun and reached for the needle. He extricated it with an ear-piercing shriek and reached for the shovel. He leveled it once onto Sharon, who had fallen and was crawling toward the car. She buckled with the blow.

Daphne dove at him. He swung the shovel at her and caught her sideways, splaying her against the cage, but lost his balance. He raised it again-this time aiming to come down on Daphne's head.

Daphne seized hold of the dart gun. The shovel reached its apex.

Next stop ... He was sure to crush her skull.

Summoning the last of her resolve, Sharon sprang the few feet across the cement, going for his legs-one hand slid under his pant leg as the other groped for, and found, the electric fence.

The charge surged through her-through them both-and she would not let go. The buzzer on her collar cried out. Tegg went rigid and with the pain, the shovel suspended above him. Eyes white. jaws locked open in what began as a silent scream and then turned deafening.

Daphne squeezed the trigger and fired. The dart gun went off with a dull pop. The white cottony rabbit's tail protruded from Tegg's chest where the dart lodged. "No!" he screamed, scooting backwards on the cement, as if he could get away from it. Escape it. Only he knew what drug that dart contained. He pulled it out and dropped it onto the cement prior to the first convulsion. "Too much!" he said frantically, knowing the dosage, terrified, staring into Daphne's eyes as if she could help him. "Too much! Too much!" His whole body jumped. Waves of the convulsions passed through him. "Too much!" he repeated, jolted again. But then his mouth wouldn't move. His eyes remained fixed open. Dead? or a result of the drug? His body went limp, then rigid, in an increasing series of convulsions. It stopped completely.

Daphne dragged herself over to Sharon and rolled her over.

She was hemorrhaging.

Daphne rode with her in the helicopter, though the paramedic protested against it, claiming there were rules to follow. Once airborne though, he kept trying to treat Daphne as well, but she wouldn't have any of it.

Daphne held Sharon's hand. It was cold, and she worried she knew what that meant.

Several times, a strange weightless feeling passed over Daphne and she wondered each time whether it was the helicopter or Sharon's spirit leaving her body. She would glance at the medic, and he in turn at the various monitors, and he would offer a thumbs-up, and again she would wonder: Does that mean she's gone up, or she's okay?

She wasn't sure exactly what Sharon hoped for in life, and she thought that tragic, because she would have wished it for her if only she knew. What do any of us wish for that really matters? she mused. And she answered herself: another day. "One more day."

"What?" the paramedic shouted over the roar of the blades.

FRIDAY February 10

Dr. Ronald Dixon, cloaked in a surgical smock, recited his actions as he worked on Tegg's dead body. Boldt tuned out the autopsy details. As lead detective, his presence was required by law-but no one said he had to pay attention.

It was three in the morning, an unusual time for such a procedure, but Dixie had rallied without complaint. There were six people in the Medical Examiner's waiting room, more expected. Boldt felt thrilled at such a turnout. The world wasn't such a bad place when you knew the right people.

The heat from the overhead light felt like that of a hot sun. It shone down on the naked body. There was nothing pretty about this sight. Bleached skin, pieces of it folded open. Technical words spoken in an unbroken litany. Death reduced to detail.

He had found the three of them in the Quonset hut only minutes after the shooting.

There were more ambulances, a coroner's wagon, crime scene crews even a fire engine, though no one knew why. The road became impassable. Two tow trucks had been called into service.

Sharon Shaffer had suffered not only a hemorrhage but a ruptured kidney from the blow of the shovel, leaving her without a backup. She had lost a great deal of blood.

A sticker on the back of Elden Tegg's driver's license indicated he was an organ donor. Blood type: AB-negative.

Of the people in the waiting room, one was a woman from the Lion's Eye Bank. Two were part of a lung team that had flown up from Portland. But to Boldt's thinking, the most important was the kidney specialist from the U-Tegg's kidney was destined for Sharon Shaffer.

A cardiac crew was enroute from Spokane. Over the next three hours, Elden Tegg would make his final contributions. "I hate autopsies," said Boldt.

Dixie said, "Just wait until we open those plastic bags."

"Me?

No way." Boldt found his first smile in a long while. "I've saved that for Lamoia."

TUESDAY February 14 Valentine's Day

Daphne suggested lunch on Bainex bridge Island and Boldt agreed, with Liz's blessings, in part to try to talk her out of quitting. He brought Miles along in a stroller. She accused him of bringing his child as a chaperon, and he allowed that this was partly true. She limped from her bad leg. She wore a blue rain jacket, the kind a backpacker would wear, blue jeans, and two-tone leather deck shoes with rawhide laces. She wore no scarf around her neck, allowing the scar to show, and Boldt knew this was a different woman. "What's this about a job offer? I thought we were a team."

She didn't answer that. The ferry horn sounded. Miles started crying. Daphne walked over to the rail and looked out across the textured expanse of gray green water. The city grew progressively smaller behind them. A beautiful skyline and rolling hills covered in toy houses. Boldt and Miles joined her at the rail.

She watched the horizon; he watched her. Miles played with some plastic balls attached to the stroller. This thing was the BMW of strollers. Liz had picked it out after exhaustive research.

"We bought a piano," Boldt said, though he didn't tell her why, not exactly. That reminded him that there were things they hid from each other now, and that was okay. He said, "You get me on the force, and then you quit. That's hardly fair. Shoswitz would cry foul."

She spoke just loudly enough to be heard above the wind and the constant vibration of the engines. "She rejected the kidney." "Considering the source," he joked, "can you blame her?"

"She's on a list now. Number five on a list."

"I know that," he said soberly. "What if she's too far down the list? Did she live through all that, just to die?"

"Her? She's a fighter, Daffy."

She nodded faintly and whispered, "This was why he was in business in the first place."

"If anyone can beat this-"

"Yeah, yeah," she interrupted. "You sound just like Dr. Light Horse."

"Well, maybe she's right."

Five seagulls flew just off the rail. Miles pointed. One of the passengers threw a piece of a Hostess Cupcake at them. "Even seagulls are subjected to junk food," Boldt said to her. But she didn't smile. She didn't even seem to notice. "I brought a kite along," he tried. She stared off.

He said, "Did Einstein tell you about the fish for the kite?"

"He didn't have to. I can smell it."

"It's an old trick of mine. I'm full of tricks. Mostly old ones." She didn't smile at this either. So he had lost his touch. Another sign of change. Or age. Or both. "Even if we should lose her, Daffy, she's made a difference. She has touched hundreds of lives at The Shelter, more since this story broke. organ banks have been flooded with donors. With more organs, people like Tegg are out of business. That was her doing. You can't knock that. We should all have that kind of effect." He added, "Not that we're going to lose her." "I love you," she said, still looking at the horizon. "As a friend," she added, smiling for the first time. "Likewise. Always will."

"Think so?"

"Know so."

"Once she's better," she said strongly, "I'm off to London for this new job. Hostage negotiator."

"So I've heard."

"I may stay over there.

I don't know. Have you ever been to London?"

"The way it works," he said, bending toward his bag and hoping that she hadn't heard his voice catch, "is that you get the kite up good and high. You get it way the hell up there. Then you tie the fish to the line and take up some slack and toss the fish overboard. The drag on the fish in the water supports the line and flies the kite. The kite sails out to sea all by itself. Sometimes for hours. Maybe for days."

"I know you're mad about me quitting," she said. "We can try it off the stern. The wind is best there.

She said, "I suppose if you're lucky, it'll sail completely around the world and come right back to you." This time, he didn't answer. She added, "You know, it hurt more to kill that dog than to kill him. Is that possible? What does that make me?"

"Honest, which is more than most of us."

"You think she has a chance?"

"It's all any of us have."

"Can I get a hug? is that allowed?" Boldt said, "Better ask him" and pointed to Miles, who clapped.

She came into his arms then and held him tightly. She sobbed.

People stared. He didn't care. Let them. Boldt cried, too, but for his own reasons. His life was right now. Okay. On track again, and he had her to thank for some of it. "I'll miss you," he whispered.

Miles clapped again, and Daphne laughed. It was good to hear that.

In the end, the kite trick worked. Miles fell asleep in the stroller. The kite sailed off toward the horizon, growing smaller and smaller. People pointed. Some people clapped. Miles slept through it all.

A few weeks later, Daphne followed it into the sky.

And now for the good part. This was where Sergeant Lou Boldt threw out all convention, where the textbooks took a backseat to experience, and where he found out who in the lecture hall was listening and who was asleep.

He raised his voice. A big man, Boldt's words bellowed clear back to the make-out seats without the need of the mike clipped to his tie. "Everything I've told you in the past few weeks concerning evidence, investigative procedure, chain of custody, and chain of command is worthless." A few heads snapped up-more than he had expected. "Worthless unless you learn to read the crime scene, to know the victim, to listen to and trust your own instincts. To feel with your heart as much as think with your head. To find a balance between the two. If it was all in the head, then we would not need detectives; the lab technicians could do it all. Conversely, if it was all in the heart-if we could simply empathize with the suspect and say, "Yup, you did it/ then who would need the lab nerds?" A few of the studious types busily flipped pages. Boldt informed them, "You won't find any of this in your textbooks. That's just the point. All the textbooks in the world are not going to clear a case--only the investigator can. Evidence and information is nothing without a human being to analyze, organize, and interpret it. That's you. That's me. There comes a time when all the information must be set aside; there comes a time when passion and instinct take over. It's the stuff that can't be taught; but it can be learned. Heart and mind--one's worthless without the other." He paused here, wondering if these peach-fuzz students could see beyond the forty-four-year-old, slightly paunchy homicide cop in the wrinkled khakis and the tattered sport coat that hid a pacifier in its side pocket.

At the same time, he listened to his own words reverberating through the lecture hall, wondering how much he dare tell them. Did he tell them about the nightmares, the divorces, the ulcers, and the politics? The hours? The salary? The penetrating numbness with which the veterans approached a crime scene?

Light flooded an aisle as a door at the rear of the hall swung open and a lanky kid wearing oversize jeans and a rugby shirt hurried toward the podium, casting a stretched shadow. Reaching Boldt, he passed him a pink telephone memo. A sea of students looking on, Boldt unfolded and read it.

Volunteer Park, after class. I'll wait fifteen minutes.-D.M.

Volunteer Park? he wondered, his curiosity raised. Why not the offices? Daphne Matthews was anything but dramatic. As the department's forensic psychologist, she was cool, controlled, studied, patient. Articulate, strong, intelligent. But not dramatic-not like this. The curious faces remained fixed on him. "A love letter," he said, winning a few laughs. But not many: cops weren't expected to be funny-something else they would have to learn.

Volunteer Park is perched well above Seattle's downtown cluster of towering high-rises and the gray-green curve of Elliott Bay that sweeps out into the island-riddled estuary of Puget Sound. A large reservoir, acting as a reflecting pond, is terraced below the parking lot and lookout that fronts the museum,. which had been under reconstruction for months on its way to housing the city's Asian collection. Boldt parked his aging department-issued four-door Chevy three spaces away from her red Prelude, which she maintained showroom clean. She wasn't to be found in her car, which left only one possibility.

The water tower's stone facade rose several stories to his left.

Well-kept beds of flowering shrubs and perennials surrounded its footing, like gems in a setting. The grass was a phenomenal emerald green, unique, he thought, to Seattle and Portland. Maybe Ireland too; he had never been. Summer was just taking hold. Every living thing seemed poised for change. The sky was a patchwork quilt of azure blue and cotton white, the clouds moving in swiftly from the west, low and fast. A visitor might think rain, but a local knew better. Not tonight. Cold maybe, if it cleared.

He saw an -unfamiliar male face behind the iron grate in one of the tower's upper windows and waited a minute for this person and his companion to descend and leave the structure. Once they had, he chose the stairway to his right, ascending a narrow chimney of steep steps wedged between the brick rotunda to his right and the riveted steel hull of the water tank to his left. The painted tank and the tower that surrounded it were enormous, perhaps forty or fifty feet high and half again as wide. With each step, Boldt's heart pounded heavier. He was not in the best shape; or maybe it was because she had elected to step outside the system, and that couldn't help but intrigue him; or maybe it was personal and had nothing to do with the shop. He and Daphne had been close once-too close for what was allowed of a married man. They still were close, but mention of that one night never passed their lips. A month earlier she had surprised him by telling him about a new relationship. After Bill Gates got married, Owen Adler became the reigning bachelor prize of the Northwest, having gone from espresso cart to the fastest-growing beverage and food business in the western region. He leased his own plane, owned a multimillion-dollar estate overlooking Shilshole Marina, and now, quite possibly, the heart and affections of Daphne Matthews. Had her note been worded any other way, had she not chosen such an isolated location, Boldt would have been convinced that her request was nothing more than some lover butterflies.

In another two hours, Volunteer Park would be a drug and sex bazaar. Despite its view, the tower was not a place frequented by the pin-striped set. She had clearly chosen it carefully. Daphne was not given to acts of spontaneity. She desired a clandestine meeting-and he had to wonder why.

He reached the open-air lookout at the top of the tower. It had a cement floor and evenly spaced viewing windows crosshatched with heavy gauge steel to prevent flyers from testing their wings, or projectiles from landing on passersby.

She held her arms crossed tightly, accentuating an anxiety uncommon in her. Her brown hair spilled over her face, hiding her eyes, and when she cleared it, he saw fear where there was usually the spark of excitement. Her square-shouldered, assertive posture collapsed in sagging defeat.

She wore the same blue slacks and cotton sweater as he had seen her wearing at work. She had not been to her houseboat yet. "What is it?" he asked, worried by this look of hers.

Her chin cast a shadow, hiding the scar on her neck. She did not answer immediately. "It's a potential black hole," she explained-a difficult, if not impossible case to solve, and with political overtones. And then he understood: She had bypassed the proper procedures to give him a chance to sidestep this investigation before he formally inherited it at the cop shop. Why she would have a black hole in the first place, confused him. The department's psychologist did not lead investigations; she kept cops from swallowing barrels, and profiled the loonies that kept Boldt and the others chasing body bags.

She assisted in interrogations. She could take any side of any discussion and make a convincing argument out of it. She was the best listener he knew.

She handed him a fax-the first of what appeared to be several that she removed from a briefcase.

Soup is good food. For some.

She told him, "That was the first threat he received."

"Adler," Boldt said, filling in the blank.

She nodded, her hair trailing her movements. Daphne Matthews had grace, even when frightened. "Innocuous enough," he said.

She handed him the next, saying "Yes, but not for long."

Suicide or murder. Take your pick. No cops. No press. No tricks, or you will carry with you the blood of the innocent.

"It could be nothing," Boldt said, though his voice belied this.

"That's exactly what Adler said," she replied angrily, lumping them together.

Boldt did not want to be lumped in with Owen Adler. "I'll give you one thing: When you say black hole, you mean black hole." Faxed threats? he thought. In the top left of the page of thermal paper he read a date and time in a tiny typeface. To the right: Page 1 of 1. Good luck tracing this, he thought.

She handed him a third. He did not want it.

"Quite a collection," he said. Boldt's nerves unraveled from time to time, and when it happened, he defaulted to stupid oneliners.

Soup is bad food. If Adler Foods is out of business within 30 days, and all of the money is gone, and you are dead and buried, there will be no senseless killing. The choice is yours.

"How many days has it been?" It was the first question that popped into his head, though it was answered by the date in the corner. He counted the weeks in his head. The thirty days had expired. "You see the way he worded it?" Looking down at her feet, she spoke softly, dreamy and terrified. Her lover was the target of these threats, and despite her training, she clearly was not prepared for how to handle it. "The more common threat would be:"If Adler Foods is not out of business within thirty days ..."You see the difference?"

Her bailiwick, not his, he felt tempted to remind. "Is that significant?" He played along because she had fragile! written all over her. "To me, it's significant. So is the attempt in each fax to place the blame firmly with Owen. It's his decision; his choice." When she looked up at him, he saw that she held back tears. "Daffy-" he offered, stepping closer. "Owen and I are not going to see each other socially-for a while. Me being police and all." She wanted it to sound casual, but failed. "We have to take him seriously now."

Boldt felt a chill. "Do we?" She handed him another.

I am waiting. I suggest you do not. You will have to live with your choice. Others will not be so lucky.

"It's the first time he's mentioned himself," Boldt noted.

She handed him the last of the group. "That one was sent four days ago. This one arrived this morning."

Your indecision is costly. It can, and will, get much worse than this.

Below this on the fax was a copy of a newspaper article.

"Today's paper," she explained.

The headline read: INFECTIONS BAFFLE DOCTORS Two Children Hospitalized He had read the short article quickly. "They're very sick," she told him. "'It can, and will, get much worse than this," she quoted.

He looked up. "This is his offer of proof? is that what you're thinking?"

"He means to be taken seriously."

"I don't get it," he complained, frustrated. "Why didn't you bring this in sooner?"

"Owen didn't want to believe it." She took back the faxes possessively. Her hand trembled. "The second one warns against involving us."

She meant cops. She meant that the reason for them meeting here, not in the fifth-floor offices, was that she still was not sure how to handle this. "An Adler employee," Boldt said. "Past or present, an employee is the most likely."

"Owen has Fowler working on it."

She meant Kenny Fowler, formerly of Major Crimes, now Adler's chief of security. Boldt liked Kenny Fowler, and said so. Better yet; he was good police, or had been at one time. She nodded and toyed with a silver ring fashioned as a porpoise that she wore on her right hand. "I misjudged him," she said so quietly that Boldt leaned in to hear as she repeated herself. Daphne was not one to mumble. "Are you okay?"

"Sure," she lied.

A black hole. Absorbing energy. Admitting no light-pure darkness. He realized that he had already accepted it, and he wanted to blame her for knowing him so well. "Talk to me," he said, nervous, irritated. "You're right about it being an employee. That's the highest percentage bet. But typically, it involves extortion, not suicide demands. Henry Happle, Owen's counsel, wants it handled internally, where there's no chance of press leakage, no police involvement, nothing to violate the demands." This sounded a little too much like the party line, and it bothered him. It was not like her to voice the opinions of others as her own, and he had to wonder what kind of man was Henry Happle that he seemed to carry so much influence with her. "That's why I have to be so careful in dealing with you. Happle wants Fowler to handle this internally. Owen overruled him this morning. He suggested this meeting--opening a dialogue. But it was not an easy decision."

"We can't be sure this newspaper story is his doing," Boldt told her. "He may have just seized upon a convenient headline."

"Maybe." She clearly believed otherwise, and Boldt trusted Daphne's instincts. Heart and mind; he was reminded of his lecture. "What's Fowler doing about it?" Boldt asked. "He doesn't know about this meeting. Not yet. He, like Happle, advised against involving us. He's looking to identify a disgruntled employee-but he's been on it a month now. He's had a few suspects, but none of them has panned out. His loyalty is to the company. Henry Happle writes his paychecks, not Owen-if you follow me."

Boldt's irritation surfaced. "if this news story is his doing, I'd say we're a little late."

"I'm to blame. Owen asked me for my professional opinion. I classified the threats as low risk. I thought whoever it was was blowing smoke. Proper use of the language. The faxes are sent by portable computer from pay phones. Fowler traced the last two to pay phones on Pill Hill. That's a decent enough neighborhood. What that tells us is that in all probability we're dealing with an educated, affluent, white male between the ages of twenty-five and forty. The demands seemed so unrealistic that I assumed our boy was venting some anger nothing more. Owen went along with that. He put Kenny on it and tried to forget it. I screwed this up, Lou." She crossed her arms tightly again, and her breasts rode high in the cradle. Again she quoted, "It can, and will, get much worse than this.'" Her voice echoed slightly in the cavernous enclosure, circling inside his thoughts like horses on a carousel.

A black hole. His now. "You want me to look into it, I'll look into it," he offered reluctantly. "Unofficially."

"You know I can't do that, Daffy."

"Please."

"I'm not a rent-a-cop.

Neither are you. We're fifth floor. You know the way it works."

"Please!"

"I can't do that for very long," he qualified. "Thank you."

"If either of these kids die, Daffy-" He left it dangling there, like one of the many broken cobwebs suspended from the cement ceiling. "I know." She avoided his gaze. "You'll share everything with me. No stonewalling." "Agreed."

"Well ... maybe not everything," he corrected. It won a genuine smile from her-and he was glad for that-though it deserted her as quickly as it had come.

His frantic footfalls on the formed stairs sounded like the beating of bats' wings as he descended at a run.

The newspaper article had listed one of the hospitals. For Lou Boldt, the victim was where every investigation began.