

### Wear Something Red

Book 1 of the Proteus Group Series

By K.G. Lawrence

Copyright 2015 by K.G. Lawrence

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design: SelfPubBookCovers.com/yvonrz

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

To Sharon for everything you give to me.

To Frank, Alex, Ursula, Isabelle, Paul and Tiggr for everything they gave me.

Table of Contents

Other Books by K.G. Lawrence

# Chapter 1

FBI Special Agent-in-Charge, Joan McGowan, and her team of Travis Meyer, Erica Jensen, Arnold Davidson, Tommy John (TJ) Eccles and Miranda Wong, rode in her van. James Torres and his team followed in their SWAT van. The lights of both vehicles were off. It was exactly 11:30 pm on a moonless August night when she entered the Crowley farm east of Portland. Maple trees lined both sides of the gravel approach road. Travis rode shotgun. He was looking at the buildings through his night-vision binoculars.

"Shit." He pointed to her left. "It looks like they have a machine gun nest on the roof of the barn."

Arnie confirmed through his binoculars. "I see a square of sandbags six high with two heads sticking up above it. One of them is watching us through binoculars. Joan, we're not prepared for—"

A fusillade of bullets penetrated the passenger side of the van. Erica cried out, grabbed her side and slumped against TJ.

"Find cover." She stopped the van and jumped out.

Another round of fire struck both vehicles as Travis and TJ dragged Erica out of the van.

She looked for the SWAT team, but had to duck back behind the driver's door when three bullets zipped past her head.

Torres and his crew were scrambling for cover. They were dragging two of their men toward the trees away from the line of fire and into greater darkness.

A series of explosions set the maple trees on fire one after another creating a line of torches that illuminated her team and made them easier targets.

Travis hollered at her though he was only two feet away, "Erica's dead. We're in the kill zone; we gotta move."

The machine gun on top of the barn opened fire on Torres' unit. Two more SWAT crew were hit.

Two others had raced back to their van and were pulling out whatever gear they could get as fast as they could. One of them was shot in the leg. Before the other could drag him away, the SWAT van exploded.

"There." She pointed to a pasture of tall corn.

Torres and what was left of his unit were already entering the cornfield. They had left three of their own behind.

Gunfire came from everywhere. Her team's arrival had been anticipated. They had been surrounded using precise military countermeasures conceived to be rapid and overwhelming.

"Joan, come on!" Travis grabbed her to get her going.

Arnie came to her, but dropped to the ground at her feet before he could say anything. TJ and Miranda had made it to the cornfield and Torres' unit.

Travis pushed Arnie off her foot. "Joan, come on!"

Gunfire began sweeping across the cornfield from all directions.

"There were only supposed to be three of them," she muttered.

"Fuck that." He tried to pull her over Arnie, but suddenly jerked back, twisted and fell sideways against the van.

She fired her AR15 into the darkness through a 180 degree arc. It sounded like she had only hit tree trunks.

Powerful explosions started going off all over the farm. Fireballs shot into the sky, adding additional haphazard lighting to the scene.

An explosion on the other side of the van rocked it into the back of her head and knocked her down onto Arnie's body. She tasted blood when she pushed herself back up. Something had struck her right cheek. The gash was about two inches long and almost as wide as her finger. Blood had run down from it into her mouth.

Torres' people returned fire sporadically, but mostly they were just trying to find better cover than stalks of corn.

She checked for the flash of the machine gun to see where it was aiming, but it stopped firing. A moment after that, the nest exploded and set the barn on fire. A brief cry of victory erupted from the cornfield before even heavier crossfire strafed it again.

There were only supposed to be three suspected terrorists at the Crowley farm. They weren't supposed to be this well trained and equipped . . . or reinforced.

She ducked under more gunfire aimed at the van and checked Travis. He'd been struck in the neck just above his bulletproof vest. He spit up blood when he tried to speak.

"San Francisco." He coughed and sagged down into death. The apology and regret in his eyes hadn't been necessary.

She peeked out from behind the driver's door toward the farm buildings. The barn was fully engulfed in flames. The farmhouse was dark.

"Joan," TJ called from across the drive. He was signaling there was cover back toward the entrance to the farm.

Another burst of gunfire swept through the cornfield. Another one of her team cried out.

A man lunged from the darkness at TJ, then another. They knocked him to the ground and clubbed him. Each one looked at her before they dragged TJ up to his knees, grabbed his hair, raised his head so he could face her and then decapitated him with one hard swing of a machete. They were doing all this for her, a display for the commander of the operation. One of them picked up TJ's head and prepared to toss it at her.

She aimed and fired. They both exploded in flames and dropped onto TJ.

Two more men running along the access road opened fire on her. They passed through the light of each burning tree and vanished into intense darkness only to reappear again at the next tree. They were dressed in the same gear as the other two: cargo pants and hunting vests. All the pockets were likely stuffed with incendiary explosives.

Martyrs to their cause: to attack at the heart of American law enforcement and security. Michael and Shana would never be told how she died. Her casket would need to be kept closed after they were through with her. The critical incident report would be classified Top Secret for reasons of national security and available for high-clearance level Internal Review Only.

She laid down on Arnie and returned fire. Neither man tried to avoid being hit. They were determined to be the one to get the commander. Radicalized young men, they were already the exalted dead.

She squeezed her eyes shut and kept firing. First one man exploded into a running fireball, then the other just ten feet from her. A piece of burning vest with two ribs and tissue stuck to it bounced off the van and landed beside her. A pair of burning legs dropped to the ground three feet to her left.

Spotlights shone down on her as two helicopters flew in.

Miranda stood across the access road just looking down at TJ and the burning remains of his two killers. She was covered in blood.

When Joan detected movement to Wong's right, she launched herself across the road, but a bullet struck her right shoulder and knocked her back against the van. She could just see Miranda moving in and out of the blazing light while fighting off two men wielding machetes. Lights came along the access road just before everything went dark.

She woke up to Deputy Assistant Director Lorne Wozniak asking, "How did we end up with this debacle? Our intelligence was valid and reliable; now eleven of our own are dead."

She was in the back of an ambulance with bandages on her right shoulder and her right cheek and an IV in her left arm. The rear door was open. It was morning.

Wozniak was questioning Torres and Wong. "Just how many were there?"

"We've counted what could be nine," Torres replied. "There may have been more. It felt like there were more."

Wong, her arms and hands wrapped in bandages, said, "They all wore vests containing thermite. There is little left of any of them but ash and smoke."

Torres glanced at her. "They used tunnels to surround us."

"Tunnels and eleven of us dead in less than fifteen minutes," Wozniak said. "You'd think we were in Iraq."

Joan laid back and closed her eyes. She was out again in seconds.

# Chapter 2

She turned off Highway 44 to enter Dominion, Oregon, looked over at Shana, fourteen, and swallowed hard. The heat of late August could do nothing against the chill inside her. Her breath caught when she started to speak.

"Mattie tells me they expect Dominion to more than double in size over the next ten years now that Do-Dads and Karyon Research are coming."

"Good, then it will have twice as many losers in it."

Joan's face flushed with heat. "There are lots of places to ride around here. The highway has a good shoulder. We could go all the way to Widow Creek and back. I'll show you some of my favorite routes once we're settled. It's going to be fantastic, you'll see."

Shana lowered her head and looked out the window. "Every friend I had is back in Portland."

"Portland is barely a hundred miles to the west. It's not like we've moved to another galaxy."

"You could have fooled me."

"You'll make new friends. You may even find a new BFF." She winced. _You have to stop giving her material to work with_.

"Like you and Mattie Griffin? How long has it been?"

Sweat beaded on her forehead. "Seventeen years."

"Must be a record for a BFF; seventeen years since you've last seen each other. That's longer than I've been your special treasure. And _I've_ never heard of her. And then she calls, out of the blue, to offer you this job."

"She heard I was no longer with the FBI. She called only to advise me of an opportunity, that's all."

Of the three survivors, she had lasted the longest at the Bureau after. . . . A year to the date after the Crowley Farm Incident, she was the only one of the fourteen still alive.

"And you just grabbed it." She stuck her ear buds back in.

"We're not doing this again. I've taken the job. Let's make the best of it."

She took the Mazda CX-5 downhill from the highway onto Thurlow Street to officially enter Dominion. Her ears popped as if she had just taken them through some barrier that would block any attempt to escape. Shana would love that. She could spend all eternity pointing out to her mother what a mess she'd made of their lives . . . again.

Was this the right time to be making this move? She had to make it the right time. Waiting for the _perfect_ moment and just wishing for a few quiet years with Shana before her bold, courageous, overconfident daughter struck out on her own was too passive. She had to focus on the moment, keep to her plan and hope coming back to where her mother and father had died didn't somehow cost her Shana, too.

She looked around as they proceeded along Thurlow. Nothing seemed to be in the right place, but she'd never been familiar with this part of town.

Shana tapped the navigation screen protruding above the center console. "You just missed your turn."

Her glowing face threatened to burst into flames. Hot on the surface, freezing at her core; that was some way to return to Dominion. She pulled to the curb, checked both ways and then made a U-turn to get back to. . . .

"Turn right at Middlemarch." Shana took out her ear buds. "Who names a street Middlemarch?"

"The street didn't exist when I lived here. The town didn't come this far west. That's why I didn't recognize anything."

"This must be part of their rapid growth you were told about . . . or that other galaxy."

"Shana, so help me."

"Just kidding." She put her ear buds back in. "Main Street is three blocks ahead. You turn right there." Her daughter's naturally condescending and sarcastic tone then added, "You'll probably recognize that one."

Joan sighed and turned right at Main Street.

Mattie Griffin, in her red Griffin Real Estate blazer, white blouse and grey skirt, was standing in front of her office with Harry Madsen, the retiring sheriff. A rotund man in his sixties, Madsen was the one who officially offered her the job of replacing him.

She parked and got out. Shana stayed in the car bobbing her head slightly to whatever song was coming out of her ear buds.

Mattie, thirty-six, her hair short and neat and back to its natural tawny color, still looked like she could perform every wicked cheerleader move as easily now as she could back in high school. She held out her hand but quickly pulled it back.

"Oh, I'm being so silly." Mattie hugged her. "It's good to see you again, Joanie. I've missed you very much."

Joan glanced at Shana's bobbing head as Mattie squeezed her hard.

Shana glanced back, deigned to smirk at her and mouthed, "Seventeen years."

Mattie released her and stepped back, bent over slightly and waved hello at her head-bobbing daughter. "She's certainly pretty, and tall, too, from the looks of her."

"Six feet one inch," she said.

Madsen asked, "How old did you say she is?"

"Fourteen."

Madsen only shook her hand and tipped an imaginary hat at Shana, who had her head down and her eyes closed.

"I just wanted to let you know I'll be hanging around for a bit longer. I still have a couple of cases I'm investigating. But I will do my best to stay out of your way. Take the weekend to get yourself settled. I'll drop by the office and fill you in on Monday." With first a wave to her and Shana, then to Mattie, he walked off.

What was Madsen up to? Was he lingering so he could look over her shoulder despite having promised when he offered her the job that he wouldn't interfere? Was he going to stick around just to meddle? Monday, she would set him straight about that first thing.

"What two cases?"

Mattie shrugged. "You know the one. It's made us famous: Stanford Wiley and his Ponzi scheme."

"He embezzled lots of money."

"Oh, it's much more than that. He bilked thousands of clients out of billions of dollars. I think it's supposed to be the largest haul ever. No one really knows how he did it and not even your former employer can find any of it."

"Why is Madsen still involved?"

"I believe someone there asked Harry to stay on the case."

Her ears joined her face for this new burst of heat.

Mattie said, "Never mind about that for now. I'm sure Harry will bring you up to date on Monday. Who knows, he may even ask for your help. After all, you'll be in charge then."

Mattie could be right. Madsen could be exactly what he said he was. Harry Madsen, Kate Eiger, the former mayor and Leonard Jones, the current mayor, had interviewed her for the job. Madsen had been the most challenging at times because of his experience, but once the interview was over he had also been the one to tell her the most about the changes to Dominion since she'd left. He remembered her and Mattie and their troupe of girls causing minor havoc as teenagers, especially during that summer at Quarrelle Lake. He had behaved as if she were already the sheriff, though there were still two other candidates for the job yet to be interviewed. One, so he'd told her, had more relevant experience as a sheriff.

"Shall we go?" Mattie was trying to usher her back to her Mazda.

"Sorry."

"It's a lot to take in right now, but you'll settle quickly." She chuckled. "It's like riding a bicycle."

"What's the other case?"

"Just a local missing person; Albert Nguyen vanished about three weeks ago."

"Why is that a case? Are there suspicious circumstances?"

"He delivers produce to local stores and restaurants. I can't see anything suspicious in that. Harry's most likely hanging on to it because he and Albert were friends." She led Joan to her Mazda and then pointed to her silver Mercedes C350 Coupe across the street. "Follow me. It's an old house, a Victorian design that needs a lot of work."

"What kind of work?"

"Nothing serious, just the kind of renovations you told me you like doing." She hurried to her Mercedes, waved and got in.

Joan got into the CX-5, started it and made a U-turn to tuck in behind the Merc.

"I guess," Shana said, "all sheriffs are allowed to make U-turns anywhere, anytime. Oh, wait you're not the sheriff until Monday."

She scowled at her daughter, which brought a wider grin to Shana's face than she could manage in response to Mattie's greeting. There had to be a good military college in the Ural Mountains, there just had to be.

Following Mattie took them back through the same territory she had traversed after first entering the city.

"You remember this part, don't you?" Shana said with a sardonic tone that would make that famous Vulcan greeting sound like an insult.

She just responded with a snarling smile and wondered about Madsen's two remaining cases. She knew about the Wiley case. She knew about the billions of dollars that no one could find. Looking up as much as she could with the expectation that she would be brought into the case as sheriff; she had soon run into roadblocks from her former superiors with the explanation that she was no longer privy to information on FBI cases.

Madsen was still privy to information on FBI cases. Why ask him to continue rather than pass the case to her? She may not have enough relevant experience for sheriff work, but she certainly had enough FBI experience to know how to work that type of case.

Before she'd been cut off, Colin Foster had told her Wiley's schemes even threatened national security. Would Madsen know what that threat was, or was his handler at the FBI keeping him on a short leash?

Nestled in a crescent-shaped valley on the west side of the Cascade Mountains sixty miles south of Mt Hood, Dominion had grown from a Department of Forestry fire monitoring station prosaically nicknamed Firetown to be incorporated in 1928. During her time here, the only outsiders who ever came to Dominion were the campers, and later the _cabin_ _folk_ , who came for the area's one natural treasure: Quarrelle Lake. Campers favored the Midnight Fire Campgrounds at the north end of the lake, the _cabin_ _folk_ resided just west of that in Cabin Country, away from where Dominion's boisterous children, including her troupe in her day, hung out in the south at the end of Ditchburg Road.

Dominion had done a competent job of keeping up with change even after two of its main employers, Timber Brewery and its companion Treeline Winery, closed their doors just before she left seventeen years ago. According to Madsen, all 6,897 citizens of Dominion were excited about the coming of Do-Dads and Karyon Research and the plans to develop both summer and winter sports facilities for tourists. There were plans to expand Cottage Country to go with ambitious plans to revitalize Dominion's core. And in amongst all this anticipation, Stanford Wiley, a local financial advisor, had developed an internet-based investment con to both embezzle billions of dollars and then hide it where no one could find it.

Shana said, "Unless you want to change your mind and leave, which is all right with me, you better make the turn."

Mattie had moved to the left-turn lane at the corner of Lafleur and Madigan, two streets new to her.

She quickly checked, saw that no other car was coming and slipped the Mazda in behind the Merc.

"I suppose sheriff's get to do that all the time, too."

Joan glanced at the Cascade Mountains to the north and east. If she took Shana up the old forestry road and dumped her, it would take her at least two days to get back on her own.

Mattie turned left when the light changed.

Joan had to wait for two cars coming the other way before she could follow.

Shana muttered, "That must be rush hour."

She floored the gas pedal as she made her turn. The CX-5 didn't have enough power to win a race with a running Harry Madsen, something she couldn't imagine him even doing anymore, but combined with the sharp left turn she'd just made, it created enough centrifugal force to knock her daughter into her door.

Shana sneered at her before continuing her search for some song on her smartphone. She had stopped slouching, however.

"Sorry."

"No you're not."

"Ours is a special relationship."

"Whatever." Shana found her song, started it and put her head back against the headrest. She closed her eyes and hummed along to the songs every now and then.

Joan stayed behind Mattie as they passed through a newer neighborhood—newer in that it wasn't there when she'd moved away after the murder-suicide of her parents.

Finally, Mattie reached Yew Street and pulled over to park.

Joan parked behind her. It was an older neighborhood, but well maintained. Smaller homes and tract houses dominated the area. The occasional newer home, and even a couple of new ones currently being built, stuck out amid the modest residences like ostentatious neighbors. These homes weren't built to last forever, but seeing old ones go down always seemed cold and sad. It was a sentiment she and Shana and Michael shared.

She remembered this area of Dominion. Riley Hitchcock, the biggest liar in her class, who had always claimed to be related to the famous movie maker, had lived on Oak Street a few blocks away. The first time she had ever exposed her breasts to a boy was to Riley in his basement when she was fourteen, her daughter's age.

Shana was a gorgeous young woman with long, fine brunette hair like her mother, a tall, lean, athletic body, brown eyes sparkling with shards of bronze in them that were only going to break more hearts as she became a full grown woman, and breasts that were perfectly sized and perfectly shaped for her frame. While Riley Hitchcock had been fascinated and thrilled, he'd also been a bit disappointed at her lack of substance at fourteen. He would have fainted if he'd seen Shana topless.

Mattie was out of her Mercedes and standing by the gate before Joan had turned off her Mazda.

Her throat felt dry. The list of things she and Shana needed to talk about was just getting longer with every day she put it off.

"Oh, look," Shana said in an almost flawless imitation of Mattie's voice. "It's even got a white picket fence. Isn't that delightful?"

How could she have even heard Mattie with the window up and those damned buds stuck in her ears?

Shana was a mother's dream come true, but surely a quick smack up the side of her head might be enough to bring about a change in her attitude. The risk was that it would probably just get worse. And she would never hit her daughter anyway so it was an empty threat.

Joan got out, surprised to see Shana also getting out rather than remain in the Mazda. Having to stretch out cramps and find relief from a numb bum was a great motivator.

The Mazda was a bit short for Shana's length, especially with the rear of it full of stuff pressing against the back of her seat. It also drove like a go-cart, complete with point-and-shoot handling and transferring to its occupants everything the road had to offer by way of bumps and noise.

Mattie started her spiel the moment they got to her. "As I told you in my email, this house had been tied up in probate, but that's settled now and the executors are eager to clear the estate. We'll finalize the paperwork once the other executor is back from Eugene. Shall we go in?"

As she looked at their new home, Joan realized she hadn't been inside a house in Dominion since the night her old home burned to the ground with mother and father inside. She had spent the last few weeks in a motel room, having lost everything in the fire, before leaving to attend UCLA.

"That neighborhood we passed through," she said.

"Fleetwood Grove."

"Named after the dowager, Abigail Fleetwood, who spent her husband's fortune reclaiming areas he had clear cut to make."

"See? It's all coming back to you."

Shana said, "Just another thing to look forward to."

Mattie's smile didn't waver a bit. "Albert Nguyen lives there."

"The man who disappeared?"

"See?" Shana said. "You remember that, too."

"Shall we?" Mattie took hold of the gate.

# Chapter 3

Mattie opened the loose, creaking gate, careful not to break it off, and proceeded ahead of them. At the front door, she fumbled a bit with the key before getting it open.

She and Shana remained at the bottom of the six steps leading up to the front porch of the narrow, mostly yellow, Victorian-style, three-storey house. The porch had a small gable roof over it. The living room, and the bedroom above it, both had bay windows. There were touches of green and blue gingerbread trim on the porch and around the bay windows.

Shana pointed to the basement window facing front. "I hope we don't find any bodies hacked up down there."

Joan glanced at the window and shivered.

Mattie called down, "Come on, you two, let's have a look."

They went up the stairs together.

Shana took out the ear buds and put away her smartphone. "Not much of a house compared to the one we left behind."

Joan flushed again and muttered a curse. Shana had that natural gift of meaning much more than she'd just said when she wanted to, particularly when she was being snide.

Mattie let them get to the porch before opening the door with a grand gesture and stepping aside to let them go in first.

Immediately inside the door, an opening on the right led to the living and dining area. An open pocket door from there led to the kitchen. A set of L-shaped stairs to their left ascended from the front and offered a door to the basement at its other end. The bathroom came at the end of the stairway. There was a closet against the stairway wall and two more where the wall of the bathroom formed a passage about three feet wide with the dining room wall.

Shana noticed what she was looking at. "I think we need an exit from the dining area about there."

She pointed past the bathroom. "We get a nook and a dining room. That's a bit of a surprise for a house like this."

Mattie said, "It was actually quite a unique home in its day, larger than similar designs in this neighborhood. You'll notice the chair rail throughout and some really nice egg and dart crown molding work on both floors."

"It's still puny, though." Shana looked back and forth between front and rear doors. "Good fortune in the front door and out the back. I don't think there were any offers from Chinese members of the community."

"That's true," Mattie said as she came in behind them. She left the door open. "You wouldn't believe some of the superstitions I've encountered selling houses: the number of steps must be just right, the sellers can't be divorcing, can't have someone die in the house, can't have any windows open in the house when you move in, must have at least one window open when you move in. I've dealt with superstitions from Chinese, Japanese, Italians, Mexicans and Americans."

Shana said, "I thought we were all Americans."

"You're right; a bad choice of words on my part. And I'd be the first to say that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs." Mattie stepped into the living-dining area. "With the three floors, you have a total of twenty-eight hundred and eighty-two square feet."

"An unlucky number, I'm sure; too symmetrical," Shana said as she came into the room. "Portland had a good number."

Joan gave Mattie a welcome-to-my-world smile.

"We should check the foundation first thing," Shana said and headed for the kitchen. She closed the pocket door to reveal a stained-glass center. A moment later, footsteps raced down the stairs to the basement.

Mattie said, "She seems to be warming up to the place."

"We were always doing work where we lived. You couldn't get her away from Michael's side. She'd be his gopher, then his cutter and then she was right there with us, tearing out, measuring, hammering, building, painting, planning everything. She was never happier than when she and. . . ."

"I'm so sorry, Joanie. I meant to offer my condolences about Michael, about your FBI . . . experience, but we were just too busy with getting you your new job. How long was he in the coma before . . . ?"

"Three months. We better catch up or she'll start tearing things apart before we can stop her."

On the way down the stairs, Mattie asked, "How many stitches?"

"Eight."

"It's hardly noticeable."

"Thanks for noticing." The scar on her right cheek was a two-inch long, thin, shallow indent now.

They found Shana inspecting the concrete foundation below the living-dining area. She had brought out her own penlight and would first stand back to get a panoramic view of one section of wall before getting closer to inspect anything she had concerns about.

Joan could see nothing that looked like danger or a threat.

"It looks pretty good," Shana said. "There are some small cracks in the floor, but nothing that we can't keep an eye on or repair right away. The vertical sections are solid." She stood back up, turned off her flashlight and came over to them. "There are no signs of ants or leaks and no mold." She took a deep breath. "It's stale in here, but there are no bad smells that we need to investigate. A few open windows," she glanced at Mattie, "will bring in some fresh air but no misfortune." She pointed behind her. "There are three new mouse traps over by the furnace, which is toast, so we'll need to get a new high-efficiency one and that will be a big hit money-wise, but no droppings that I could find and none of the traps have been sprung." She looked straight at Mattie. A 6'1" goddess could intimidate a lot of people even if she was only fourteen.

Mattie stammered a bit. "Oh, that. I always set traps if the house has been sitting for a while. Those are the only ones I've set and they've been there for over a month."

"Nothing on the other two floors?" Shana lifted her flashlight to shine it in Mattie's eyes, but instead, moved off to the door leading to the back yard.

As Shana passed, Mattie said, "We did catch one up in the kitchen right after listing the house, but that's all." Mattie looked at Joan as if she had just escaped from a predator.

"That's my baby," she said and watched Shana struggle with the back door.

It gave with a loud creak and opened on her third yank. Shana checked the hinges and then the bottom of the door.

"We need to replace the whole jamb, but the door is good." She closed it and headed back to the stairs.

Fighting a sudden rush of adrenaline when she lost sight of Shana, Joan took hold of Mattie's blazer sleeve, quickly scanned the basement again and towed her up the stairs. She let Shana do the inspection, just making sure she didn't miss what she wasn't supposed to.

"I guess the market will be picking up now that Do-Dads and Karyon Research are coming."

"It already has. I have two fulltime agents and two part-timers. But I may not be doing that much longer."

"But Griffin Real Estate has been here since shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct."

Mattie started to scowl before smiling and nodding. "I did say that, didn't I?"

"You also said you'd never go into the family business. I believe you told me you'd rather work in a brothel in Bombay than sell houses. You used Bombay for everything you didn't like. I never knew what you had against that city."

"I didn't mean that Griffin Real Estate is closing, nothing like that. It's just that I'm in the process of starting my own internet-based business. If it takes off, as I'm sure it will, I'll leave the management of GRE to others."

"What kind of business?"

"That's a secret for now, for proprietary reasons."

They had reached the upstairs. Shana was quick and efficient and returned to them at the top of the stairs as soon as she was finished.

She declared, "Structurally sound. From what we saw outside, it might only take some minor repairs and new paint. The window frames are good, but we could use new, high-e windows. The middle section of the bay window in the living room is a goner, though. There must have been some problem with rain leaking in at one time. We'll need to check the wall for rot, but the basement below it didn't indicate any serious problems."

"Good God," Mattie said. "You could do this for a living."

"I was going to . . . in Portland." She pointed to the master bedroom at the back of the house. "You get a full bath and a decent closet. The main one has a small tub, but I think we can rearrange things to get a six-footer into it." She looked at Mattie. "I do like a good soak from time to time."

Joan chuckled. "From about noon time to bed time."

"I think the big bedroom would look good in a light green. The crown moulding is white and would set off nicely against it." The finagling had begun.

"You know I'm not a fan of green."

"Then you take one of the other rooms."

"Nice try. That one's mine. And it's going to be—"

"God, don't say taupe. I'll kill myself if you say taupe."

"Light taupe."

"The default color for every timid, middle-class, white American. My bedroom in Portland was much bigger."

"That's it, drive it in deep."

"It was short notice," Mattie said. "It's all I could find for what you wanted to pay."

Shana smiled down at Mattie, who appeared to cringe a bit. "Don't worry, Auntie Mattie, we love it, right, mom?"

Mattie puckered her lips when she looked at Joan.

"You heard the lady."

"I would say to go ahead with any renovations you have in mind. Closing the sale is just a formality."

"Up here, we listen to Rhianna, The Decembers and Vampire Weekend, on the main floor, maybe some Bublé, Seal and a jazz diva compilation. In the basement, a mix of old rock and roll for you, Springsteen, AC/DC, some Queen and Seger; Green Day, and Zeppelin for me."

Mattie was completely confused.

"We have to pick out our music playlists before we start any work."

"Oh, I see. I'm partial to—"

Someone knocked at the front door, which had swung closed. They all went down. Mattie opened the door and scowled when she saw who it was.

# Chapter 4

Kate Eiger scowled back at Mattie. Kate's daughter, Susan, twenty-two, with the same wavy blonde hair as her mother pulled back into a ponytail, stood beside her. Joan recognized Susan from a picture on Kate's cell phone shown to her after the job interview. Susan carried a large picnic basket. The sight of it made Joan's stomach gurgle.

Kate chuckled. "I see we haven't come a moment too soon."

"What time is it?" She stepped aside to let Kate and Susan enter.

"About one-thirty." Kate nodded to Mattie as she stepped past her. She gave Shana a wide grin. "You must be Shana."

"I suppose I must." She shook Kate's hand and then Susan's when Kate introduced her.

Susan nodded and smiled, but still said nothing.

Kate put her arm around her daughter. "We are the unofficial welcome wagon. We thought you might be hungry."

"My last meal was in Portland," Shana said. "There's a card table left behind in the nook that we can use."

Susan went with Shana. She, Kate and Mattie followed.

Susan said, "I have a tablecloth from the pub."

"Perfect." Shana brought the table into the center of the nook and unfolded the legs. "We have running water just like in Portland and the stove still works if you need it. I checked."

"We brought two thermoses. Do you drink coffee?"

"No, she doesn't," Joan said.

"We do have diet pop."

"She'll have that."

Shana made a face at her before helping Susan set the red and white plastic tablecloth over the table.

Kate said, "I hope you like chicken and salads."

"Sounds delicious."

Mattie and Kate glowered at each other again before Kate went to the table, opened the basket, a large one on second glance, and brought out some plastic plates. Then, with the speed and efficiency of someone experienced at running a pub, she emptied the contents of the basket and managed to make everything fit on a table that should be far too small to hold it all.

Mattie whispered to Joan, "She does love to put on a performance. I wonder what other tricks she has in store for us."

Mattie hadn't been the most generous of spirit when they were teens, though she hadn't had to do without anything she wanted. Her wealthy stepfather had seen to that. She had also always been jealous of every girl in Dominion with a boyfriend. And she never had liked yielding center stage to anyone.

"I meant to ask you," Joan whispered back as she watched Kate and Susan set out the chicken wings and legs, both of which smelled good enough to make her stomach gurgle again, "are you married?"

"God, no, I stayed in Dominion, remember? What was the chance I'd find anyone here worth it?" She shook her head. "I still have my family name. That should have told you something."

"Not very observant of me, and that's not good. I wouldn't want you to get the wrong impression of your new sheriff."

"It was just a question."

"Not even a special someone, then?"

"I didn't say that."

Kate said, "I think everything is ready. Dig in."

"Honey-garlic wings," Shana squealed, "I'm first."

After some minor jostling and passing of condiments, napkins, forks and such, they settled in to eat.

"When does your stuff arrive?" Susan asked.

"Not until tomorrow. Their truck broke down."

Kate, Susan and even Mattie exchanged looks.

"It doesn't matter," Shana said. "We have our sleeping bags with us."

"And the company is going to knock twenty-five percent off the moving costs."

Kate said, "Submit the invoice to city hall. Make sure Laura Page gets it. She knows what she's doing."

Mattie said, "I'm sure Joanie knows that, Kate." Mattie said Kate's name as if she were spitting out bad food.

"It's just that after three terms as mayor, I know who the go-to people are, the ones who will get the job done quickly." She then said to Joan, "I offer my services, advice and wisdom about Dominion to you," she looked at Mattie as she finished, "be it past, present or future."

"What about the Wiley and Nguyen cases? What do you know about them?"

"I meant anything about the social and political fabric of Dominion, of course. You'd have to talk to Harry about any unresolved cases."

"He's already told Joanie he'll come see her on Monday."

"Good, but beware; if he gets going, you may regret it."

Susan chimed in, "Mom was instrumental in getting Do-Dads and Karyon Research to come here, and in getting you to Dominion, too."

"That's an oversimplification," Mattie said. "It discounts the efforts of so many others. And you seem to forget that Kate was out of office when the final decision was made to build in Dominion."

Susan set her plate on the kitchen counter. "If she hadn't worked so hard in the first place, there would have been no decision to make."

"I'm quite sure others would have been just as successful as your mother. Dominion isn't a one person show, you know."

"Whew." Kate chuckled. "For a moment there, I thought I was back at city hall again. Mattie is right. Many people worked hard to persuade Do-Dads and Karyon to come to Dominion."

"Including Leo," Mattie insisted.

"Leo played his part."

Shana said, "If no one is going to have those last pieces of chicken, I'll take them."

"Feel free to take whatever you want," Kate said.

"She usually does."

# Chapter 5

Shana finished off the last four pieces of chicken, one leg and three wings, both of the salads, the last three small spicy sausages on toothpicks and another diet pop.

Kate, Susan and Mattie picked at the food on their plates in strained silence until they were done.

She couldn't think of anything to say that would relieve the tension. Her preoccupation with Madsen continuing to work two cases—one for the FBI—when he had no official status kept interfering with any other train of thought that started up.

Susan pulled out a garbage bag from the basket and started filling it up. Shana, in between plucking a few other tasty morsels before they were placed back into the basket, helped her.

Shana said to Mattie, "So, who is your special someone?"

Joan silently cursed her daughter's bat-like hearing.

"Who is yours?"

Shana shook her head as she scooped up used napkins and shoved them into the garbage bag. "Don't have one. Not anymore. His name was Ian, he was twenty, you see, far too old for me." She sneered. "Isn't that what you said when you told me we were moving here, mom?"

Kate, Susan and Mattie all looked at Joan.

"She's kidding."

Susan said, "Anyone who interested you?"

Joan asked, "Who are you asking?"

"Anyone with the courage to answer."

Mattie said, "Anyone who gets you tingling?"

Of course, her face went red, right in front of Shana. Shana turned red, too. They'd have a talk later.

"So there was someone."

"No, there wasn't. Not after Michael. . . ."

Shana shot her that judgmental scowl she had perfected.

"Believe me, you're not missing much." Mattie slapped the table. "Sometimes, I think maybe it's our own damn fault."

"Our fault?" Kate folded up the tablecloth and stuffed it back into the basket.

"Sure. Let me ask you . . . all of you. What did you think of when you'd thought you'd found that special guy?"

No one answered.

"Did you imagine something fantastic? Did you fantasize some spectacular, sexy and romantic life together?" She didn't wait for anyone to answer. "We have to stop letting our own subversive, guerilla philosophies on men and relationships bind us to unrealistic expectations."

"Wow," Joan said, "subversive, guerilla philosophies, huh? That's good."

Kate made a face. "Sounds like a pile of—"

"Don't you believe in love?" Shana asked.

"Love is full of lies and deceit. Why would anyone in their right mind want that?"

"You don't trust love, do you?"

"You want both love _and_ trust in one package? See? That's exactly what I'm talking about. Thinking like that _is_ a subversive, guerilla philosophy. We damn ourselves to Titania's fate; we wake up in love with an ass."

Kate said, "Sounds like you haven't had much luck with men."

"I'm not divorced or miserable. How many women over thirty in a relationship with a man can say that?"

Shana said, "You make it sound like we're all doomed."

"Unless you've developed some asshole-recognition software I'm unaware of, yes, we are. Guys are full of shit and women are phony, manipulative bitches. How's that a basis for a harmonious, lifelong relationship?"

"That's a bit harsh, Mattie. Some make it work."

"Some do, but most just settle in and endure. If you want both love and trust together, get a dog."

Kate put the last of the condiments back into the basket and closed the lid. "Everyone needs love, even if it's only spiritual sometimes."

"Only if spiritual means finding Prada shoes and Gucci bags in your five-star hotel room on the Riviera; not the Mexican one, the real one. And he takes care of the bill."

She'd stayed out of the discussion because Shana might take anything she said as a comment about her father if it was misconstrued, which seemed likely with the way this conversation was going and the fact that Shana knew about the affair.

Susan said, "That sounds like prostitution."

"What's wrong with being a sugar doll? If I can use them the way they use me without all the messy stuff that usually goes with it, why shouldn't I?"

"Mattie, that's enough," she said. "Women shouldn't be thinking or behaving like that."

"I don't think men got that memo, either, sweetie."

Shana tied up the garbage bag. "Now I'm really depressed."

Kate said, "You shouldn't be."

"You haven't earned that yet," Mattie added.

Kate looked to the front door. "Speak of being full of it."

They all laughed as Mayor Leonard Jones came in through the open front door. They all stopped laughing as quickly as they'd started.

"I hope I haven't spoiled anything." He wiped his hand through his black hair, which he combed over from the left side to cover the growing bald spot on top.

Joan couldn't discern if the spot was any larger than when they'd talked over a month ago. What she did discern was the sudden change in both Kate's and Mattie's behavior.

Susan said, "We were just discussing whether men are worth the effort."

"I can resolve that this very moment. We are absolutely not worth it. We don't deserve any of you. But as you well know, we're always getting more than we deserve."

"Amen to that," Kate said. "I suppose there's nothing pressing to do at city hall on a sunny Friday afternoon. Did you tell everyone else they could take the time off as well?"

"I just thought I'd drop by to see how our new sheriff was settling in." He indicated them all. "She is clearly in very good hands."

Shana muttered, "Or claws."

Mattie went to the picnic basket and opened it. "I'm sure there's still something in here should you want to join us."

"There's not much left," Kate said.

"He'd be used to that from you."

Shana shot her mother an OMG look followed by a quizzical expression and crossed eyes. She then stepped closer and whispered to her, "My money's on Kate. She's meaner."

She elbowed her daughter before shaking Jones' hand. "Thank you for coming to welcome us."

Mattie brought out a diet Coke. "At least have a drink." She brought over the pop, opened the can and handed it to him.

"Thank you, Mattie." He sipped the pop as he looked around. "This place is going to keep you busy. If there is anything I can do, just ask."

"Like standing around bossing people about." Kate closed the lids on the basket again. "But you don't do that at all, do you, Leo?"

Shana whispered, "I'd take Kate over him, too."

Jones said to Joan, "There's a different mood at city hall after three terms with the same mayor. I'm afraid my predecessor feels I am not the taskmaster she was."

"Everyone is relieved about that," Mattie said.

Her first day back in Dominion, she wasn't even on the job yet and she might just have to break up a brawl. This was much better than a quiet landing in her old haunts.

Shana was enjoying herself.

"But," Jones said, "I assure you that while I am still relatively new to the job, in time, I will become somewhat more willful."

"Spoken like a true invertebrate, Leo. You have to have it in you in the first place before you can stiffen it."

Shana had put her ear buds back in place and was leaning against the hallway wall bobbing her head to some slow song.

Susan, smiling widely, was admiring her sangfroid. "Mom, we have to get back to the Nite-Lite."

Kate said, "I'll leave the basket. There are a few things left if you get the urge to nibble." She scooped up Susan on her way out. "Remember, Joan, if there is anything I can do for you as a private businesswoman in Dominion, someone unfettered by the protocols of public office, just let me know."

"Quite true, Kate," Jones said. "On that point, I envy you; however, don't forget that you are still bound by the oaths you swore upon taking public office."

"Get stuffed, Leo." She and Susan didn't look back.

Mattie took hold of Leo's arm. "She's just a sore loser." She said to Joan, "Sorry about that. I didn't know she was coming. I don't think she's gotten over that Dominion was not actually hers to rule forever."

"I take it you're not on the best of terms."

Jones explained, "Let's just say her last term and the election that removed her from office did not end well for her. There might still be some hard feelings, but she did do a lot of good for Dominion, saw it through some of its toughest times, and she behaves professionally when you call on her. Your job interview is a perfect example of that."

"Is that what you call it?" Mattie patted his hand. "He's too generous. What that faint praise really means is that Kate can't get over that she can't boss everyone around anymore. She's no longer Queen of Dominion and she's having trouble adjusting to a commoner's life again."

Shana now had her eyes closed, sealed shut against the ridiculous and boring adults. It was hard to disagree with her.

"Enough with telling tales out of school, I have to get back to city hall. Welcome to Dominion, Joan and Shana."

Mattie tiptoed after him. She glanced back at the door. "Call me if you need anything. I'll check with you tomorrow."

Joan went to the front door to watch them leave. At the gate, Leo took Mattie's hand after she said something to him, patted it and said something back that made Mattie laugh. They then went their separate ways.

Mattie's obsequious behavior around Jones was inconsistent with her previously vehement expression of enmity toward men. Was there some zoning or licencing issue concerning her new business that made her suck up to Jones? Having to deal with a little, comb-over despot trying to command more power than he really had could understandably color her view of men.

If Jones tried pushing his weight around with the new sheriff, Shana would probably bet on her mother, and rightly so.

Shana came up behind her. "That was awkward and, like, totally creepy."

"Totally."

"You're going to have to control them or Dominion is going to end up on that horror movie channel."

"Or the comedy network. Where were we?"

"Upstairs. Race ya." Shana bolted for the stairs.

# Chapter 6

They spent the next hour and a half taking inventory of what renovations were required. Shana even found a ladder and went up to the roof for a quick inspection before she could be stopped.

The roof was the best news they had. It was only about three or four years old and was in excellent condition. The gutters, having been replaced at the same time, were also in good repair except for one down pipe at the back corner by the kitchen that had been torn away. The driveway was aggregate and only had two minor cracks in it, along with one oil stain.

Shana retrieved a folder with paper in it from her backpack in the Mazda and also brought in the two sleeping bags. She wrote until Joan was sure she'd get a cramp.

This time last year as everything had exploded around her and then gone dark, she had believed she'd lost all this. Of all that lingered from the Crowley farm the worst was remembering she had given up on ever seeing Michael and Shana again.

"Okay," Shana said as they stood in the living room and she went down the list she'd made, "the bedrooms are good. I'll take the front one so we have one between us. I will paint mine ice-drop green. The middle bedroom will be my office."

"Ah . . . _my_ office."

" _The_ computer room. We can put up a chair rail like the one in the hallway and do garnet red below and off-white above it."

"Not ice-drop green?"

Shana stuck out her tongue.

"The carpet in there is blue. You did notice that, right?"

"That goes. There's a hardwood floor underneath it. It just needs to be refinished and it'll look great. That area rug we brought from _our_ old office will match everything perfectly."

" _My_ old office."

" _Your_ master bathroom is, well, you're sort of stuck with lovely pink and white and mauve tiles until we dynamite it."

"I like your idea of putting a bigger tub in the main bath."

Shana sagged a bit. "This is going to be a lot of work and there's only two weeks before school starts." She flipped through the four pages. "And it's going to be expensive. I know you got some kind of settlement for. . . ."

"We'll have enough."

"The furnace really sucks."

She quoted Shana's favorite assessment, "A total nuclear meltdown redo."

"The hot water tank needs to go, too."

"I know; you put it on the list."

"The kitchen's a complete do over."

She sounded just like Michael when she said that.

Joan rubbed her eyes. "God, it's dusty in here."

"Where should we sleep, here or upstairs?"

There was such comfort in that question. It was their biggest adventure in Portland when they were renovating that old mansion. Shana loved having to spend the night in her sleeping bag. It was camping out at home.

Money wasn't a problem. Michael's life insurance payout, his police pension survivors benefits and the money they got from selling the old mansion left enough to cover the costs of this place plus the renovations and still leave her able to take a few years with Shana before having to go back to work. Becoming the new sheriff of Dominion put an end to that plan.

" _Mom_?"

"Huh?"

"Should we clean up first or just bring everything in? Are we sleeping up or down?" Shana got her impatience from. . . .

She took the list from Shana and set it on the front window sill. "I have an idea. Why don't we go for a ride before supper? I'll show you one of my favorite spots when I was just getting started. It's about twenty miles out and back from here."

"I'll unload the bikes, you get the gear. Don't dawdle."

"I don't dawdle."

"You were always the last one ready. We always had to wait. . . ." Shana hugged her and kissed her cheek. "Just don't dawdle, okay?"

Joan watched out the bay window as Shana opened the combination lock to get the bikes off the roof rack. She wiped a tear from her eye and took a deep breath.

"That's the last of them."

Father had murdered mother here, had tried to kill her and had then taken his own life a day after she'd turned nineteen. In the last year, she had to first deal with the deaths of eleven of her team at the Crowley farm and then the death of Michael three months later. Friends, colleagues and family had danced around rumors of infidelity after Michael died. She had left the FBI six months after his funeral, two months after Wong and Torres had committed suicide on the same night while talking to each other on the phone. One month ago, she was hired as the new sheriff. She'd promised herself then to shed no more tears once they reached Dominion.

Why did people make such stupid promises to themselves?

What had she brought Shana to? Do-Dads specialized in additive manufacturing, including what they called the latest in 3D printing, something she had trouble understanding. Karyon Research was a biomedical company based in Widow Creek about thirty miles to the west. These new members of Dominion's business community were supposed to bring between 800 and 1000 new jobs once they were up and running within the next year.

Dominion had a ten and twenty year plan of growth that was supposed to one day make them larger than Bend, which seemed to be important to city council. Kate, Leo and Harry had told her all this as if they had to sell Dominion to her more than she had to convince them she was the best candidate.

Had the other candidates been offered first and turned them down?

On arrival, she finds out that Kate and Leo are enemies. Mattie sides with Leo and wants to convince her that Kate and Susan are the deserved outcasts. Then there was Madsen refusing to ride off into the Sunset Retirement Home just yet.

Shana startled her when she growled from the front door, " _Mom_ , stop dawdling."

# Chapter 7

In the seventeen years since she'd left, Dominion had seen enough sprawl to the east that a few neighborhoods had started going up into the foothills. The curving sweep of the mountains from the west-northwest around to the northeast defined the crescent shape of the valley and provided a small rain shadow east of Dominion. It wasn't as dry as the east side of the Cascades, but the change was noticeable after they left the city. Evergreens thinned out, plant growth became sparse, succulents appeared at the sides of the road and up along the dry slopes that also displayed tall, vellum-hued grass and patches of bare, dry land this late in August.

After about six miles of warm-up, just as Ditchburg Road began rolling up and down northward into the hills, they started their friendly competition. The road wasn't in the same condition it was when she was fourteen. It was new then. Now it had cracks, crumbling shoulders, frost heaves, some of which had been badly repaired, and potholes.

Shana, three inches taller, had the same natural strength in her legs as her mother, but she'd been reluctant to take riding seriously. She preferred the heptathlon, which provided a more versatile outlet for her formidable athletic talents.

"She doesn't want to disappoint you," Michael had told her.

"How could she possibly disappoint me?"

"She's seen the trophies. She knows you would have made the Olympic team if not for that crash. What if she can't do that?"

"She'll do better than I ever did once she commits to it."

"I agree. You two leave me in the dust. She could ride you into the ground if she set her mind to it. Just let her come into her own. Then you will both be happy."

They raced back and forth, taking the lead, drafting, working together as if they were a breakaway pair trying to catch the leaders of an imaginary race and stay ahead of the peloton behind them. Then they would try to drop each other.

Shana was a fantastic sprinter, good enough to ride on the track if she wanted to. She was also good on her feet, having run an 11.6 100 meters in June to set an Oregon age-class record. She would race out into the lead, leaving a larger gap each time that Joan had difficulty closing. Thank goodness for the uphill portions.

She could still leave Shana behind going uphill, though it hurt more than ever before to do it.

Renovating the house and riding would set down roots in Dominion. It was how she had settled herself in Portland when they moved there from San Francisco. She got to know the best riding routes. She became familiar with the building supply and home improvement outlets in Portland. Once she'd accomplished that, the city belonged to her. She and Shana were going to do the same thing in Dominion. They would make this their town, their home.

For now, they were just enjoying themselves. She could ride like this forever as long as Shana was with her.

Shana, about six lengths ahead of her, looked back, smiled and started her sprint along the extended flat section of Ditchburg Road that would eventually lead to the turn off to Quarrelle Lake.

"Oh, yeah." She changed gears, got out of the saddle and took off after her daughter.

She started to close the gap. Shana was going to be far better than she ever was, but she could still catch her. She peddled as fast as she could. The gap closed. Shana was only fourteen. Even a 6'1" teenage goddess couldn't keep up this speed forever; not yet, anyway. She lowered her head for the big push, glanced up and felt her thirty-six years of life grab hold of her thighs.

The goddess looked back at her, smiled again—smirked really—found another gear and left her mother behind as she made for the curve in the road ahead of them. But the goddess with the ponytail bobbing out from under her helmet didn't know what her merely mortal mother knew.

Joan eased her pace and followed Shana around the curve about ten lengths back. Once she'd cleared the curve, she spotted Shana pedaling hard but no longer trying to drop her mother because about two hundred meters ahead was the steepest and longest hill they were going to face on the ride. It wasn't Tour de France tough, but it slowed Shana enough for her mother to catch up. If only she could get a bit more air into her lungs and a bit more lactic acid out of her thighs.

She didn't catch Shana until they were near the top of the hill. From there, they rode together along another flat stretch of road. Soon, Shana would have her on the hills, too; perhaps by next Friday.

"We go down one more hill," she said. "It's about a mile."

They reached the old forestry road five minutes later, got off their bikes and started drinking water. She gasped for breath and massaged her thighs. Shana wiped away a bit of sweat from her forehead.

"Up there is where I got my painful introduction to mountain bike racing." She pointed to the gravel road curving up into the mountains.

"You're not going to get into your way-back machine again, are you?"

"I broke my left collar bone. Something like that tends to stick with you."

The road was overgrown, barely identifiable as a road except for two gravel tracks and the metal-bar gate that blocked access to it fifty feet off Ditchburg.

"That's strange. I guess you really can't go home again."

"Suits me."

She poured some water over her head. The air felt about ten degrees hotter than when they'd started riding. "Let's agree to take it easy on the way home."

Before Shana could respond, they heard two gunshots quickly followed by two more. A memory flash had her reaching for a gun she didn't have before running to Shana to get her to cover.

Shana sidestepped her lunge and grabbed her shoulders from behind. "Who are they?"

Two huge men emerged from the woods on the other side of the gate. They each carried automatic rifles equipped with scopes.

# Chapter 8

"Stay here." She headed for the gate.

Shana said to her back, "Don't forget, horror movie channel stuff: _Texas_ _Chainsaw_ _Massacre_ ; _The_ _Hills_ _Have._ . . ."

The men stepped onto the vestige of service road and came to the gate. Both men were at least 6'8", four inches taller than Michael, maybe 250 pounds of muscle, tanned to the point of being leathery, and were in their late twenties or early thirties. They wore camouflage hunting vests to go with camouflage pants and military boots. Bulging biceps and thick forearms were covered with identical tattoos designed to make it even more difficult to tell them apart. They were twins. Each one of them also had a tattoo of chain links circling his neck. As they got closer, she spotted a small tattoo on the back of their right hands between their thumbs and index fingers. Compared to the other gaudy shapes, creatures and symbols, it resembled not much more than a spilled glop of black ink that had seeped under their skin.

They both sported military-grade crew cuts and scowling faces as threatening as those true believers at the Crowley farm. Her gaze focused on the full pockets of their hunting vests.

She reached the gate first, took a deep breath and grabbed hold of the metal bar that crossed the road. "What was all that shooting about?"

"This is private property," one of the twins growled. "Clear off."

The other twin, his jaw clenched, started to raise his gun, a Colt IAR6940. A glance from his brother stopped him.

The small tattoo was a canine head. It could be a wolf. It had the earmarks of a military emblem. They had served in the same unit at one time.

The other twin held a SIG556 Classic.

"This is a service road. It's public domain. And those are not hunting rifles."

"What do you know about rifles?"

"You're holding a Colt IAR, and your brother has a SIG Classic."

The twins glanced at each other again.

The one who hadn't yet said anything stepped up to the gate and cocked his rifle. "Who said we were hunting?"

They sounded the same, too. If these two came after her in the dark with both of them growling at the same time, it would be impossible to locate either one of them.

She held tightly to the gate to keep from stepping back and checked to see if they were carrying machetes. The twin with the Colt had one in its sheath strapped to his left leg.

"I'm the new Sheriff in Dominion." That sounded like a line from a bad western, not a horror movie. "You're going to have to show me permits for those rifles."

This time they glared at each other for a moment as if they were going to fight. The one holding the Sig Sauer started to raise it.

"Officially," a man said as he emerged from the trees, "I don't believe you are the new _Sheriff_ until Monday."

He nodded at the twins.

They backed off a few steps.

In his late forties and the same height as Shana, his black hair was the same crew cut as the twins. He was skeletal thin, though there was considerable strength in his tough, sinewy build. He was also as leathery as his indistinguishable subordinates. His large, dark eyes, hidden in shadows on each side of his long, hooked nose, presented a predatory-bird countenance. The mind behind those eyes was experienced, comfortable and thorough at assessing people and situations, recognizing strengths and weaknesses and, most important to him, of what use or threat they would be to him. He held himself erect, his shoulders back. He was confident, someone used to giving orders and being obeyed.

"Nonetheless," he said with a slight bow to her, "I think it would be prudent if we respected your claim of authority, even if it is three days premature."

He nodded again. The twins lowered their rifles after first reengaging the safeties.

She glanced back at Shana, one frightened goddess who probably wished she really did have supernatural powers.

The man came to the gate. "My name is Morton Colter. Joan McGowan, I'm very pleased to meet you." He held out his hand, which had the same black tattoo of a howling hound on it in exactly the same spot. He nodded toward her daughter. "And Shana, too, of course."

# Chapter 9

Colter turned to the twins and dismissed them with another slight nod of his head. The twins stepped back into the woods, though it seemed more like a melding with the surroundings. They were just gone, some kind of hallucination conjured by Colter to confuse and terrify in case his eyes weren't enough.

"I apologize for Bobby and Billy. They can take their guarding duties too seriously sometimes."

"What are they guarding? This is a public road."

"They are here to keep people out for their own good. We have some practice shooting going on up in the hills. You might have heard some of it."

"I heard. What kind of practice shooting?"

"It's all perfectly legal. We do have permits." He came to the gate. "There is always a shooting contest at the Fall Farm Fair. I'm surprised you didn't remember that."

"I remember." She hadn't.

"When you start work on Monday, you can check your records. It will confirm what I just told you."

"I'll do that. How do you know who I am?"

"I had some input in hiring you."

Did everyone in Dominion have some input in hiring her?

Joan again looked back at Shana, who wasn't interested in coming to the gate even though the twins were gone.

"As far as the service road goes," Colter said. "While it's true that technically it is still government land, there have been many changes since you were last in Dominion. The road and area immediately surrounding it is public, despite what Bobby and Billy might have told you, but this side," he indicated the land to her left, the north by northwest side, "is now part of my farm. It goes up into the hills where we are holding our shooting practice. That side belongs to Craig Harding now. He's a veterinarian who runs a research hospital."

"Did he have some input in hiring me, too?"

Colter chuckled. When he lowered his gaze, the shadow where his eyes should be gave him the appearance of something about to pounce. "I don't think Dr. Harding takes much interest in anything in Dominion."

"That's refreshing," she muttered before hearing a number of shots coming from higher up in the forest.

"You do start Monday, am I correct?"

"Yes, and on Monday, I might just come back here to see those permits."

"You will find the original application and permits in your office. If, however, you would like to visit my farm, I would be glad to show you around. Shana can come, too, if she wants to. In the meantime, if you have concerns, feel free to check with Mayor Jones. He's a good friend. He can put your mind at ease."

"What if I check with Kate Eiger instead?"

"You may ask anyone you like, Mrs. McGowan, but Kate is no longer in office, is she? She wouldn't have access to the information that would assuage any concerns you might have."

This conversation was starting to go in circles.

"Dominion is going to seem very quiet after your stint with the FBI antiterrorism unit. By the way, let me offer my condolences to you for the loss of your colleagues on that truly heroic mission. I have lost good soldiers under my command. And please let me also offer my condolences on the loss of your husband and those two other survivors of that mission to suicide. I don't mean to sound too forward, but Michael's loss was quite tragic. I can barely imagine what you and your daughter must have gone through this past year. I'm sure that memento on your cheek is not the only thing you've had to contend with."

Colter was an expert at using information about people against them.

"You may find it too boring to stay long in Dominion, even with Do-Dads and Karyon Research offering such a promising future."

"What do you know about them?"

"It's my understanding that Do-Dads has developed a very sophisticated—I believe the correct term these days is high-tech—method called three-dimensional printing using electron beam heating to melt the raw material inside a sealed vacuum chamber and then build whatever they want one layer at a time, perhaps one molecule at a time, using computer assisted design programs to guide the process. But that is the extent of my knowledge of that technology."

At least he wasn't claiming to be a know-it-all, though he seemed to understand the process much better than she did. She envisioned a tank being assembled at the end of a red laser beam sweeping back and forth across a platform.

"Karyon is a standard biomedical research company. I believe its main accomplishment so far is a vaccine or retro-virus treatment that can inhibit or cure—I'm not sure which—auto-immune diseases like Lupus, Psoriasis and Crohn's. I could be wrong about what specific diseases it is used on."

"You know a lot about them."

"I had some input in getting them here, too."

"You must be quite influential."

"I'm a farmer, Mrs. McGowan, a very successful one. Like any businessperson in Dominion, including Kate, we consult with city council on all major plans for the future. There is a display at city hall that eloquently shows where we all hope to be ten and twenty years from now."

It was a reasonable explanation. She had to concede that, no matter how vulnerable his dark eyes and knowledge of her and Shana made her feel.

"Do you know either Stanford Wiley or Albert Nguyen?"

"Dominion is a small city. If one is involved in its political and social activities, one is likely to meet almost every resident eventually. I do know both men, though I had little to do with Wiley professionally or personally. Albert came to the farm regularly to purchase produce from us. That is his business."

"When was the last time you saw Albert?"

"He came by two days before he was reported missing, but then we can't know exactly when he vanished, can we? Harry Madsen would be the best person to talk to about Wiley and Albert once you are officially Sheriff."

Deny and deflect; everyone in Dominion seemed to have that technique down pat.

Colter pointed to the west. "I believe it might be for the best if you two excellent athletes headed back. Take it from an old farmer, that's a small but intense rain storm coming in. They've been known to drop heavy loads on this side of the Cascades before moving on, and your bikes appear to be equipped more for racing than foul weather. While there isn't much traffic out this way, there aren't any streetlights either. Drivers might have trouble seeing you in a downpour." He nodded. "Please be careful on your way back."

He returned to the forest on his side of the service road. Colter wasn't only an expert at using information about people against them. He also seemed to have the knack for making an expression of concern sound more like a threat.

She returned to Shana and their bikes.

Shana asked, "If that's his side of the line, why did those two trolls go to the other side?"

"He knows a lot about Do-Dads and Karyon."

"You mean that stuff on three-D printing and the auto-immune vaccine? He got that off the internet."

"How do you know?"

"Because I found it there."

"You were actually researching Dominion?"

"It didn't take very long." She nodded west. "We better get going. My bunions are starting to throb."

"Yes, granny."

They started back, keeping up a vigorous but sustainable pace to get home as soon as possible. Just before they reached the first hill to leave Colter's farm behind, they heard an eagle call from above, then more gunshots. It sounded like automatic weapons firing, not controlled target shooting.

At the top of the hill, she took a quick look up when she heard what sounded like a giant, angry hummingbird pass overhead. She saw nothing. Two miles later, as they reached the top of another hill, she heard it again.

"That," Shana said, "is one angry bumblebee." She was taking quick looks for it, too. "I thought we would have dropped it by now."

They raced down the other side, only returning to their less strenuous pace a mile later. They didn't hear the buzz again after that, but she couldn't shake the feeling they were being followed, which wasn't helped when they passed from the bright sunshine into the dark shadows of the laden clouds. They reached the old house, their new home, just as the rain started pelting Dominion.

They brought the bikes into the house with them.

"Age before beauty," Shana said. "I'll bring in our clothes from the car. You take a long enough shower to get rid of all the rust in the pipes for me."

"Nothing's too good for my baby."

The old tank with the puddle at its base did a decent job of providing a warm flow, which was remarkably clear of any brown water even at the start. Two towels and her bathrobe were waiting for her when she slid the shower door aside. Her two navy suitcases sat open on the faded mustard-yellow shag carpet in the master bedroom. As she came out of her bedroom, Shana came out of hers at the front of the house wearing her bath robe and carrying two towels for her own use.

The rain storm was heavy but brief. It left everything soaking wet and glistening when the clouds moved off to let the sunshine return. It provided little relief from the heat.

She and Shana, still in their bath robes, picked at the leftovers in the picnic basket, mostly just vegetables with a ranch dressing dip.

Shana said, "That is not going to do it for me."

"I didn't think so." She went over to the kitchen counter and sorted through the pamphlets Mattie had left behind. "We could get a pizza. They deliver."

"What kind of pizza? I don't want grits with headcheese and haggis."

"When did you become a picky eater?"

"When did we arrive in Dominion?"

"It's the usual suspects: Hawaiian, pepperoni."

"Let's just order cheese. It's hard to wreck a cheese pizza."

She ordered a cheese, pepperoni, olives and mushroom pizza against Shana's protests and threats to not eat it, and two large, caffeine-free diet Cokes. It came in twenty minutes, giving them enough time to get dressed and her enough time to make sure the house was secure. After they ate all they could, they made the decision to sleep in the living room together. They opened their sleeping bags, laid down in them and debated what part of the renovations would likely be the most difficult.

Shana fell asleep first, mumbling as she did, "Dad would have loved this place."

Constantly reassuring herself that there was no intentional or unintentional accusation in Shana's sleepy words, she was able to hold on until the sun had finished sinking below the horizon. Then tracer bullets were ricocheting everywhere at the Crowley farm, weaving fiery threads into a net that contracted around them. Travis, Erica, Arnie and Michael lay on the ground staring up at her. TJ's head came rolling across the approach road to settle at her feet and join with the other stares.

She peeked out from behind the van to see where the shooting was coming from. People were screaming and moaning in the distance. The cornfield was ablaze. Wong and Torres stood amid the flames talking on their phones until they put guns to their temples and simultaneously pulled the triggers. The ground erupted with explosions. Men crawled out of the holes left behind and fired at her before exploding into flaming debris that landed all around her.

Maple trees burst into flames again, illuminating both the road and Shana riding her bike along it. Tracer fire shot across Shana's path.

She launched herself toward her daughter. A bullet struck her shoulder, knocking her back against the van. Shana waved just as two huge men wearing camouflage hunting vests and wielding machetes lunged from the darkness at her.

# Chapter 10

Sleep hadn't come easily to her after the Crowley farm. That descent into unconsciousness came too close to how she had felt after being shot when she'd been sure she was done and gone. She'd got up twice to check the whole house.

Her first sleep in Dominion after nineteen years away, fitful as it was, ended the instant the siren started. The first thing she noticed after sitting up in her sleeping bag was an empty space where Shana should be. Her cell phone on the floor beside her showed 6:39 am. The wail, a loud, steady drone, like an air raid siren, drowned out any other sounds of morning. Sun came in through the kitchen and nook windows.

Shana stood in the doorway to the entrance hall with her sleeping bag cocooning all but her face. Her mouth was moving, but Joan couldn't hear her.

"I said," Shana shouted, "what is that?"

She grabbed her phone, lost her grip and just caught it before it hit the floor. She punched the speed dial button for Mattie, the only phone number she had for Dominion on her new cell other than the Sherriff's office number.

As soon as Mattie responded, she asked, "What on earth is that noise?"

"It's the old Firetown alarm."

Joan signaled to Shana that everything was all right. She spoke louder into the phone than she needed to. "I remember now."

"Do you remember who set it off?"

"Darren Kettle. It was our senior year."

"He's on city council now. He's a lawyer."

"Darren's a lawyer? Didn't we . . . ?"

"Think he was the most likely to be arrested for molesting children? Only goes to show that you can never really know what kids are going to become."

"Has he set it off again?"

Mattie laughed. "No. It's still used to gather the volunteers when there's a fire."

"Should I be doing something? I'm the sheriff now."

"Not until Monday."

Why should that comment feel like a slap in the face?

"Harry will deal with this. Your stuff comes today, right?"

"At ten o'clock."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"How about coming over for supper? They should be finished in time for us to get set up. It might have to be take-out, though."

"Sorry, Joanie, one of the people from Do-Dads is moving here to oversee construction of their facility. We're looking at three houses tonight. I've got someone from Karyon coming on Tuesday." Mattie's end of the line went silent.

The siren's droning wail seemed to be decreasing, as if the old codger turning the crank was getting tired.

"I'll come over after if it's not too late."

"That would be great."

"If I can't make it, I'll call, but I will definitely be there tomorrow, sleeves rolled up, ready to peak into every box you have, and ready to pitch in or pitch out."

"That's a deal."

The siren stopped. She imagined the old codger lying on the floor at the top of the bell tower clutching his chest.

"Joanie?"

"Still here."

"I don't want to sound like a gossipmonger your first full day back, but you should know that Kate was indeed instrumental in getting Do-Dads and Karyon here. Unfortunately, she broke a lot of eggs making that omelette. The whole city turned against her after that, so she might still be bitter. I know Susan is."

"How ugly did it get?"

"I don't know much of the details. I just wanted to warn you so you wouldn't take anything she tells you about Dominion, or certain people, too seriously. Okay? I will definitely see you tomorrow. Bye. And I will get someone to call you about the fire, all right?"

"I appreciate that."

It was appropriate that Harry went to the fire. He was still the sheriff. It would be a professional courtesy to invite her, however.

"Well?" Shana lowered her sleeping bag to her waist.

"It's a fire alarm to summon the volunteers."

Her cell phone rang. "Hello."

"Good morning, Joan, it's Harry. You've no doubt heard."

"We heard."

"I called Mattie to get your new number. I know your movers get here this morning, but I thought I'd ask if you wanted to come along. You will have to do any follow up that's required. I'm just symbolic at this point."

"Where is it?"

"Cabin Country at the north end of the lake."

"Past the Colter farm."

"Quite a bit past that. I've talked to Randal from Forestry. It's really just a cabin fire. It shouldn't be too difficult."

It wouldn't be fair to leave Shana to supervise the movers. "Can you call me from the fire and let me know if I need to be there?"

"I'll call you one way or the other."

"Thanks. And thanks for the invite, Harry."

"Talk to you later."

"That was Harry Madsen about the fire. It's a cabin up at the north end of the lake."

She shrugged. "Did you see those tats?"

"Couldn't miss them."

"All three of them had the same one."

"It was a dog's head or a wolf's. They probably served in the same unit. I'd bet Colter was their commanding officer."

"Maybe those rifles had silver bullets in them." She dropped her sleeping bag to the floor, rubbed her eyes and said through a yawn, "Those two might become psychopathic hairballs during the full moon." She started for the kitchen. "I'll put on the coffee."

"We're going out for breakfast, and you'll have milk or juice."

"Had to try."

# Chapter 11

Craig Harding arrived at Cabin Country in the first truck. He brought the truck as close as he could to the burning log cabin. Two units of four men each got out of the back.

"First unit to the south side," he said to his men, "second unit to the west side." He didn't say anything else. These men were experienced enough to know what they needed to do.

The second truck pulled up and stopped. Harry Madsen drove in behind it in his Explorer as units three and four got out.

"You're on fire control to the north." He waited for Harry to get to him. "No Kelly?"

"Randal told me it was a small fire."

"And our new sheriff?"

"I'll call her back if she's needed."

Craig pointed to the cabin. "It's intense but contained."

A chubby man in his fifties came to them. He wore a Hawaiian shirt splashed with mostly yellow and shades of blue to go with knee-length khaki shorts. Tan lines were clearly visible on his arms and legs. "I'm Dennis Hetherington. I made the call."

"When did you first notice the fire?"

"There are only a few of us left up here now. The Harpers went home on Thursday. The Cartwrights and Semples leave a week from Wednesday. Then it will be just me until the end of the Labor Day weekend. I drew the short straw this year." He pointed out each cabin as he named the families.

None of the cabins were close to the one on fire, which would likely be out before Hetherington ever got around to answering the question.

"I was on my rounds when I heard what sounded like a hive of wasps swarming above me. That's all I'd need, I'm allergic. I started running for my cabin, but then, bang," he clapped his hands, "the noise is gone and I hear a pop."

"A pop?" He looked at Harry, who just shrugged.

"Like something fell, like a glass container full of liquid fell to the ground, that kind of pop. Next thing I know, the cabin's on fire."

"Whose cabin is it?"

"That one belongs to the Taylors, a nice older couple from Salem, but they haven't been here for years. Keith was in pretty poor shape the last time I saw him. He'd had his hip replaced and then suffered through a bout of septicemia. He looked very frail while they were up here. I heard he died that winter."

Harry asked, "How long ago was that?"

"Three, maybe four years; yeah, I'd say four years ago."

"No one's been in it since?"

"I've been here every year, though not for the whole summer. I haven't seen anyone."

"Squatters, maybe."

"I haven't seen any. The others would have told me if they had. You've probably heard the rumors of motorcycle gangs using the cabins in the off season, but none of us have found any evidence. What do you think the chances are that motorcycle gangs would clean up after themselves?"

Craig, as he watched his crew at work, said, "Thank you for your help."

Hetherington pointed to his cabin near the entrance to the grounds. "I'll be over there if you need me." He returned to his cabin, his legs revealing flashes of pale skin as he walked.

"He'd keep an eye on anyone coming and going," Harry said.

"But he's not here the whole summer, probably none of them are. And squatters could sneak in late at night easily enough." He looked up and around the compound. "I don't see any CCTV."

Hetherington came back to them. "You're the sheriff, aren't you?"

"For two more days."

Hetherington, about six inches shorter than Craig's 6'2", looked up at him. "Are you from city council?"

"No, why?"

"You can see there are about a dozen cabins here. Three of them, including that one on fire, have been abandoned for at least three years. We've been trying to get something done about them to prevent exactly what's just happened." He pointed to the fire, which was under control and going out quickly now. "There should be some mandatory upkeep rule for empty cabins."

Harry said, "These grounds are under state jurisdiction. Nonetheless, I will make some calls to get someone up here to listen to your concerns."

"That's all we ask." He returned to his cabin, this time to stay.

"If there are no squatters or fastidiously neat motorcycle gangs, do you think a mob of swarming wasps knocked something over when they landed?"

At least he hadn't started on his poacher theory again.

"It would most likely be a squadron of kamikaze fireflies to get a blaze that hot going." He looked over to the fire. "I know these things. I'm a veterinarian."

Harry cocked his head. "Randal's finally here."

The Bell 407 helicopter hovered briefly over the compound before setting down in the middle of it. Randal Vance, African-American, from Oregon's Department of Forestry, exited and came to them.

Harry greeted him with, "Horse is gone and barn door's been closed."

"It's almost out." Craig shook hands with his army buddy.

Randal, 6' tall and about 220 pounds, his playing weight when he was a running back at Oregon State, said, "Only saw the cabin and three trees that suffered damage; nothing serious."

"There's no wind this morning. We caught a break with that. And yesterday's rain left everything soaked, which helped with fire suppression."

The four units took about another hour to make sure the fire was completely out. Hetherington, the Cartwrights and the Semples were out on their porches watching the crew clean up.

Randal asked him, "Want to have a quick look?"

"I have to get back to the farm. I'll leave the second crew until you're sure you don't need them anymore."

"I called Kyle's team in for a look. We'll drop by later and let you know what we find out."

"It will make Hetherington happy. He'll have someone else to complain to."

Harry said, "I'll call Kelly and ask her to brief the new sheriff in case she has to follow up with anything."

"I thought you talked to her already."

"I promised to keep her in the loop."

Was the new sheriff temperamental? If she was, how would that affect his investigation of Colter?

"We're having barbeque tonight. Two of our Oregon State group officially graduated. You're both invited." He said to Harry, "If you're not too busy keeping the new sheriff in the loop."

"Me miss a barbeque?" Harry rubbed his protruding stomach. "Not a chance."

Randal said, "If the guys don't keep me too long, I'll try to get there."

Craig confirmed his first and second units had completed packing up, returned to the truck with them and left Cabin Country wondering how a squadron of kamikaze fireflies could possibly set a fire hot enough to gut a solidly built log cabin.

# Chapter 12

A trip to MacDonald's for breakfast had them back home by 8:30 am. With the movers not due until ten o'clock, they still had plenty of time. She backed the Mazda into the narrow driveway at the front of the house and they began unpacking.

Most of the stuff they had brought with them was personal and ended up in either her bedroom or Shana's. Once they were finished, they met at the rickety table in the nook.

She asked Shana, "What do we tackle first?"

As Michael always said, Shana replied, "Start at the top."

That brought a pause between them.

"Sweetheart, I know we haven't talked about—"

"I've changed my mind. I want black."

Wanting black might have indicated some symbolic comment about their move from Portland, except Shana had been campaigning for a black room since she was twelve.

"You are not painting your room black."

"Dark grey, then."

"Dark grey is just another way of saying black. There will be no Goth rooms in this house."

"The basement, then, it could be black."

_Never_! "You're not listening to me."

"Of course not."

They both looked to the front of the house when the rumble of a truck approached and then stopped.

"They're early." She went to the front door and opened it.

The same three men who had moved them out of the old mansion in Portland, tall and lean, two blonds and a redhead, emerged from the cab of the truck. The redhead, Jordan Burnett, twenty-six, son of the moving company's owner, Oliver Burnett, grabbed up his clipboard from the truck, leapt over the fence and bounded up the stairs to the front door. The other two were about twenty. Shana was going to love this.

Shana came up behind her as Jordan hurdled over the fence. Her eyes glazed over and a little squeak escaped her when she saw it was the same trio from Friday.

Shana's reaction was understandable. This trio would have preoccupied every moment of her gaze when she was fourteen.

Shana whispered to her as Jordan came up the stairs, "They're wearing jeans and T-shirts again. Oh . . . my . . . God."

She shook her head. "Good morning, Jordan."

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. McGowan, or should I call you Sheriff McGowan?"

"Not until Monday."

"We had to unload everything and pack it into this truck."

"It looks smaller."

"Oh, it's big enough, and we were very careful with everything." His green eyes shone.

She glanced past him to the two men opening the gate and pulling out the ramp. Never mind being fourteen; she might take up a position at the living room window herself and just watch.

"Mrs. McGowan?"

"Joan, please." She brushed some hair back from her face.

"Joan, dad told you we'd take twenty-five percent off for the delay, is that right?"

"Yes, he did."

"It's going to be fifty percent. He called me this morning."

"That will be fine."

Jordan handed his clipboard to her. "Could you initial there? This is just acknowledgement of the new moving charges. I'll get you to sign another form once we've finished unloading and you're satisfied with everything."

She confirmed the reduction to half the original amount quoted and put her initials in the box Jordan had drawn on the contract next to the new sum. She handed back the clipboard.

Shana nudged her from behind and whispered, "I wanted to check."

Jordan smiled at them both, returned the clipboard to the cab of the truck and then went to help the other two. She suddenly remembered their names.

The taller one was Ian, the other one was Jimmy.

"Ian's the right height for me," Shana said.

"But the wrong age." She brushed some hair from her daughter's face. "They're all the wrong age for you right now. Every boy and man on this planet is, just for clarity."

"Death to all tyrants." She went up to her room.

Joan went into the living room to be out of the way. What she heard above her indicated Shana had taken up position at her bedroom window in her capacity as back-up supervisor. At least she could count on Shana to not take her eyes of any of them.

Jordan, Jimmy and Ian went about their work carefully and quickly. There could have been some motivation to make amends for the one day delay, or maybe it was because she was a sheriff. She had no idea if they set a record or not, but they were finished by two o'clock.

She had insisted on getting burgers and pops for them for lunch. Shana had insisted on handing them out. She and her back-up supervisor did what unpacking they could while trying to stay out of the way, a task made slower by Shana's tendency to wander off to make sure the stuff was getting put in the right place, despite clear labels on the boxes and the simple layout of the house. Shana absolutely had to show Ian where the basement was, then take him out the door and back to the truck.

Jordan went with her through each room once they were finished to make sure nothing was damaged; nothing was.

"If you find anything, let us know. We will reimburse you for any costs of repair or replacement. That is our policy."

"I'm sure everything will be just fine." She signed where she was supposed to and let Jordan out the front door.

Shana came running down the stairs from her bedroom.

Jordan waved to both of them and got into the truck last. He let Ian drive it away.

Shana sighed with exaggerated disappointment. "I was hoping he'd change his shirt like Ian and Jimmy did."

"So was I." She closed the front door.

" _Mother_ , you're too old.

"Maybe, but I'm not dead."

"At least I got Ian's number."

"What?"

"Just kidding."

"I guess we better get our rooms ready." She took hold of the handrail. "I don't want to unpack too much yet if we're going to be painting."

"I'm all set."

"Then you can help your _old_ mother with her stuff."

They got to her bedroom but didn't get to enter it before there was a light knock at the front door followed by a ring of the doorbell.

"Did they forget something?" Shana had that squeak in her voice again. Her world was music downloads and texting on her phone, Twitter and Facebook, and a crush on every third tall boy who crossed her path.

She descended the stairs, feeling a bit stiff in the legs from yesterday's sprints and hill climbs. _Just let her go next time_. She opened the door.

Kate pointed to the doorbell. "I didn't know if it worked." She stepped in. "Sorry about that racket this morning. It's been a quiet summer for fires. I forgot to mention it."

"Mattie told me what it was about."

Kate looked into the living room. "Don't let me keep you."

"Nonsense, I need to return your basket."

She took Kate to the kitchen and the basket by the sink. "Thank you again. That was just what we needed yesterday."

"Along with a diatribe on men and relationships, too, I'm sure."

"Where's Susan?"

"At the pub. She's there until six today." Kate picked up the basket and looked out the window over the sink. "I just wanted to see how you were getting along, make sure the movers got here."

"As you can see."

"And give you a little advice."

"About what?"

"More of a friendly warning about how things are in Dominion."

Why couldn't Kate have told her this at the job interview? "How are things in Dominion?"

"It's just that a lot is happening very quickly right now, not all of it for the better, in my opinion."

Did Mattie share that opinion, or Harry, or Leo?

"I took a ride to Greens' Point yesterday. I met Morton Colter."

"That's exactly what I mean."

"You know him, then."

"Of course I know him. He helped campaign against me."

"I see."

"After what you saw of us yesterday and then meeting Morton, especially if he told you anything, I'm sure you are wondering what you got yourself into."

"He told me he had some input in getting me here."

"If by input, he means sticking his hand up Leo's ass and playing puppet master, then, yes, he did."

"What have I got myself into?"

Kate was giving all the appearance of someone who thought everyone was against her. She rapped the top of the basket and smiled. It was probably similar to the smile she gave her supporters on election night when she had to concede defeat.

"Never mind me; I've been wrong about a lot of things lately."

Did she think she'd been wrong about hiring the new sheriff? "What about Colter? There weren't any farmers out that way when I left."

"Morton was in the marines. He served in the Gulf War and again when we went back into Iraq and then Afghanistan. He always jokes that both Bush Presidents got their pounds of flesh out of him before he was through."

"What about that tattoo?"

"The dog's head?" She shrugged. "When he was in Afghanistan, or so he tells it, the locals called his unit either the Devil Dogs or Hellhounds, I forget which, hence the tattoos." Kate was gripping the handle of the picnic basket hard. "Did he tell you anything about his neighbor?"

"Only that he's a veterinarian who operates a research hospital."

"Craig also served in Afghanistan. He was part of the Army Medical Corps stationed in Kandahar for two years."

"Did they know each other?"

"No. Apparently, Colter was part of some secret operation tracking down Taliban while he was there." She checked the contents of the basket. "You'd think that link would be something that would bring the two of them together."

"But it hasn't?" She almost heard the switch in Kate's mind click off.

"I have to make my rounds, make sure all my going concerns are still going."

"Thanks again, Kate."

"Drop by for lunch. Harry always did. We do an awesome beef dip, if I do say so myself. Susan and I are usually there."

"I will."

She watched Kate get into her Escalade and drive away. A Dominion Sheriff's Department Dodge Charger turned the corner a moment later and parked in the spot Kate had just vacated.

A tall, lanky, redheaded woman got out. She could pass for Jordan Burnett's sister, except her hair color was closer to brown than Jordan's carrot hue. She had to be Kelly Strickland.

Strickland saw her standing in the doorway, waved and came to her, not hurdling the fence as Jordan had. At the top of the stairs, she took off her hat. Her long, straight hair was held back in a ponytail.

"Good morning, ma'am, I'm Kelly Strickland, your deputy. At least I will be as of—"

"Monday, yes, I know."

"I grew up here. I'm twenty-three. I've been Deputy Sheriff in Dominion for two years. One day I'm going to have your job." She flashed a wide, bright, beautiful smile that Joan found surprisingly stimulating. "But not right now."

Joan brought her into the clutter of furniture and boxes in the living room.

Kelly handed over a set of keys as she looked around. "So you can get in. Wouldn't be a good idea to lock the new sheriff out of her own office, would it?"

"Not unless you want her job now."

"No, ma'am, I can wait."

"Kelly, when I'm on the job it's Sheriff or ma'am, and then only when we are in public; otherwise, it's just Joan."

"Gotcha." She snapped her fingers. "There are two more things. First, Harry asked me to pass on the details of the fire. It was a deserted cabin up in Cabin Country, which is a site full of cabins that outsiders come to stay in during the summer. There are about a dozen of them, three are abandoned."

Kelly rolled her eyes up as if checking for more details on the list of things told to her. "They're still up there investigating. Harry says he will let you know on Monday what they find unless it turns out to be something urgent."

"And the second thing?" A small prompt seemed in order because Kelly suddenly appeared forgetful and lost.

"Yes, the second thing, that's at the office. We're finally joining the new millennia. Fiddler Integrated Systems from Portland is installing a new high-speed network; fiber optics and stuff like that. It will give us access to a larger database and a more secure link to the whole alphabet of law enforcement: FBI, ATF, DEA."

"I'm familiar with Fiddler. They installed some updates for us in Portland last year." It was just two days before Michael's accident while on the job as a Portland Police patrolman.

"There will still be people from the company underfoot when you come in Monday. Some of them might have worked for you in Portland."

"Probably." Michael had been on the job only three months.

"We didn't want you to feel left out or come into a mess uninformed just because you don't start—"

"Until Monday, I appreciate that."

"Now that I think about it, there are actually three things I wanted to tell you. The third one is about our workforce report. It has to be submitted by the end of September if we want to get two more fulltime deputies next year. Harry left all the paperwork on his desk . . . um . . . _your_ desk."

"As of Monday."

"That's about it for now."

"That's quite enough. Now, I'd like to ask you something."

"Sure."

"What do you know about the Wiley and Nguyen cases?"

Kelly scrunched her face. "I can't help you with that because I don't know anything about them. Not much information is available on Wiley since his arrest. Harry hasn't told me anything and he always did before. He liked to pass on his wisdom, if you know what I mean?"

Was there any point in asking her about the dynamics between certain groups of citizens? That kind of stuff might be beyond a twenty-three-year-old deputy sheriff no matter how ambitious she was.

"I'll let you get back to unpacking. I'll see you Monday."

"Just one more thing. When Mattie was here yesterday with Kate and Susan, I sensed some tension between them."

"That was all? I'm surprised you didn't have to separate them or slap the cuffs on them."

"It came close. What's up between them?"

"Mattie and Leo are an item; one of those worst kept secrets affairs. It started before the last election, which got pretty ugly between Kate and Leo."

"I take it Mattie sided with Leo."

"Everybody sided with Leo. The whole campaign was about how Kate had become decadent and corrupt. They actually used that word: decadent. It felt like we were back in the McCarthy era at times. It was all just innuendo, though. No one ever produced any evidence of wrong doing, but anyone watching knew it took its toll. Kate just seemed to give up about two weeks before the vote, as if she'd already lost."

On a whim, but an understandable one she told herself, she asked, "Morton Colter was against Kate, too?"

Kelly nodded. "I think that really hurt her, given that they were lovers for a while after her husband left her. I suppose she'd expected him to remain loyal, but all's fair." She put her hat back on, fixed the strap under her chin and then pointed to the scar on Joan's cheek. "That looks cool."

"Um . . . thanks. No one has told me that before."

"Why should only men get to have sexy scars while we get stuck with stretch marks? See you Monday, Joan."

Strickland left, skipping down the steps, carefully opening and closing the fragile gate, getting into the Charger and driving off. She didn't look back or wave.

# Chapter 13

The Harding-Nyland Veterinary Research Farm was one square mile or 640 acres. The main entrance was at the southwest corner. The access road proceeded for two hundred yards past paddocks and large enclosures used for the bigger animals before arriving at the center of the facility. One large barn, more paddocks, six stables and six more, smaller enclosures created a perimeter around the main office, which housed six examination rooms in the back. The office was attached via a corridor to a hospital containing three operating rooms and one large operating theater for the big patients and for teaching.

Craig came out of his office to greet Randal and Harry, who were coming along the road in Harry's Explorer.

The Explorer parked in a stall beside the two dormitory buildings. Both buildings were two storeys high. They each contained twelve rooms per floor that could each accommodate two students, visiting veterinarians or zoo officials who wanted to stay while their charges were being treated. One building was for men, the other for women.

Randal got out of the driver's side. Harry must be getting as mellow as he claimed to let someone else drive his precious Explorer.

Harry had some difficulty getting out. He slowly straightened up and stretched before closing the door.

"Haven't found anything definite that would cause the fire," Randal said when they reached him. "It's clear it started on the inside, but that's about all we've got at this point."

Harry arched his back and winced. "I checked with the others staying at the site. None of them heard or saw anything unusual, including swarming wasps or kamikaze fireflies."

"Hetherington could be suffering from tinnitus."

"That's not funny." Harry touched the hearing aid in his left ear.

"We swung by the Midnight Fire Campgrounds. There are only three campsites in use, seven people total, including three children. No one there heard anything unusual except for a ten-year-old girl who insisted she heard a humongous hummingbird zip past overhead this morning as she was returning to her tent after going to the bathroom."

Harry fiddled with his hearing aid for a few more seconds, but still wasn't satisfied with its setting. "The cabin was almost empty."

"We found some melted plastic and metal parts from a toy, probably some remote control car or truck."

"Or a helicopter." Harry reached into his coat pocket and brought out a red, plastic propeller. One of the blades was completely melted off; one had just a melted tip. "This is larger than what a remote control plane uses."

"Hetherington confirmed the owners had two grandsons, one eight and one eleven." Randal looked up. "That would have been from four years ago."

An eagle soared overhead on the afternoon thermals before continuing north.

"One of yours?" Harry shielded his eyes as he watched.

"It could be Ed. We only released him a month ago. He comes around a lot."

"We did find two old gas-powered generators," Randal said, "one inside and one outside. Kyle's team is investigating the one inside as the likely culprit."

"Hetherington now thinks it was vagrants. The others agree with him, but it sounds like they were all talking together. I don't know if he's got them all corralled into his way of thinking or they just can't be bothered to think for themselves."

"Vagrants and squatters, even tidy motorcycle gangs, would leave some evidence of their presence no matter how careful they tried to be. And would a vagrant or squatter risk crashing there with people in other cabins?"

Harry said, "It could be someone else."

"It's not poachers. They have a place to stay."

"Don't start that again, you two. I'm tired of getting caught in the middle." Randal then said, "Hetherington did make a point of telling us he found three discarded condoms in the woods. He was sure at least two of them had been used."

"He must have been a big help to all of you."

"Heaven sent."

Harry looked around the grounds. "Nothing big?"

"Not this week. The elephant went home last Tuesday."

"Your second unit's gone. Kyle said his team would be there until about four. They'll take both generators back with them and whatever else they think is worth a look."

"Good. You two can stay and help set the tables for the barbeque."

"Sorry. Harry has to take me back to my Bell, the one with the man-sized propellers."

"I'm driving back," Harry said.

"Not as long as I'm around." He frowned at Craig. "Next week, you and I are taking him to Dr. Crane to check for AMD or glaucoma or cataracts. He doesn't see a damn thing when he's driving."

"I saw this." Harry pulled out something small and charred from the pocket that had contained the propeller. "It's a bone. Some animal got caught in the fire."

Craig took the small bone. "Is this all you found?"

"Why?"

"It's a phalanges bone from a human hand, likely the tip of the little finger. It's adult; my guess would be a woman or a small man."

Randal groaned, "Shit."

"Somebody had to have used those condoms." Harry took out his phone. "I'll let Kyle know we're on our way back."

Harry and Randal returned to the Explorer.

Randal called back to him, "We may be a bit late tonight."

"We'll keep the beer cold and the ribs hot."

Randal drove the Explorer away.

"Dr. Harding," Zemar called from his office.

Zemar Khan Marwat and his sister Saleha Bibi Marwat were standing at the door. Zemar held his hand to his ear to indicate a telephone call for him.

"It's Dr. Nyland," Zemar said when he reached them. "There's been an accident with a trip wire."

He entered his office and took the phone from Saleha. "Barb, what happened?"

"Ben Hawksworth," she said through an intermittent signal. ". . . snare . . . trip wire snapped . . . coiled around his left calf . . . thought it . . . take his leg off."

Ben Hawksworth was a graduate student leader of the Oregon State crew who were using the farm as a base for their research. A big, bearded teddy bear, he had hooked up with Lorrie Strachan, another graduate student from Oregon State, while working at the farm.

"How is he?"

"Lorrie got the wire out. It was imbedded about six millimeters into his skin . . . bandaged him up. She and Nigel . . . to Dominion General . . . second truck . . . a few stitches and a shot, but I don't think it's serious . . . joking about not missing the barbeque . . . Lorrie . . . her glory looking after him."

"Still, it's scary as hell for what it could have been."

". . . found two others . . . pit deep enough to swallow . . . stakes at the bottom."

"Poachers."

"So says Morton Colter."

"We can't accuse him without evidence. Our cameras still haven't caught anyone in the act."

"How do they manage . . . should have . . . one of them at it by now."

"We will one day."

". . . just dart one . . . bring him in . . . let him . . . an evening with Fred or the boys . . . soften him up."

"Not tonight; we have the barbeque. Where are you?"

"Ten minutes out."

"See you soon."

"Craig, you know . . . stop this."

He sighed. "I'm working on it."

# Chapter 14

After Shana's dreamy trio of movers had left yesterday, after Kate and Kelly had visited to make their contributions to what Shana had dubbed the DGN—Dominion Gossip Network—and further muddy her perception of her old home town, she and Shana set up their bedrooms, put their clothes back into their dressers and made their beds. Shana's dreamy trio had put the frames together. Shana dug out the drop cloths, placed four in her own bedroom and six in her mother's.

"Because you're sloppy as—"

"Just keep that to yourself."

They went to MacDonald's again for supper, dropped by Cavanaugh's Grocery to get milk, bread, peanut butter, raspberry jam for Shana, strawberry jam for her, coffee, filters, eggs, a small ham, Shana's favorite meat if honey-garlic chicken wings weren't available, pizza and pistachio ice-cream, Shana's favorite dessert if honey-garlic chicken wings weren't available.

They then finished cleaning the sections of the basement they hadn't got to. At 8 pm, they accepted defeat and surrendered to exhaustion. Despite the hot day, Shana popped the pizza into the oven, which only smoked a bit when it was turned on. They ate and drank and then went to bed.

She was spared a return trip to the Crowley farm, though she did again get up twice to check through the house and look in on Shana. She was also spared a siren wake-up call. She wasn't spared further stiffness.

This morning, there were two pieces of pizza left, which was Shana's favorite breakfast if honey-garlic chicken wings weren't available. Shana had both pieces and milk, she had toast and coffee.

The local Lowe's store was open at 8:00 am on Sundays. They picked out sage green for Shana's room, a close match to her preferred ice-drop green that she had in Portland. She chose light taupe for her bedroom. The moment she did, Shana walked away from her and let her bring the paint and paint supplies in the buggy to the cashier by herself. Shana exited the store while she paid for everything and walked a dozen steps behind her when they returned to the Mazda.

Shana loaded the sage green into the car but wouldn't touch the other cans of paint.

"Your room is going to look like some little boy tried to spread his—"

"Don't go there, I'm warning you."

"If it looks like I think it's going to look, I'll padlock you in one night while you're asleep. You can go all Poe in there and I still won't ever let you out."

"It's a light shade. If it doesn't look right once it's dry, I'll just use it as an undercoat."

They got into the Mazda after she returned the buggy.

"I know exactly how it's going to look." Shana bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. "I just wish you'd show some consideration for others. I have to live there, too, you know."

"How selfish of me, I'll return it tomorrow and get black."

Shana raised her head. "There, now, don't you feel better?"

"Weight lifting, back straightening."

Because two leftover pieces of pizza, two slices of toast, milk and coffee were not enough for breakfast, they stopped for another coffee for her, hot chocolate for Shana, and two bacon and egg sandwiches at Peterson's, a small grocery store and delicatessen. After putting in their order, she joined Shana at one of six tables in the delicatessen section of the store. They were the only customers.

A woman brought it to the table. "You're the new sheriff, aren't you?"

"Yes I am."

"Remember me?" The woman beamed down at her.

Joan stared up at her. She didn't mean to, but the face, with a smooth, freckle-filled complexion, huge green eyes and a pointed chin, was surrounded by long, chestnut hair. It was the eyes, hair and pointed chin that she soon recognized.

"Good Lord, Stephanie. How are you?" She lunged up from her chair and hugged Stephanie Peterson hard.

Stephanie hugged her back every bit as hard. "It's been so long, Joanie. When I heard you were coming back, I cried all night. I was so happy."

She kissed Stephanie's cheek and hugged her again. When they broke, she wiped tears from Stephanie's cheek and then her own.

Stephanie looked down at Shana. "She is beautiful, just like you told me. Of course, that was twelve years ago." She held out her hand to Shana.

Shana stood up. "Don't I get one, too?"

"You sure do." She hugged Shana as hard and had to wipe more tears from her cheeks when she let go.

Shana wiped her eyes. "I know you." She slapped her mom's shoulder. "And you didn't remember her at first?"

She suspected why she hadn't recognized Stephanie right away, but had decided before returning to Dominion not to dwell on the second time Stephanie had saved her life. It wasn't fair, but Stephanie had just been shoved into the dark recesses along with the rest of that memory.

"You were the one who looked after her broken heart when Vince Dorchester ditched her a week before they were to be married. She told me all about that once."

Stephanie let out a low belly laugh that belied her delicate features. "Balls to that. I kept her from becoming nothing less than the trailer-trash, teen-queen of Dominion."

"That's my daughter you're talking to. I have not authorized you to provide any further information on the matter."

"She's just kidding," Shana said. "Tell me all about it from your side. Did she really try to jump off a bridge?"

"I never told you I tried to jump off a bridge, only that my heart was broken."

Stephanie roared with laughter. "More like your pride." She mimicked a young girl's voice. "I'm going to have the biggest wedding Dominion has ever seen."

"I never said that."

"The hell you didn't."

Shana said, "She's always had memory problems. I'm never going to know if she's suffering from early onset or not. Please continue."

"Later, you said no one could possibly know how much you loved him and thus no one could possibly understand how great your pain was."

Shana gasped. "Oh, mother, honestly, you didn't."

Her face sizzled. She started laughing.

Stephanie laughed even louder.

Shana went back to her sandwich.

She said to Shana, "That's why you are never going to date a boy from a trailer park."

"You're never going to let me date anyone."

"True."

"Do you know what happened to him?" Stephanie covered her mouth to prevent another burst of laughter.

"Didn't really try to keep in touch after that."

"He's married."

"Poor woman."

"More like justice served. She's almost three hundred pounds. They have two boys aged fifteen and sixteen who you will be arresting frequently, and she's put him in the hospital three times with a wicked right cross."

"This sandwich is delicious," Shana said. "Can I have another, please, and a small mocha?"

Joan said, "Hold the mocha."

Stephanie signalled to the girl at the delicatessen counter to make another sandwich.

"I'm glad you dropped by, Joanie. This is my last week. I've sold out to Safeway."

"But Peterson's has been here since the beginning."

"A little place like this just doesn't work anymore. I tried to make it more chic with this deli, but. . . ."

"What will you do?"

"Travel, see the world, plow through some men."

Shana sat back down. "Can I go with you?"

Stephanie hugged Joan again. "Funny, isn't it? You finally come back to Dominion, which I thought you would never do, and I'm finally leaving, which I thought I would never do. Do drop by anytime, both of you."

"As much as we can, I promise." She sat back down as Stephanie returned to the delicatessen.

Stephanie waved at them before slipping through a door to the back of the store.

Joan's stomach pinched, her hands trembled. She hid them under the table.

"She saved your life, huh?" Shana said after her second sandwich was delivered.

She nodded. "Twice. You were almost named after her."

"Was the second time when your dad killed your mom and tried to kill you?"

"When you're older."

"I'll be older at four this afternoon."

"Finish your sandwich; we have a lot of work to do."

Back home, Shana helped her unload the paint and supplies and proceeded to set up her own room for painting. She had taped around the baseboards, doors and windows of both rooms yesterday. Once her room was ready, daughter helped mother complete the prep for her room.

Shana conceded, "It is bigger, and you are much older. You'll tire easily even with two cups of coffee in you." She returned to her room to start painting.

Joan took a moment to watch Shana at work. Shana would probably do a better job on her bedroom than she would with hers. Shana was great with finishing and detail work, Michael was great with measuring, designing and building. Her talent was in demolition. A sledgehammer just felt right in her hands. She opened a can of that _god-awful_ color and got busy.

Mattie arrived at 10:38 am ready to help. Shana handed her a paint tray, gloves should she want to use them, a paint roller and sent her to help her withering mother.

While Mattie's intentions were good, her effort was lacking. She moved stiffly and often had to take a break.

"Are you all right?"

"A little too much tennis Friday," she said. "I'm still a bit stiff, but this is good. You have to keep moving to get out the kinks, right?"

"So I've been told." Both shoulders protested with sharp, hot spasms of pain when she started painting again.

Mattie painted half as much of the wall as she did, but made herself useful in other ways. She went to get burgers for lunch. When she came back, Joan recognized the bags.

"Burt's Burgers, that's still around?"

"Oh, yeah, Burt's still there. He's seventy-five now, but he works there four hours every day." She handed a burger and a milkshake to Shana. "During the summer, you can still get waiters and waitresses serving you at your car on roller skates. I guess they're called blades now."

"Mom wouldn't let me work there because the skirts were too short." Mom's smiling face flashed through her mind. They'd had a good-natured argument about Burt's the day dad . . .

"They wear pants now, or tights with shorts."

When they went back to work after lunch, Mattie was even less physically helpful. She made an effort, but accomplished little. Even a little help was better than none at all.

If the physical effort wasn't there for painting, maybe her gossip muscle wasn't too tight to be of some use.

"What happened with Kate Eiger?"

"I hope what I said yesterday didn't make you think the worst of her, or me."

"Not at all, but you can't just leave it at that."

"I want to make clear that Susan was right about Kate. I'm not sure we could have convinced Do-Dads or Karyon to come to Dominion if not for her efforts."

"However?"

"Other people have their own ideas about how Dominion should develop once those two are up and running. The two main players are Dorset, Bental and Company, run by Carter Dorset, and Carter's _silent_ partner, Morton Colter. They want to develop an old section of the town near where Do-Dads is putting its plant. Kate felt they would be forcing out the poor who live in the trailer park there. Leo sided with them."

"Colter is a silent partner?"

"As silent as _he_ can be."

"I take it there was no middle ground they could agree to."

"Leo, Morton and Carter ganged up on her and pressured everyone on council. They gathered all the support they could in the community and made it a campaign of a new and excited future versus the old, monolithic ways of the past."

"With Kate playing the role of the stone blocking the way."

"There were allegations of kickbacks, though nothing was ever proven. Kate and Susan got threatening phone calls during the campaign, as well as attacks on their character, things like that. People got pretty whipped up."

Yesterday, Mattie had claimed not to know much about the details.

"That stuff comes out in every election, even in a small town like Dominion. Why should this be any different?"

"It was Susan, and Kate's marriage break-up, that played the biggest roles. Susan likes women. That's something that still bothers people in little towns, even in the twenty-first century of man's glorious civilization. Then the rumor started that Kate's marriage collapsed because she was having an affair. Kate denied it, but that kind of stuff is hard to fight."

"The morality card; it's like punching smoke."

"I think it wounded Kate deeply, and Susan, too. I don't think she's forgiven Dominion for what she thinks it did to her . . . and to Susan. They tend to keep to themselves now."

Would Kate tell the story the same way? What would she do if people came after Shana? Heaven help them if they did.

Shana came to help once her own room was finished and took over Mattie's spot.

Mattie stayed until the bedroom had its first coat of new paint on the walls, but she excused herself soon after that.

"Sorry, Joanie, one more showing this evening." She started down the stairs. At the front door she said, "I'll call you."

"You and I should go see Stephanie one day."

"Love to." She closed the door softly. Had she just frowned the same way she had when she'd seen Kate standing at the door?

What was Stephanie's take on the last election? Maybe she knew something about the Wiley and Nguyen cases? She'd probably just dodge telling her anything about them, too. Everything else was fair game on the DGN but not those two.

Shana put the lid back on the can of paint. "We're going to have to do two coats in every room."

"I think so, too."

"She was your BFF?"

"Yes, but she was always a selfish flake."

"What was Stephanie, then?"

Though she had unfairly packed Stephanie away into her own dark recesses with the other details of that day, she still remembered clearly Stephanie prying her father's hands from around her throat, getting him off her and dragging her out of their burning house.

"My guardian angel," she said. Her voice faltered. "And I've never told her that."

# Chapter 15

Craig and Barbara were waiting outside the hospital's main entrance when the livestock truck arrived.

Zemar and Saleha jumped out of the cab and went to the back of the truck as the other two farm vehicles came in behind them.

"It's tranquilized," Saleha said to them as she helped Zemar with the truck's tailgates. "Lorrie and Ben are in there with it."

"Ben?" Barbara scowled. "He's supposed to be resting."

Saleha just shrugged and helped her brother open the gates.

Lorrie and Ben were kneeling next to the wounded elk.

Lorrie petted its neck. "It's magnificent, isn't it?" She wiped her eyes. "Why would anyone want to shoot that?"

"What are his vitals?" Craig climbed up into the truck.

Ben said, "They're good."

Barbara started to climb in, but Craig stopped her.

"We'll need the table."

Zemar said, "We'll get it."

Barbara, Zemar and Saleha ran back to the hospital.

He checked the elk's heart. "It's a bit erratic."

Lorrie continued to stroke its neck. "We weren't sure how much to use. We needed to get him down before he did any more damage to himself."

Ben pointed to the elk's leg. "He was snagged at the rear left with wire. It's going to need stitches, but I don't think there's any serious damage."

"He may break your record of thirty-two."

"We'll compare scars and lie to each other about how we got them."

Lorrie, her voice choked, said, "He's been shot three times." She pointed out the wounds above the elk's left front shoulder.

Craig inspected the three holes. "They're small caliber. Who would think they could bring down an elk in its prime with those?" He bent closer. "They might have hit its scapula, which prevented deeper penetration."

The elk snorted and bucked.

Lorrie patted its neck. "It's okay, big guy, you're in the best hands in the world here. We'll fix you up good as new."

Barbara and Zemar returned with a motorized gurney that could be raised and lowered for loading larger animals and transporting them.

"Watch its legs."

"We've got them," Lorrie said.

She and Ben positioned themselves to support the legs.

The elk snorted and bucked again.

Zemar jumped into the truck to help support the elk. It settled after another snort and more pats from Lorrie.

"Saleha's with Doug and the team," Barb said. "She'll assist me."

"I've got this."

"No, Craig." Barb nodded toward the Oregon State students and some of the farm staff gathered together by the two trucks. " _We've_ got this. _You_ need to talk to them." Barbara was small but formidable. There was no point contesting whatever she had set her mind to.

The students and staff were talking amongst themselves. The conversations contained a lot of anger.

He left Barb, Lorrie, Ben and two technicians he hadn't noticed at first to get the elk into surgery. He and Zemar went to the group.

"We have to do something," Karen Thompson said, "First Ben, now this. It just keeps getting worse."

Nigel Avery, the farm foreman, and the team guide when they were in the field, stepped clear of the others. "We destroyed three traps before we found the elk."

"We can't accuse them until we have solid evidence. You all know that our cameras haven't caught anyone yet."

"Half of them have been destroyed or stolen," Nigel said.

"What about all the traps we've destroyed?" Karen's voice rose as she spoke.

"We can't connect them to Colter's people, and you know what he would say."

"There are no poachers out there. Poachers wouldn't have the sense to avoid the cameras or sabotage them. They have to be stopped." Karen was feeding off the others, who had been forced to talk in circles for months about their failure to catch anyone.

"I will talk to the new sheriff about our concerns. Now, everyone get back to your work or whatever you are scheduled to do."

With Nigel and Karen taking the lead, the group dispersed.

Craig looked to the hospital.

Zemar asked, "Did you want to lend a hand?"

He started for the hospital but stopped after only a few steps. "They can handle it."

"Yes, they can. Drs. Nyland and Lancaster are very experienced, and my sister is becoming very accomplished. So, if you can spare a few moments, I have something to show you."

They headed for the office.

"How is the plan proceeding?" Zemar asked.

"Randal is still waiting for a response from Amsterdam. Our connection in Montreal appears to be promising."

"And Brazil?"

"They're not as close to you and Saleha as the others, but we have begun a dialogue with them. How are you two holding up?"

"Saleha has absolute faith in both of you. She is very optimistic that it will all be settled soon. She is looking forward to completing her studies and becoming a veterinarian. Her dream is to work here beside you and Dr. Nyland."

"I don't think staying here is an option anymore. We've had no luck with our contact."

"I thought as much."

"Don't get discouraged."

"We are here, and I am grateful for that. I understand the difficulties you two are facing. If Saleha asks, just tell her it is proceeding slowly. There is no need to bother her with the details until they are finalized."

"Where are we with Cleo and Caesar?"

"I have contacted a number of potential homes. Budgets are tight everywhere. Zoos don't get the financial support they used to. I know you don't like the idea, but we may have to go the private route with those two."

"Keep trying. A three-legged mountain lion and her sissy son are never going back into the wild."

At the office, Zemar put a hand on Craig's chest to prevent him from entering. "I did this on my own. If you want to maintain plausible deniability, you need not enter. I will continue with what I am doing, but I alone will be responsible for whatever comes of it."

That warning took him back to Afghanistan for a moment. "Show me."

Zemar took him straight to the computer station he worked at, sat down and signed back in.

"I hacked into Colter's website."

"Why would you do that?"

"Have we found any evidence linking them to the illegal traps and the illegal hunting yet?"

"You heard what I told the others."

"Exactly. I was taking a look at what the website was all about."

"It's about what they grow there. You can order most of it online and have it delivered."

"I thought I might find something if I drilled a bit deeper, perhaps some evidence of illegal trophy hunting expeditions for bighorn sheep."

"You mean small-horn sheep. They've killed the ones with big horns, so the remaining male sheep are younger on average and have smaller horns." It was scientifically debatable but provocative bait.

Zemar didn't bite. While he loved animals almost as much as his sister, having escaped from Afghanistan, he had a different perspective regarding endangered species of animals versus endangered ethnic groups.

"This is what I found." He clicked to call up a list of purchases placed within the past three months.

"How'd you get that?"

"The webpage is constantly on and updated. I just found a backdoor and let myself in. After that, it was easy to find anything I wanted because they keep all their records on the same hard drive."

"I'm not comfortable with this."

"Neither am I, but desperate times, desperate measures. I thought we might find evidence to support our suspicion that Colter has smuggled in exotic animals for his trophy hunting business."

"Even if we find anything like that, we won't be able to take it to anyone because of how we got it."

"There are ways around that, but even if we don't, whatever we find might, at least, point us to the physical evidence we know is out there. We might learn how they keep finding our hidden cameras. That would be something."

"What have you got?"

He pulled up a chair and scanned the list. Colter had ordered one thousand pounds each of sugar and molasses; large supplies of seeds for corn, beets, alfalfa, wheat; 100,000 pounds of fuel pellets; 1000 gallons of corn oil; 300 pounds of fertilizer.

"I thought most of his crops were greenhouse and hydroponic: cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, some decorative plants for horticultural use. You don't grow corn, beets, alfalfa and wheat in greenhouses."

Zemar pointed to the sugar and molasses order. "Could he be experimenting with crops? Could he be making alcoholic beverages?"

"You're suggesting Morton Colter, the biggest farmer in this part of Oregon, is making moonshine?"

"I am not suggesting anything. I am merely wondering out loud the same as you."

"I don't see anything unusual on this list. Some of the quantities seem large, but all of it is perfectly normal for the kind of farm Colter operates."

"It could be code."

"Code for what?"

"If it is code, then I don't know what it is code for, yet, do I?"

He got up and patted Zemar on the shoulder. "This isn't Afghanistan, my friend."

"I hope not."

"I don't like Colter and his men any more than anyone else here does, but it's just farm supplies."

"Should I keep drilling?" He moved the cursor to the _DELETE_ _ALL_ button on the screen.

"Clear everything with me first, and let's keep this between ourselves for now." He headed for the door. "Enough with the intrigues of Dominion farm life; I have to check the progress we've made with Lorrie's magnificent beast."

# Chapter 16

It couldn't be helped. They had to get unpacked and settled as much as possible over the weekend. They had to get the renovations started if they were to have any chance of getting the majority of it finished before Shana went back to school. In retrospect, perhaps she shouldn't have taken them on that ride Friday. At least, she shouldn't have put in so much effort chasing down her daughter. However her wisdom of hindsight figured it, she was going to start her first day as the new sheriff of Dominion stiff from her shoulders down to her calves.

She slid out of bed after a third straight restless night and limped into her bathroom to shower. Shana, as selfish as any teenage daughter could be, always respected her mother's need to get up and get on with it; she'd shower after her mother was gone. Her neck almost turned to stone when she washed her hair. Her left shoulder creaked and clicked when the comb got stuck in a knot. Her right calf formed a hard lump just above the Achilles tendon when she rose up on her toes to reach her make-up case, which she had stupidly placed on an old shelf above the rusty medicine chest that was on the list of things to be replaced.

She struggled through putting on her make-up and getting into her sheriff's uniform. Madsen had made sure the three tailor-made outfits and two hats were delivered to her before she left Portland. She liked the light-blue color of the blouse. It went well with the darker blue of the tunic and trousers. The emblem patch on the uniform and hat contained three evergreen trees standing in front of a mountain peak and behind a stream. All of that rested inside a triangle of yellow, curved sides that spelled out: Dominion Sheriff Department.

Shana mercifully had coffee and toast ready once she had hobbled down the stairs and into the kitchen. There were two coffee cups waiting for the beverage.

"Just a half cup for you."

Shana deserved a reward for preparing this little miracle of nutrition.

"The golem has risen." Shana poured the coffee.

Mom got her standard full cup of strong, black serum to start the day. Shana's portion was a homemade mocha concoction of mostly cream, chocolate and sugar, with only a bit of that dark, addictive substance in the form of breakfast blend.

"Slay all of my enemies, golem, and I will let you die." Shana peered at her over her ersatz mocha potion. "You will finally know the bliss of oblivion if only you do as I command."

She said through a yawn that made her jaw ache, "One day, you will start having mornings like this." She sat down at the rickety table in the nook convinced it was sturdier than she was. Its legs would surely bend easier than hers would.

"One day, I'm going to be rich enough to pay other people to have mornings like this for me."

Teenagers always had smug, arrogant, intensely annoying answers ready. The sun comes up in the east, teenagers are SNERT's. Both were immutable constants of existence on earth. It was hard to imagine an earth in any alternate universe where teenagers would be any other way.

"Clean up the kitchen and put that shelf liner stuff in the cupboards. Don't put your ear buds in because I will be calling to check in with you. You can play the stereo, but I don't want to hear complaints from our neighbors of it being too loud when I get home."

"I was going to do the third bedroom and the upstairs hallway. We go from top to bottom, remember? And we're getting a new kitchen anyway, right?"

She nodded. Her neck punished her for that with a painful burst of heat up to her temples. "We need at least two of the cupboards for dishes and groceries for now. Do that before you go back to painting. And thank you for everything you're doing."

"Mom, you have to stop getting up two and three times a night to check the house. You are going to exhaust yourself over nothing."

"I know, I know."

She finished her toast and coffee, kissed Shana good-bye, made it to the Mazda and then to the Sheriff's Office. She checked to make sure no one was watching her arrival before using her hands as pry bars to swing her legs out the door and exit the CX-5.

Holding on tight to the wrought iron railing, she got up the four steps leading to the front door and opened it to find a half-dozen men working on cabling and setting up computers for the updated network. She held on to the knob for support and surveyed the office. The part she had just entered had an open waiting area that was defined by a three-foot-high wooden barrier to the common area for the deputies and staff. A gate to her right, beside the reception counter, let people through.

Two men closest to the barrier turned away from her. One was a short block of muscles with a thick neck. The other one was just over six feet tall and leaner, but still with a solid, muscular frame. Turning their backs to her the moment she looked at them was probably just coincidental. They were laying cable under the floor panels. The short one was feeding the cable; the taller one was pulling it to the other end of the room. They both wore gloves. The one feeding the cable wore gloves with open fingers, like riding gloves. Why not cover his fingers? Did he need more flexibility to feed the cable than his partner did pulling it? Were his gloves approved for use by workers compensation?

She took a deep breath, braced herself, let go of the door knob and opened her mouth to call to him.

"Good morning, ma'am," Kelly said as she came in behind her.

The knot in her calf bulged and tightened. A slice of pain cut down to her heel when she turned around. She grimaced and nodded "good morning" back.

"Don't mind them," Kelly said. "They're almost finished." She took off her hat. "Your office is this way."

Kelly led her through the gate, past the men, across the common area and to her office to the left of that.

The office walls had frosted glass for the top half except for one clear pane beside the door that looked out onto the common area and another in the top third of the door. Both of those windows had blinds that could be closed for privacy.

"Isn't this great?" Kelly pointed to the computer on the desk as if it was the best gift anyone could ever get.

It was identical to the one she had in Portland, which confirmed Kelly's assessment that the Dominion Sheriff's Office badly needed to catch up to this century.

"You also get a laptop to take with you."

Kelly walked over to a cabinet that went from floor to ceiling, inserted her key into the lock for the top half and opened both doors to display a cache of rifles and handguns secured behind locked, wire-reinforced, tempered-glass doors. The rifles were fixed with a locking bar and a locked length of chain that went through the triggers. The four handguns had their own special locks that kept them fastened to the back of the cabinet. On a shelf below the weapons, Kelly pointed out the laptop. It was identical to the one she had in Portland.

With the flourish of a game show host, her smile just as wide, bright and artificial, Kelly said, "And you also get these wonderful toys." She picked up an iPod, an iPad and an iPhone. "You keep at least one of these with you at all times, like your gun. They're all set up and ready to go. You'll always be connected no matter where you are. I'm told every app needed for law enforcement is on that phone. It might even have a Taser as well. Maybe it shoots a little spritz of pepper spray."

She retrieved all portable items and brought them to her desk. "Thanks." She stared down at the chair, unable to decide whether or not to take the risk in front of Kelly of sitting down. What would the deputy who one day wanted that chair think if the new sheriff became a screaming, wretched stiff the moment she landed in it?

"Want a quick tour of the place before we get you signed on to the new network?"

A walk would stretch out some of the stiffness. "Lead the way."

There wasn't much to the tour. Kelly took her through a heavy metal door to the six cells at the back of the office. A door from there led to a storage room for office, cleaning and maintenance supplies. An area of shelves behind a set of bars and a locked door held any evidence collected during investigations. The area was about the size of a standard bathroom and the shelves were nearly empty. She wasn't going to find anything in there about Wiley or Nguyen.

They returned through all the doors, which Kelly dutifully confirmed were locked behind them, back to what she had labeled the common area. A door to a hallway between her office and the cells in the back led past the washroom to a small kitchen and eating area, which had a set of lockers along one wall for the sheriff, deputies and staff to store their things. Her locker was half again as wide as all the others.

The common area behind the barrier contained the back section of the reception desk, Kelly's desk, which had a picture of her with her shepherd-collie cross on it, plus two new desks.

"Those are for the two new deputies when we get them," Kelly said when she noticed where Joan was looking. "Our part-timers, Rob Doyle and Jacob Peabody, use them on their weekend and relief shifts."

Only the two men who had been laying cable were left of the six present when she arrived. They were connecting the desktop computers on the three deputy's desks.

"Time to get reconnected with your law enforcement family, wouldn't you say, Sheriff?"

Her heart blipped. "You're the first one to officially call me Sheriff."

Kelly frowned. "Shit, I'm so stupid." She stood at attention and saluted. "Welcome to Dominion, Sheriff Joan McGowan." She sagged and slapped her forehead. "I practiced that all last night. I wanted your arrival to be special. Then I go and forget it first thing. Dammit."

Joan could hug her. "Just promise me you're not going to keep doing that. This isn't the military."

Kelly started to salute again then burst out laughing at herself and led her boss back to her office. Kelly was going to be an excellent deputy to work with.

The tour did help ease some of her stiffness. She settled into her chair with less difficulty and pain than she had anticipated. After first making a few adjustments to height and tilt, she was, she believed, able to hide most of her discomfort from Deputy Strickland. Once settled, she glanced out through the clear pane of glass at the two men who were now making sure the three computers were all booting up correctly.

Kelly showed her how to get onto the system and how to navigate to the areas she would use for research or to contact other departments of state and federal law enforcement. Most of it was familiar to her because it was similar to what she had used in Portland. There were a few minor differences in navigation because the system and equipment were updated versions.

"It's the new police work," Kelly said. "You're going to be attached at the fingertips to these things, at least until it's all controlled by voice commands to some cockamamie thing permanently jammed into your ear."

"I believe those get installed next Wednesday."

"No more walking the beat. No more clandestine meetings in seedy, backstreet restaurants with your greasy, grubby contact."

"You're a film noir buff, aren't you?"

"Got the whole collection; the grittier the better. You should come over one night. We'll put on Sam Spade or Phil Marlowe."

"What about Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray?"

"God, yes, or _Dial_ _M_ or _Anatomy_ _of_ _a_ _Murder_? Very adult for their time, don't you think?"

"You've got a date."

"Now it's all texting. Even Ratso Rizzo has a smartphone these days."

"Why are they still here if it's all up and running?"

"I'm not sure. I asked one of them Friday." She pointed. "That short, thick one said they were hardening the system."

"Hardening? Are they expecting someone to set off a nuclear bomb nearby?"

"He told me it was required now because we're linked to federal networks. They're just reinforcing our system with redundancies and protection, shielding, hard casings, stuff like that. The whole thing is called Titan, he said. I just hope it has spellcheck so we don't get kooks' names wrong anymore."

Portland had the same hardening installed in its system last year. "Prosaic but appropriate, I suppose."

Kelly pointed to a pile of papers on her desk. "Harry says that's all the stuff you need to know where the sheriff's office is at and where it needs to go; that is, _his_ opinion of where it needs to go. He says to feel free to disregard whatever you don't agree with and put in your own ideas. His exact words were: 'it's her baby now.'"

It would have been nice to talk to Madsen directly, not his deputy sheriff messenger service.

"I can help you with all that. I know what's there, mostly, and this is going to be _my_ desk one day."

"I wish I were as wise when I was your age. Instead, I thought the world should just recognize how great I was and hand over everything I wanted."

"What changed that attitude?"

"Having Shana went a long way to setting me straight."

"She's very pretty."

"She scares the crap out of me some days. She's full of courage, but overconfident for her experience level." She had also developed one very disturbing hobby that she seemed content to leave alone for now.

"I'll watch out for her." Kelly went to the door. "We tall chicks gotta stick together." She left.

Joan familiarized herself with their network set-up and the updated ways to get access to what she wanted. After Kelly brought her a cup of coffee and two Tylenol for back pain—she was absolutely going to be a fantastic deputy—she started on the paperwork Madsen had left for her.

Madsen had an excellent grasp of Dominion crime statistics, including the sudden, inexplicable increase in drug dealing and related crimes. His workforce requests were in line with expectations for Dominion's projected population growth. Aside from two more deputies, Madsen proposed increasing support and administrative staff to five from the two that were there now, one of them being only part-time. He also recommended that Dominion transition from a Sheriff's Department to its own police force. She could end up Chief of Police.

She had met neither of the admin staff yet. No one had even mentioned them to her and she hadn't thought to ask.

In all the paperwork Madsen left behind, however, there was no mention of the Wiley and Nguyen cases. If the cases were significant enough for Madsen to keep his hand in, there should be something for her to read. Billions of dollars that forensic accountants at the FBI still couldn't find, but there was no information on it to review. Had that been hidden, too?

The phone on her desk rang. The button at the right end of a line of seven blinked with each ring.

Kelly ducked her head in. "That's your private line, ma'am."

"Thanks." She picked up the receiver, which had been cleaned. "Sheriff Joan McGowan, how can I help you?"

"That was very professional," Madsen said, "which is as expected. I must admit, though, that from my point of view, it's also a little disconcerting."

"Good morning, Harry. What can I do for you?"

"I thought maybe it should go in the other direction your first day on the job. Can I take you to lunch, Sheriff?"

The honorific sounded just right. "When and where?"

"The Nite-Lite pub at noon."

"That's Kate's place."

"It serves one of the best beef dip lunches on the planet."

"How do I get there?"

"Turn left once you're out front and go three blocks. It's on the same side of the street."

"See you at noon. I have a lot of questions."

"I'll answer as many as I can."

She spent the next three hours arranging her office and her desk the way she wanted them, including a two-picture stand with a picture of Michael, Shana and her taken a month before Michael's accident, and on the other side a picture of Shana posing beside her Cannondale before her first race. She finished fourteenth against much older competition.

She went back onto the network and sent her first email to Colin Foster in the Portland FBI office to let him know what it had been like so far in Dominion. She also asked what more he'd heard about the Crowley farm investigation, and requested any info he had on Wiley and Nguyen.

Kelly came in at eleven o'clock to introduce Mrs. Amelia Truman, fifty-six, who was their part-time receptionist and switchboard operator. Mrs. Amelia Truman, with make-up judiciously applied for presentation to the public, her short, straight brown hair combed and parted in the middle, her cheaters hanging on a black, nylon lanyard with _DOMINION_ printed in white over and over along it, was neither intimidated by nor impressed with the new sheriff. She could best be described as skeptical of the new sheriff's professional capabilities and concerned that any new procedures the neophyte introduced to the station were only going to make her job that much harder.

Now was not the time to ask if Mrs. Amelia Truman would consider working fulltime.

Once Truman was gone, Kelly said, "Not too many frivolous complaints get past her."

Deputy Strickland had just succinctly described Mrs. Amelia Truman's one indispensable contribution to running a sheriff's office.

Feeling a bit _fuzzy_ from the Tylenol, she sat staring at the desktop monitor once Strickland left and let whatever momentum she'd established her first day as the sheriff ebb away. Colin hadn't responded by the time she left for lunch.

# Chapter 17

She walked the three blocks to the Nite-Lite with minimum discomfort and entered it to find Kate and Susan waiting to greet her. They were both wiping their hands on aprons tied around their waists.

"We knew you were coming," Susan said.

Kate added, "Get used to that. Harry's waiting for you."

Both women pointed to a booth in the far corner of the pub. It was separated on one wall from other booths by a door that led to the washrooms. On the other wall, the gap was provided by double doors to the Sauvignon restaurant—once owned by Wiley—that was attached to the pub. According to a sign over the doors, they opened at 5:30 pm Monday through Thursday and 4:30 pm Friday through Sunday. Six other booths or tables had customers at them, about a third of the pub's capacity not counting the bar. Everyone took a good look at the new sheriff as she walked to her reserved booth.

Harry was drinking a beer. "No hat?"

"Forgot it." She sat down across from him and swallowed.

"All of Dominion would know soon enough that the new sheriff drank beer with her lunch."

She'd be providing another news flash for the DGN. "It's too early for beer."

"I absolutely agree with you. Unfortunately for me, my liver is not a morning organ. It needs at least two of these by noon or I just shut down."

"What about your kidneys?"

"What about them? We haven't spoken for years."

As much because Kate and Harry bragged to her about it as she had already made up her mind, they both ordered the beef dip for lunch. It lived up to every adjective Harry and Kate used to describe it. She drank a large diet Coke, the one that still had caffeine in it.

Harry swallowed the first bite he'd taken. "For the first twenty-five years, I had to deal with only two murders. The first one was a young, recently married couple. He was drunk and beating on her even though she had stopped breathing a long time ago. When we get there, Ron Holmgren, my partner, and I, he freaks, grabs his shotgun and starts shooting."

She swallowed her third bite. "I don't think civilians understand how dangerous domestic disputes can be for police. There's very little else that contains such insane levels of emotion in it." Only something like the Crowley farm could match that intensity.

"Ron took two blasts before he could even react. The guy was wide with the next two aimed at me, but he pulled out a pistol and kept firing. One grazed me just above my left ear. I emptied my gun at him and hit him once in the chest and once in the head. Lucky shots, the both of them; I'm no marksman." He finished his beer and started on the second one as soon as Kate brought it to him. "Now I have tinnitus in my left ear that hisses at me all day long, not a ringing, you understand, a bloody hiss." He touched his hearing aid.

She had finished her beef sandwich and wanted to drink what was left of the dip; it was that good. "And the other murder?"

"I think you know that one." He had finished his meal and his second beer.

She stared at the amber meniscus at the bottom of his glass.

"A year in New York, mostly for training, another two in Los Angeles, one in San Francisco, and we get nothing. Within a year of coming to Portland, we get a hit on a cell that's been activated just east of the city."

"The Crowley farm."

"And talk about lucky, we only found them because the idiots wouldn't follow their own protocols. They left so many clues we started calling the operation Hansel and Gretel. We tracked them through their internet activities."

"But your luck ran out."

"Someone at their end picked us up. They not only warned them, they sent in two other cells to reinforce them. They were willing to sacrifice nine of their own to make their point. They were telling us they weren't afraid of any of us: FBI, CIA, DHS. They are here and we are targets for them, too."

"A new breed."

She could feel the flash of heat spreading up her neck and across her face. She wiped her palms on her trousers. "Call them what you want. We went to the farm thinking we had the proverbial element of surprise, but they surrounded us and opened fire before we were even out of our vehicles. We lost eleven of our fourteen in less than fifteen minutes."

"No taking prisoners with these ones."

"Forensics estimated almost twenty thousand rounds were fired, and they had about that much again that they never used." She wiped her hands again. "There were no mistakes, not by whoever was in charge. They lured us in and sprung the trap. Some believe there were more than just the nine; it certainly felt like there were more."

"You eventually lost Miranda Wong and James Torres, too."

"Miranda's hands and arms had been burned. She had no choice but to go on permanent disability. James hung on for another month before resigning. A few months later, they both took their own lives on the same night."

"Then you left."

"I had intended on staying, but we lost Michael."

"In the last five years, there have been seven drug-related murders. Dominion has become both a center for drug distribution and a transportation hub. I know it has something to do with Wiley's schemes, which is something I'm not supposed to tell you, but I can't find anything."

"Does Nguyen have anything to do with Wiley? Were there problems at home? Was his business in trouble?"

"I don't know him that well, but I don't see anything like that in his case. I don't see anything at all there, either, as a matter of fact."

"A second pair of eyes might help."

"Honestly, Joan, I am working on that."

"And while you do, what's to stop me from investigating on my own?"

"Nothing and you would do an exceptional job, but, at the moment, that might create more problems than it would solve."

"What kind of problems? I'm the sheriff now, not you."

"I know it's a lot to ask, but we'll both have to be patient for now. I'm still waiting to interview Wiley. Every bloody agency involved has to give their consent before I can go see him."

He seemed to be considering whether or not to order a third beer. He might be more willing to talk if he had it.

"If you do," she said, "what kind of rumors do you think that will start in Dominion?"

"You learn fast."

"I had a crash course over the weekend on the dynamics of Dominion's power elite and the highly efficient gossip network in place here. Shana calls it the DGN."

"Kate told me some of it. Everyone's been buzzing since you were hired. We're quite proud of you."

"It's my first day on the job."

"It's the Crowley farm incident."

"How could that possibly make anyone proud of me?"

"You're from here, you were there, you survived and you represented Dominion and your country admirably."

"If Kate told you, then you're on that side of the DGN."

"The sheriff in a place like Dominion can be active in the community beyond just doing his duty, or hers, as the case may be, or just keep their own company, stay neutral and play the diplomat as much as possible."

"Are you offering professional advice for the newbie?"

"I'm just avoiding the appearance of trying to influence the new sheriff one way or the other."

"You should work at the UN."

"I would probably do as good a job as anyone else there."

"Are you being diplomatic about Wiley and Nguyen, too?"

"You're good." He slid to the edge of the booth. "I better go before I succumb to temptation and order that third beer. Where would my reputation be, then?"

"A reputation for public drunkenness, evasiveness and secrecy."

"That _is_ diplomacy, Sheriff." He placed some money on the table. "This one's on me." He retrieved his coat from a nearby hook. "I know starting your first day with a growing frustration that you are being needlessly excluded from one of the most important cases in the nation is not the way you would have it. Rest assured, Joan, it also doesn't sit well with me. All I can tell you for now is I hope to soon be able to share all of it with you."

"How diplomatic of you."

"It's the truth, Joan." He tipped an imaginary hat to her and left.

"Fuck." She finished her diet Coke and left before Kate or Susan might come over and dish out the DGN's _dirt-de-jour_.

# Chapter 18

Everyone from the installation crew was gone when she returned to the office.

"They're done," Kelly said from behind Mrs. Truman at the reception desk. "How was lunch?"

She opened the gate and entered the common area. "How would Kate know I was coming?"

"Harry probably called ahead. How was the beef dip?"

Joan looked down at her uniform to see if she had spilled anything on it. "Delicious."

"Then that was it." Kelly left Mrs. Truman to cover reception and came over to her. "Harry and Kate conspired to give you a great first lunch at the pub. Harry used to go there every day he was on the job unless he was out of town. He didn't get that stomach from just eating donuts."

While Kelly's explanation was probably accurate, even a simple conspiracy to make her a special lunch seemed too much like other people making plans for her. Colleagues at the FBI had watched out for her, especially after Miranda, James and Michael were gone. She'd hated it then, too.

Why hire her if they thought she needed that much control externally applied? If they thought she wasn't qualified for the job, they should have hired someone else. If they thought they'd just hired a puppet, they were in for one nasty kick up the ass.

"Where is our fulltime support staff person?"

"Janine phoned in sick." Kelly chuckled. "She was determined to be here to meet you your first day, but she's been down with the flu."

"And what does Janine do here when she doesn't have the flu?" Her jaw reminded her not to speak with it clenched.

Kelly was clearly taken aback by her tone and seemed to want to ask her if something was wrong. Instead, she said, "Janine Becker is your administrative assistant, our records clerk, bookkeeper, and evidence locker guru. She's been here for seven years. I think she's about your age. If you need to know how much money we have left in the budget, Janine will know it to the penny. If you need something found, Janine will get if for you."

"How is she feeling?"

"She promises to be in by Wednesday."

"Tell her only to come back once she's sure she's better." It wasn't like she had any cases to work on; Madsen had taken them all. "What does Amelia do besides reception?"

"She is the fastest typist the world has ever seen. Most of our forms are on the system now, but if you ever need something entered on the computer and printed up fast, Amelia can do it. When you're ready to go with that workforce report, Amelia can do the final copy for you. That's assuming Janine doesn't snatch it away first."

"Good to know."

Back in her office, she spent the afternoon trying to find anything on Wiley or Nguyen that Madsen might have accidentally left behind. She found no trace of the two cases, no preliminary report on Wiley's Ponzi scheme, not even the missing person report that had to have been registered for Nguyen. Had Madsen confided anything about Wiley or Nguyen to Amelia or Janine? That wasn't likely if Kelly knew nothing, as she claimed.

And how could Kate know nothing about Wiley if he had owned the restaurant attached to her pub?

She abandoned her search to continue checking out the new procedures required to access what law enforcement resources she could. Most of the FBI, ATF and DEA stuff was readily available. DHS offered some access, but kept most of their stuff out of reach, as did the CIA. All law enforcement departments across the nation were accessible. If she needed any sensitive stuff from the FBI, Colin Foster could still get most of it for her.

At two o'clock and again at three o'clock, she called Shana. The two o'clock report confirmed that the third bedroom had been painted with its first coat, as had the upstairs hallway. All cupboards in the kitchen had been cleaned and self-adhesive shelf covers had been installed because, as Shana put it: like, _eeuw_. The three o'clock call woke Shana up and resulted in some incoherent babble from her daughter about aliens crawling around in the basement installing the new warp drive core that would power their flat panel multiplex emitter.

"I'll bring home supper," she said to her barely conscious daughter and hung up.

Kelly came in at five o'clock. "Amelia's gone home, ma'am. I was going to pop out for some supper if that's all right?"

"I'll hold the fort." She glanced into the empty office through the clear pane of glass. "You're here until eight?"

"Twelve hour shifts, yes. Four days on, three days off unless there's a call or need for more. On call twenty-four-seven. Rob and Jacob take the weekends most of the time."

"When we get the two fulltime deputies, we'll set up a different schedule. Where are they today?"

"Fishing, they go fishing every chance they get."

"What are their prospects for becoming the two new fulltime deputies?"

"They'll be ready about the time we get a call from down below asking for a new furnace."

"Speaking of which, who's good in Dominion for a new furnace and hot water tank?"

"Fraser Heating and Plumbing. Stewart Fraser and his son, Theo, are as good as they come. Lowe's has good stuff, too, but those two put in a new furnace and hot water tank in my parents' house at a very good price. It's saved them hundreds of dollars per year. And I promise I don't get any kickback from them."

The phone rang.

"I'll get it." She picked up the phone. "Sheriff McGowan."

Kate Eiger said, "You better get over here, Joan. It looks like we may have a brawl on our hands."

"On my way." She put down the phone. "Your dinner will have to wait. We have a brawl at Kate's pub."

Kelly's face turned red. "Again? Damn them." She saluted. "Permission to bust some heads, ma'am."

"We better see what's going on first."

"I know what's going on."

"Then sure, why not? Shall we go?"

"Don't you want your hat, ma'am?"

"Between you and me, I'll never wear one of those."

Susan was waiting outside the door when they arrived. "It's the twins."

"When isn't it the twins?" Kelly went in first.

She let Susan precede her into the pub. Susan then quickly ducked away.

Kate saw the two of them and came over. Near the bar, the two men with the rifles at the gate Friday, as massive and tattooed as she remembered them, were glowering at another man.

"That's Bobby and Billy Cotton." She pointed each one out.

"We've met."

"The other one is Craig Harding."

"It's about the traps again, isn't it?" Kelly said.

"And poaching. Craig's people brought in a wounded elk yesterday. It had been shot three times."

Craig Harding was not a small man at 6'2" and about 220 pounds, but he didn't compare to the Cotton twins.

"Is that the Craig Harding who played quarterback at Oregon State?"

"The same." Kelly was an even brighter red than she was at the office. "He left for the army. He's a veterinarian now."

Kate said, "He was trying to talk to them about the elk and the illegal traps his people keep finding."

"He doesn't usually lose it."

"A student got snagged by a wire Saturday. He needed thirty-two stitches." Kate wiped her hands. "I'm sure if you two just talk—"

Bobby charged Harding.

"Shit." Kelly charged for the two men.

Despite Bobby's larger size, Harding sidestepped the lunge, grabbed his arm and flipped him onto his back. Billy came to his brother's aid, but Kelly intercepted him and tripped him. He landed on his face beside Bobby.

"Stay down, both of you," Kelly hollered at them as she shoved Harding up against the bar hard enough to send two glasses of beer crashing to the floor and spraying the Cotton brothers.

Kate said, "Just talk to them, Joan. I'm sure—"

"You called me, now let me do my job."

She went to the Cotton twins and got them up. Kelly put handcuffs on them, experience having taught her to bring two pair with her. She handcuffed Harding.

The twins didn't like being handcuffed in front of the other customers. They particularly didn't like being handcuffed by a woman.

Harding said, "Pleased to meet you, Sheriff. I'm Dr. Craig Harding." His dark-brown hair was parted on the left. His grey-blue eyes sparkled with mischief.

She gave him a moment to declare that he, too, had some input in hiring her, but he said nothing else.

She sure as hell wasn't going to get anything out of the twins. "What's this all about?"

"Ask them. I just had a few questions about illegal trapping and hunting. I wanted their professional advice on how to go about catching the culprits. In my opinion, they overreacted."

Neither twin said anything when she again gave them a chance to respond, though both of them appeared ready to kill Harding and anyone who stood in their way. They might even be strong enough to break free of their handcuffs if they wanted to.

Harding said, "They are men of few words, Sheriff. I'm not sure how many they actually know: stop, sit, stay."

"Pissing contests from grown men, just what I need."

She took hold of Harding, Kelly took hold of the twins and they paraded the trio out past the pub patrons. Some were shocked, perhaps even frightened, others took great delight in the spectacle before them. The DGN would be buzzing tonight.

They marched the handcuffed men back to the office. She placed them in cells across from each other.

"Let them have their phone calls," she said to Kelly.

She returned to her office and checked for any previous charges against the three men. Just as the twins' records came up, she noticed the icon at the bottom of the screen that indicated emails were waiting for her. She opened the email from Colin Foster:

Hi Joan:

There's nothing more on the Crowley farm case at the moment. I hope everything is going smoothly. I looked into those cases you asked about. The FBI has no interest in the Nguyen case. We consider it a local matter. Maybe Madsen just wants to do right by him.

There is no indication that Wiley and Nguyen are linked. Wiley is FBI jurisdiction because of the nature and scope of his crime. Still can't find the billions he stole. There's still a flag about national security concerns and orders to report any findings to FBI, CIA and DHS.

Just FYI: There is no record of anyone at the FBI requesting Madsen to work the Wiley case. Keep in touch. CF.

Kelly entered her office. "The twins have had their calls. Colter is on his way to post bail. Harding hasn't called anyone yet. He wants to talk to you first."

"Tell him I'll be right there." She picked up the phone. "Go get your dinner."

"Yes, ma'am."

She called Shana.

"I've cleaned all the bathrooms," Shana said when she answered.

"Thanks, sweetheart. I'm afraid I'll be a bit late."

"I got a burger an hour ago."

"Good. Can I bring home anything special for you?"

"A double-espresso latte with whole milk, thick on the whipped cream and hold the chocolate sprinkles. No, on second thought, give me the chocolate sprinkles, too."

"I'll bring home a piece of black forest cake."

"That will do."

She hung up and realized she was smiling at the phone as if Shana was there with her. Her smile ended when she got up to go find out what the renowned veterinarian with mischief in his eyes had to say for himself.

# Chapter 19

When she came out of her office, Kelly was standing at the barrier gate.

"Why are you still here?"

"Ma'am, I get the feeling you're very displeased with the men in those cells."

"Do you have any rubber hoses stashed somewhere?"

"Harry took the last one with him. It was his favorite. We do have pepper spray and a Taser. And we have some electrically charged nipple clamps that we confiscated." When she raised an eyebrow, Kelly said, "Even in Dominion, you can order anything over the internet."

"Better get me the Taser."

"I'll get the clamps, too; dibs on the twins."

"After you've had something to eat."

"Yes, ma'am." Kelly hopped over the gate and left.

She checked the key ring on her belt before going back to the cells.

Bobby and Billy were sitting side by side on the cot, which sagged halfway to the floor. How long could a flimsy metal frame and straps hold up over five hundred pounds?

"One of you get off that," she said and turned to face Harding's cell. "You want to talk to me?"

Harding came to the bars. "I want to apologize. This was not exactly an auspicious start to our relationship." There was a natural twinkle to his eyes that conveyed a myriad of attitudes with just the slightest squint or raised eyebrow. He might not have been trying to charm her earlier.

"What relationship? You're in there and I'm out here with the keys. I don't see any relationship."

His emotionally prismatic eyes squinted. "I concede to your authority, Sheriff. And I accept that I deserve to be in here. But I'd rather not have our discussion with those two troglodytes as witnesses. I promise I will behave myself."

"What makes you think we're going to have a discussion?"

"An interrogation, then."

There was a little too much conceit in those eyes and that slight crook of a smile. She turned to leave.

"Sheriff McGowan."

"What?"

"I did say I was sorry."

"This is not the principal's office. You were—"

"Being an asshole, I quite agree. I should not have let two creatures who understand English less well than a disobedient dog get under my skin, but I did. Again, I am sorry."

She unlocked the door and let him out. "Come on."

The twins were furious that he was being let out but they had to stay put. They both came to the bars and growled in unison. She wondered if they might reach through them or spit out a word or two. The cot hadn't fully recovered.

She followed Harding to her office. He waited for her to open the door before entering.

"You left university to join the army." She sat down at her desk.

He sat down once she signaled her permission for him to do so. "I graduated early. I was in my first year of med school. After two tours of duty, I returned for two more years of med school before transferring to veterinary medicine."

"Why? Don't you like people? Did you see too much in Afghanistan?"

He didn't react to her poke. Instead, grey-blue confidence smiled back at her. "We have to go where our passion takes us. Why did you become a cop?" He leaned across the desk. "Let me answer for you. You wanted to do something significant. You wanted to do some good. You wanted to catch hardened, notorious criminals like me and put them behind bars."

"Oh, shut up."

He leaned back, his grey-blues bringing her with him. "Of course, in Dominion, there are all kinds of ways you can serve."

She leaned back. "What do you mean by that?"

"You are currently working with people in power who are determined to push through their plans for development despite encroaching on the habitats of local wildlife."

"People come first, surely you agree with that."

"If we are out in the wild, _their_ wild, and a bear charges us, yes, we might have no choice but to kill it. But I'm talking about invading their territory and destroying their homes to build ours. Wouldn't you say they have no choice but to attack us? But they don't. They just get pushed into areas that are not their natural environment. They are forced to compete with other species that are better adapted. They can't find their normal food supply. They are crammed closer and closer together so they can't avoid range overlap that leads to more conflicts and higher levels of stress. I've seen bears that are losing their fur due to the stress of having to live too close to other bears."

"Don't bears overlap all the time?"

"Good point. Yes, they do, but they also have their own territories to themselves. I'm talking about when there is nowhere else to go." He brought his hands together to indicate a shrinking range. "Their immune systems weaken. They become susceptible to diseases they might otherwise fend off. The young are at greater risk of not surviving. And then there are all those convenient garbage cans laid out in a row."

"Nice speech; you hardly took a breath."

"And if I asked you about gun control, what would I get?"

"Touché. What do you propose as an alternative?"

"We need to leave a smaller footprint. On a philosophical level, we need to respect other species and their right to exist as well. We need to understand that we are a part of nature not apart from it. We can do it. We just need the political and monetary will."

"In other words, it's going to cost us more." He was definitely passionate, but maybe too radical. Either way, she wasn't up to any debate with him on the topic. He was too knowledgeable, too experienced and too practiced.

"It would mean higher density housing, yes, which would add to the cost of owning a home. It would mean larger green spaces, culverts under roads so animals could cross with less danger of being hit, which, I might add, saves human lives as well. It would preserve natural migration routes."

"Anything else? Maybe a few billion of us could just die off for the good of the environment."

He sighed, which, for some unfathomable reason, made her want to apologize. Maybe it was the glare of grey-blue that hadn't stopped looking at her.

"I know how I sound. But I also know things are getting better because attitudes are changing. For people like me out there doing the research; however, that change isn't coming fast enough. We are losing species at an unprecedented rate."

This was getting monotonous. "I appreciate your passion for saving the environment and all the little critters in it."

"Saving the environment is essential. We need it; it doesn't need us. It's the future for your daughter."

She flinched. Did he get the dossier on her, too? "That's an ambitious goal."

"So is bringing Do-Dads and Karyon to Dominion and planning for the population to get to twenty thousand within the next decade or so. Both can be done with much less environmental impact if we're willing to do it the right way from the start."

Why spout all this at her? Did he ever think of anything else? Had he been haranguing the Cotton brothers with all this? It could be enough, especially if accusations came with it, to motivate Bobby or Billy to land one on his kisser, maybe blacken one of those grey-blues full of attitude.

"Kate and Deputy Strickland mentioned illegal traps and hunting. Is that what caused the disagreement?"

"We have no evidence that identifies anyone, but we know who is behind it all."

"Morton Colter."

"Aside from his farm, he runs a trophy hunting tourism business. He's also a taxidermist. You get the idea."

"I'm not a fan of trapping animals in any way, but my husband was a hunter. He brought home venison and moose. We ate both."

Shana wouldn't during her two years as an absolutely total vegan.

"I'm an omnivore, too. I see no reason to hunt at all, but I have no expectations regarding entrenched views one way or another. My only hope is to put limits on it and require people to do it legally and humanely."

He really did have the whole topic down pat. "You believe Colter is using illegal traps and bringing in people for illegal hunting expeditions?"

"We have the traps, but nothing that connects them to Colter. The truth is, they appear to be too simple to have come from his people, but that could be a feint."

"I'll check out your allegations when I visit his farm."

"He invited you?"

"I met him, and those two in the back, last Friday when my daughter and I rode out to Greens' Point."

"Colter will tell you there are poachers in the mountains, hence the simple trap designs, but we've never found one or evidence there are any. Whoever's doing it is able to avoid our cameras, steal them or destroy them. My people are very frustrated."

This situation felt more and more like she had stepped into the middle of Dominion's own version of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. This Colter-Harding feud was about trapping and hunting but verged on being just as ludicrous and maybe as dangerous.

The bell above the front door tinkled. She waited to see if Kelly passed by the clear pane of glass and got up when she didn't.

"Stay," she said to Harding.

"Cute."

"I mean it."

"Yes, ma'am."

Kelly was escorting Colter through the gate when she came out of her office.

"I do apologize, Sheriff McGowan," Colter said, "for Bobby and Billy's unacceptable behavior."

"This is the third time this year."

He bowed his head. "If you will just tell me what the bail is, I will post it."

"Deputy Strickland can take care of that for you." She followed Kelly and Colter to Kelly's desk. "I would like to accept your invitation to visit your farm if it's still open."

"It most certainly is, Sheriff." Colter looked past her and smiled.

She saw Harding standing at the clear pane watching them. He backed away when she waved him off.

"I can swing by tomorrow."

"Thursday morning would be better. We're very busy right now with new construction. The contractors are coming tomorrow."

"Thursday morning it is."

She lingered in the common area until Kelly completed the paperwork and took the cheque for bail, which she approved. Colter and the twins then left.

The idea of listening to more of Harding's monologue seemed like just running in circles again, a common sensation since returning to Dominion. She only reluctantly headed back to her office and just got seated in her chair across from Harding when Kelly stuck her head in.

"Mayor Jones is here."

She said to Harding, "It's getting to be a parade out there." She got up and pointed at him.

"I know, stay."

She waved for Kelly to come in. "Take him back to his cell."

# Chapter 20

Leo Jones approached her with his best campaign smile frozen on his face and his hand out. He shook her hand vigorously but had no real strength in his grip.

"Sheriff McGowan." His smile didn't melt. "It feels good to say that now that it's official."

"It feels good to hear it officially."

"I wanted to swing by to see how your first day on the job was going."

"It's ending with a bang."

His smile shrunk a bit at that answer. "Good, good, that's fine. I also wanted to let you know about our official welcoming banquet Wednesday night for Do-Dads and Karyon Research. As sheriff, you are automatically invited as a dignitary."

"Good to know. I would hate to have to crash the party."

His laugh sounded like an asthmatic rooster trying to get the day started. "That would be awkward indeed."

He noticed Kelly escorting Harding back to his cell. Harding waved to both of them before vanishing behind the closing door.

She heard the lock being secured as per procedure and smiled back at Jones.

"I heard about what happened at Kate's earlier."

The DGN never stopped working. "It was a minor skirmish. I doubt anything will come of it. The twins are already gone. I was going to release Dr. Harding on his own recognisance."

"Dr. Harding is a dedicated man."

"I get that."

"But he's just so odd." He covered his mouth. "I'm sorry, Sheriff, I should not have expressed myself in such a way. It's just that he has a unique personality, and his views of the world and where people fit in it are unusual."

"I've heard some of his manifesto, Mayor."

"Leo, please call me Leo when we're alone like this." He smiled differently now.

Her first day on the job and she gets to arrest the two men who frightened her daughter last Friday as well as a renowned veterinarian, and then flirt, albeit in only one direction, with the effete, wheezy-rooster mayor of Dominion. Two out of three wasn't bad.

"He tends to see conspiracies everywhere."

"What kind of conspiracies?"

"A better way to put it is he has trouble recognizing friend from foe." He backed away to avoid having to explain himself.

"Like tonight at the pub."

"There's nothing really wrong with him, though. He's famous for his veterinary research and that animal hospital of his. I understand animals have been brought from all over the nation to be treated there, even a few from out of the country." He recoiled and seemed ready to bolt when Kelly returned from the cells. He sighed with undisguised relief when he saw it was only her. "Excuse me for saying this, Joan." He put a hand on her shoulder.

Where were those damn nipple clamps?

"It might not be the right thing to say in these modern times, but I think if he just found that special woman, she could get him to stop picking animals over people."

Dr. Harding had got in his speech without having to be prompted. If Mayor Jones kept up with his opinions and friendliness, he was going to elicit a lengthy monologue from the new sheriff even if it was only her first day on the job.

Jones must have sensed something akin to running headfirst into a brick wall because when he smiled back at her after taking a good, long look at her tall, attractive deputy, he took his hand off her shoulder. His smile then shrunk to a sour pucker and he said, "I have delivered the city's official welcome and invitation, Sheriff McGowan, now I will let you get back to your work."

Kelly got the gate for him. He smiled that flirtatious smile at her before leaving. Kelly's lip curled as if she'd spotted vomit on the floor.

"Not to your taste, either?"

"The way his comb-over twists and tangles his hair reminds me of varicose veins." She went to her desk to finish processing the paperwork for releasing the Cotton brothers.

Joan went to the cells.

Harding was reclining comfortably on the cot. "Did you get his warning about me?"

"I didn't need his warning."

"Who else told you about me?"

"You did." She unlocked the door and opened it. "Go home."

"You take credit cards now? That's all I've got with me."

"Just get out of here and go back to your farm full of balding bears and itchy mountain lions." The bell tinkled again. She slammed the door shut just as he was about to step through. "It is a goddamn parade out there."

# Chapter 21

Harry Madsen let himself in through the gate.

Kelly waved at him, but immediately returned to her work when she saw the scowl on her new sheriff's face.

"I'm sorry if I'm intruding," Madsen said. "Kate told me what happened. I thought I'd come vouch for Craig. I will gladly post the bail if necessary."

She didn't tell him what she thought of his assurance of Harding's character. The buzzing in her ears from the DGN was becoming a real pain. Madsen's penchant for lingering was only making that pain worse.

"I'll let him go if you tell me about Wiley and Nguyen."

"You know I can't do that yet."

"So much for a smooth transition and professional cooperation," she said and nodded to Kelly to get Harding.

Kelly almost tiptoed past her.

Once the door to the cells locked, she asked, "Why would the FBI ask you to stick around on the Wiley and Nguyen cases?"

"They didn't."

"Then why . . . ?"

"Mark Huard at the Attorney General's office asked me to keep my hand in. He used to be a deputy here before becoming a lawyer. He thought I could be of some use because of my knowledge of Dominion, all its secrets and so forth."

She remembered his excellent work with the statistics, the report on the increase in drug-related crimes and his workforce proposals.

"The FBI just agreed with Huard's request. They don't like it any more than Homeland does, however. Despite our surface cooperation, there is still jealousy and distrust there. Unfortunately, most of it comes from Mark's office, I'm afraid."

"And Nguyen?"

"He's a friend."

Colin Foster's suggestion had been correct.

"But you have no official authority."

"On Wiley, I do, if push comes to shove, on Nguyen, not if you insist. But I promise I will turn over to you anything I find on Albert. And I'm working to bring you in on Wiley, believe me. Mark can be one stubborn asshole sometimes. He says that's part of his job description."

"What if I talked to him?"

Harry grunted with genuine frustration. "To a wall."

"All right, I'll accept your concession on Nguyen as long as you keep your promise. But I do all the cop stuff."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Then, for the time being, I will consider you a special consultant to the Dominion Sheriff's Department."

Kelly brought Harding to them.

"The propeller is from a helicopter," Madsen said to Harding. "I confirmed that with Niall."

"What propeller?"

Harding said, "From the fire."

Her face became hot. "There was a helicopter crash? Why wasn't I told?"

"A model helicopter," Harding said. "Harry found a propeller in the debris."

"Niall owns a hobby store." In response to the look on her face, Madsen said, "It's probably just a toy left behind by the grandchildren. I was curious to see if it could be identified. Old dog stuff."

Harding's eyes twinkled the way they had when she arrested him. "And the finger?"

Her face became a red mask of what Shana called mom's supernova-medusa look. It wouldn't turn you to stone; it would melt you into a puddle of lava. "What finger?"

"We found two more finger bones, but no other human remains at the site yet."

"No one told me about human remains at the fire."

Harding said, "We're telling you now."

Madsen reached out to stop Harding from speaking. "Dr. Leaman only just confirmed that it was human. I was going to tell you."

"If there are human remains, even a suspicion of human remains, I should have been called in Saturday."

Harding said, "You weren't the sheriff yet."

"I don't give a good goddamn that I wasn't the sheriff yet. Everyone in Dominion knew I was here, including you two idiots."

Kelly stepped forward in case she needed to intervene.

Harding and Madsen looked at each other like two boys caught holding slingshots near broken windows.

"You are absolutely right, Sheriff," Harding said. "We were being idiots."

" _Were_?" She glowered in turn at the three of them. She was the outsider. "I'm Sheriff now. I will not be left out of anything that even resembles a possible crime, got that? You will respect the office or so help me."

"Joan," Madsen said with his hands now up in appeasement, "that was not our intention."

"Then where is the preliminary report? It wasn't on my desk with all that other shit you left behind."

Harding stepped closer to her. "That is my fault. It is my responsibility to write up the reports. I was waiting for Dr. Leaman's official assessment."

"You have it now."

"The report will be emailed to you in the morning, I promise."

"I can take you to the site tomorrow," Madsen said.

"I know where it is. I will take a look for myself."

"Then," Madsen said, "if you will tell me what the bail is, I'll post it and we will get out of your way."

First Colter, then Jones, now Madsen; she was driving them all away. "Just get out of here. No one is going to press charges."

Harding said, "See you Wednesday."

"You're going to that banquet?"

"I was invited, though Leo probably hopes I don't come. I wouldn't be surprised to see Billy and Bobby there, too. Colter rarely goes anywhere without them. I understand they make quite the handsome pair in tuxedos."

Like giant, demented penguins look handsome. "I'm bringing my gun."

At the edge of her vision she could just see her deputy smiling.

"I promise to behave myself."

"You're a great one for making promises, aren't you?"

"If you don't trust me, you can frisk me before I go in."

Now Kelly was covering her mouth and looking away.

"I thought I told you two to leave."

Kelly escorted them out. When she returned, she said, "You made Colter pay bail."

"Yes I did."

"Sheriff, I volunteer to frisk Dr. Harding."

"What do you know about those two?"

"Harry is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get man. I know he is uncomfortable about excluding you. He does respect the office and you. You should have heard him after you got the job. It is no exaggeration to think he believes you are like the second coming for Dominion. He knows this city and he knows where it should be going despite certain people trying to guide it a bit too much for their personal benefit. He knows this town needs you, Joan."

"And Harding?"

"I don't know him as well as I'd like to, but aside from being one big hunk of—"

"Trouble."

"I know he served in the Army Medical Corps, but Harry and Kate would be the better ones to talk to about him."

"That seems to be the way of it around here, doesn't it?"

"Yes, ma'am, it is, pretty much like everywhere. My advice to you, if you really don't want to be left out, and if you want to be as good for Dominion as Harry and I believe you will be, is to start using that network to your advantage."

"I intend to."

"I will help you in every way I can, ma'am, and if you give them the chance, so will Kate, Susan and Harry."

"I see where your allegiance lies."

"It doesn't interfere with my job, if that's your concern."

"I didn't think it would. What about Harding? What about the other side?" Mattie was on the other side.

"Everyone here has their own perspective on the future of Dominion. It will be up to you to filter all of them to best suit your needs."

"You _are_ a lot smarter than I was at your age."

"Go home, Sheriff. I'll lock up."

"I just have to make a call first."

She returned to her office. It was 7:38 pm. She sent an email to Colin Foster to get all the information he could on Colter and Harding. Then she called Shana's cell phone number.

"If this is Ian," Shana said, "I told you not to call me until Saturday."

"This is your mother, who is going to have Ian arrested and sent to Cascade Correctional Institute. I'm on my way home."

"How did your first day go?"

"I arrested a veterinarian. I alienated Mayor Comb-over, the former sheriff and Morton Colter. Oh, yeah, and I also arrested those twins."

"I picked up two pieces of cake at Petersons. Sounds like you've earned yours."

"You are my treasure."

"Does that mean I can have Ian?"

"When you're nineteen."

"That's way past his best before date. Thanks for nothing."

# Chapter 22

Shana made coffee and toast for her mother, snuck a half-cup of coffee before mom got downstairs, as she always did, saw mom off to work after getting permission to relax for the day, then got ready to go to the Legacy Mall.

The mall had its own simple and crude website that displayed which bus routes delivered customers to it. Every one of them did. She needed to take bus 52.

She boarded the bus one block from the house at 9:52 am, the time it was supposed to arrive. Portland buses were always late.

Only two other people were on the bus with her. A couple in their twenties appeared to be on their way to work. They sat near the back of the bus. The bus made three more stops along the way to pick up seven more passengers.

The Legacy Mall, opened seven years ago, claimed on its website to be the commercial center of Dominion, though it was at the western limits of the city. Ginger Greens Park occupied the geographical center of Dominion. It was named after a former mayor's daughter who had tragically died at twelve years of age from some mysterious disease late last century.

The Legacy Mall also claimed on its website to be one of the three major hubs of Dominion's future development, the other two being Do-Dads and Karyon Research. The Legacy would be only a third-rate rump mall in Portland, a place she'd rushed into at the last minute to buy cheap Christmas gifts for her dotty relatives as payback for the ones they were giving her.

Bus 52 arrived at the _hub's_ bus station at the edge of the mall's parking lot, which was optimistically far bigger than the two-storey mall itself. She exited after the couple. Buses 47, 51, 87 and 15 were due to arrive momentarily so all the required connections and passenger transfers could be made. Obviously there was no logic to how the buses in Dominion were numbered.

The couple entered through the main doors ahead of her, kissed and separated. The man went to Carpenter's Men's Wear. The woman continued on to the food court. She followed the woman when her stomach started gurgling.

This was what a day of relaxing in Dominion was going to be like? _Kill me now before I just start staying on the bus_.

She passed a dentist's office, which made her shudder, followed by an eye clinic and optical store. She couldn't find the hearing clinic, with free hearing tests and the latest miniature miracle in hearing aids; a growth industry for baby boomers and young pukes who insisted on playing their music too loud through their buds.

She continued to the food court, on the way taking note of a few likely targets.

The mall was shaped like an E, with a main corridor of larger stores lining up along the spine of the letter. Smaller stores and boutique shops were scattered throughout the end sections. The middle section contained the food court, a pharmacy, an electronics and camera store and two clothing stores aimed at customers her age. She'd check those out for any promising _kleptables_ after getting something to eat.

At the edge of the food court, she stopped and surveyed the food outlets. She could get New York fries, not at ten o'clock in the morning, no matter how much she liked the gravy; KFC, ditto; two different taco outlets; a Thai food outlet; a Starbucks.

"Jackpot." She checked her bag for the mints, though she wouldn't see mom again until after 6 pm, plenty of time for the coffee breath and second caffeine rush to wear off.

The woman from the couple on the bus joined two other women at the Starbucks booth, the busiest booth in the court. A small mocha and a blueberry muffin would be a perfect start to a day of her kind of shopping and just hangin', though there was no telling how long she could stretch that out in a mall this pathetic.

A short, slender, raven-haired girl stepped up to the Starbucks counter as Shana meandered through the round tables and semi-circular booths. The girl was gaunt. Her shiny black hair was straight, parted on the right, shielded much of her face on purpose and dropped to the small of her back. After placing her order, the girl looked around the food court, looking for someone and wary at the same time. She was pretty but sad and carried a backpack that probably contained both a laptop and a tablet.

"Definitely a geek." Shana stopped in the middle of the court when the girl spotted her.

The girl, despite her slight frame, was probably a senior in high school. After only a glance, long enough to register her as neither friend nor foe, the girl spotted someone else that clearly made her uncomfortable. Clutching her backpack close and ducking her head to make herself as small as possible, she stepped aside for the next customer and leaned up against a section of concrete wall that protruded out between the Starbucks and the taco stand next to it. She was hiding as best she could.

Four girls, also likely seniors, approached Starbucks. They were led by another raven-haired girl who was taller than the girl hiding, as was her whole entourage. They looked like women compared to the smaller girl. They were far enough away that the girl, her head still bowed, was able to get her two small coffees and two muffins and scoot over to a table for two.

Shana headed for her the moment she saw the four girls veer in her direction. The girls were going to get to the table before she did. They stopped about three feet away but spread out to surround the girl. Though she had been wary at the Starbucks counter, she flashed a fierce glare up at them.

They were chattering around the girl when Shana arrived at the table.

The lead one said, "It can't be easy to be so desperate-skinny. You can't be anything but a virgin, probably for the rest of your life."

Her second said, "Even being an AAA-girl won't get you much if you have barely any tits and a boney ass."

The other two girls laughed as they checked their make-up in their compact mirrors.

These were the Hotties. The leader was beautiful, with a full mane of flowing black hair, but she wore a permanent scowl of arrogance and contempt that furrowed her brow more than a young woman should. That scowl would make her outstanding facial features, big blue eyes, prominent nose broken at least once, and fat, pouty lips transform into a more witch-like countenance as she got older. Her overdone make-up and dark lipstick made her look like a Victoria's Dark Secret Vampire Lingerie Model.

The other three, every bit as self-possessed, knew how to maintain that delicate balance of looking pretty but still not usurping their leader's reign at the top of the so-much-better-than-you list.

Shana put herself between the girls and the table and waited for the small girl to look up at her. Once she did, Shana asked, "Do they actually make decent coffee?"

The girl scrutinized her, perhaps wondering what side this tall chick was going to choose.

"I'm Shana McGowan. My mom's the new sheriff."

The Hotties all burst out laughing.

"This is going to be good," the leader said.

The girl at the table blanched as if she believed there were now five enemies closing in on her.

"Go ahead," the leader said to the girl, "tell her who you are."

"They make excellent coffee, particularly the mochas," the girl said. "My name is Lily . . . Wiley."

"Wiley? Are you new, too?"

"Not exactly."

The Hotties were clutching their sides and wiping tears from their eyes.

"You two are going to be such good friends," the leader said between gasps for breath. "This is just too precious."

Her face burned. She knew how she must look, just like her mother when she went supernova. She spun around on the Hotties.

"I don't like bullies. I had to beat up two in Portland, one when I was ten and one when I was twelve. They were both boys. That means I average one every two years and I turned fourteen in May, so I'm overdue."

The leader glared at her. The trio lining up behind their leader glared at her.

"Now, if I take you two out, I'm good till I'm eighteen." She indicated the leader and her second before shooting a scowl at the two followers. "You two don't matter because you're big chickenshits on your own. You'd be crying sissy, girly tears before I even started kicking your assess."

Lily stood up beside her. "I've got those two."

The leader scanned the court and snarled at her, "No time for losers today." She left, taking her entourage with her.

"You're _that_ Lily Wiley."

"Yes." She deflated back onto the chair.

"I'll be right back." Shana made sure the Hotties were gone before going to Starbucks and getting a small mocha and a blueberry muffin. She returned to the table and sat across from Lily. "You have a good appetite."

"I'm expecting someone."

"I'll leave."

"Don't, please." She nibbled on her muffin. "Thanks. They're, like, purple kryptonite to me."

"Never heard of that; what does purple kryptonite do to you?"

"I don't know yet but it still scares me."

"So, aside from being an outcast because of what your father did, you're a comic book junkie and a computer-clutching, honor-roll geek; all the characteristics of an excellent best friend." Shana took a bite of her muffin. "Where's a good store to pick up some jeans?"

"There's a Gap near the Stein Market. It's got good stuff."

"Who were they?"

"The leader is Allison Becker, her second is Karen Sillers. The other two are Doreen Cathcart and Gloria Myers. Gloria's the one with the huge. . . ."

"Potential for working at Hooters; yeah, I noticed. Has that been going on long?"

Lily checked to see if her opponents were returning and said, "Only since my father got his butt tossed into the hoosegow. We weren't even going to the same school. They go to Lincoln High. I was going to Lafleur Academy."

"I'll be going to Lincoln High."

"I will, too . . . now."

"I'll be in grade eight."

Lily's eyes widened. "You really are only fourteen?"

She nodded as she finished her coffee and muffin.

"You're, like, a freakin' amazon." She simpered. "I meant that as a good thing."

"I don't think I'll get much taller. My dad was six foot four; my mom is five foot ten."

Lily lowered her head and muttered, "I'm five foot three."

"Normally, you'd be too short and I'd throw you back, but I'm new here and I can't be picky in a pond this tiny."

Lily sipped her coffee with her head still bowed and slid down in her chair.

Shana offered her hand. "I'm kidding." They shook hands. "So, want to do some shopping?"

Lily perked up when she raised her head and looked past her new friend.

Shana turned around to see a Korean-American boy approaching them. He was maybe 5'6" but he was solid, like a gymnast or wrestler.

"Just so you know," Lily said, "he's taken."

"Throw him back and all that." She took another look. "Does he know?"

"Not exactly, but that doesn't matter."

The boy reached them and looked down at Shana. "I think you're in my seat."

Shana stood up and looked down at him.

"Ah . . . keep it."

Lily pushed the second coffee and muffin his way.

He grabbed another chair and slid in. It was a cozy fit for the three of them.

"I saw what you did. Pissing off the queen bee at Lincoln High might not be the smartest move."

"Donny," Lily said, "this is Valkyria, aka Shana McGowan, her mom's the new sheriff. Shana, this is Donny Nguyen."

"What's the new sheriff's daughter doing joining the outcasts? Her dad's a world famous criminal, my dad's disappeared, leaving behind rumors that he ditched my mom and me for a better life. What's with you?"

She leaned in close to them. "I'm a _klepto_. That's why mom took this job. She's been covering for me for years, but it got too hot in Portland for us." She blew on her fingers. "See these? They can snatch anything they touch."

"She's kidding," Lily said.

"Am not."

"Yes you are. Weren't we going shopping?"

"Donny just got here."

"I'm done." He finished his coffee and licked his fingers before wiggling them.

Buying a pair of jeans at the Gap didn't take very long and she was enjoying their company, so she, Lily and Donny went up to the second floor once she was done. They browsed through a couple of stores before settling on a bench and watching the people on the first floor.

"You two are going to tell me everything about Lincoln High and what's cool in Dominion, if there is such a thing."

"Donny has all the intel on that. I'm going to be as new there as you."

"I just realized we all have one big thing in common: no fathers. Yours is in jail, yours is missing in action."

Donny said, "Yours is dead."

Her throat tightened when she swallowed. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry," Lily said. "What was it, cancer?"

"He was a cop in Portland. He got broadsided by a drug dealer fleeing other cops while he was chasing a robbery suspect in his car. I've been stealing ever since. Mom and I keep meaning to have a long talk."

Donny said, "Mom's taking dad's disappearance hard. She cries almost every day. We fight all the time."

"And your mom," Shana said, "how's your relationship with her since dad became a failed criminal mastermind?"

"What relationship?" Lily looked down at the people. "She's hardly noticed me since I was born"

"A daddy's girl."

"You were, too, admit it."

"Got away with everything."

"Mom had such a busy social calendar, you see, until you-know-what happened. She barely had time to dust me."

Donny asked, "How about your mom, with all that stealing and stuff?"

"It's fine, a bit strained at times, but good."

"That warrants further explanation."

"You're not getting any."

"There's your former friend," Lily said.

She and Donny looked to where Lily was pointing.

"Oh my," she said. "They look _studly_."

Donny said, "The lead one's Dean Bilsbarrow."

Lily said, "He and Donny used to be best friends."

"We still are. He just spends a lot of time on football now. He already has six scholarship offers."

"He's the right size for me. And the other two are?"

Donny pointed to the African-American boy just behind Dean. "That's Leon Redding. He's a linebacker. Diana Cobble is his girlfriend."

"Does Dean have anyone?"

"Down, girl," Donny said. "You'll have to get in line for him. He's the quarterback. Remember that girl you chased away earlier?"

"Becker?"

"She and he have been off and on for the past two years. They've broken up umpteen times, but they keep getting back together. It's all over Twitter and Facebook. It gets pretty rude sometimes."

"They're not together at the moment. That puts me at the head of the line."

Dean stopped before entering The Gap and looked around. He waved at Donny when he spotted him. Leon and Diana waved, too. Donny waved back.

She stood up as tall as she could so Dean would be sure to see her and waved, too.

"Uh-oh, here comes trouble," Donny said.

Two security guards were coming toward them.

Her heart skipped. "What's with the NBBG's?"

"Huh?"

"No butts, big guts. What's their problem?"

Donny got them walking. "There's been an increase in thefts as the drug trade here has picked up. It's not good to stay in one place here too long if you're a teenager."

"He's going to be a journalist," Lily said, as if that explained why Donny seemed to be up on all current affairs in Dominion. "He writes a teen blog for the Dominion Times." She suddenly stopped and looked down over the railing as they walked. "He got rid of the beard."

"Who?"

"Dr. Harding." She pointed to a man shopping at the Stein Market. He was putting the cauliflower and broccoli he'd just bought into cloth bags. "He looks younger without it."

"Not to me," Donny said.

"He's handsome."

Donny explained because he was going to be the journalist. "He's a radical environmentalist disguised as a veterinarian. He runs this big animal research farm out on Ditchburg Road where they perform dastardly experiments on human beings then feed the remains to all kinds of mutated carnivores. He and his neighbor, Morton Colter, are video-game-calibre mortal enemies."

"I sort of met Colter. He's creepy."

"Dr. Harding isn't." Lily almost sighed.

"Mom arrested him last night."

Lily stuck out her tongue at her.

Again, Donny provided the intel on Lily's infatuation. "He gave a talk at Lafleur. About half the female students fell in love with him."

"You're not jealous?"

"Why should I be jealous?"

Lily checked the time on her cell phone. "I have a dentist appointment. I have to go brush my teeth." She looked up at Shana. "Can you come over Friday night?"

"How do I get there?"

They exchanged phone numbers and hash tags and made sure they were all connected before Donny left with Lily.

She exited the mall, took a deep breath and headed back to the bus station. Having rapidly developed her _boy_ -sense when she turned fourteen, a tingle at the back of her neck had her look in exactly the right direction to see Dean Bilsbarrow about to get into his red Honda Civic coupe. When he looked her way, she rose up on her toes, threw up her hands as if he'd just scored a touchdown and waved.

He held his hand up to cover his eyes from the glare, didn't really recognize her, but waved back anyway before getting into his car.

She squeaked—a side-effect of her keenly developed _boy-_ sense—and waited, but he drove away in the opposite direction from her.

"Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous."

After watching the Civic exit the parking lot, she texted her mother as she'd promised. When she turned and started for the _hub_ , those two NBBG security guards were only six steps away and coming for her.

# Chapter 23

It was just a stupid wallet. They'd gone into Bethune and Clarke so Lily could ogle a shoulder bag she coveted. On the way out they passed a cluttered rack of wallets. She had a new wallet. Why couldn't she have left that one where it was?

Things were getting better between them. This new job had seemed to get mom back up to speed emotionally. Though she still couldn't get past doing her rounds through the house every night, her confidence had returned. Her outlook was improving and she wasn't as short-tempered as she had been after leaving the FBI. This would knock them back into all that. She had screwed up big time.

She needed to pee.

There was little to the room but desolate isolation, though anyone caught and put in here couldn't ever be certain how much of that sensation was generated internally, albeit encouraged and augmented by the spare surroundings. Little more than a converted storage room, it had one bare light bulb in the ceiling providing dim illumination of the grey walls. The stale smell of body odor, booze and urine helped reinforce that claustrophobic trap atmosphere. It still couldn't match the one her mind had set for herself, however.

Why'd she do it? She'd been enjoying herself with Donny and Lily. They'd gone through other stores and she hadn't felt any urge. What went wrong?

The new sheriff's daughter had been caught shoplifting. The DGN would go into hyper-drive. By the end of the day nearly seven thousand more people would know of Sheriff McGowan's great shame and burden: _Klepto_ -daughter. She was nothing at all like the heroic Valkyria.

The deadbolt lock on the door slid open. The door opened. The older of the two security guards came in with a glass of water for her.

She kept her gaze on the square table in front of her and only shifted it to the glass after she mumbled, "Thanks."

He said nothing, which only made her wonder if he was keeping quiet because he was embarrassed for mom. Or was he going through a list in his head of significant people in Dominion, people who might not be happy about her mother becoming the new sheriff? Who would he leak the news to first, one of them, the DGN or the Dominion Times?

What kind of blog would Donny have to write once his employer learned he had spent the morning with _Klepto_ -girl and had actually been there when she did it? Hadn't he noticed anything, perhaps a subtle, furtive change in her behavior?

What could possibly make a Sheriff's daughter steal? There would be no shortage of expert common knowledge. There had been plenty of that the other times.

Mom had trusted her. She hadn't given her any warning or lecture; she'd just let her go to the mall. And this is what she'd done with that trust. Dad would be proud, wouldn't he?

She took a sip of water but doing so felt like she'd just been injected with a gallon of it. The pressure to pee was becoming painful. She took fifteen minutes to finish the water. She could barely hold it in but her mouth just kept drying up. After another twenty minutes, she began considering possibly using the glass she'd just emptied.

Had the guard intentionally brought in the water to assist her with her self-torture?

Voices approached on the other side of the door. The most agitated one was female.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears still came out. She sniffed and wiped her nose. Her lips and chin trembled when the deadbolt slid aside again and the door opened.

Deputy Kelly Strickland entered alone and sat in the chair across the table from her.

She started crying the moment Strickland held up the wallet.

"I'm not going to ask why? I'm going to take this back to Bethune and Clarke and talk to Heather for as long as it takes. Do you need anything before I do?"

Shana just clenched and shook her head.

"How long have you been in here?"

Barely audible, she replied, "Almost two hours."

Deputy Strickland got up. "Come with me." She took out her handcuffs but just held onto them.

Shana went with her to the women's washroom. Strickland put a closed sign on the door after first confirming no one was inside.

When she entered the cubicle, Strickland said, "Leave the door open."

Though Strickland remained by the entrance door and the pressure was unbearable, she still had trouble going. After she was finished, Strickland deposited her back into the little room and locked it. The empty glass was gone.

She still felt the need to pee and sat shivering for another hour before Strickland returned.

"Time to go," she said but didn't take out her handcuffs.

Shana wiped her eyes and her nose and walked with Strickland to her police car. She got into the back and looked out at where Dean Bilsbarrow had been parked.

Would he wave back now? Would Lily and Donny want anything more to do with her? They had their own problems to deal with. Allison Becker and her group would be rolling on the floor when they heard about this.

Once they were underway, Strickland made eye contact with her in the rear view mirror. "I like your mom very much." Rather than take her to the Sheriff's Office, Strickland took her home. Upon arriving, she said, "And I like you, too, Shana."

She started bawling and got out of the car.

Strickland escorted her to the stairs leading up to the porch.

"I told your mom I'd watch out for you. We tall girls have to stick together, right?" She brushed back Shana's hair and lifted her head. "There will be no charges and we'll keep this between ourselves. It's only your mom's second day and I don't think either one of us wants to see her hurt. But this is a one-time-only deal. Do it again and I don't have to tell you all that shit about pain and guilt and trouble, do I?"

Shana wiped her eyes and shook her head.

Deputy Kelly Strickland took her inside, hugged her, let her cry for a bit in her embrace and then left.

# Chapter 24

Her second and third day on the job presented no surprises, which made them seem to go by quickly. No one got into trouble either day. Her stiffness subsided. Shana got to the mall and back again without her getting a phone call from security, which led to even more hope that her daughter's hobby might finally be coming to an end.

All she got on Tuesday was a text from Shana: at the mall, made some new friends, BOUGHT a pair of jeans, met future husband, home in ten.

Craig Harding had emailed his preliminary report on the fire as he'd promised, so it was waiting for her when she got in yesterday morning. He had also sent a text message to her phone reiterating his promise to behave himself at the banquet and expressing his hope to see her there.

When she'd gone to Cottage Country to take a look at the damage, both Madsen and the Department of Forestry Fire Investigation team were there searching through the log cabin again. They didn't find any more human remains.

Madsen had nothing new to report on Nguyen, Wiley or Huard's intransigence about her.

This morning, Harding had sent another text message asking her if she was still going to bring her gun.

She texted back: Don't b a smart-ass.

She completed the workforce report for submission to city hall for review and approval before they submitted it as part of Dominion's omnibus budget funding request to the state.

Janine Becker, a dark, intimidating beauty with ridiculously perfect facial features to go along with a still perfectly proportioned figure after having two children, also came back to work this morning. She was ridiculously apologetic for shirking her duties just because of the flu and had insisted on taking over the final preparations of the workforce report for her. Arched eyebrows from both Kelly and Mrs. Truman convinced her that handing over the report was the best way to proceed.

Shana had busied herself working in the house and had the living/dining area completely painted with the first coat of that detestable taupe. She was wrapping the brushes and rollers in plastic bags when Joan arrived home at 6:15 pm.

"I brought you a burger and milk shake. I'll eat at the banquet." She took the bag to the rickety table in the nook.

The dining table was still covered with paint cans, trays, brushes and extra drop cloths. By the end of her shift tomorrow, they might be able to use it. Theo Fraser would be by tomorrow night to give them an estimate on a new furnace and water tank. Saturday at 5:00 pm, Gus Bigelow, a contractor connected to Lowe's, was going to swing by to also give them an estimate for the furnace and take measurements for a whole new kitchen. She loved working on a house, but she preferred to have kitchens, electrical, plumbing and roofs installed by professionals.

While Shana engulfed the burger, she said, "You can go for a short ride after I'm gone if you want."

"What about Friday?"

"I need to think about that a bit longer."

Shana surprised her by only nodding her acceptance of the delay and continuing with her burger.

Donny Nguyen and Lily Wiley were not only four years older than Shana, look at who their fathers were. She stifled as best she could a growing suspicion that Madsen had orchestrated this little irony.

Once upstairs, she resisted another urge to go through Shana's room in search of any nasty surprises from the mall, went straight to her bedroom instead and quickly undressed.

The hot water tank and the pipes made a loud but brief racket when she turned on the shower. After five days of daily use, the tank finally started sending some brown water through the pipes. She had to let the water run for twenty seconds before it stopped sputtering and turned clear. The water wouldn't warm up while she showered no matter how far she turned the hot water tap. By the end, she had turned the cold water tap off and still felt chilled when she got out.

She put on the red cocktail dress that Michael had talked her into getting for a Portland FBI banquet. It came to just above her knees. It had a ruched bodice and long, sheer, beaded sleeves leading up to an equally sheer and beaded neckline. It hugged her curves a little more now than it did then. Putting on five pounds could be a real bitch.

According to Michael, she looked hot in it but still looked credible as an agent. According to Shana, it was a passable Versace knock-off, but it should have been black not this garish red. She liked red.

She wore tear-drop pearl earrings and a matching necklace.

When she stopped to check herself in the old mirror in the hall before trying to dash out the door, Shana gave her a so-so approval wave

"Not so fast." Shana grabbed her by the arm, hugged her and kissed her cheek. "Dad was right about you in that dress, mom. But it should have been black."

"I'll be back by ten at the latest. You're my awesome girl. Love you."

Shana flinched and blushed; adolescent embarrassment, no doubt, at such obvious parental mawkishness.

She arrived at city hall at 7:30 pm, the time she was supposed to get there.

Kate and Susan greeted her in the main entrance hall. Kate wore a long, aqua-marine chiffon gown with a ruched cross over the bust and a tiered layered skirt. Susan wore a black short-sleeve, ruffled gown that featured a jewel brooch at the center of the waist. Both were probably real Versace gowns.

"You look incredible," Susan said.

"So do you two." She looked down at her dress. "It should have been black and long enough to cover my legs."

"No," Susan said, "it's perfect. I love your shoes."

"My calves and toes are going to hate me in the morning."

Kate said, "Shall we go?"

The ballroom was on the second floor. Billy and Bobby were standing over by a tall window when they entered. They were dressed in tuxedos and they did look like demented penguins.

Mayor Jones, Mattie and Colter were standing with Reginald Tate, President of Karyon Research, and Delmont Epstein, owner of Do-Dads Manufacturing. Mrs. Tate and Mrs. Epstein stayed close to their husbands. Mrs. Tate wore a gown of vanilla cream highlighted by various shades of blue. Mrs. Epstein wore a blush-pink gown with flowing pleats and real jewels around the waist and as clasps for the shoulder straps. Both were likely by Stella McCartney or Nina Ricci. The glamour competition in Dominion had just ramped up about a hundred notches.

Mattie wore a short, black evening dress that revealed plenty of leg above the knee, hugged her curves in a flattering way and exhibited a bare back, her ample cleavage and a diamond choker necklace. Her heels were impossibly high.

"Black," Joan muttered, "it had to be black."

"Pardon?" Kate waved back at a woman waving at her from across the room.

"Where do we sit?"

Kate pointed to the head table. "You sit there beside Leo." She pointed to a long table off to the side. "Susan and I will be over there."

"Damn."

Kate didn't bother to ask. "Leo will give his speech. At least he's good at keeping them short. He will introduce you, then Tate and Epstein in that order. Tate won the coin toss."

A quick look around the ballroom provided her with an estimate of the number of people. She didn't see Harding anywhere. He probably wasn't coming. She couldn't find Stephanie either. "I'd say about a hundred."

"One hundred and twelve," Susan said, "not counting the people at the head table, which has twelve more. I helped with the arrangements."

Leo, Mattie and Morton escorted Tate, Epstein and their wives to the head table. Mattie caught her eye and waved for her to join them. It had all the inflection of an invitation for her to leave the riffraff behind for the more prestigious members of Dominion society.

She sat to Jones' right. Mattie sat to her right. Tate, Epstein and their wives sat to Jones' left on the other side of the podium. Colter sat at that end of the table.

"Isn't this exciting? I love doing this." Mattie licked her lips. "I made sure we were put together." Joan started when Mattie leaned over and kissed her cheek right on the scar. "I love your dress. Most women just look sleazy in red, but you look hot, like a succubus just arrived from hell ready to fuck every man in Dominion to death."

"Gee, thanks. You look good, too."

Mattie ran her hand along Joan's leg from hem to knee. "You have gorgeous legs, Joanie. I always meant to tell you that."

"Tell you what, whatever men I don't get to you can have."

"I probably already have, sweetie." Mattie caressed the back of Joan's neck then kept her hands to herself.

Mattie must really love these soirees. She was horny enough to jump on just about anybody. If the rumor about her and Jones was correct, he might have agreed to the seating arrangement to keep Mattie off Tate and Epstein for as long as possible. How would it look if she jumped their bones at the head table while Leo was making his speech?

Maybe he thought the new sheriff, being female, was less likely to be molested. Maybe he just wanted to keep someone between himself and her slutty BFF.

Kate was right about Jones. He kept his speech short. He then provided a gracious introduction for the new sheriff before stepping aside for Tate and Epstein, who also kept their speeches short. They were both excited to be coming to Dominion and expected to work together with everyone to make sure the city became the dynamic community they knew it could be.

For dinner, they had their choice of prime rib, roast game hens, venison, salmon or trout, with locally grown corn, broccoli or five other vegetables on the side. For dessert, there was apple pie, pumpkin or blueberry. There were wines from the finest, award-winning vineyards in Oregon and California.

She ate little; the dress was tight enough. She did have a glass of wine when she learned she was expected to be in the receiving line once the dinner was over and another just before they lined up to greet the one hundred and twelve invited guests this little shindig threw at them.

Mattie stood beside her in the lineup and continued to have trouble keeping her hands off the new sheriff. She tapped Joan's thigh constantly as people came past and welcomed her to Dominion. Twice Mattie rested her hand on the small of her back, brushing it against her ass when she pulled it away.

Mattie pinched her the second time just as some man whose name she missed pecked her cheek. Then Mattie wiggled enough to bump hips together with her. The third time Mattie put her hand back there she just placed it on Joan's right buttock. Before Joan could knock it away, Craig Harding was standing in front of her with his hand out. She felt another pinch.

"Welcome to Dominion, Sheriff McGowan." He leaned forward when she held out her hand, that grey-blue twinkle capturing her gaze, and kissed her cheek the way about forty other men already had. "I know we are in good hands." He moved down the line.

The kiss didn't feel the same as the other forty. Her ears became hot. She changed her footing and smoothed her dress.

"I'll get that." Mattie reached down with that roving hand of hers, took hold of Joan's hem and tugged on it, though not before curling her fingers up under it first. "Sweetie," she whispered, "I wouldn't have worn pantyhose tonight. I'd go commando." Her lips touched Joan's hot ear. "It saves time."

If Mattie were a man, she would have decked her long before now.

The receiving line finally ended. Billy and Bobby had not been a part of it, having remained on guard at the large window. As everyone dispersed and formed smaller groups, Jones and Colter took Tate, Epstein and their wives aside to monopolize them again. Mattie took one more opportunity to feel up her BFF along her spine when the band started playing.

"I am so glad you came." Mattie grabbed her by her shoulders and hugged her, wiggling again when their breasts pressed together, kissed her on the cheek, then left to join Jones and the others.

She glanced down to make sure her nipples weren't pushing out against the red, resolved to take Mattie aside and bitch-slap her senseless if they were. She and Mattie were both safe.

Harding, Kate and Susan were coming to her when she looked back up. Couples began dancing to Michael Bublé singing _Feeling_ _Good_. The gyrations looked sillier the older the dancer got. Given that few of the people at this banquet were less than forty, the dance floor resembled a beach full of crabs scampering back and forth with the waves coming ashore.

"You held up well," Kate said. "Your first official public event is now mostly behind you."

Had Mattie left fingerprints on her?

"I thought that was slapping the handcuffs on me."

Her ears stopped cooling and heated up again. She raised her left foot until only her toes touched the floor. She wanted to check the front of her dress again. _Damn you, Mattie_.

Susan said, "It is hot in here, isn't it?" She was probably the youngest one in the room. She was also flushed. "You wouldn't think this crowd could generate that much heat."

She could kiss Susan for that, but after Mattie's priming of her, that would only make her hotter.

The music ended Bublé's crab dance song and became a waltz.

Harding held out his arm. "I've never danced with a sheriff before."

Kate gently took hold of her arm when she reached to tug down her hem. "You're fine, Joan."

She took Harding's arm and they walked out onto the dance floor. He put his arm around her. His hand ended up on the small of her back exactly where Mattie's had been. She tensed.

"I promised I would behave myself. And I promise not to step on your toes."

They began dancing.

"This is only the third time I've been to anything like this."

"That's two more than me. I haven't been to anything close to a party since university."

"Why'd you come to this one?"

His eyes held her as firmly as his embrace. "I was invited."

"You need to meet more people."

"I know enough."

"Not the socializing kind, huh?"

"You were married for how long?"

"Fifteen years, why?"

"You had an active social life?"

"Can't complain."

"So, you see, you're only rusty at this. I'm a notch or two farther away from this kind of stuff than that."

"Everything's left you behind. You don't know what the rules are or if there even are any rules anymore."

"Animals are a lot simpler."

"Someone told me men are full of shit and women are phony, manipulative bitches."

"Ouch, that's going to leave a mark."

"It usually does."

"Animals may have elaborate rituals, but at least both parties know the game they're playing and how to play it. There is no mystery about what the end result is supposed to be."

"Don't you like a good mystery?"

"Don't you want it to be clearer, especially if you've been out of circulation for fifteen years?"

"Assuming I was even interested in the first place, how would you go about being clearer?"

"Giraffes have an infallible way of knowing. The male takes the female's urine into his mouth and swishes it around for a bit to see if she's receptive or not."

"Tell me that's not what you had in mind. I'm fairly liberal, but. . . ." She shivered and made a face.

"I think I would just ask you to wear something red."

She didn't have to check the front of her dress. That flood of heat that always started just behind her ears quickly percolated through her. If there was any luck on her side tonight, the music wouldn't end until her face was no longer as red as what she was wearing.

"That would be easier."

"Now that we've got our signals straight, I thought you might want to come over to my place."

"Hey, I can arrest you again."

He chuckled. "You're going to Colter's farm, aren't you?"

"Tomorrow."

"Shouldn't you visit mine, too? You can see both sides and make up your own mind one way or the other."

"A brief visit isn't going to be of much help."

"It's a start. Come by Saturday."

The music stopped and Harding let go. The moment he did, gooseflesh erupted all over her.

"Can I bring Shana? She loves animals."

"You sure can. See you then. Good night, Sheriff."

"It's still early."

"No one here will miss me. Most of them will be only too happy to see me go." He kissed her cheek. "I meant what I said. Dominion is in good hands with you."

A man and a woman joined him on his way out.

Jones, Colter and Mattie watched Harding leave before going back to talking to Tate and Epstein, who had taken no notice of him.

She returned to Kate and Susan. She declined the drink Kate offered her.

"It's only water."

She took the glass and drank it all. "I don't know what's going on here."

"It's only your third day," Susan said.

"If that's what you meant." Kate smiled.

"I'm going home. I need another shower."

She made a point of welcoming Tate and Epstein and their wives to Dominion before leaving. She hugged Mattie because she couldn't avoid it. On the way to her car, despite Mattie's earlier mauling of her, it was Harding's hand pressing against the small of her back while they were dancing that she still felt.

# Chapter 25

A text message from Harding was waiting for her when she got up: _Get thru last night ok_?

She deleted it, showered and went downstairs to have breakfast with Shana, who seemed even more tired than normal for a teenager in the morning.

"What are you doing today?"

Shana raised her head but didn't reply. Her eyes and nose were red.

"Are you coming down with something?"

Janine Becker had missed a week of work with the flu. Shana had been working hard since they'd arrived. She could have become run down, susceptible to catching what was going around.

Shana shook her head with her eyes squeezed shut. "It's just a headache." She drank all of her milk, keeping her eyes shut the whole time.

"Did you take anything?"

"Before I came down."

Shana had inherited her mother's affliction of suffering miserably through her period as a teen. It was about the only thing that knocked Shana off her feet.

She took a sip of coffee.

"Can I have some?" Her voice had no energy behind it.

She let Shana finish what was left.

She stuck out her tongue. "It needs more sugar."

"I'm going to the Colter farm today."

"You have my sympathy." She lowered her head and rested it on her arms. The table creaked and wobbled.

"And you have mine."

"Can I borrow your gun for a second?" Her weak voice was muffled even more because she spoke into her arms and the table top.

"Dr. Harding invited us to his farm on Saturday. Are you going to be up for that?"

"He's handsome but he's too old."

"What?"

"Give the twins my best."

She left Shana groaning at the rickety table and went to work. Kelly was escorting two teen boys to the cells when she entered the office. Amelia Truman was on her chair at the reception desk. Janine Becker, as impeccably lovely as she had been yesterday, was at her desk working on something. Both wished her good morning.

"What's up with them?"

Kelly held on to the boys when she turned them around to face the sheriff. "They were found stuck inside the security staff room at the mall this morning. The door closed and locked behind them when they broke in and these two geniuses couldn't get themselves out."

Both boys wore torn and faded jeans and black T-shirts. Both were shivering. One fancied himself a skinhead. The other had dirty blond hair down to his shoulders. They were covered in tattoos and going through withdrawal from something.

"Show me their hands." She made sure they didn't have that howling tattoo. "I'm going out to the Colter farm."

"We'll take care of these two."

The dirty blond suddenly bolted from Kelly's grasp.

Joan grabbed a handful of greasy hair when he tried to shove her out of the way, swung him around, stepped on his foot to trip him and slammed him into the floor. That maneuver brought gasps from both Amelia and Janine. She allowed herself to think they might be gasps of admiration.

"Stupid little shit." Kelly pushed the shivering skinhead toward the cells, picked up the shivering, bleeding blond by the hair and dragged him along into the back.

Amelia said, "I'll clean up the blood and the boy, Sheriff. You have an appointment."

She took the Sheriff's Chevy Suburban to Colter's farm and arrived into the middle of men and machinery working everywhere on the grounds. The machinery was new. The men were young, muscular and looked dangerous. Every last one of them was white. A lot of testosterone floated through the air here.

"A man farm," she muttered with a chuckle.

Buildings were being constructed. Materials and supplies were piled near each site. Bobby and Billy Cotton were carrying metallic cylinders the size of garbage cans on their shoulders.

The farm had the kinetic energy of a military base going about its business. The apparent chaotic motion belied purpose to everyone's actions. Colter wasn't giving up any of the discipline he had imposed while in the marines, which struck her as similar to Harry hanging around to investigate two cases she should be dealing with.

She exited the Suburban when she saw Colter exit an annex attached to a long greenhouse and approach her.

"Good morning, Sheriff." He shook her hand. His grip was far stronger than Leo's.

She took his cheque out of her blouse pocket and handed it to him. "No one is pressing charges."

"Speaking of which," he said and looked around until he spotted Bobby and Billy. He signaled to them.

The twins put down the grey, metallic cylinders they were carrying and came over. Their bare, muscular, tattooed torsos didn't have an ounce of fat on them.

Bobby bowed his head. "Sheriff McGowan, we apologize for causing you any difficulty Monday night."

Billy said, "We overreacted to Dr. Harding's accusations. It won't happen again."

There wasn't a bit of difference in the timbre of their voices.

"I thought he was only asking questions."

Billy said, "They sounded more like accusations to us, ma'am." He glanced at Colter. "But that was no excuse for our behavior."

"No harm done."

The twins went back to their cylinders, hoisted them onto their shoulders and took them into a new building of corrugated aluminum siding.

"That couldn't have been easy for them."

Bobby and Billy could have apologized to her at the banquet last night. Colter had likely orchestrated this performance so it would be on his turf and terms.

His twitch of a smile, with his hawk-like features, left the impression he was about to assign her to a suicide mission that he had in mind specifically for her. "It was easier than being fired." He pointed to the building they had just entered. "They've been paying penance since they got back by lugging those sections of conduit to our new heating and ventilation control center for the greenhouses. They weigh about a hundred pounds each."

The twins had brought them up to their shoulders as easily as she might pick up a bag of groceries. One of their hands could completely cover her face. _Über_ -testosterone filled the air at this place, maybe some steroids or gamma radiation.

The first stop on their tour was a series of three older greenhouses growing tomatoes, cauliflowers and peppers. Colter explained with great amusement that they were trying to breed taste back into tomatoes. The fourth and last greenhouse, which was newer than the other three, contained decorative plants.

"Business," he said, "if you will pardon the pun, is growing. We're adding another one hundred thousand square feet of greenhouse space to accommodate that growth and facilitate some government research starting next year."

They had come to where the new greenhouses were being built, though assembled would be a better term to describe the process. Pre-fabricated panels and sections of glass were being fastened together using an elaborate metal skeleton that not only acted as a support structure but also provided conduits for electrical wiring and pipes for water distribution.

"What kind of research?"

"Other than the tomatoes, I'm not exactly sure. I'm just providing the facilities for it. All I know is some of it will be on biological control of greenhouse pests and some will be on genetically modified plants." He twitch-smiled again and she instinctively averted her eyes. "After all, I couldn't allow Dr. Harding to be the only one doing research. You could say he has the animal kingdom covered, while I am taking care of the plant kingdom."

"That leaves Do-Dads and Karyon to take care of the science fiction kingdom. Dominion has it all covered. You and Harding both served in Afghanistan."

He took her through a barn full of harvesting equipment.

"Harding was in the army. I was a marine."

"That's where you got that tattoo on your hand."

"You're very observant. I like that." He held up his hand. "Everyone in my unit got one of these. We're very proud of it. It represents the term they used in Afghanistan to describe us."

"And that would be?"

"They called us the Black Hounds of Death. We did most of our work at night. We were very successful."

She pointed to two cargo containers that had been raised up on cinderblock foundations and modified to have doors on the sides. Three steps led up to each door. "What's in there?"

He continued walking. "Those are experimental growth chambers."

"Are there pod people in there?" They could be housing the gamma ray equipment.

He sustained a wider smile this time. It didn't make him look any friendlier. "We do grow them as big as we can in there before transplanting, but it's only squash. I've grown some of the biggest pumpkins around. Wait till you see what I bring to the fair this year."

They had arrived back at the Suburban. Most of the tour had been meaningless to her, forgettable. It all seemed like a normal, very large, very boring agricultural operation.

"What kind of work did you do in the marines?"

"I am not allowed to speak of it."

For a city with such an active gossip network, there were certainly a high number of members in it who were tight-lipped about themselves. She didn't find that at all surprising.

"How did a colonel in the marines end up a farmer?"

"I was raised on a farm in Idaho. I just returned to what I know."

"Were these men in your unit?"

"Most of them, yes."

Two men about to enter the office turned away from her when she looked at them.

"Some are skittish around a cop." She pointed to the two men entering the office.

"Some are skittish about any stranger coming to the farm. They've had problems adjusting to civilian life. Keeping them here and keeping them busy is the best thing for them right now. It mimics the routine they had in the military. Sometimes, if any of them appear to be getting too agitated, we spend the evening going through manoeuvers to finish the day. It stabilizes their mindset."

"Do they get help?"

"VA sends counselors and doctors regularly to check on them. I've even been asked if I could accommodate a few more, but we are over capacity now."

"It did seem like a lot of men for a mostly automated farm."

"That's the nerve-wracking part. After all the new construction is complete, I'm only going to need about twenty. But I won't abandon any of them. People who served our country deserve our care."

"Preaching to the converted, Mr. Colter."

"Despite your experience with them last Monday, Billy and Bobby are very good at keeping every man here in line."

Their people skills likely consisted of little more than grunts and fists. Just the thing for a man farm, though, especially if some of the men had unique problems that sometimes only responded to such discipline.

"I did confirm your licences and permits." She hadn't, but Colter needed to believe she would follow through on her word. "As you know, Harding has expressed concern about illegal trapping and hunting. His people found a wounded elk last weekend."

"As _you_ know, I believe it is poachers. I have offered a ten thousand dollar reward for any information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of anyone caught hunting illegally."

"You run a trophy hunting business, too, don't you?"

"And a taxidermy service to go with it. I didn't show you that shop, but I can if you want to have a look. I have all those licences, too, should you want to see them."

"The elk was shot three times with small-caliber bullets."

"That just proves my point, Sheriff. I make sure my clients are competent with their weapons before we ever take them hunting. None of them would be stupid enough to use small-caliber ammunition on such a large animal. We put them through a rigid indoctrination about killing humanely. We would rather see our target get away than make a bad kill. It is a matter of professional pride for us."

"I don't want you to have to endure any financial hardship, but would it be possible to suspend your hunting operations until we catch the poachers?"

"I have one more group coming in for some special training, but there will be no hunting until the end of September, end of October for elk. I can delay things for up to six weeks with minimal discomfort."

"Thank you for your cooperation."

"Can I offer you a cup of coffee or tea? I have some pastry cooling. I baked them this morning."

"Pastry?"

He laughed. "You have just discovered my dark secret. I usually have some at the end of the day, but," he patted his flat, hard stomach, "at forty-eight I have to watch what I eat now. You, however, could simply ride off the calories."

She shook her head. "The distances are getting shorter, going slower and happening with less frequency." She offered her hand. "I have taken up enough of your time."

"It's been my pleasure, Sheriff. Bring Shana with you next time. And if you do get even a whiff of whoever is out there, I'd be glad to offer some of my men to help catch them." He returned to his office rather than wait to wave good-bye.

It was a perfectly normal farm operation undergoing construction to expand capacity. Nothing looked out of the ordinary or suspicious except for the forty or so battle-hardened men here, most of whom were likely not fit enough at the moment to set foot off the Black Hounds of Death ranch.

Colter had been open, straightforward and forthcoming about the mental health of some of the men. His claim of medical and psychological care from the VA could be checked easily enough.

The military could effectively train someone to kill, but it was impossible to know with any certainty what would happen to them after they did. Many veterans fell into the cracks when they returned home traumatized after what they'd been through.

Were some of them going through horrendous flashbacks that sent them into the wild on a mission only they were aware of? Were they setting traps because they believed they'd been isolated from their unit? They were staying alive any way they could until they were rescued. Colter might be _rescuing_ them on a regular basis. He could be covering for them out of loyalty.

She would not look forward to having to take action against such men or anyone who was offering refuge to them.

Once back inside the Suburban, she checked her phone for messages. The only one was a text from Harding repeating his previous question and adding another: _still think he has nothing to do with illegal trapping and hunting_?

She deleted the text without responding.

# Chapter 26

Inside the office, Colter turned around at the window beside the door and watched McGowan drive away. She might not be as fragile as he first thought when he discussed her candidacy with Leo. She had her own traumatic history, but she presented a tough exterior. Still, their profile of her indicated she was likely suffering from PTSD and was headed for a meltdown, probably sooner than later.

When she was nineteen, her father, for no reason she was aware of, set their house on fire, killed her mother, tried to kill her and then killed himself. She'd cheated on her husband, which their investigation indicated her daughter knew about, and was preparing to leave him when her FBI partner and lover, Travis Meyer, was killed in that fiasco at the Crowley farm. A few months later, her husband's police car was T-boned, putting him in a coma for three months before he died. Every report indicated she was coping well with her husband's death, the deaths of her colleagues and her daughter's recent turn to shoplifting, but that had to be a strain on her.

Her FBI superiors had kept her on office duty despite being cleared in her psych evaluation. That was when she'd started exhibiting some emotional instability. She'd complained of being interfered with on the job, manipulated. Everyone was sympathetic, given what she had gone through, but her career at the FBI was over at that point.

It was only a matter of getting Mattie to contact her about the posting. They didn't really need someone in her condition on the job, but having her in place would make the last phase of their operation go all that much smoother. And it would close the circle that had been her career in law enforcement.

His seven command crew members were waiting in his office.

"Where are we with everything?"

Jake Gotlieb, Tulsa, stood up first. "Necrosis is ready to initiate. We will have a bot-net of at least one hundred and fifty thousand computers infected and primed to attack once we send it through our connection." He sat down.

Turner Byles, Slayer, stood up next. "The three stands for the fair are ready for assembly. The QR codes are attached. One swipe will make a nice splash when the time comes."

"What about Portland?"

"Our man confirmed this morning that he can get the stuff through by Friday." Slayer sat down.

Orville Rush, Sniper, stood up, his hands held behind his back. "Once it's through Portland, we can have it prepped and delivered in twenty-four hours." He sat down.

"Timing is crucial at this stage. Keep on top of everything."

John Hill, Tracker, stood up.

"You have handed in your cell phone?"

"I have."

"What we are working on here is vital to the interests of this country. Indeed, it could be said to be of the utmost importance to its national security. I'm sure you understand the precaution."

"Of course."

"You will go through a proper vetting process. Saturday was your first test. Once you have proven yourself to be worthy of our trust, some of our restrictions will be eased, if not lifted completely. But the cell phone rule is inviolate. Do you understand?"

"I do."

"Good. Until then, you are confined to base. Only supervised excursions offsite are permitted, and only if you are scheduled to be on that particular team. That brings me back to your first test. What have you to report?"

"Our next clients come in on Saturday."

Bobby said, "Should we suspend those activities for now?"

"We'll do nothing unusual that might draw more attention to us. I've already told McGowan I have one last group coming in." He said to Tracker, "And the one that got away?"

"Sniper and I will take care of that Saturday night, sir."

"See that this next bunch is better prepared and can get the job done. Is Stripes ready for deployment?"

"Sir, yes, sir." Tracker sat down.

It was a good command crew. Only Tracker hadn't been with him in Afghanistan, and he'd be kept under tight reign until the vetting was complete.

He turned to Billy and Bobby. "How's our perimeter?"

Bobby said, "One more day and the grounds will be secure."

Billy said, "The approaches are secure, sir."

"Where are we on our packages?"

Billy said, "Wrapped and ready. Deliveries start tomorrow."

Bobby said, "They've moved their cameras again, but we know where they are and can avoid them."

"What about our recon and surveillance?"

Riefer Ogilvy, Maverick, stood up. "We can see anything we want. We can deliver anywhere, anytime."

"What about the training exercises?"

"The first ones start in two days, sir."

"Gentlemen, this is outstanding. I'm proud of all the work you've put in." He retrieved a bottle of Parker's Heritage Bourbon from a credenza and poured himself a full glass. "Complacency has settled over this country like a lead blanket. Our government is paralyzed and ineffective. It is up to us to teach some very hard but necessary lessons that will only make all of us stronger. Come, join me in a toast."

His command crew got their drinks and stood around him.

"Once this operation is underway, there will be no turning back. Something like the Boston Marathon bombing will be impossible to repeat." He raised his glass. "To victory."

"To victory," they all said and drank up.

"Keep up the excellent work, men. Dismissed." He stopped Bobby and Billy from leaving and poured himself another drink. "Keep your eyes on Hill." He drank the bourbon. "I need to tend to the senator for the next few hours. See that we're not disturbed."

The twins left as he poured himself another drink. After finishing a last shot of bourbon, he lit up a perfecto and headed for his house. Mattie, in a pink mini-skirt and sheer white blouse, was waiting for him on the front porch.

She smiled at the perfecto. "That brings back memories. Who is it today?"

"A senator." He opened the door for her. "I was surprised when I learned he hadn't met you yet, but I told him all about you and he's very enthusiastic."

"That will be refreshing. Leo has no imagination for the game anymore." She sighed. "He's getting very tedious."

"Did he get the coyote?"

"It came Saturday afternoon." She giggled. "He doesn't like the way it stares at him. Did you do that on purpose?"

"It's to remind him to get it right the first time. I had to finish it off when he got squeamish."

"Let's go." She smiled demurely at the men watching her and puckered her lips into a kiss aimed at all of them before entering the house.

In the front hall, he pointed up the stairs. "It's the same room you used last week. He wants to give you a massage."

"What am I supposed to give him?"

"That's between you two. As far as I'm concerned, you just need to do what he wants, smile for the camera and listen to everything he tells you when he gets chatty."

"What's this for?" She didn't usually ask.

"Phthaluene."

"What the hell is that? I can't even say it."

"It's used to control pests on farms like mine. The European Union approved it three years ago, but our EPA is dragging its feet. I lost thirty percent of my crop last year. I can't afford to lose that much again while bureaucrats sit around scratching their balls."

She giggled again and started up the stairs.

"Just a moment."

She stopped on the third stair and turned to face him. "Sweetie, we don't want to keep the senator waiting."

He stepped closer and placed his hands on her legs just above her knees. Caressing the inside of her thighs, he slid his fingers closer to the hem of her miniskirt. He puffed hard and frequently on his cigar, sending up a cloud of smoke between them.

Mattie inhaled deeply. "Can I have that?"

"Just a few puffs for now." He took his hands away and handed the perfecto to her. "Did you bring the wig?"

After three puffs, she exhaled hard and handed back the cigar. "God, I'd do anything for one of those. It's in my bag, why?"

"He has a thing for Elke Sommers. Is that a problem for you?"

She shook her head. "I've worn wigs before. Who is Elke Sommers?"

"Just put on the wig and wear this." He picked up a leather mask off the stairs and handed it to her.

"He wants that, too?"

"You don't want to be recognized on the video, do you?"

"Right. I've done that before, too."

"Show him a good time, then show him the video when you're done and give him the envelope I put in the drawer. You know where." He blew a puff of smoke at her, smacked her ass and sent her on her way.

# Chapter 27

After what she considered a mostly good first week on the job, except for all the junk food they were eating, not getting back to see Stephanie and Madsen's disappearing act, the little sources of frustration started biting at her like persistent fleas as soon as she got to work Friday. Due to Shana's heroic efforts even after the curse hit her, they had made fantastic progress on the house. Theo's estimate for the new high-efficiency furnace and the hot water tank seemed reasonable, and she wanted to be done with that as soon as possible, so she accepted the offer. Theo and his dad would install both next Tuesday.

Mattie called Thursday night to tell her the executors had signed the contract. She came over an hour later, kept her hands to herself, and they completed the paperwork.

She gave Shana permission to visit with Lily Wiley and Donny Nguyen at Lily's after she first secured access to both the Wiley's new private home phone number and Lily's cell phone number. She also talked to Linda Wiley to make sure it was all right with her. Linda Wiley sounded scattered but agreed without hesitation. Shana was feeling much better this morning, or at least she was putting on a strong game face because she was determined not to miss the opportunity to hang out with notorious kids four years older than her.

The first bite of the day came when she entered the office to find Kelly and Janine standing on the other side of the gate. Janine's usually elegant appearance was a bit frayed by her agitation. She kept tucking unruly strands of shiny black hair behind her ear. Kelly was holding the workforce report that Janine was supposed to have submitted to city hall on her way home yesterday.

"They changed everything on us," Kelly said when Joan came through the gate. She handed over the report and looked to Janine to provided further explanation.

"The state changed their submission requirements and their forms. It's a three phase process now: presentation, budget analysis, decision. City hall just received notice yesterday and a supply of new forms."

"Can't we just cut and paste onto the new ones?"

"They're not on the state's website yet. This year, we'll have to complete the paperwork on paper." Janine brushed at her hair before bringing her hand from behind her back to show the thick package of forms she had received from city hall. "They gave me this when I took over the report yesterday."

She reached out to take both sets of forms.

"I'll do it," Janine said and again tried to make her hair behave.

"Thank you." That's when the second bite took a chunk out of her.

"There will have to be some changes," Janine said. "We wanted to talk to you first." She looked over at Amelia.

"What about?"

"I'd like to go to part-time starting in January. Amelia plans to retire at the end of December. It shouldn't affect your workforce request, but you will have to get permission to post job notices. Sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for, neither one of you do."

She still couldn't help thinking of rats and ships.

"I'll get right on this. We need to get it back to city hall before they close today."

"I thought we had until the end of September."

"They changed that, too. City hall now has to have their report in by the middle of September instead of the end of October. They're going to be hard pressed to get that done. Sybil told me it is part of the state government's new austerity program. If you don't get your request in on time, your funding is frozen for the next three years."

Had Madsen some inkling this change was coming?

She asked Kelly, "What about our two criminal geniuses?"

"I shipped them out last night. They came from El Paso to get what they heard was some really potent shit up here."

"Where are Rob and Jacob?"

"They're still down with the fishing flu."

"They were supposed to come in and meet me."

"That's why they're a short-term solution to our labor needs, ma'am. They love the uniform, but they're better suited for security at the mall." Kelly blushed. "They have a tendency to just wander off."

"When do they plan on wandering back?"

"Monday. In fairness to them, they were scheduled to have this weekend off, ma'am."

"Tell them they better come in Monday or they needn't bother to come in again."

"Yes, ma'am."

The third little nibble came when she sat at her desk and checked her phone to find another text message from Harding. She hadn't responded to any of the half-dozen or so he'd sent since Wednesday night.

His message read: I apologize if I offended you in any way. This will be my last text. Hope you and Shana will still visit tomorrow.

She deleted the text without responding.

Another nagging nibble was the guilt that went along with deleting the text. She was mad at Mattie for mauling her Wednesday night, not Harding. His only sins were captivating eyes, a wonderfully strong embrace while they danced and being so damned accessible.

Nibbling became gnawing when she let her thoughts dwell on that lingering sensation of him pressing against her, so she went on the computer to get her mind back on her work.

It had to be those distracting thoughts. She hadn't had any significant trouble with their new computers or the network. This morning, however, she spent over an hour unable to get anywhere. The biggest part of the problem was the new procedures. She kept repeating the old FBI ones.

The computer would remind her that her clicks and keystrokes were commands it could not process. Once, it suggested that she contact her IT department for assistance. Twice the fucking thing froze up and she had to turn it off then back on to release it. Once, she had to call FBI headquarters in Quantico to advise them that they were not being hacked by an inept cyber-terrorist. Fortunately, she reached someone she knew who was very sympathetic because he had just spent the last three hours doing pretty much the same aggravating things with their new system.

Janine came in twice to point out extra sections on the new forms that she had to complete. By the time she was finished and handed back the paperwork, she was sure about half of her right leg had been chewed off leaving a blank spot that was itchy as hell.

Colin Foster called her just before lunch.

"Ready to come back yet?"

"You have the updated system in your office, don't you?"

"Why do you think I'm calling? Some snarky IT guy covered in pimples is currently trying to resuscitate my terminal as we speak. I hope the fucking thing blows up in his face."

"What have you got for me?"

"Craig Harding served two terms in Afghanistan as a Lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps. He was involved in a couple of combat rescue missions that earned him two medals. He was discharged with the rank of Captain. While he was there, he also ran an outreach program to the people of Kandahar and the surrounding villages. He appears to have returned to Kandahar as a civilian after becoming a veterinarian, but he dropped off the grid for over a year before resurfacing in Dominion."

"Is there anything about any associations with radical environmentalist groups or eco-terrorists?"

"I can't find anything. He's been known to go stridently on and on if you let him get traction early, but he's seen as a voice of reason by most. He's a consensus builder, if that's even possible where the environment is concerned."

"What made him drop off the grid?"

"Don't know. He went back to Kandahar. He disappeared. Then, poof, he was back. No one in national security had reason to suspect him of anything, so he wasn't tracked."

"Nothing more on Wiley or Nguyen?"

"What did Madsen tell you?"

"The AG's office assigned him. He says the FBI agreed to that."

"Reluctantly, I assure you. The word is they have their own theory about what's going on. They won't share and no one else has found out what it is, or aren't saying anything through the usual channels."

"Anything new on Crowley?"

"I know what you want, Joan, but it's been so long now, I don't' think we will ever find any unambiguous evidence. There might have been more there than the nine, we may never know. Now, when it comes to Colter, it gets a little more interesting. He was promoted from Major to Colonel while in Afghanistan. He was known for his effective counterterrorism missions there. His unit was particularly successful at tracking down and eliminating Taliban groups hiding in what were supposed to be secure, inaccessible sites in the mountains. He'd disappear with his men for weeks at a time, out of touch with everybody, working mostly at night. The locals called his unit the Black Dogs of Hell. They all got tattoos."

"It's the Black Hounds of Death."

"He was also reprimanded a few times for unnecessary destruction of village property and the mistreatment of innocents in his quest for the enemy. Nothing criminal or potentially embarrassing to either the military or our country was ever proven, so he was promoted and retired to a farm."

"I've been to the farm. Some of his old unit is there with him."

"Sounds like I should keep digging."

"He runs a trophy hunting company and a taxidermy service, too. I don't have anything but an uneasy feeling right now."

"You're not seeing the Crowley farm again, are you?"

"No."

"Joan, you know I'm on your side, but I had to ask."

"See what kind of affiliations he has. And check out who was in his unit, what special skills they have, and where they are now. I only have the names of two of them: Bobby and Billy Cotton. And see if any of them have psychological problems."

"Yes, boss. You do think something's not right, don't you?"

"Call me when you get the info." She hung up. Her phone rang a moment after she did.

Amelia said, "Kate is here to see you."

"Send her in."

Kate entered her office wearing a blue, yellow and green floral-print sundress. She had taken care of herself. She looked good in it.

"What can I do for you, Kate?"

She took a seat. "You left the party a bit upset, or was I imagining things?"

"It will just sound like whining, and a bit _pervy_."

"On the contrary, that sounds very promising." This could end up being an ambush interview for the DGN.

She just kept looking at Kate and felt another nip at her leg. If it didn't stop, she was going to kick someone. And she could kick like a mule with her legs.

Kate cleared her throat. "Maybe I should start; an act of good faith confidentiality wise, so to speak."

"If you keep hedging like that, I'm going to get a set of shrub clippers."

"I assume I haven't been the only one chewing on your earlobes since you got here."

"Why, do they look swollen?"

"How much do you know about the last election?"

"I suppose I should know everything by now after what people have been all too willing to tell, but I got the gist that it became nasty with a bunch of people lining up against you."

"That's the gist of it, all right." She took a deep breath. "What have you heard about Susan?"

"It's true, then."

Kate nodded. "Susan told me when she was sixteen after almost driving herself to suicide for two years."

Susan became aware of her sexual orientation when she was Shana's age. That thought brought her breath up short.

"I thought I could handle anything, but that floored me. I told myself it was okay, but I could see Susan's fear when she looked at me. She was sure I was going to turn her away or worse."

"But you didn't."

"She's my daughter. I'd loved her like she was the only thing in my life for sixteen years. I wasn't going to suddenly stop because she was . . . but William couldn't deal with it."

"That's why you divorced."

"We divorced after he beat the crap out of her. I had to hit him over the head with a shovel to stop him."

That was the same thing Stephanie had done to get her father off her after he'd set the house on fire. Once they were out of the house, he'd put a bullet through his temple. The firefighters found him lying next to mother holding her hand.

"He just lay there for the longest time. At first, I thought I'd killed him. All I could think about was Susan would be left on her own to cope with what was ahead for her. Then I saw he was still breathing and I just wanted to keep hitting him until he stopped."

"I've known those feelings."

"The only thing that kept him from pressing charges was his ego. If everyone found out his daughter was a dyke, it would reflect badly on his manhood. He allowed me to buy his store, then packed up and left. This being Dominion, everyone eventually found out all the details anyway, including the part about Susan."

"Why should that affect your campaign?"

"For the first two elections it didn't, but the way they used it this last time hurt her deeply. She was subtly portrayed through whispers as a potential predator of vulnerable and impressionable teenage daughters. It degenerated into horrible rumors after that. I could fight back and watch her suffering every day or I could just let them win. Susan didn't want me to back down, but I couldn't bear watching her cry every night after putting up a brave face all day for the sake of my campaign. But that wasn't the clincher, Morton Colter was."

"What did he do?"

"This is my good faith part. The shame I will take to my grave is that after William left, well, actually a few weeks before he left, I walked right smack into Mort's arms for a brief affair."

Why not give a little bite back. "Jesus, you and Colter? Oh, sorry."

"Don't be. That's exactly how I feel about it. To put it in the crude but accurate vernacular of modern urban lingo, I was fucking him while he was fucking me over to get me out of office. I'm sure he's the one who told everyone else all the details I had so stupidly confided in him. He probably started the whispers about Susan. He waited for just the right time when it would be most effective, when it would serve his interests best, that last election." She groaned. "People should be trained to hide in a cave when they're too vulnerable."

She got up and started pacing. "Maybe Mattie's right about us. We just keep turning to them like we could actually trust them. Maybe it is our own damn fault."

"It's a two-way street, Kate, you know that. We don't always do them any great kindnesses either."

"Sometimes I wonder if Susan's way is better. Women make better lovers, better partners, better parents . . . better everything, come to think of it."

"Susan is sweet, but I have no interest in women whatsoever."

"Me neither, dammit." Kate sat back down.

"We're screwed," they said in unison, though they didn't sound as much alike as the Cotton twins did.

"You're feeling better now, right? A boring little tale like that had to make you feel better, it just had to."

"I appreciate your candidness and honesty. _That_ makes me feel better. Are you sure Madsen didn't tell you anything about Wiley? Did you have any suspicions of your own? He was your business neighbor."

"That's all he was. He helped Morton hand out the hatchets used against me."

"Colter told me he had little to do with Wiley professionally or personally."

"For him, that is probably true. As far as Mort is concerned, the fact that Wiley helped him campaign against me would in no way mean the two of them had suddenly entered the same circle of Dominion society. What do you think of Craig?"

The DGN ambush had been sprung. "I don't think of him."

"There's something of a Shakespearean protest in that."

"No, there isn't."

Kate leaned across the desk. "You looked like you were having a good time dancing with him."

"This conversation is taking me back to high school and I'd rather not go there."

"Fair enough." Kate got up and stretched. "If this will help, you have friends in me, Susan, Craig, Harry and Kelly. I can't speak for Mattie because of what she might be doing and who she's aligned herself with, but she is your friend, so that should count for something."

"What is Mattie doing?"

Kate just took another nip at her. "I can only suggest that you go to the source to get the information directly from her. Given that you're the sheriff and she's your friend, that's definitely the best way to go. And I would watch out for Leo and Morton, especially Morton. He thinks he's the one in charge here. Power with no responsibility is particularly dangerous."

She looked around the office as if expecting to be overheard. Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. "We want you here because we think you're perfectly suited for the job. Morton wants you here because he thinks you're perfectly ill-suited for the job. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, Joan, but you need to know what he thinks of you." She left.

Forget fleas, the DGN was full of piranhas, each of whom had a sweet tooth for new sheriffs.

She took out her phone and texted to Craig: sorry, bn rlly bzy & rlly tired. c u 2moro. look frwrd 2 it.

# Chapter 28

Donny was waiting outside the gate to Lily's townhouse complex with his skateboard tucked under his arm when Shana arrived on bus 52. "I thought we'd go in together. Why didn't you ride?"

"Didn't feel like it. Have you seen Dean lately? Did he ask about me?"

"Um, that would be two counts of no." Donny pushed the button for Lily's townhouse. Without answering, Lily released the gate lock so they could enter the complex.

Lily lived in the end unit across the lane from where they entered. Terrace Gardens consisted of townhouses terraced in groups of three stepping uphill along a curving lane. Each triplex was separated by either an access lane or walkway to the parking at the back. Lily's end unit was at the bottom of the first terrace near the gate.

Lily opened the door and stepped out when she and Donny reached the porch. "Mom insists on meeting both of you before she'll let me hang out with you. It's all because of what dad did. She's afraid someone will kidnap me in revenge or something. Sorry."

"We'll have to do it with my mom, too, or this might be the only time I can come over."

Donny left his skateboard outside.

Lily brought them into the living room, which had an arched opening leading to the dining room, which had a four-foot wide doorway leading to the kitchen. The townhouse was smaller but similar in layout to her house and flipped 180 degrees. With the living and dining rooms and the kitchen, and a tiny nook at the back now that she could get a better view, on the detached side of the townhouse, the Wiley's could at least get a better sense of being separated than the townhouse caught in the middle. There was a window over the sink in the kitchen that gave them a view of the entrance to the complex. It would be missing in the middle townhouse. Little natural light would get into that kitchen.

She was going to end up doing renovations for a living. It was getting into her blood and wouldn't come out.

Linda Wiley, wearing an emerald-green jacket with a matching skirt and a pale-yellow blouse, wasn't the short, slender figure of a woman her daughter was. She stood beside the small, gas-powered fireplace sipping a glass of white wine and playing hostess to the only members of Dominion society she could hope to entertain anymore: her daughter's few friends.

"Mom," Lily said, "this is Donny Nguyen. He goes to Lincoln High. I'll be in classes with him. He's been helping me get ready. And this lovely young lady is Shana McGowan. Her mom is the new sheriff."

Linda Wiley was unable to keep her eyes on any of them. "Your mother is Joan McGowan, formerly Joan Kirkpatrick."

"She is, yes."

She finished her wine. "I was two years ahead of her in school. I was Linda Drake back then. I took piano lessons from her mother."

Shana blushed.

Linda Wiley scanned Donny, or else she scanned something on the wall behind him. It was hard to tell. "I heard about your father. I'm sorry."

She went to the dining room and placed her glass on the table. When she came back, she said to Shana, "Lily is right about you, but you still look younger than these two."

"I'm fourteen, Mrs. Wiley. I met Lily and Donny at the mall Tuesday and they offered to take me under their wings." She shivered a bit.

Linda Wiley simpered. "I imagine it would be a better fit if they hid under your wings."

She pulled her mother's card out of her pocket and held it out to Mrs. Wiley. "My mom says you can call her anytime to arrange a meeting."

After taking the card, Linda Wiley took a flitting glance at it before placing it on the faux mantle over the fireplace. "I haven't the time at the moment. I have a job interview with Cheryl Redding at Redding Management Consultants this evening."

Shana supposed she was supposed to know who and what that was because it sounded so god-damn-almighty important.

Linda Wiley picked lint off her suit, kissed Lily good-bye, picked some lint off her, and left through the front door.

"She has the attention span of a housefly," Lily said, "but she did leave money for pizza."

They agreed on a large veggie pizza with tomato sauce, black olives—Lily took a bit of convincing for that—green and red peppers, and mushrooms, all covered with mozzarella cheese. She and Donny wanted onions, but Lily wouldn't budge on that option, so they deferred to their hostess. To go with the pizza, they also ordered chicken wings, ten pieces in honey-garlic flavor. Again, Lily tried to lord it over them by insisting they get BBQ flavor, but she just stood up and insisted right back. For dessert, they got cinnamon sticks, two orders of eight pieces per order. Donny ordered a large Coke, Lily ordered a vanilla milkshake. She decided against getting coffee, though it would ease the headache, and settled for a butterscotch milkshake.

The pizza came in twenty minutes, as promised. Donny knew the girl who delivered it and gave her a large tip.

Lily scowled and muttered, "That's mom's money."

Lily's complaint wasn't really about the money, given that she hadn't protested until the girl gave Donny a kiss on the cheek after he handed over all the cash.

What should have been a large meal quickly vanished into three hungry teenagers. When they were done, they sat around in the living room playing with the last of their drinks. They all had that in common as well as absent fathers.

She reclined on the loveseat, the largest chair in a living room that was about only ten by ten, and made loud noises while trying to suck up the last of her thick milkshake through her straw, which only made her headache worse.

She shivered again when she realized Donny and Lily could have still been at the mall when the security guards brought her back in. Had they seen her? Would they tell her if they had?

Donny sat on the floor beside Lily, totally oblivious, blowing bubbles in the ice water that was left at the bottom of his cup. Lily, still totally bummed out, gave up with her straw, took the lid off her cup and drank the rest of her milkshake.

"I don't mean to be awkward or anything," she said to Lily, "but are you living here because of your dad?"

Lily nodded. "This place belongs to Uncle Wilbur, the groper. He's, like, the millionaire slumlord of Dominion. Mom won't ask him to fix any of the holes in the walls or the dripping faucet in the downstairs bathroom or the knob on my bedroom door or the garage door opener that doesn't work because she's afraid her own brother will molest her and send me off to some white-slave harem in Africa."

"Gross. I can fix those for you."

"She's checked the whole house for hidden cameras."

"Double gross. I can fix all of it except for maybe the door opener. I might be able to fix that, too."

"I heard you the first time."

"And that's why you have to go to Lincoln High?"

"All dad's and mom's bank accounts were seized. She has to work for the first time— _ever_ —in her life." She set her cup on the coffee table. "But I was on my way out of Lafleur before dad got arrested."

Donny put his empty cup on the table beside Lily's. "She's very good but very naughty." He burped as quietly as he could.

Shana sat up. "What did you do?"

"A counsellor there called in my parents to tell them I wasn't thriving in the dynamic environment that was Lafleur. I would just wander off to be by myself and I spent far too much time alone on my tablet."

"That can't be good."

"She told them I had a great imagination and was a good writer, but I could be grotesque sometimes and gauche. What's wrong with a story about a girl abandoned by her parents in the woods to die as a baby, but is rescued and raised by trolls, then kills everyone in the village in revenge once she's queen of the trolls?"

"It's operatic and sounds like a blockbuster."

"She called me introverted, like it was some disease you could get shots for."

"The bitch."

Donny said, "So she sent this worm through both Lafleur and the Thatcher Arts and Science Institute. It erased all their records."

"All of them?"

"Every last teeny, tiny bit."

"Whoa, guru girl. Can you change my grades? I need to do better in math."

"Reformed, I'm afraid. I took a vow of computer celibacy. No more hacking; just the occasional white-hat ninja stuff."

"That sucks." She got out of the chair in one quick motion. "We better clean up."

Donny gathered up the pizza box. "Yeah, we don't want your mother arresting us for littering."

"Don't put it past her." She picked up the three cups and started for the kitchen. "She's desperate to prove she's worthy. She might do anything to make a good impression."

And her daughter might have made that impossible if not for Kelly Strickland. She blushed again.

"Out of the way, amazon," Lily said and squeezed past her through the doorway with whatever she and Donny had left behind. She led them to the garbage can under the kitchen sink.

Donny looked out the kitchen window after dumping his load. "What's wrong with this picture?" He burped again, louder this time. "' _scuse_ me."

She let Lily get in front of her before they looked out.

Two boys were cycling past on BMX bikes.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Lily said.

"Except that they're full grown men," Donny said. "One of them is taller than Valkyria."

They went to the front hall to get another look. The two men riding the bikes had stopped on the sidewalk across from the townhouse. Two other men, not on bikes, joined them.

"Do you know those guys?"

"We moved in only two months ago. Mom's far too busy to fraternize with the local rabble. I have no interest in getting to know any of them. I'm too introverted."

Shana leaned closer to look out through a small clear section of otherwise frosted glass beside the door. "The tall one's pointing at your townhouse. I can't hear what they're saying, though."

Donny said, "Maybe they know your uncle?"

"That would be just too cruel."

"That tall one is doing most of the talking."

As the man talked, he continued jabbing his finger at the townhouse. The other three men had been nodding their agreement with whatever he was saying at first, but now they were trying to calm him down. He pointed in turn at each one of them and said something that stopped them from interrupting him anymore. He tossed down the BMX and started for the townhouse.

"Shit. Back up, back up, now."

She took hold of Lily and Donny and backed them into the shadow beside the stairs. The only light on in the house was in the kitchen on the other side of the hallway wall.

The man came up the steps to the porch. If he peeked in and they didn't move, he might not see them. He didn't bother to peek in. At first, as if following his lessons in civility, he rang the doorbell.

"That's the only thing that works in here," Lily whispered.

"Shh."

He knocked on the door and then pounded on it. "Hey," he shouted as he pounded, "is anyone in there?"

Lily whispered, "My phone's upstairs being charged."

Shana whispered, "Mine's in my bag in the living room."

Donny pulled out his. He belched loudly before he could cover his mouth. "Sorry."

The man shouted again, "I know you're in there, Wiley." He kicked at the door, banged against it with his shoulder. "Let me in!" He banged against it again.

The door rattled and creaked. All he had to do was break the frosted glass beside it and he'd be able to reach both the bolt and the locked doorknob.

She grabbed Donny's phone. "I'll call mom."

"No, wait." Donny closed his hand around hers. His was hot and sweaty.

The three other men came running up onto the porch and grabbed the man. He struggled to break free, but they held him as tightly as they could. One man slid or fell down and grabbed hold of his legs.

The man shouted, "I'll get you for what you did, Wiley. I'll break your fucking neck."

One of the other men shouted back, "Mel, he's not even here."

The one holding Mel's legs said, "We better go. Someone might have called the sheriff."

They released Mel, who took a vicious kick at the door before stomping away. The three other men followed. One of them picked up a rock and flung it at the door. It ricocheted off the frosted glass with a brittle ping but didn't break anything.

Lily was trembling. "God, dad, what did you do?"

Donny put his arm around her.

"Just what did he do?"

"It was some kind of investment scheme that conned thousands of people out of all their money. And now it's all missing."

A wallet was small-time compared to that but it still offered the potential to cause much suffering.

"And made grown men determined to find out where you live, ride their sons' BMX bikes over and try to break in."

"The FBI offered to take us away, but mom refused." She covered her face and shook her head.

"Are you all right?"

"Come on." She took them up to her bedroom.

Shana tried for a few minutes to get the doorknob to work properly. It was garbage. "I can still call mom."

"And tell her what; to look for four men, two of them used to be clowns in the circus who rode those little bikes?"

Lily retrieved her fully-charged phone, sat down at her small desk and opened her laptop. In a few seconds, she had called up the Colter farm website.

"What are you doing?"

"Just taking a look to see what makes him so creepy."

"I thought you were celibate now."

"I haven't done anything yet, have I? Besides, that's more of a guideline than a real vow. I haven't had any reason to hack anything."

Donny said, "That's not what you told me."

"Get over it."

After about a minute of scanning the website, Lilly said, "He can't possibly be creepy, he's too boring."

"Boring can be creepy."

Donny said, "That boring farmer definitely creeped out dad. He liked going there as much as you like going to the dentist."

"Let's try this." Lily did some fast clicking with her mouse, some even faster typing on her keyboard, then some fast clicking with her mouse again. "There, that's better."

The Colter farm appeared on the screen.

"What did you just do?"

"I tapped into one of their CCTV camera feeds. I noticed they were using them to transmit images to their website."

"How did you do that?"

"What do magicians never do?"

"That's not fair."

"I told you she was good but naughty." Donny pulled up a chair to sit next to Lily. "Shouldn't you be using your VPN?"

"He's a farmer. What can he do to me?"

"Pride comes before, you know."

Shana stood behind and peered over Lily's head.

"Look at this." Donny pointed to men marching onto the screen.

The men appeared to be carrying rifles and were lining up like an army unit in five rows of five each. They all wore camouflage gear and stood at attention once everyone was in place. The twins stood at the front of the assembly.

Colter came out of a building wearing a military uniform that wasn't from any branch of the US armed forces.

"What is that?"

Donny said, "Either they're about to go into a paintball battle or creepy Colter has his own militia."

Colter inspected each line of men. Each man saluted and was saluted in return.

"My money is on militia," Donny said. "Those don't look like paintball guns."

"Could your dad have seen them doing that?"

"He never said anything to us about it, but that would definitely make him nervous."

Lily said, "Someone else has been eavesdropping, or at least trying to. But they're not a cyber-mage like me." She opened a window and started keying lines of code. "Maybe I can find out who's been . . . hey!"

Lily's laptop screen went black.

"We've just been flamed," Donny said. "Has that ever happened to you before?"

Whatever Lily did, she couldn't get her laptop back up. Finally, she turned it off and back on. It took a long time to reboot, advising them it had to do a system check for bad sectors. Once its scan was over, it flashed the results indicating nothing bad had been found or needed to be fixed before displaying the sign-in screen.

Lily keyed in her long password too fast for Shana to follow even if she wanted to.

"They're going to pay for this," Lily said. "It may take a few days, but. . . ."

When her laptop finally came back up, instead of the picture of Bambi that she normally had as a background, there was only a red screen. When Lily pressed return, a black silhouette of a howling dog superimposed itself over the red.

"That's Colter's sign," Shana said.

The silhouette vanished. Capital letters large enough to go from top to bottom scrolled across the screen: **ICU2**.

# Chapter 29

Shana was sluggish when she got up. She'd been withdrawn last night when she came home.

"Maybe you should take it easy today." She did let Shana have a half-cup of her special morning mocha. "You might have overdone it last night. Two days in a row could be too much."

"I'm good," was all she said.

She'd brought home the Suburban and used it to drive them to the Harding farm.

Once they were on their way, Shana asked, "Have you found Albert Nguyen yet?"

"Harry Madsen is looking into it."

"Why aren't you doing it?"

"We have nothing to investigate at this point. There's no trail. No one has found his delivery truck. There have been no reported sightings. Harry requested to stay on the case because they were friends. Could Donny tell us anything that would help?"

She shook her head. "Donny and his mom are worried sick. His dad was happy and had no reason to leave." Shana then asked, "Militias are illegal, right?"

"There's no easy answer to that question. There are many types of militia. Most in this country are just ultra-conservative groups who are against big government, taxes and gun control. Some of the more radical ones preach arming its members for some kind of future threat, often cited as our own government moving too far to the left. It is illegal to form a militia with the intention of engaging in seditious activities or terrorism. Why?"

"Just curious." She drifted off to sleep.

As she drove into the farm and approached where she saw Harding waiting, they passed a paddock beside a huge barn. What they saw in the paddock perked Shana right up.

"Oh, my god, he's beautiful."

Shana twisted in her seat as they drove past to keep watching the elk munching on the food two men had just brought to him. He had bandages on his left front shoulder and around his left rear leg that didn't seem to bother him.

She parked the Suburban where Harding directed her to and they got out.

"Good morning." Harding said to both of them. "I'm so glad you could come. We all are."

Before she could respond, Shana yelped.

Behind Harding, a mountain lion was galloping toward them.

She grabbed hold of Shana and backed up.

Harding chuckled. "That's just Caesar."

Caesar raced up to Harding before skidding to a stop on the gravel and rubbing up against him. He then trotted over to Shana.

"It's okay, Shana, I promise you both," Harding said.

Shana reached out and patted his head. He started purring. She scratched him behind his ear. He purred even louder, rubbed himself along her leg and flopped down to be patted. His tail whipped back and forth as he curled up his front paws and exposed his belly.

"He loves it when you rub his tummy."

Her face beatific, Shana knelt down and started rubbing Caesar's belly. He wriggled with pleasure and rubbed his cheek against her knee.

"Well, he's marked you. Once he likes you, he likes you. You have a mountain lion friend for life now."

Caesar stretched out and closed his eyes to just enjoy all the attention.

She knelt down beside Shana and rubbed him too before leaving the petting to her daughter.

"We've had him since he was a cub." He pointed over to a large pen. A mountain lion was standing at the chain link watching them. Her front left leg was missing. "That's Cleopatra, his mother."

"How did she lose it?"

"I'm sure you can guess."

"A trap."

"Who would do that?" Shana said. "That's cruel."

"She had torn her leg to shreds pulling it out of the trap. She was too week to go any further when we got to them. She must have been close to her den and Caesar came out to find her. We couldn't save her leg. We never found any other cubs."

"He's fantastic," Shana said. "I just love him."

Caesar fidgeted under her caress and purred louder.

"He's a big sissy. We haven't had any success at preparing him for a return to the wild. He just likes it here too much. Three squares, all the attention he can get; he's a stoner for every bit of it. He just thinks human beings are the best thing there is for him."

Two women came from the hospital building. The older one stood about 5'4", was in her early forties, had light-brown hair pulled back, and wore a white laboratory coat. She had been at the banquet with Harding. The younger one was four inches taller, walked very erect, was Afghani or Pakistani, had long, straight black hair, smooth features and wore blue jeans. An unbuttoned, long-sleeve, green-plaid man's cotton shirt revealed a white T-shirt with a picture of Caesar on it underneath. The sleeves were rolled up to her elbows.

"This is Barbara Nyland, my partner in crime. This is Saleha Bibi Marwat. She's a student. This is Sheriff Joan McGowan, and Caesar's new friend there is her daughter, Shana."

Shana waved before returning to spoiling Caesar.

She shook hands. "Which one of you is boss?"

Barbara smiled. "That depends." Her laboratory coat had blood stains on it.

Saleha said with a soft voice, "Usually I am." Her clothes had bits of straw sticking to them.

Harding pointed to people getting into two SUVs. "That group is from Oregon State. They've been here all summer doing research. They're finished Monday and go back to Corvallis for start of semester."

Saleha said, "Perhaps I could show Shana some of the animals we have staying here with us."

"Cool." Shana bounced up like the infatuated, caffeine-filled fourteen-year-old she was. "Can I?"

She nodded and watched Saleha, Barbara, Shana and Caesar go off together. Caesar hugged close to Shana's right leg.

"He loves making new friends. If he had a Facebook account, I'm sure he'd have more friends than anyone else."

"And now she's smitten. I'll never get her back into the car."

"We have a few empty enclosures right now."

"Some days I'm tempted."

"Come with me, I'll give you the other tour."

He took her through every building they had. They passed Saleha showing Shana a black bear named Fred and a pair of wolf brothers in their prime who didn't appear to have names.

"Traps again?"

"Fred was caught going through garbage in Dominion. He's here to be treated for malnutrition before he's relocated on the other side of the mountains. The brothers are the only survivors of their pack. It was slaughtered by a bunch of assholes who were supposed to be trophy hunting bighorn sheep."

"Colter's people?"

"I would have thought you'd learned not to get me started."

"Does Harry think it could be Colter?"

"He has an open mind about who the poachers might be, though he's never explained why." There could have been some irritation in his voice.

"You served twice in Afghanistan, right?"

They paused at the paddock holding the wounded elk. When it raised its head, its antlers glinted in the morning sun. Regal and proud, it would be easy to revere such an animal. They stayed to watch it for a while.

"Yes, I did."

"Then you went back there."

"You've been researching me. I'm flattered."

"I've been researching everyone. It's what I do."

"I had some unfinished business back there."

The elk, his head held high, chewed away at his food, indifferent to their presence.

"Was Saleha part of that unfinished business?"

"Let's just say everyone has a past."

"And no one in Dominion wants to talk about theirs. They'll talk about everyone else's, especially mine, but not their own."

"You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine."

"Why do I have to go first?"

"You're the new kid on the block."

"That's Sheriff and I was born here."

"So, how was your first week back in Dominion?"

They started walking again.

"Shana's been wonderful. I can't believe how much she's done in the house. By the way, I've officially bought the place."

"That is good news. What about your first week as sheriff?"

"Other than a trio of jerks Monday night, it's gone smoothly." There wasn't any point complaining to Harding about the workforce report. "Do you know Stanford Wiley or Albert Nguyen?"

"Not Wiley, but Al came around here a few times to make some special-order deliveries. Has Harry found out anything yet?"

"If he has, he hasn't told me." There might have been some irritation in her voice.

They arrived back at the Suburban.

"How's it going now?"

"You do a lot of fascinating work here."

"For a bunch of antisocial, environmental radicals, that is."

"I didn't say that. I will say I get a more positive vibe here than I did at the Colter farm."

"Then I'm even happier you came."

Saleha brought Shana back to them. Caesar was still at her side. A man with similar features to Saleha but about eight inches taller came with them.

Saleha said, "Sheriff McGowan, I would like to introduce my brother, Zemar Khan Marwat."

They shook hands.

"Are you a student here, too?"

"I am their IT guy."

"That's what you guys look like?"

"Most are better looking," Saleha said.

"If they're better looking than you, I'm going to start calling for help more often."

"I will take that as a compliment."

She blushed. "Please do."

"He's more than that," Harding said. "He's also the coordinator of our official begging for funds operations and he's in charge of getting animals in and out of here."

"All that and darkly handsome, too," Shana said. "It's this wild-woman gene from the Kirkpatrick side of the family. We're all very bold when we see something, or someone, we like."

"That," Saleha said, "you can take as a compliment."

Zemar bowed to both bold, wild-woman gene carriers.

"Can I work here?" Shana's right hand rested on Caesar's head so she could scratch behind his ear. "Saleha told me she could use some help."

"We're dealing with a lot on our plates right now: a new city, a new job, a new home that needs lots of work. You'll be starting at a new school."

Caesar flopped down at Shana's feet and started playing with her laces with paws bigger than her shoes. He gnawed playfully at her ankle, which made Joan's heart flutter, while purring loud enough to almost drown out what they were saying.

"She's got his vote," Harding said.

"Mom, I can handle it. I'll keep my grades up, even math, I promise."

Harding said, "She's right about that. Every student who works here, high school or university, has to be honor roll or they can't stay." He said to Shana, "You are a bit young."

"But I'm tall. You have to admit I'm tall, almost as tall as you." She tried to get up on her toes, but Caesar grabbed her by the ankles.

"Working here is more than just playing with Caesar."

"I could use the help," Saleha said. "And you can be sure I will work her very hard."

Caesar was resting his head on Shana's foot. He had fallen asleep with his mouth open, his tongue out and drool all over Shana's shoe.

She said, "He looks so content."

"It's hard to argue with that," he said.

"Maybe a couple of days a week would be all right."

Shana squealed and bounced up and down.

Caesar jumped to his feet and growled.

Shana hugged everyone. "When?"

Caesar pranced about until Shana quit moving so he could sit beside her and get scratched again.

Harding said, "Is tomorrow too soon? With Oregon State leaving Monday, it would give you a day to learn the routine before the heavy lifting starts." He looked at Joan.

"You're the boss."

"Be here at nine."

Shana said, "I'll be here at eight. She bent over, kissed the top of Caesar's head and scratched him hard behind his ears.

He rubbed his cheek against her, almost knocking her over.

Once she finally got Shana separated from Caesar, who didn't want to leave her side any more than she wanted to leave his, she said to Harding, "Thank you. This is the second best time I've had since coming back to Dominion."

He squinted in disappointed. "What was your best time?"

She got into the Suburban, lowered the window and looked into those grey-blues. "Wednesday night was pretty good."

They sparkled. "I love your genes, you look great in them."

She groaned and shook her head. "Dr. Harding, you are more than just a notch or two removed. You sound like a reject from eHarmony. That was corny and far too obvious."

"I'm ashamed of myself for having said it."

She blushed. "Liar."

# Chapter 30

They drove back to Dominion with Shana chattering away about the farm and the animals and Caesar and the elk and what she was going to do there and the farm and the people and Saleha and Zemar and the animals and Cleopatra and Caesar. Just before they reached the outskirts of town, she mentioned Craig Harding.

"He doesn't suck."

"He'll be glad to hear that."

"He is handsome, not as handsome as Zemar, and he is getting a bit old, but he is handsome."

"He'll be glad to hear that, too. Does this mean it's over between you and Ian?"

"I meant for you."

"What?"

"He was kind of looking at, you know, your equipment, taking you all in, if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean and I never taught you to talk like that, especially to your mother."

"I saw you scoping him out." She took out her cell phone. "Saleha showed me a picture of you dancing with him. Dr. Nyland took it with her phone. Want to see it?"

She took a quick glance at a distant shot of her back, her red dress and Harding's blurry face. "Who else has seen that?"

"Everybody, I guess. They put a video of you two dancing on the farm's website. They were having a little fun with him because he doesn't usually do stuff like that. They were all sure he wouldn't go."

They'd also sharked the new sheriff and scooped the DGN. "No one asked me if it was okay to do that."

"Hold on a second." Shana put her phone away and held up her index finger. "First you pick him up in a bar Monday." She held up a second finger. "Then you go to a dance with him Wednesday night. If that's not throwing your booty his way, I don't know what is. And you didn't bother to tell me about him."

"It was a pub and I didn't pick him up. I arrested him. I told you that. I put handcuffs on him."

"I don't want to hear about the sick games you two are playing." She held up a third finger. "Then you go to his place and," she held up her baby finger, "throw your daughter in his face so he has to give her a job."

"That is not how I remember it. You were bouncing up and down like it was Christmas morning. I have witnesses."

Ignoring her, Shana held up her thumb. "The next thing is you'll have him over for supper. You'll find some excuse to get him there and ask him to stay. You're _so_ obvious."

"It was a banquet. We danced once."

"I heard you only danced with him."

"I only danced once, so, ergo, I only danced with him."

Shana just counted on her fingers again, confident she needn't rehash her argument with any further talk.

"It was one dance. And I didn't throw you at him. I didn't throw either one of us at him."

"There is no need to be so defensive. It's not like you were _twerking_ with him or anything. And you still have some MILF left in you."

"Where did you learn those terms?"

She started giggling, which became raucous laughter. She grabbed her sides. "You are so red right now."

"I'm going to start monitoring your computer again."

"Oh, please, we're teenagers, not some pathetic terrorist cell. We rule cyberspace. We can hide whatever we're doing from our parents, even if they're cops. You don't stand a chance." She held up her five fingers again. "I'm just saying."

"Girl's school in Siberia, I'm just saying."

"Still red."

"How do you know he and Barbara Nyland aren't together?"

"Once, a long time ago, Saleha told me."

"Saleha, then?"

She shook her head. "She doesn't do guys."

Exactly what kind of tour had Shana taken?

They entered Dominion two blocks from The Big Bicycle Shop.

"We could get a couple of new mountain bikes for riding back and forth to the farm? They'd be better for that road anyway, and I know there's at least one shortcut along a dike and some trails that knocks off about three miles."

"Awesome. I know exactly what I want."

"What you want and what you're going to get may not be the same thing."

They debated whether or not to get a cyclo-cross instead, but decided to go with full suspension mountain bikes and bought a pair of Cannondale Lexi-3s with 120mm-travel front forks, X-Fusion rear shocks, Shimano disk brakes, Deore shifting and Kenda puncture-resistant tires. The owner, Neal Barker, forty-five and still an avid cyclist, claimed to have seen her win her first race in Oregon. He promised he could have them set-up in a couple of hours, so they left them with him rather than take them home and prep them themselves.

Back at the Suburban, she spotted Colter and the Cotton twins exiting the Eiger Hunting, Fishing and Camping store. Colter carried two plastic bags of goods. The twins carried two cardboard boxes each.

"I'll be right back."

She found Susan behind the counter.

"Elliot's sick with the flu," she said. "I go where I'm needed."

"I was surprised to see them come to this store."

"Business is business, and Mort isn't the kind of man who would ever let a former relationship interfere with anything he has to do."

"What did they buy?"

"Some ammunition, camping supplies, two Coleman lamps, a couple of sleeping bags, cold weather gear, stuff like that. It was a lot but nothing unusual. They most likely have some new clients coming in."

"Hunters?"

"Not necessarily. Mort also runs a survival training program. He gets a lot of slickers. Before they even go hunting, he makes them go on a weekend outing. If they washout out there, they can't come back to hunt."

"He's thorough." Were these slickers the ones making the traps and poaching as part of their training? Colter wouldn't want to admit to that, either.

"If they make it, they come back for a weekend on his practice range for hunting simulations. Many of his clients don't bring their own guns, or don't own one. Again, he makes sure they know how to handle a gun and hit their target or they don't get off the farm. They also don't get their money back if they fail."

He had told her he ran a humane hunting service, and what Susan was telling her supported his claim, but the term still sounded like an oxymoron to her.

"I know what you're thinking, Joan, and you couldn't be further from the truth. Despite what he might have told you, he doesn't care how the animal dies. What he doesn't want is for one of his clients to shoot another one by mistake. It wouldn't be good for business."

Getting them arrested for poaching wouldn't be good for business, either. "Thanks, Susan. Say hi to Kate for me."

"I see you're out with Shana today."

"We went to the Harding farm. She talked herself into a job there."

"Did you meet Zemar and Saleha?"

"I did. What do you know about them?"

"Only that she's very beautiful and she wants to be a veterinarian, not much else." That was a typical DGN piranha's response when the question encroached on their own personal domain.

She reminded herself on the way back to the Suburban that the contractor from Lowe's was coming at five o'clock. She had to get the bikes back before then. She also hadn't got all she could out of Kate about Colter, something she needed to rectify ASAP.

Shana had fallen asleep and didn't wake up when she turned on the Suburban and drove home. Hiring her at the farm may have been the biggest favor anyone had done for them so far. Shana's grades had declined the last two years. Having to keep them up to keep working at the farm was a better carrot-and-stick approach than anything she could think of. It would also connect Shana to Dominion and make her feel like she belonged here. The only thing left to do now was to get her mother to feel the same way.

# Chapter 31

The bad news came with a call to his bedroom just after sunrise.

"The elk's dead," Barbara said.

"What happened?"

"Come to the paddock."

He dressed quickly and ran to the paddock to find everyone else already there standing around in shock.

Ben spotted him first. "They've gone too far this time."

Saleha, Zemar and Barbara were inside the paddock.

He ran through the gate but stopped before getting to them.

They stood in a circle around the elk's body. Its head was gone. It had been skinned.

His legs felt numb and wobbly as he walk the last few feet.

Zemar said, "It was shot with a high-powered rifle. They hung the hide over there." He pointed to the barn. The elk's pelt had been stretched out and fastened to the door.

Craig looked down at the elk. His stomach pinched.

"They knew what they were doing," Barbara said.

"I know what you're going to say next."

"Like a taxidermist."

"They shot it again once it was down." Saleha pointed out new wounds in the left shoulder.

Zemar pointed out the larger wound in the chest. "That was from a distance. Someone with skills as a sniper did that. The second ones were from a handgun. They shot it three times."

"Why would they do that?"

"They had to have used a silencer or someone would have heard something." Zemar took him aside. "They've declared war on us. They're telling us they can come in here anytime and kill anything or anyone."

"I told you, this is not Afghanistan."

"It just got a lot closer, my friend. We need to prepare ourselves. I can sneak in there tonight and—"

"No."

Zemar was developing the siege mentality he'd witnessed—and been a part of—in Afghanistan. Small groups banded together, armed themselves and saw everyone who wasn't one of them as the enemy. A number of killings attributed to the Taliban while he was there had in fact nothing to do with them.

"We got you and Saleha out to prevent you from going down this path. You're not to do anything."

Barbara and Saleha came to them.

Barbara said, "I just took a quick look, but I think they retrieved the bullets again."

Zemar said, "No ballistics check. They know how to clean up after themselves."

"Craig, you have to tell Joan; it is obvious Colter's people did this."

"We still have no proof. She'll believe us, but she can't do a thing until we can give her some evidence."

"She could tell Colter what we have, let him know he's her main suspect. She could at least do that."

"Shana! She'll be here at eight. I don't want her to see this."

"Too late for that." Zemar pointed out Shana coming up the drive on her mountain bike.

"She's early," Saleha said. "I'm not surprised."

"We can't let her see this."

Barbara blocked him. "Yes, we can. We have to."

"She's only fourteen."

"She's going to see animals die here."

"But not like this."

"She has to know what is going on. She would find out sooner or later."

Shana waved to everyone as she arrived and came straight to the paddock.

He and Barbara went to the gate to intercept her. He blocked her view of the body, but she spotted the hide on the barn door as soon as she got off her bike.

"What happened?" She started crying.

"Come on," he said, "I'll call your mother."

"No. I work here now."

"Shana. . . ."

She wiped away her tears. "Please, just tell me what happened."

Barbara said, "We believe whoever wounded it came back to finish the job and leave us a message."

Zemar and Saleha came over. The Oregon State group came over.

Saleha hugged Shana. "This is not a good start for you."

"What happens now?"

Barbara took a deep breath and said, "We will perform a necropsy to confirm how it died. Once that is done, its remains will be fed to our carnivores."

Shana gasped.

He said, "You have to understand that as much as we love animals, as friendly as Caesar is, this is not Disneyland. We cannot make mountain lions, foxes and wolves vegetarians."

Shana nodded. "Mom and I talked about that last night. She warned me that I might see things that would upset me."

"I'm glad you two talked. In the wild, your best friend here would prey on elk. That's nature's way." And that was about as trite as he could get.

"I do understand. They are what they are."

"Maybe I better still take you home."

"No." She looked at everyone. "I know you can't possibly save every animal that comes here, but I also know you will always do everything you can for them. That's what I want to do. Everyone else has a job to do here and they aren't going home because of what happened. Please don't send me away. I have to deal with this like anyone else here does."

Those wild-woman genes were something to behold. "Saleha will show you what you need to do."

"Can I help here?"

"Not this time. Caesar will be eager to see you. I don't want him to smell . . . elk on you."

She nodded and went with Saleha to start her shift.

The technicians proceeded to gather up the elk's remains. The Oregon State group went about preparing for their last day in the mountains.

Zemar said, "I need to show you something. I found it last night."

"Is it something we can use?"

"Right now, I would just say it's something curious."

# Chapter 32

Craig was supposed to keep Shana occupied until five. She would then take about an hour to get home on her bike. It was, therefore, a day to get things done. The furnace, central air and hot water tank were taken care of, as was the kitchen redo. Janine recommended Atlas Windows to replace their old ones.

What also needed to get done was laundry. There were all their clothes that had been unpacked. Those green drapes that she'd used to wrap her crystal in weren't attractive, but they were blackouts and would fit the window of the middle bedroom upstairs. With a southern exposure, it let the sun beat in all day long. In this recent hot spell, the drapes would slow down the heat buildup that put the upstairs in the low nineties by mid-afternoon.

Most of the dishes and the dinnerware, and all the pots and pans, would stay in the boxes she and Shana had stashed in the nook. There was no point unpacking them if a new kitchen was going to be installed within a week. She was going to have to buy healthier meals until the new kitchen was ready.

She got three loads of their clothing done and put away by lunch. The dryer took longer than expected and the washer wanted to get _jiggy_ with every load that went into it. She had to push in a wedge under the front of it to keep it in place. They were both on their way out next week.

She made a tuna sandwich for lunch, spilling the chives from the bottle into the dish and then having to scoop the excess out with a teaspoon, which meant one more thing they had to wash by hand because the dishwasher had quietly passed away during the night. She drank a beer with the sandwich; a bad choice to go with tuna.

The fourth load of clothes finished with a loud clunk. She had to empty it and push the washer back six inches. She slipped the wedge under it again but still hesitated putting in the heavy drapes. The ringing phone brought her back upstairs.

"Hello."

"Hello, ma'am," Kelly said.

"Joan, Kelly, I'm Joan off duty."

"But I'm on duty, ma'am."

"You were supposed to take today off."

"I know, I just thought I'd check in to see what was happening, especially after I caught the noon news."

They still hadn't hooked up their television, mostly because she had no clue how to get their home theater system back up and running. Shana had connected the smaller, surround speakers to the receiver and performed whatever other magic was required so they could at least get music.

"I missed it."

"There's been a train derailment outside of Chicago. Four crewmen and a man in his truck at a crossing were killed. There was an explosion at the docks in Houston. Five were killed in that one, too. Sorry, I didn't mean to sound glib."

"I know."

"Los Angeles has had a power outage in over one third of the city, but everything is fine in Dominion . . . so far."

"We'll go over Dominion's disaster preparedness tomorrow. Then we'll arrange a meeting with Mayor Jones, firefighters and emergency responders to clarify all the protocols."

"We've received a request to investigate the rail lines coming into town. I'll call Horace at the station to do that, though he's probably been notified already."

"I also need the safety protocols for the fair."

"We've never had anything happen there."

"Then we're overdue."

"I'll put the stuff together and try to arrange it into some kind of sense for tomorrow."

"You don't have to."

"I've done my laundry."

"I still have some."

"I've worked out."

She cleared her throat. "Maybe later."

"And there's no man in sight for miles."

"Remember to submit your OTR-three-twelve for approval."

Her vacuum cleaner was new. She had no choice but to buy a new one just before moving when the other one died of asphyxiation. It was just as well. She'd often had to hand feed the dirt to it to get it to swallow anything. However strong the new one was, it still couldn't make the old carpets look any better. Only a match would do that.

"Why did I think a nice fixer-upper would help us set down roots in Dominion? I could have bought a new house. There are some newer ones in Fleetwood Grove, some really nice ones in Quarrelle Heights. They're near the lake with easy access to some good cycling routes. Some come with acreage. Instead, I'm using Shana as child slave labor, talking to myself and anthropomorphizing my appliances."

The place was exactly what Shana said it was: a total-nuclear-meltdown-redo. Just accept that and everything would go much easier.

"Damn."

She got out her cell phone to call the Harding farm but hesitated. How would Shana feel about mom checking up on her? She could text Craig, ask him how it was going and request that he keep the report just between them.

"That would make you fit right in with this town."

Rather than calling or texting, she ran a bath, scrunched herself into the tub and tried to turn a good hour of opportunity for housework into one of self-indulgence, except the hot water ran out before the tub was full, leaving the bathwater only tepid for the first ten minutes before she had to constantly replenish it.

With two tall women in the house, and neither of them liking cold, they needed a larger tub at least vertically if not horizontally, and maybe two hot water tanks instead of just one.

She tried thinking of Shana, poachers, Madsen's lack of updates on his investigations of Nguyen and Wiley, but that only made her feel like she had fallen into a centrifuge. Every fragment of thought that slammed into the top of her head as she spun around, set off sparks and made her head hot while the rest of her cooled in the water.

When she closed her eyes against the pain and brightness, she saw Michael's face while he was in the coma. Every time she had looked at him in that condition she had been sure he was already gone. Shana had only been able to visit him once because his stillness disturbed her too much.

No matter how hard she tried, she could never bring herself to hope for the hopeless: that he would open his eyes, gasp, moan, just wake-up. She looked at that point of departure that he silently presented to the world and wished for it all to be over. Of course, the worst thought had occurred to her with every visit: that he was inside that placid mask screaming out at her, trying to be heard, calling out his apology, his recriminations, his plea for her to take care of herself and Shana after. . . .

Relief and guilt was an inadequate description of how she had felt when he just slipped away that day. She hadn't shed a tear. She had got up from her chair, kissed him, gone home and told Shana, who had then folded herself into her mother's arms and cried for all three of them. She hadn't worn her wedding ring since that day.

Pink and wrinkled, she dried herself off, put on clean underwear, but put her work clothes back on. She went down to the basement, loaded the drapes into the washer and started it up after first checking the wedge and taking a deep breath.

Back on the main floor, she called Kelly at the office for an update. Horace Rothman had seen the news and was already inspecting the rails when Kelly called him. Kelly also advised her that Rob and Jacob had returned from a very successful fishing trip and would bring in some Chinook salmon for her when they came in Monday to introduce themselves. They had checked with Kelly to make sure they still had a reason to come in.

She started on the venetian blinds next. Every window in the house had them. They were on their way out, too, but they had to stay in place until the renovations were complete, and they were too disgusting to ignore for that long. She hauled around a bucket of soapy water, towels and a sponge to each window. After six refills, she had another load for the washer and every set of blinds was as close to their original white color as they were going to get: light-light-light taupe.

At four o'clock, Craig parked his Ford 250 in front of her house.

She wiped her palms on her jeans as she watched Craig get Shana's bike out of the box. Shana took it to the back, returned and came in with him. She'd been crying.

Shana came in first, went straight into her arms and sobbed, "They killed him."

She hugged Shana back and looked at Craig.

"The elk, someone shot it last night. Then they skinned it and took the head."

"How could someone get away with that?"

"We do have cameras, but the ones at the farm are focused on the enclosures, not the paddocks. They used silencers."

"Silencers?"

"Someone would have heard them otherwise."

Shana released her mother. "You have to do something."

Craig said, "We talked about this, Shana."

"I know about evidence, but we know who did it."

"No, we don't," she said. "We may suspect who is behind it, but we don't know who the specific people involved are. Without evidence, there's little we can do."

Craig said, "They removed the bullets again."

"I'll be ready in a minute."

"I called Kelly. She's probably there by now. She'll call if she finds anything you need to look at. I doubt she will."

"I should be there."

"Joan, it's all right. I'm not trying to exclude you. I don't make the same stupid mistakes twice . . . usually. Kelly's good, and so are my people. If they find any trail that leads us to whom and how, they will let us know."

Shana said, "It was one of Colter's men, you know that."

She again looked at Craig.

"People were upset. They said a lot of things."

"That's because they know who did it." Shana looked at her and said, "All right, they _suspect_ who's behind it."

"Colter has his explanation for anything like this."

"Poachers."

"How many more animals are going to die before someone stops them?" Shana ran upstairs.

"I've considered the poacher angle. What if only some of Colter's men are doing it?"

"I'm not sure I follow you."

"Colter admitted that some of his men are damaged goods. What if they're traipsing off into the mountains when something sets them off?"

"You think some PTSD reaction puts them back in Afghanistan? They'd be trying to survive until rescued. They'd be setting the traps. But some of those traps have been pits. It would take either a long time for one man to complete or a lot of men to complete quickly."

"What if the slickers he's bringing in for survival training are setting all the traps, even the pits, as part of their training?"

"Possible, but either way, Colter's responsible."

"He isn't going to want to give them up any more than he would his own men."

"His people would still be the ones who finished off the elk. Slickers wouldn't be doing that. And someone is destroying or stealing our cameras."

"Why?"

"To flaunt their power over us, maybe; I don't really know. They have some motivation that's important to them."

"Unless it's Harry's poachers."

"Now I really don't follow you."

"I don't follow me, either. Maybe he thinks Nguyen is the poacher."

"He wouldn't fit the time frame."

"Unless Nguyen is using the existing problem to cover his own." She shrugged.

"What or who is he hiding from?"

"If we knew that, we might know where to find him. I'll talk to Colter again."

"I'd rather you didn't. I want to stop him, but he's smart. If we try rattling his cage, he just might—"

A racket started downstairs.

"Dammit."

She ran to the basement with Craig right behind her. The washer was doing a drunken jig. One of the hoses had come off and water was pouring out all over the floor.

"I'll handle the drunk," Craig shouted over the noise. "You shut off the water."

He had to jig his way up to the washer to push the dial in. She turned off the faucet. The washer surrendered peacefully. The water slowed to an annoying drip that wouldn't stop.

Craig inspected the end of the hose. "It popped off, but I think I can get it back on. Got a wrench handy?"

They pushed the washer back but left enough room to reattach the hose, which screwed on easily enough once Craig got the threads properly aligned.

"Why didn't you bring her home sooner or call me?"

"She didn't want to come home. I should have insisted, but it's easy to forget she's only fourteen."

"That it is. Unfortunately, sometimes she forgets, too."

"She did a great job her first day." He handed back the wrench. "But I think it all caught up to her in the afternoon. I found her resting under a tree with Caesar. She was fine until she saw me, then the tears started."

She looked up. "I should see how she's doing."

"I better go. You have a fantastic, not-so-little girl, but tell her she can come in Tuesday if she needs a day."

"What do you think she'll say to that?"

He smiled and started up the stairs.

"Don't go, please. After handling a crying daughter and a drunken washing machine, I should at least give you a supper, as long as burgers and fries are okay." She had just validated Shana's fifth point from yesterday. She blushed. _Dammit_.

"Burt's?"

"Burt's."

"I'd like that."

"I'd offer to cook you something, but I'm not a great cook and all we have is beer and a stale pizza box."

"Truth be told, I do prefer my pizza boxes fresh." He came back down and went over to the washer. "Should we risk the rest of the spin cycle or just take them out now?"

She opened the lid. The drapes were soaking wet. "Let's risk it." She rearranged the drapes to redistribute the load. They both checked the re-inserted wedge and the stability of the machine's footing. "Here goes."

She pulled out the dial to get the machine going. Craig had picked up the wrench and was prepared to use it.

"One quick blow," he said, "and it's all over."

The washer behaved itself, though it made as much racket as it had while dancing.

He looked down at the wet floor. "Got a mop and bucket? I'll take care of this while you get the burgers."

"My house, my mess, you go get the burgers."

"Trust me, I know exactly what to get."

# Chapter 33

Mom called her down for more Burt's burgers. Dr. Harding had supper with them.

"I thought the first time might have been a fluke," mom said, "but these really are deadly good."

"Addictive," Harding said through a huge mouthful.

"We have to stop eating like this or I'm going to end up ten pounds heavier.

"Not a problem for me," Shana said.

The rest of supper passed with the same inane talk. Mom and Harding were becoming more comfortable with each other. Mom still had more work to do in that regard.

After supper, she returned to her room, laid back down on her bed and thought of the elk. She had seen a movie where a profiler was explaining the psyche behind a series of gruesome murders. The expert described the rage the killer was experiencing and warned that he had made the killings personal. Yeah, like no other serial killer had ever made it personal.

What seemed trite in the movie took on the sinister danger the profiler was trying to convey for the psychopath who had killed at the Harding farm. The person who shot the elk the first time had made it personal. He had been determined to get his trophy even if he had to risk getting caught to do it. Colter's men had that kind of personality. They all thought they had missions to complete no matter what they were doing. Some of them had the skills needed to shoot the elk from a distance, get in undetected, skin it and take the head as a trophy without giving themselves away. Why couldn't mom use that profile against them?

Mom probably wanted to, but she'd heard enough conversations between mom and dad about cases that got all botched up because evidence was insufficient, contaminated or went missing. Mom knew she had to have solid evidence before arresting anyone at the Colter farm.

And as both mom and Harding had repeated several times, Colter had his answer down pat: poachers. Poachers hunted when it wasn't hunting season and took animals that were off limits, his people didn't.

Mom could charge the _perp_ with hunting illegally, cruelty to animals, trespassing, illegal use of a firearm, stuff like that. They had removed the bullets because they knew the danger of leaving them behind. They knew exactly what they were doing. A poacher wouldn't bother to do something like that; Colter and his men would.

If she had evidence for both Colter's militia activities and his poaching, she'd have to reveal how she got the information, but mom could then go into action.

"I'll ask for forgiveness after." She sat up and got out her phone but hesitated. She had to tell mom about the wallet and Deputy Strickland's intervention sooner or later. If she helped mom with the poachers, mom would likely find it easier to forgive both her and Kelly. She called Lily.

"I figured it out," Lily said.

"What did you figure out?"

"Give me a second."

She heard some unusual beeps and buzzes through her phone and then heard Donny.

"Hey, cool a conference call. What are we talking about?"

Lily said, "This is your call."

"Remember creepy Colter?"

"Oh, yeah, that's what I wanted to tell you. I know what happened Friday. I can get around it now. And, _yes_ , I will use my VPN from now on."

"What about the counterstrike?"

"I'm still working on that. I have it ready. I'm just putting the final touches on the delivery system."

"I told you she was good."

"Yes, I am. What do you need?"

She told them about the Harding farm, her new job there, Caesar and Cleopatra and the other animals, and the elk. She talked so fast both Donny and Lily had to ask her to repeat herself a number of times.

Donny said, "I'm totally down with making them pay."

She asked Lily, "You can still spy on them, right?"

"Not a problem."

"They won't find you, will they?"

"They may be on alert after Friday and have some other things ready to use against me, but they won't ever detect me until it's way too late."

"Sorry about making you break your oath."

"Told you, more of a guideline; and this is worth it."

"If you do find anything, can you record it?"

"Of course, but I'll only get a limited view of what they're doing unless we get lucky."

"That's why we're also going out into the field. I have a mission for us should we choose to accept it."

Donny said, "I want to be Ethan Hunt."

"I'm Ethan."

"Ethan is a man."

"Not in my world."

"You're too tall to be Ethan."

"Just keep working on the delivery system. I'll get back to you with the details once I've worked it all out."

She lay back on her bed and scanned her room. Most of the painting stuff had been removed. She'd take the rest of it downstairs before going to bed.

Mom and Harding were talking and laughing in the kitchen. It was after seven and he was still here.

Mom and dad had been having problems. Mom had needed to reveal that when she'd talked to her about the possibility of leaving him.

"We both love you very much," she'd said, "it's just that so many things have changed between us."

Anger took over her life after that. She fought with mom and dad, with her friends, with teachers. She skipped school and stole anything she could get her hands on until she got caught.

Mom and dad sentenced her to house arrest for six months after she'd completed community service. Dad suggested they go to family counselling. Both the Portland Police Department and the FBI had programs available to them. What dad didn't know was the relationship between mom and her partner was one of those changes. It was the secret she was forced to keep. Then mom's partner died at the Crowley farm massacre. Then dad had his accident and ended up in a coma. Then dad died.

More than anyone else around them, she had watched mom go through the anguish of taking on all the blame to the point of becoming paralyzed. Mom felt responsible for losing her whole FBI team and for having failed husband and daughter. Every time she had tried to talk about any of it, she would just start stammering, her voice would catch and she'd quickly change the subject. Mom would spent almost every moment she wasn't at work just sitting around their unfinished mansion staring at nothing until she finally recognized her daughter once more and promised never to let her down again. She still hadn't been able to stop her nightly rounds throughout the house, however.

Dominion meant leaving her friends in Portland behind, but it was the fresh start they both needed. She'd found two great new friends in Lily and Donny. Kelly Strickland had helped prevent a major adolescent melodrama disaster and even more pain for mom. She was going to be another great friend, too. Craig Harding could maybe be that for mom if she could just let up on herself and let him in. She had forgiven mom, but mom still needed to forgive mom.

# Chapter 34

The options for Zemar and Saleha were decreasing rapidly. Randal had come by with the discouraging update. Zemar and Saleha had come to his office to hear it.

"It looks like Montreal is out now. They have a son and two daughters, all of them are under twelve. They also still have family in Afghanistan who are being harassed." Randal shrugged an apology.

Saleha said, "They have a good life in Canada. They have too much to lose. They do not need to apologize."

Zemar said, "We do not want to bring the risk of harm to anyone."

Randal began pacing. "Your relatives in Amsterdam are getting jittery, too. An al-Qaeda cell was recently discovered and arrested there. AIVD isn't giving out details, but supposedly leaked information indicates the cell was activated to carry out a number of reprisals on expatriates they believe betrayed them. If that leak is correct, your cousins are on that list."

Craig said, "They're looking to get out of Amsterdam as fast as they can."

"There is one ironic twist in all of this," Randal said. "Here may be the safest place for you." He looked at Saleha. "Well, for one of you anyway."

"That's not an option."

Zemar said, "What is not an option?"

"My contact at DHS-ICE and I were having a hypothetical discussion last week about what it would take for a brother and sister from Afghanistan who were smuggled into the US to stay."

"It would accomplish nothing."

Saleha said, "What would it take?"

"In this hypothetical situation, the brother would turn himself in and provide all the information he had on Taliban activity in Afghanistan."

He said, "Zemar's been gone for over five years. All his information is out of date."

"What would we get for this cooperation?" Zemar said.

"Saleha would get a new identity and citizenship immediately. She could complete her education and become a vet."

"And what would I get?"

"You'd get the same thing after you returned."

"They'd send me back to work undercover."

"You know the problem we have trying to collect intelligence. We tend to stand out in the Middle East. But you'd fit right in."

"Is this hypothetical proposal likely to happen if I—"

"You're not going back."

"Craig, please. I know the risks as well as anyone. If Saleha gets a new identity and citizenship, it would be worth it."

Saleha took hold of Zemar's hand. "No, it wouldn't."

"Fifty percent is not a success," he said. "What if someone recognizes you once your back? What if you don't return? We don't even know if this hypothetical scenario is legitimate."

They all looked at Randal.

"Everything we try has its risks, but my sense was that it would likely have been a go if you agreed to return to Afghanistan." He shook his head. "But after Houston, Chicago and LA, this hypothetical might be off the table now. It could be dangerous just bringing it up again."

Craig went to Saleha and Zemar. "Brazil is still an option."

"We should leave as soon as possible," Saleha said. "The risk for everyone if we stay here is too high."

"We will get you somewhere safe, I promise. We haven't come this far to fail."

Randal said, "We are not done yet. Do not give up hope."

Saleha let go of Zemar's hand and bowed her head. "We can only thank you for all that you have done for us. What will be, will be. We are at peace with that."

"Well, I'm not, not by a long shot."

"Sooner or later, we will be discovered. Too many people know of us now. Sheriff McGowan might start asking uncomfortable questions about us." She looked at Randal. "Over here, _we_ tend to stand out."

"She already has."

Zemar said, "Then the risk to everyone has become too great. We do not want to cause trouble for you two or anyone else."

"No one else here knows about your past but us."

"Be realistic, Craig. What do you think association with us would mean for them? Would your DHS-ICE believe no one here had some suspicion about us?"

Saleha went to the window and looked out. "Innocent people who might not all support us if they knew the truth could have their lives ruined." She turned around. "That would include a lovely girl who has just arrived for work, and her mother."

"I have work to do, too," Zemar said.

He and Saleha left.

Randal sighed. "What are we going to do? This is starting to go south on us."

"We have to convince the people in Brazil to take them. Is the escape route ready?"

"Give the word and they can be out within forty-eight hours. By the way, the cousins in Amsterdam are trying to get to Brazil now, too. It could get crowded down there, making it harder for them to hide."

"We can't let them down; not after everything they've been through. Not after what Zemar did for us in Afghanistan."

"Then we won't. I'm on it." Randal left.

He went to the window and watched Saleha, Shana and Caesar walking to the hospital to start work.

Zemar would be going back to eavesdropping on the Colter farm and trying to find out who else had piggybacked onto Colter's website to spy on him. He was also trying to make sense of what they had witnessed when they had spied on the farm last night: an outbuilding about the size of a four-car garage that seemed to be able to house a half-dozen vehicles ranging in size from two John Deere tractors to a five-ton van.

Sometimes it seemed more like they were operating their own clandestine cell than a farm. Their spying was ramping up Zemar's anxiety to a dangerous level. He was close to going after Colter on his own. What would the DHS and FBI think of what they were doing? What would Joan think?

Zemar had a valid point about the danger everyone on the farm was facing, though no one else knew the true story behind their presence here. Zemar had saved his unit from a suicide bomber as they were about to evacuate, but there was no evidence to prove that. Any investigation of the incident was more likely to discover that Zemar had originally been the designated suicide bomber.

And now Shana was involved, too, and by extension, Joan.

He felt a chill go down his spine. All their good intentions were threatening to blow up in their faces and take out innocent people as collateral damage.

The phone rang, sending the chill back up his spine.

"Dr. Harding speaking."

"It's Joan."

"Good morning. How are you?"

"I shot the washing machine after Shana left. It was the humane thing to do."

"I'll back you up if anyone asks."

"Craig, I think we should talk."

Joan was too smart and too experienced not to get suspicious when things didn't look right, or didn't appear to fit properly. Her daughter was working here now. She would naturally be protective and want to investigate. There were the allegations against Colter. Even Joan's alternative scenarios still came back to him. There was Zemar and Saleha. She'd find no record of either of them if she looked, which she'd eventually do if she hadn't already. Any serious conversation with her wouldn't likely end well.

"What would you like to talk about?"

"What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?"

"I hadn't thought that far ahead."

"I know this place that serves a great beef dip. Be there at noon or I'll come get you, and I'll bring my handcuffs."

He hung up. "You only have yourself to blame for this."

# Chapter 35

He met for the last time as a group with his lieutenants at 9:00 am. The meeting was scheduled to last until 9:20 am. The delivery was due at 9:25 am. The execution would take place at 9:30 am. Mattie's appointment was for ten.

"Let's make this quick, gentlemen," he said as he came in.

Sniper stood up. "We took care of the one that got away."

Legion said, "We retrieved the trophy, sir, but left a gift behind fastened to their barn."

Maverick said, "This last group was just as bad as the one before. They lost track of Stripes."

"Send a squad to find it. And get those fools out of here."

"Sent packing at dawn, sir."

"We did have a good weekend, wouldn't you all agree?"

Bobby checked the clipboard he held. "There was a high degree of spread at Houston. The driver had no idea what he was delivering. The preliminary estimate is six to eight weeks to complete repairs to the docks. We can expect similar or better results in the future."

Billy checked the clipboard he held. "Los Angeles made a smaller splash than we'd hoped for, but it confirms that we can infiltrate and achieve our mission objectives. Any more like Chicago are likely to be only diversions unless there are dangerous cargos on board or passengers involved."

"This country is going to count all of you among its greatest heroes when this is over." He took his position at the head of the table.

His lieutenants took their seats.

"I assume the second simulations are still on schedule."

Maverick stood up. "They begin tomorrow, sir. We have increased the delivery yield and our range."

He nodded his approval and looked to Tulsa for his update on Necrosis.

"It has been moved to our central network. You just need to push the button to start the countdown."

"Gentlemen, you have done an exemplary job of keeping an operation this big going smoothly. Tomorrow we implement the last phase. This country will never be the same again. It will be much, much better. Dismissed."

He signaled for Sniper and the twins to come to him as the others left. He said to Sniper. "I think the roof will give you the best sight lines."

"I agree, sir." He saluted before leaving.

"And where are we with our newest recruit?"

Billy said, "Legion has his instructions."

Bobby said, "The booths are at the fairgrounds. We will assemble them on site tomorrow, set the timers with the QR code and get out."

"We will rendezvous in Santa Fe on Sunday. By then, the operation will be completely up and running. There will be nothing left to do but sit back and enjoy the show."

"Legion wants the girl," Bobby said. "He wants to put her on his wall."

"We only need her brother. He can do what he wants with her." He checked his watch. "I believe our delivery men should be arriving soon."

They left the office and joined John Hill to wait for the crew from Los Demonios. The two motorcycles riding escort and the white, five-ton moving van arrived on time as he'd insisted.

Pedro Santiago got out of the cab of the truck and walked past the two men still on their motorcycles. His driver followed him. Neither man came up to Colter's shoulders.

"It's all there, Senor," Santiago said.

Los Demonios was a new group coming up from Mexico. They were making inroads in Arizona, Texas and southern California, and they were eager to expand up the west coast. They brought trouble with them wherever they went. They'd had some sensational public shootouts with rivals in both Mexico City and Los Angeles and were seen as the instigators of the current motorcycle gang war. Aggressive, violent, resourceful, and with enemies everywhere, they were perfect for his needs.

Bobby and Billy went to the back of the van with their clipboards. In just a few minutes, they had finished taking inventory.

Billy brought back a brand new Uzi for him to inspect. "It's all there," he said.

"Of course it is, Senor," Santiago said. "We honor our contracts."

"I knew that from the first moment we met." He waved for Hill to come over. "That is why I accepted your recommendation about Tracker here."

Hill stood at attention. Legion came with him and stood at attention one step back.

Colter glanced at the roof of his house. "Tracker has been a great asset. I thank you for lending him to us."

"Think nothing of it, Senor. We're only too happy—"

"However, I don't believe you did your due diligence on our new recruit's background."

Hill looked at him, then at Santiago.

In response to a slight nod from him, Legion stepped up behind Hill and threw a garrotte wire around his neck. Billy ran to the men and held Hill while Legion tightened the wire. It cut into Hill's neck. Blood seeped then spurted from the wounds. Colter counted down the seconds on his watch. At 9:30 am, he nodded again. Legion yanked on the wire and Hill's head dropped to the ground. Billy let the body drop beside it.

"You see, Pedro, your Mr. Hill was more than just _your_ man. He had a history of ratting out his colleagues to rivals, even to law enforcement sometimes. I can't allow someone like him to hinder my plans. I'm sure you understand."

Pedro and his three men wore the same expression on their faces as was frozen on Hill's. The expressions didn't last long, though. In the six seconds it took for Sniper to fire a bullet into each forehead, the men exhibited varying degrees of rage before going down.

The men assigned to disposal moved in the moment the Mexicans hit the ground. The men assigned to unload the merchandise moved in as soon as the Mexicans hit the ground and drove the van over to the designated ordnance building. The men assigned to other duties took a few seconds to watch the Mexicans hit the ground before going back to work. He still had the best unit in the world.

By the time he entered his house, Sniper was off the roof, the truck was unloaded and there was no evidence of five killings anywhere to be seen. He lit up a perfecto and sat in his living room watching his men through the front window.

Bobby and Billy came in.

"We just got word," Bobby said. "Madsen finally has permission to talk to Wiley. He's on his way to CCI for a meeting with him this afternoon. There's concern Wiley's starting to crack. Madsen and Huard might shift the focus of their investigation if he talks."

"Remind him not to, and initiate shutdown protocols." He blew out a long stream of smoke. "And put the rest of that other refuse in the furnace, too."

Mattie came in the front door just before Billy and Bobby went out. She gave the boys a good looking over. They did the same to her before she closed the door.

One step into the smoky living room, she stopped to take a deep breath. "Who is it this time?" She came over and took the perfecto from him.

"Just you and me and the little lady I have waiting for us upstairs." He took a moment to watch Mattie puffing on the perfecto. "She's very obedient and I thought you might be in the mood for some Chinese sweet and sour. I'll just watch for a bit to see how imaginative you are."

Flushed, she said, "I've had good teachers."

He pointed to the coffee table. "That's for you."

She handed back the cigar, opened the box and pulled out thigh-high leather boots with five-inch heels and zippers along the outsides.

"Those are for tonight. You're going to be the center of attention."

"I always like being that."

"It's a midnight special. They're guests from Portland, three couples with something unique in mind. I've told them all about you."

He took a USB flash drive out of his pocket. "Give this to the man in charge."

"What's on it?"

"That is none of your business. You only need to make the delivery and keep them happy."

"How will I know which one is in charge?"

"That will be obvious." He got up, handed over the USB and smacked her ass. "Now, get that upstairs and get those off."

She kissed his cheek, took the perfecto and did as she was told, leaving a trail of clothes as she sashayed up the stairs.

# Chapter 36

The corner booth she and Harry had sat in was available. The Nite-Lite had a bigger crowd for lunch this time.

Had they sold tickets?

Kate and Susan were waiting for her when she came in.

"Craig just called," Kate said. "He'll be a few minutes late, but he says there's no need for the handcuffs."

"This way," Susan said as if she were there for the first time and led her to the booth. She removed the "RESERVED" sign and put down the menus.

"Two beef dips," she said, "and a large diet Coke for me."

"Craig usually has—"

"Two beef dips and whatever he usually drinks."

Susan smirked, nodded and left with the sign and the menus.

Craig was twelve minutes late. The two beef dips, a diet Coke and a Michelob arrived at the table just after he did.

"I usually have—"

"Sit down, please."

He slid in opposite her. "This isn't a social lunch, then?"

She took a bite of sandwich soaked in dip. "That depends on how you answer my questions."

He picked up his sandwich and took a much smaller bite. He didn't dip it. "Ask me anything, Sheriff."

"Will I get an honest answer?"

He took a drink of beer. "That depends on the question."

"That's typical for this town. Let's start with one you can answer. Why did you give Shana the day off?"

"Yesterday was another one charged with emotions from saying goodbye to the Oregon State students. She was dragging by the end of her shift. I wanted her to take a day to get her energy level back up."

"What did you do in Afghanistan?"

"I presume you researched all that."

"I'd like to hear it from you."

He took another drink of beer. "Mostly, I put soldiers back together as best I could before we shipped them back to their units or back home."

She admonished herself for wondering if every drink he took was a stalling tactic and sipped some of her Coke.

"We also provided outreach services to some of the poorer areas of the city, which was pretty much everywhere."

"You flew combat rescue missions."

"Lots of us flew combat rescue missions."

"You were awarded medals."

He took another drink. "Lots of us were awarded medals."

"Okay, let's go this way. You also went to other villages. You became a goodwill ambassador."

"Word spread. People started coming to Kandahar. We started having trouble treating our own troops and them at the same time, so my CO assigned my unit to visit the surrounding villages. We were just trying to stem the flow."

"You were attacked and wounded in one of those villages."

"It had about nine hundred people in it. Every few blocks a different group with guns and rocket launchers controlled that little patch of territory. There were forty-six of these little enclaves. Every one of them had at least one person in them who the other forty-five groups wanted dead."

"That means they controlled only about twenty people each."

"They'd be mostly relatives. There was a lot of eye for an eye stuff going on there; Sunni-Shia vendettas. Everyone had a grudge against everyone else. And the ones with more direct backing from the Taliban, the more powerful ones, wanted us out or dead, preferably publicly dead in some very gruesome way."

"Poverty, weapons and dogma; a deadly and exploitable combination."

"We got caught in a feud between two neighbors. One group thought we should be providing care to them first. They accused the group we were with of collaborating with the filthy, western infidels."

"No mystery where their backing came from."

"Once the shooting started, other nearby groups joined in. In about an hour, the whole village was fighting itself. I got nicked in the left shoulder."

"It took five stitches to close. Is that where you met Zemar and Saleha?"

"I would guess it took eight for your cheek."

"Good guess. Is that where you met Zemar and Saleha?"

"We met them in Kandahar." He finished his beer. "They'll be leaving soon. Saleha has been accepted to veterinary school in Rio de Janeiro. They have cousins there she can stay with. They operate a horse ranch and she loves horses."

"What about Zemar?"

"He would never let her go alone."

"What did they do in Afghanistan before they came here?"

"You don't let go, do you?"

"I don't have hold of anything."

He reached over and took hold of her hand. "It must seem like you've come back to a small town full of big secrets, but I think it's just vanity you're seeing. We all like to think our lives are important; in a small town maybe more so than in a large one."

Superimposed over his promising, grey-blue gaze, Michael's blank, passive face stared back at her. If Michael's face vanished, Travis Meyer's regret stared back at her. It was an expression no decent person deserved to have stuck on their face in their last moments of life.

Craig didn't deserve this kind of filtering. But a new relationship, especially one that wanted to develop this quickly, was the last thing she needed right now, even if the momentum was coming from both sides. Craig was as evasive as everyone else in Dominion. Where was the basis for something between them in that? Uninvited and unappreciated, Mattie's rant about men and relationships replayed itself.

Kate came over. "How's the dip?"

"Delicious." She withdrew her hand from Craig's.

Kate asked, "Is it true? Are Saleha and Zemar leaving?"

"You know about that?" She hadn't seen Craig talk to her on the way in, but he could have told her when he called her.

"Saleha told Susan. She's very upset."

Craig repeated his story about the cousins and their horses to Kate. Was this being staged? Had Craig arranged this with Kate on the phone? He had her number. He could have called her instead of Kate to tell her he'd be late. Was holding her hand a signal to Kate to intervene because the questions were getting too close to something?

And just exactly when did you finally go over the edge?

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you two were trying to hide something from the new sheriff. But then everyone in Dominion talks to me like that; must be something in the water."

Kate patted her shoulder. "I knew you would be a good sheriff. You just need to be pointed in the right direction." She returned to the kitchen.

"I can find my own damn way."

"She didn't mean anything by it."

"I don't suppose anybody here does." She pushed the beef dip aside. "What are your big secrets in this small town?"

"You actually think I have any?"

"You served in Afghanistan. You returned to Afghanistan as a civilian. You disappeared after that only to reappear with Zemar and Saleha. Is there anything you want to get in front of before I find it out on my own?"

"Nothing comes to mind."

"For a radical veterinarian, you're very evasive."

"I told Harry the man of mystery bit wouldn't work on you."

"Discussing what might work on me with Harry Madsen is only going to piss me off."

"I know that . . . now."

The fire siren began wailing.

"Saved by the bell."

Craig's phone rang. "Cottage Country again? We'll be right there."

Kate rushed back to them. "Want doggy bags?"

"Next time." He slid out of the booth.

"Not a good end to your first date." Kate gathered up the dishes.

That cozy familiarity with her life that everyone in the DGN seemed to have just popped up again. Had someone sharked them holding hands this time?

Craig said, "I thought this was our third. Coming?"

"What?"

"You're the sheriff now."

She slid out of the booth. "I'm driving."

"Of course you are. I can't possibly be evasive and drive at the same time."

# Chapter 37

They said little to each other on the drive to Cottage Country, mostly because Craig spent the time on his phone coordinating his volunteers. The firefighters arrived along with them. Craig ordered her to stop, jumped out of the Suburban and ran to the burning cabin to get them organized. The few remaining cottage residents were spraying the cabin with water from two garden hoses. Craig's crew took over those hoses while Craig got the residents back from the fire.

Flames rose out of the windows and raced up along the roof. As the first large hose from the truck went into action, the roof collapsed. Flames exploded up to twice the height of the cabin. Sparks rose even higher.

She was one hundred feet or more away and could still feel the sudden rush of heat that came with the explosion.

Two firefighters on one of the garden hoses were blown over. They were helped up and away and the hose was abandoned. The second garden hose was also quickly abandoned, replaced by two more hoses from the fire truck.

Sparks and flames spread from the cabin to the surrounding trees. Ten minutes after the explosion from the roof collapse, eight trees were either smoldering or on fire.

She went to the residents and said to the one who had to be Hetherington, "Get out of here."

Hetherington said, "We're staying to protect our cabins."

The top of a pine tree burst into flames like a match being struck.

"Not if I arrest you, you're not."

Hetherington watched the same explosion of flames. "You can't do that." He coughed when smoke swirled around them.

She shielded her face and turned away.

Another pine tree burst into flames.

One of the others said, "What about our stuff?" He pointed out two cabins. They were far enough from the fire at the moment.

She looked to Craig, but he was busy directing the firefighters. "You have two minutes before I come get you."

The other residents scattered back to their cabins. Hetherington stayed with her.

"We started with the hoses right after we heard the crash, but then it just exploded into flames."

They watched another pine tree ignite like someone had soaked it with gasoline. Needles became fiery darts floating everywhere.

"Tell them I heard that strange noise again, only this time it was louder and I could track it to that cabin." He ran back to his cabin.

All residents were evacuated within her two minute deadline.

Kelly arrived in the Dodge Charger with Harry Madsen.

"Is this a big fire?"

Harry nodded. "There is a danger of it spreading."

She said to Kelly, "Set up a roadblock. I don't want any spectators getting through."

"If it's all right with you, Sheriff, I can lend a hand with Kelly."

"Thanks, Harry. I do appreciate that. Take the Suburban."

A helicopter arrived and landed as Harry and Kelly left. An African-American man in a Forest Ranger outfit got out and ran over to her.

"Randal Vance, Sheriff. Hell of a way to meet, isn't it?"

"You're Craig's friend."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You two served together in Afghanistan."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I have about a million questions for you."

"I bet you do, but if you will excuse me, I'm going to call for help on this one." He ran back to his helicopter.

She stayed out of the way while Craig and his firefighters went about their work. Twenty minutes after Randal put in his call, three firefighting teams from Forestry arrived with another, smaller fire truck. Two men put the hose from it into operation. The other men proceeded to dig and cut breaks around the fire. Forty minutes after that, a large helicopter arrived with a huge container of water hanging below it. It hovered over the fire while the crews got out of the way. It then released the water onto the cabin, which hissed like a giant, angry cat, before flying off. The crews immediately went back to work.

Craig came over to her. "There's no wind or we wouldn't have as much accuracy with the helicopter." He went back to commanding his firefighters.

Harry, Craig, Randal, Kate, Susan, Kelly, even Mattie were part of a tightknit community. They had their differences. As Craig had told her, a certain amount of human vanity always went into one's own sense of importance. Harry and Craig, and certainly Kate, were used to calling the shots. They'd been doing it together as part of their jobs for years. Even Craig, the newcomer, the radical, antisocial veterinarian had taken easily to his role as commander of the volunteer firefighters. It was only natural they would be comfortable with each other. They could trust each other.

She was the interloper. She was the one who upset the balance, the previous order of things. Harry's retirement required the disruption, but her own vanity could be distorting her perception. No matter how enthusiastically any of them welcomed her homecoming, they had to get to know her every bit as much as she had to get to know them. She had to get over the feeling that everyone here was trying to shanghai her life and career for their own, secret agenda. Kate and Harry had been part of the panel that hired her. It was only natural they would have discussed their opinions about her. There was no basis for this persistent suspicion of something going on behind her back.

Gossip was part of the social fabric of every community. How would she feel if the DGN exhibited no interest in her at all?

She hadn't recognized Stephanie Peterson at first, the woman who saved her from her father's murderous rampage. Taking people's comments and behavior personally was only going to make settling in here more difficult. It was going to be her fault.

"Tell me something I don't know," she muttered.

She jumped and shivered when Craig said from behind, "Better move back a bit." He took her by her arm and backed her up.

The huge helicopter flew in again and hovered for a few seconds while Randal radioed directions to the pilot. The second load of water was dropped. The hiss sounded wetter this time. Less than ten percent of the fire was still going when the helicopter flew away.

Randal brought over a canvas duffle bag, withdrew bottles of water and towels and handed them out.

She wiped the heavy perspiration off her face. "God, I wasn't even aware." She was soaking wet.

"It can be hypnotic," Randal said. "If you're in just the right spot—or wrong—you don't feel the heat at first, not any more than your mind tells you should be there. But as the fire grows, it takes hold of you and you start to boil."

She took a drink of water.

"Sorry about this." Craig poured his water over her head.

"Jesus." The water rose off her as steam.

Randal laughed. "We just about had a broiled sheriff."

She poured her water over her head, wiped herself down and got another bottle of water.

Craig and Randal went back to their responsibilities.

She pulled her wet blouse away from her skin. They behave professionally; she overheats and enters an impromptu wet T-shirt contest. If video of this got out, it would probably set a speed record going through the DGN.

"Dammit."

She found another towel, grabbed the one Craig had left behind and continued to dry her blouse as best she could. A dry blouse was stashed in the back of the Suburban.

The firefighters took about another two hours to completely extinguish the fire. The cabin was a low pile of charred, wet debris and ash when they were done.

Once Harry returned with the Suburban, and while he talked to Craig and Randal, she got into the back of the SUV and changed into the dry blouse. She rejoined them still tucking it into her pants.

"Hetherington told me to tell you he heard that same noise again. This time it was louder and he could track it to the cabin just before the crash."

"The crash?" Craig looked for Hetherington.

"I evacuated all of them."

"Thank you for that."

Harry said, "Let's have a look." He nodded to her. "If that is all right with you, Sheriff?"

"You guys are the experts. Just let me know what you see that I undoubtedly won't."

Craig led them into the debris. "Watch out for small fires that might still be going. This would have been the great room. Back there was the kitchen and the door to the back. The bath and laundry were across the hallway. Stairs at the front went up to probably three bedrooms and a full bath."

"It's all down here now." Randal slid his foot through the ash sludge.

The four of them spread out to search. Randal was the first to find a flame and stomped it to death before clearing away debris to prevent it from coming back to life.

Shana would call them zombie fires.

Harry found what he was looking for shortly after that. He brought them all together to show them the center of another red, plastic propeller. The rest had melted away.

"That was the noise," she said. "I'm sure I heard something similar out by the Colter farm the Friday I moved here."

Craig and Randal looked at each other with the same puzzlement on their faces. Harry was the most affected by what she'd just said. Something shocking was going through his mind.

"This cabin was deserted," Craig said, "like the first one."

"The first one wasn't deserted. We found bones from human fingers."

"I don't like where this is going."

"There's another one." Randal ran to where the kitchen used to be.

Her heart skipped when she turned to watch him, but he only meant another flame still alight. He dispatched it as quickly as he had the first one and rejoined them.

"Both of these fires were set deliberately."

The three men looked at her. Harry seemed the most open to what she was saying.

She took the propeller center from Harry and held it up. "A remote control helicopter could have delivered the incendiary device to each cabin." After a quick look around at the cabin they were in, she pointed to the other burnt one. "This fire was hotter."

"A lot hotter," Craig said. "We were lucky to keep it from spreading any farther."

"In your report on the first fire, Hetherington said he heard a buzzing noise like wasps swarming right before the small explosion every resident swore they heard. This time, he heard an even louder version of that noise, so loud that he had no trouble tracking it to the cabin right before a crash and an even bigger explosion and a hotter fire. My bet would be thermite."

Harry said, "A bigger helicopter."

"Or more than one. Either way, both fires were set deliberately. You know what to look for."

They spread out again.

Craig came past her and said, "This is what Kate meant. She knew you would be really good at what you do." When he returned to the spot he was searching, he passed a brief flash of something shining on the floor of what used to be the great room.

She ran to the spot and knelt down. At first, she saw nothing but a mound of wet, black soot just over a foot high. Her fingers were getting as black as the debris she was brushing aside. Glancing back to where she had been standing by what would have been the stairs, she followed as best she could what she thought had been her line of sight and looked down. To the right of her knee, she caught a faint glimmer of metal sticking out of the mucky ash.

She dug out a set of keys attached to a key ring and a charred remnant of leather. "Found something."

As the three men came to her, she brushed aside more black muck to find the remains of the hand that had held the keys.

"Oh shit." She stumbled backward when a floorboard gave way under her.

Craig and Harry caught her.

They partially uncovered the remains of six bodies laid out side by side before backing away.

"On a quick look," Craig said, "they appear to all be men and all under the age of forty."

Harry said to her, "I think this is a job for your former colleagues."

"I'll put in the call."

"Before you do," Harry said and took her aside. "I was with Kelly because I'd come to see you. I got nada from Wiley yesterday, but he knows something. Tomorrow, you and I are taking a second crack at him."

"What about Huard's objections?"

"Let him get angry. It's too important to play silly need to know games anymore. This shitload of bodies is proof of—"

His cell phone began ringing.

Harry put it to his right ear, covered his left and walked a few paces away. He said little in response to what he was being told, but he nodded frequently. When the call was over, he came back to her shaking his head.

"That was Mark," he said. "Wiley's dead. They got to him even in CCI. Caroline Nguyen also called him. She confessed to having had a brief affair with Wiley and she's suddenly remembered something he told her. He's bringing her in to give a statement. He wants me to be there."

# Chapter 38

Donny and Lily arrived on their bikes at the site they'd Googled yesterday ten minutes after she did. It was in the hills above and to the northeast of Colter's farm. They had started together, but Donny and Lily had quickly fallen behind.

"You're only allowed to use one leg next time," Donny said between gulps of air.

"It's over here."

Donny and Lily set their mountain bikes up against the same tree she used and followed her to the edge of a cliff. There were plenty of trees and bushes to provide cover for them.

She knelt behind a bush and pointed down. The part of Colter's farm near where it met the forest and the lower slopes in the northeast were blocked by tree tops, but they had a good view of the approach to the farm, the main compound grounds, Colter's house, most of the outbuildings and the greenhouses.

"Over there." Donny pointed out smoke rising to the north. "Looks like a forest fire."

"That's at Cottage Country," she said. "Mom called to let me know she might be late because of it."

"Did anyone think to bring binoculars or something?" Lily shielded her eyes from the sun. "I can hardly see a thing."

"Can we get closer?" Donny peaked over the cliff.

"It clears lower down, but then they might see us."

"We're just out for a bike ride. There's nothing suspicious about that. Everyone comes up here."

"Colter knows who I am. He'll be suspicious."

"Suit yourself."

Lily still shielded her eyes. "At least they don't look like ants from up here, more like hairless gerbils on steroids if I squint just right. Are you sure we can't get closer?"

"We can if you want them to see us, too. Remember the message on your computer? Someone on the farm has to know you hacked into their cameras."

"That was from the other hacker. Whoever it was stole Colter's tattoo symbol to spoof his true origins. It was just a warning not to mess with his junk."

"Do you know who the other hacker is?"

"Not directly, but I can look around if you want. I can try to make contact."

"They could be an ally."

"Or they could just be an internet cross-dresser looking to slag other basement-dwelling cosplay trolls."

"It might be too dangerous if both of them are hostile. What if they come after you?"

"It may look like Godzilla versus Bambi, but this Bambi has fangs. I'll bite those bitches in half."

"I see trucks coming in." Donny pointed. "Cement trucks."

For the next hour, they watched trucks come and go. Eight cement trucks arrived and drove out of sight into the northeast sector of the farm. Donny and Lily got out their phones to record videos of them.

"I don't think they will be clear enough from this far away to be considered conclusive evidence," Donny said.

"Conclusive evidence of what?"

Two trucks arrived and unloaded more men.

"Farm labor?" Lily focused her camera on the men coming out of the trucks. "Not to be crude but there isn't a single BUFF in the group. Statistically speaking, that's odd, even for farm labor."

"They're not farm workers," Donny said. "They're all big, fit, white and military looking."

"What does he need all that cement for? How much is that?"

"Each truck carries eight cubic yards of concrete. With eight trucks that would be sixty-four cubic yards. That could be the floor to a very large barn."

"What does his farm grow?"

Lily said, "According to the website, they grow tomatoes, cucumbers and various decorative plants in greenhouses. He also grows pumpkins, squash, corn, wheat, alfalfa, cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts in his fields. Except for the pumpkin, all the others are new in the last two years."

"Cabbage and Brussels sprouts," Donny said. "That clinches it. He is definitely evil."

She said, "He's, like, one-half farmer, one-half hunter and one-half militia screwball."

Lily scowled at her. "You're not good at fractions, are you?"

"Don't believe in 'em."

"We're not getting anything from up here. We should go lower."

"Someone on his farm killed that elk. There has to be evidence somewhere down there, but I overheard mom and Craig talking about damaged veterans working for Colter. Those guys won't be happy if they spot us trying to get that evidence."

"No one's going to see us. Don't be such a wussy-pussy."

"Who saved your skinny ass at the mall?"

"I didn't need your—"

"Shush." Donny stood up. "Did you hear that?"

She held her breath and listened.

"There it is again."

"Shh." Lily closed her eyes and cocked her head.

Amid what sounded like normal chirping and cawing of birds, rustling leaves and the whisper of a gentle breeze, a strange buzzing sound seemed to be swirling around them.

"A hummingbird?" She looked around. There were no flowers in bloom at this altitude that would attract a hummingbird. "Bees?"

"Colter has bees. That's on his website, too."

Donny, still standing, looked up. "I don't think Colter sent a hive of bees after us." He knelt back down beside them as the buzzing rose up and away. "There's no more traffic."

The new men had dispersed. She counted twenty men that were still visible. It was hard to make out what they were doing.

"Uh-oh, I was wrong." Lily pulled down her phone. "Two of those damaged veterans just looked this way."

She peaked over the bush. Six men of the twenty were now looking their way.

The strange buzzing noise zipped past overhead and left. The forest went preternaturally silent.

"What—"

Something snorted and growled to their right. What were the odds that Caesar had caught her scent and traipsed up here from the farm to be with her?

"Go, go, go!" She pushed both Lily and Donny to get them turned around and running back to their bikes.

They raced down the trail. Even she had trouble negotiating the twists, turns, logs and sudden drops at the speed she was trying to go. Donny fell once and had to help Lily up at the same spot before they caught up to her where she had stopped to wait for them. At the bottom of the overgrown trail, they emerged onto the gravel parking lot at the edge of Quarrelle Lake. All of them looked back for anything coming after them.

"A bear?" Lily said.

"It sounded more like a mountain lion," Donny said.

"It wasn't a mountain lion. We go again tomorrow."

Donny and Lily looked back along the trail again.

Donny asked, "Don't you have to work?"

"I'll figure something out. We'll find another spot closer next time." She then said to Lily, "See if you can contact that other hacker. Tell him what we've seen and try to find out what he knows about Colter."

Lily checked one more time for something coming after them. "I have a few cyber-friends I can recruit to help with that."

Donny said, "I'll bring dad's high-def video camera. It has a telephoto lens. If we get anything good, I can post it on my blog."

She remained at the parking lot to give them a ten minute head start. Her phone rang just after they disappeared around a curve in the road. "What's happening with the fire?"

"It's ugly up here, sweetheart. I'm going to be late. How are you doing?"

"Feeling better, I just went for a ride with Donny and Lily. We're on our way home."

# Chapter 39

Bobby and Billy were the only ones with him. This close to full launch of the operation, everyone knew what their role was. Everyone knew the targets and the timetable. Bobby and Billy had compiled the results of their second simulations and had all the details in their reports. Billy had the best news for him.

"Harding and Vance knew Zemar and his sister when they were posted in Kandahar. They went back as civilians, smuggled them out of there and into the US."

"And Zemar has the connection we need, is that confirmed?"

"According to our intelligence, he was involved with the Taliban when he was sixteen. With Harding and Vance's help, he managed to get out and flee the country."

"You never get out of something like that. His escape was a ruse to get him here. He's set up countless cells since his arrival. The stuff has been planted where it can be found?"

"It's hidden in his room."

"Good. Harding and Vance will go down with their terrorist orphans. At the least, they will be seen as patsies." He took out a cigar. "I know exactly how to get this information to the right person." He looked at Bobby. "The fire?"

"It was within specifications. They found the bodies. Once they are all identified, Hill will be linked to Los Demonios. They will assume Wiley's lackey just got caught up in some turf war over drug dealing."

Colter got up. "It's time."

He led Billy and Bobby out of his office and over to the converted cargo containers. He went in first.

Three men were sitting at consoles. Two of the men were RPA pilots. The other one, Legion, provided mission guidance and collated the data received. The two converted containers were the only places on the farm with air conditioning, needed to keep the equipment from overheating.

"What about our three spies from this morning?"

Legion pressed a button on his console and the recording started on the 40" Sony monitor in front of him. From overhead, they could see three teenagers crouching at the edge of a cliff. Two had their phones out recording the activities on the farm.

"That's a good picture."

Legion said, "Sir, we're at five thousand feet with telephoto and four-k resolution. We can detail everything."

The teenagers talked together for about another minute before they all ducked back from the cliff's edge. The tallest of the three suddenly started pushing at the other two.

"That's likely when they heard Stripes growl, sir."

The trio ran back to their bikes and raced away.

"That one," Legion said, "is the McGowan girl. She's very attractive, nice skin."

"And the other two?"

Bobby said, "Wiley's daughter and that Korean kid."

"This is synergy at its best."

"They might have just been out for a ride. It's a popular trail. I've used it myself."

"And they just stopped to check us out? I don't think so."

"We're ready for them if they come back."

He asked Legion, "The Harding-Nyland farm?"

Legion pointed to the pilot immediately to his right. "Eagle one is over it now, sir."

"Let's have a look."

Legion pushed a series of buttons that replaced the three teenagers with a live feed of their surveillance of Harding's facilities.

"Zoom in."

The pilot maneuvered the drone to swing around and come at the farm from the south. The feed closed in from a panoramic shot to focus on the main compound. Colter spotted the building he was looking for.

"Stay on that. Give me your best shot."

The camera zoomed in to reveal the weathering on both the clapboard siding and the roof of the old tool shed.

"We'll get a big splash, sir," Legion said. "We'll paint them all over the ground."

He patted Legion's shoulder, then the shoulders of each of the pilots. "I am proud of all of you."

He and the Cotton twins returned to his office. He poured each of them a drink of bourbon.

After finishing his, he said, "Where are we with Wiley?"

"He was taken care of this morning. He told Madsen nothing yesterday."

Billy looked over his clipboard. "Three elevators detonated. There were two casualties in San Francisco, three in Detroit and three in Seattle."

"We do have one potential problem. Madsen is likely bringing McGowan into his investigation."

He had thorough assessments of the Dominion Sheriff's Department under Joan McGowan, even under the old one, plus the taps on their phones and the malware on their computers. She was looking into him using her contact at the FBI, Colin Foster. She was also looking into Harding, and had discovered discrepancies regarding those two illegal immigrants he was harboring. McGowan wouldn't discover anything incriminating about him because there was nothing for her to discover; he had taken care of that. Once the operation began, it would be too fast and too multifaceted for anyone to keep up with or anticipate before the goals had been achieved. By then, there would only be that terrorist left to apprehend. Everything had been measured, assessed, calculated and considered.

"She's right where she needs to be. We just have to point her in the right direction and she will take care of the rest for us."

"We still haven't been able to find Stripes even after he got close to those kids."

"Call off the search; he has a different role to play now."

Billy continued with his part of the report. "The digging is complete."

Bobby said, "Necrosis and Vigilante are both ready and will be launched Friday at midnight. Everything they do will look like incursions from the Chinese, North Koreans or Iran. The other RPAs are finished and also ready for launch. We have sixteen assets and a mobile unit ready for deployment in the field." He lowered his clipboard.

Billy lowered his clipboard. "Everything is a go, sir. They won't know what hit them."

"But we want them to know. That will only make it easier for us. Dominion is going to be Firetown one last time." He lit his cigar. "If you will excuse me, I believe my dinner guest has arrived."

Billy and Bobby walked out of the office as Mattie walked in.

Wearing the same black dress she'd worn at the banquet, she came to his desk, sat on the corner of it and handed over the flash drive.

He handed her the perfecto.

"What's on that?"

"The key to every lock on every door I want opened."

"Doors to what, sweetie?" She exhaled smoke as she spoke and handed back the cigar.

He took two long puffs. "That would be telling."

"Look at all I've done for you, and let you do to me. You owe me something extra for all that."

"In truth, I do. I may even owe you more than I owe anyone else. You have been invaluable to me this past year and a half."

"I'm glad we agree. What do I get?"

"First, a delicious dinner and then I have something very important to tell you. Then, as they say in those old gangster movies, I'm going to see that you get your piece of the action."

He handed back the cigar, stood up and offered his arm to her. They exited the office and headed for his house. Mattie hugged his arm and puffed on the cigar as they walked across the grounds.

With the perfecto clenched between her teeth, she said, "You have a lot of hunks working here."

"Yes, I do, and I've been considering what I might give them as a special treat for all they've done."

"I'm sure you'll think of something."

# Chapter 40

The top of the sun was going down behind the lower hills when they reached the bluff. Whoever hadn't yet turned on their flashlight did so.

"Let's take a break," Craig said.

Doug pointed to the east. "The last traps we found were that way about half-a-click."

Nigel said, "They keep moving them, but they keep them near the animal trails. They've been going higher into the mountains, but the animals will be coming lower this time of year. It's getting cold up there at night."

"We could split up," he said. "Zemar and I will go farther up, you two backtrack.

Nigel swept his hand in a southeast to southwest arc. "Most of the predators hunt in those areas of the hills."

Zemar said, "I don't think we should split up."

"We'll cover more ground."

"We've been out here three hours and haven't found a thing this time. Maybe they've closed down."

"They might be concerned we're getting too close to catching them in the act." Doug walked along the path that would take them higher into the hills. The sun finally set as he started up the trail, leaving only his flashlight beam visible for a few seconds.

Something growled.

"This way." Zemar sprinted into the forest.

He, Doug and Nigel jogged after him. Everyone pointed their lights at Zemar's back to keep him in sight. They had to push back or duck under branches, climb over fallen trees that now hosted their own communities. Zemar pulled away from them and vanished.

The growl, weaker, came again, followed by a snort.

"Over here," Zemar called.

Nigel aimed his flashlight and led the way.

They emerged into a clearing to where Zemar was kneeling beside a dead male tiger.

"Fuckers." Doug knelt down to examine it. "It's been shot twice, once in the left rear quarter and once at the back of the neck. That one must have gone right through it." He looked up at Craig. "It has to be at least a hundred pounds lighter than it should be."

"It was starved to weaken it."

Zemar patted it. "It was tortured, too. They wanted to make sure it wouldn't get too far when released for the hunters."

"Even if it had eluded them," Doug said, "it couldn't hunt. It would have starved to death within a few days."

"That's it," he said. "We've got them now. He can hardly claim poachers brought in a tiger, starved and tortured it nearly to death just so they could hunt it." He looked down at the tiger. "Can we take it back with us?"

Nigel took out his machete. "I'll put something together."

Nigel and Zemar made a stretcher and the four of them carried the tiger back to the truck.

"It hardly weighs anything," Nigel said after they loaded it into the box. "We have to stop these motherfuckers or I'm going to do some hunting of my own."

Zemar said, "You won't be going alone."

Once back at the farm, Nigel and Doug took the tiger into the hospital. Zemar went to the office.

He remained at the truck and looked around at the farm. Colter's farm and his were fraternal twins. The layout of the buildings was similar. He could understand anyone who visited both farms thinking they were the same. But every animal that came here was here to get better and live a long and healthy life. Every animal that went to the Colter farm was going there to die.

He had never believed he could hate someone so much. He started for the hospital to get the necropsy over with.

Zemar intercepted him. "We have just received what could be the information we need from someone called Tarot."

Zemar took him to his computer and pointed to the screen. It was the record of Colter's orders that Zemar had shown him last week.

"And what am I looking at that's supposed to be so helpful?"

"Tarot claims to have broken Colter's code. Watch what happens when I apply the decryption." He moved the cursor to the lower right corner of the screen and clicked on the _DECODE_ button.

The farm supplies became something entirely different. The order for 1000 gallons of corn oil translated to 1000 pounds of fertilizer.

"For explosives," Zemar said.

The order for 100,000 pounds of fuel pellets became 100,000 rounds of ammunition, further broken into different amounts of specific types of ammunition that had previously been supplies of seeds for corn, beets, alfalfa and wheat.

Zemar clicked on another button.

The origin of some of the orders changed from domestic sites to places in Mexico, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Lebanon and Kazakhstan.

"He's been getting fertilizer for years, far more than he could possibly use. And it looks like he has others buying for him to avoid suspicion and then delivering it. He's accumulated tons of it over the years, careful not to raise any red flags."

"Who is Tarot?"

"And there's this, too." Zemar brought up an inventory of building materials and supplies. "He's brought in enough concrete and cinder blocks to build his own neighborhood."

"Everyone knows he's expanding. Who is Tarot?"

Zemar shook his head. "This is our first contact."

"So we don't know anything about them."

"We know what they've given us."

"They could have made all this up. We can't prove they broke any code. We can't prove there even is a code to be broken."

"Tarot also sent us this." He brought up another window on the screen.

A video came on of men at the Colter farm marching with rifles in their hands and lining up to be inspected by Colter.

"And, according to Tarot, the Cotton twins are explosives experts. Is it starting to look like Afghanistan to you now?"

"It could be faked. Even if it is real, it could be inadmissible."

"Why? Law enforcement didn't sneak in and get it, a private citizen did. And there's our video of the garage with the big appetite."

"What do we tell them? A private citizen who is unknown to us hacked into Colter's surveillance cameras, filmed them playing soldier and then sent it to us."

"Even if they can't use the videos, they'd have probable cause. We have the tiger now _and_ this."

"We can show it to Joan. Maybe she can do something with it."

"If she can't do something with it, I'll do something about it."

"We have to keep you and Saleha out of this. You'll be leaving for Brazil in a few days. I'll tell her I've been dealing with Tarot."

"It's your farm."

He took out his phone and called Joan. "We need to talk."

"Everyone wants to talk to me now, first Harry, then Kate and now you. What is it?"

"We found a dead tiger. It was starved and tortured and shot."

"You think this proves it was Colter's people?"

"Poachers, slickers and disturbed veterans don't bring in their own exotic animals so they can hunt them. At the pub you said you had hold of nothing, but there's been a second deliberate fire with more human remains found and now the tiger. And we've found something else, too."

"What, a rhinoceros?"

"Joan . . . ?"

"Sorry, that was uncalled for. What else have you found?"

"It would be better if you just took a look at it for yourself. I'm not really sure what it means or what to do about it. I'm not sure what you can do about it or if you'll even believe it."

"Another unbelievable mystery in Dominion; gee, that's a shocker. Will it keep until tomorrow?"

"It will keep, but you do need to see it as soon as possible."

"Then after I've talked to Mattie, Kate and Harry, in that order, I will come see you. And there's one more thing. Shana won't be coming back to work there until you and I have resolved our own mysteries." She hung up.

# Chapter 41

This was going to be one long day of confrontations starting with Shana.

"Why can't I go to work?"

"I'll explain later."

"Explain now."

"Shana, I will explain later."

"You're afraid of him."

"Afraid of whom?"

"Craig. You're afraid of how you feel about him."

"I don't feel one way or another about him."

"You're lying to me again. Why bother? Dad's dead; there's no one to cheat on anymore."

"That's enough. You're not going to the Harding farm again until I say you can."

Shana dropped onto a chair at the dining room table. "I stole a wallet."

"What? When? Where?"

"At the mall, and I got caught, too. But that wasn't a problem. Your deputy flexed her muscles and got me out of trouble. It's who you know, right? And I'm the Sheriff's daughter. What could be better than that?"

"We're not doing this right now. We'll talk when I return."

"That will just be another waste of time." Shana sneered up at her. "I may be a _klepto_ , but you're a natural born liar."

"Stay here. I mean it."

She left Shana sitting at the table with her arms crossed and a look of righteous hatred on her face that only a teenager could display. At least some of that was deserved.

She drove to Mattie's place in Fleetwood Grove. The Mercedes was in the drive. The front door wasn't locked. She entered after Mattie didn't respond to the either the bell or her knocks on the door. She walked through the whole main floor.

"Mattie?"

Something thumped upstairs.

She reached for her Beretta, but didn't take it out. A trail of clothing and two blood-stained towels led her up the stairs to Mattie's bedroom. Mattie was in bed but not asleep.

"Mattie, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"Just a long day showing homes yesterday. I'm exhausted."

She sat on the bed. "Mattie, that's why I came to see you; I know you're not selling houses. I checked with your office. My house is the only one you've sold in over a year."

"Being sheriff doesn't give you the right to be a busybody."

"It does if I'm worried about the kind of trouble my friend might be getting herself into."

"I'm not in any trouble."

She edged closer to Mattie. "I called you here and on your cell phone. You never got back to me. What were you doing last night? Where did the blood on those towels come from?"

"I don't need a chaperone." Mattie winced when she tried to sit up and had to put her right arm out from under the covers for support. It was covered in bruises.

She took out her phone. "You're going to the hospital."

"I just slipped coming up the stairs last night."

"Mattie, I know what kind of bruises those are and they're not from a fall. They're from someone holding you too tight."

"Aren't you the Sherlock Holmes?"

"I know what you're doing, Mattie."

"And what would that be, Sheriff?"

"You're selling yourself for sex. That's your new internet-based business."

"No, I'm selling sex for myself. And why shouldn't I? I've been doing it since I was thirteen. I'm just making more money at it now."

"Thirteen? What are you talking about?"

"My four-b stepfather gave me a special present when I turned thirteen, when I became a woman. He delivered it personally to my bedroom after the party was over."

"Mattie, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"There's so bloody much you don't know it's a bad joke. But it doesn't matter now. I got everything I wanted out of him, and I learned what I needed to make more than I ever could just selling fucking houses to clueless idiots. There are hundreds of big, burly, bald bastards out there who will pay lots of money for what I can do. I earn more in a year than you will in ten."

"It's not about the money." She tried to inspect the bruises, but Mattie put her arm back under the blankets.

"Don't be stupid, sweetie. Of course it is. This is fucking America. The land of the free doesn't exist. Everything is for sale here: guns, bombs and especially people. What I do doesn't hurt anyone unless it's called for, and it's nobody's business but my own."

"If it's against the law, it's my business."

"Don't give me that sanctimonious bullshit. I at least get paid for fucking around, and I'm not leaving behind some poor schmuck in a coma to do it."

Mattie let the blankets fall away from her naked upper body. Both arms were bruised the same way. Her breasts were bruised from being mauled. Both nipples had scabs over them. She'd been choked. Her upper lip was cut.

"My god, Mattie what happened to you?"

Mattie looked down at herself. "Just having a little fun with the boys, sweetie."

"How could you . . . ?"

"And another thing you should know, Joanie, dear, is your father was okay with what I did. He was so okay with what I could do for him that he couldn't get enough of me; a girl the same age as his daughter but with all those skills and tricks I'd learned. After step-dad left with the big-C, I had to find a new source. Your daddy was all too willing to step up and provide everything I wanted. What do you think of that?"

Her face flushed. She raised her hand to slap Mattie.

"Go ahead. That's what I'm here for. If the price is right, you can do anything you want to me." She coughed, took a drink of water. "At first, he wanted to share me with your mom, but she'd have none of that, too prissy and moral for that kind of adventure. Then he just wanted everyone else out of the way so he could have me all to himself. You and mom just had to go."

The room wavered. She gasped for air. Her chest ached, her heart slowed as if it was going to stop.

"He was my sugar daddy until he lost it that night after your mother gave him her ultimatum. Did you know he called me just before he set the house on fire? And there must be a bit of him in you because we know all about your affair." Mattie leaned forward and gave her a look more fiercely hateful than Shana had flashed at her. "You can really pick 'em, can't you, sweetie? Your husband gets himself killed while you're fucking your new partner. Then your partner gets himself killed under your command. And now your new boyfriend is harboring terrorists on his farm."

She was still having trouble breathing. It took a moment before she realized Mattie had reversed the sequence about Travis and Michael. And what had she just said about Craig? "What are you telling me?"

Mattie slid back down and covered everything but her head. "Nothing. Forget it."

"You can't tell me my father killed my mother and tried to kill me because he loved you and then say nothing else."

"I didn't say he loved me, sweetie, he just had to have me and all I could do for him more than he had to have you."

"You were my best friend."

"No, Stephanie was, but you thought it was better to hang out with the one who had all the expensive toys, all the best stuff you could show off in this dingy town, only you didn't know your daddy was getting most of it for me."

Tears stung her eyes. She wiped them away and took out her handcuffs. "I'm taking you in for prostitution."

"Don't waste your time. I'd be out before you finished the paperwork. Besides, you might need those things for Zemar. He commands terrorist cells spread out all over America. He gave the order to ambush you at the Crowley farm. And Harding and Vance smuggled them into the US. Now Harding has your daughter working for him. Like I said, sweetie, you really can pick 'em."

"Who told you this?"

"All kinds of people tell me all kinds of things. Go check him out, see what you find." Mattie pulled the covers aside. "You know, sweetie, I've always had a soft spot for you."

"You're crazy."

She shrugged. "Going either way is more lucrative."

If Mattie was telling the truth, she now knew why her father had killed her mother and tried to kill her. She had also selfishly neglected the friend who eventually saved her life to be with the rich one who was a sugar doll for her father. And Harding might have smuggled the terrorists who were responsible for the ambush at the Crowley farm into the country. She had developed suspicions, but not along those lines.

Mattie pulled the covers back up. "If you're not going to give me what I need, get out of my house. Go see if your new boyfriend will let you join his commune of terrorists. Maybe he'll give you a crack at Zemar, let you be the hero again and get back in with the FBI. You're useless in Dominion."

She got up and called Kelly. "Get over to Mattie Griffin's house. Make sure she gets to the hospital and stay with her."

"On my way, ma'am. What's the problem?"

"She's under arrest for prostitution." She took a deep breath that only made her dizzier. "I know what you did for Shana."

"Oh."

She took hold of Mattie's left wrist and attached one bracelet from her handcuffs to it. She attached the other bracelet to the thick maple bedpost.

"Ooh, I like that. Change your mind, sweetie? I don't usually give out free samples, but you do have a great ass and we do have a special history between us." Mattie offered her other wrist.

She wiped her stinging eyes. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, Mattie, but you're under arrest for prostitution."

"Bitch." She turned away and pulled the covers up to her chin.

Outside the house, Joan waited for her breathing to return closer to normal before calling the Nite-Lite pub. Someone other than Kate or Susan answered. "Where's Kate?"

"She's not here at the moment," the man said.

"Susan, then."

"She's not here either. Can I take a message?"

"This is Sheriff McGowan. Who is this?"

"It's Derek, Sheriff."

"Where are they? I'm supposed to see her at ten."

"I'm not sure where they went, but they left about five minutes ago with Mayor Jones."

"They went with Leo?" She didn't think her voice could get that high anymore.

"They did, yes."

First Shana's confession, then Mattie's revelations, now Kate and Susan going somewhere together with Leo Jones, and she still had to get through Harry and Craig. She called Shana, but Shana didn't answer. She tried two more times before leaving a message to call her back immediately.

She called Harry. "Get to the office as quick as you can."

"I'm already there. I just talked to Kelly on her way out. You obviously figured out what Mattie's been doing."

"I found out how long she's been doing it and what got her started." She started trembling. "Do you know what she told me?"

"I always suspected, but I could never prove anything. What can I do to help?"

"What would make Kate and Susan go anywhere with Leo?"

"The only thing I can think of is a gun."

# Chapter 42

Harry was waiting in her office when she arrived. He was standing at the window holding a binder under his arm.

He dropped the binder on her desk. "Mark gave this to me after we talked to Caroline. Most of it is redacted. The people Wiley was involved with are audacious and insane. I don't know if Wiley knew what he was getting himself into. Maybe he wanted to get caught in the end."

"Before we do this, tell me what you know about dad and Mattie."

Harry grimaced. "This may not be the best time for—"

"Please."

He looked out the window. "No one could find any reason behind it. You know that part. But just before you left, I found something." He wasn't looking at anything but he wouldn't look at her. "You remember his workshop in the basement?"

She nodded, though he couldn't see her. "Yes."

"After the funeral, I went back to the ruins to have another look. The fire had done a good job of obliterating everything except for your father's workbench."

"You're talking about that metal section."

"It was all twisted from the heat, but it was still intact. I found a metal panel underneath it that opened into a chamber below." He wiped his brow. "We should do this some other time."

"Tell me now."

Harry was already pale. The light from the window threatened to wash out any remaining color left in him. "The chamber had been protected from the fire. It was about the size of a small bedroom. He had contraptions in there. You understand what I mean?"

"I understand." Her dad had been another resident of Dominion with his own special secret.

"I found video tapes and pictures in a fireproof box. I couldn't be sure who the girl was with him, she wore masks and wigs. You were about to leave for university and I couldn't prove it had any connection to what happened. There was no point in hurting you any further."

"How did you find out it was Mattie?"

"It was just a process of elimination. There were only two possibilities. It was clear the girl was a teenager. It wasn't you, so the likely candidates were Stephanie or Mattie. I kept my eye on both of them. Over the years, Mattie's behavior, while not conclusive, was the most indicative. She was travelling a lot. In a depressed real estate market in a city struggling economically, she was getting wealthier."

She dropped into her chair and looked down at the binder. "What is this?"

"It's terrifying if any of it is true."

"Just give me the highlights."

"There are no highlights, Joan." He sat down across from her and tapped the binder. "This is essentially the apocalypse, revelations about the planned destruction of the United States of America from within."

He shoved the binder over to her.

She flipped through the pages. Almost eighty percent of the entries were blacked out or missing. "How did you get the apocalypse out of this?"

"Smoke and mirrors, it's all about distracting us, drawing our attention to something else and then wham." He clapped his hands hard. "They even have a name for it: Operation Gangrene."

"What were their objectives?"

Harry grimaced again. "I suppose Mark's already become a victim. He's read the whole report and no longer trusts anybody. You should have been brought into this as soon as you arrived."

"Thanks for the compliment. I think."

"The first phase is infiltration. They were going to slip people into both government agencies and private sector companies involved with national security."

"They couldn't possibly go that big. There are hundreds of them."

"You know better than that. You warned about exactly this in your report on the risk of increasing domestic terrorist activities. It's the fragmentation issue."

"How do you know about that?"

"Joan, please, we need to stay on topic here. The high number of companies is actually what would make it easy not difficult. That's what you concluded in your report, didn't you: too many fragments to keep track of?"

She nodded.

"No one knows who all of them are or what they're all doing. Wiley's guys, though, they did their homework. They might just have a more comprehensive list than Washington does. They only need to pick the easy marks to get started."

He got up and paced around the office. Even after moving some things when she took over, he easily navigated the new layout because he was so familiar with this room. He could probably tell the story behind every scratch and nick.

"Once inside," he said, "they would get access to our intelligence gathering network, our monitoring and surveillance capabilities. That's what your report concluded."

"Only some of that is done by the private sector. DHS, CIA, FBI and the like tap into their feeds as needed, but it's a cumbersome process that doesn't provide that much useful intelligence. Besides, these companies would detect what was happening."

"Not necessarily. You're a new company with leading-edge surveillance technology. Maybe you've found a way to read minds or something else fantastic. Soon, DHS or FBI comes knocking on your door with a fistful of money asking if you can do some work for them. What do you do? You should know. Wasn't this one of your scenarios?"

"You grab the loot and start hiring like mad. That's where your vulnerability comes in. The word gets out. You're looking to snag people with certain skills as quickly as you can."

He looked around the room as if he expected to find hidden cameras. "You had an updated network installed, right?"

"You know we did. It started before you left."

"Did any of those guys strike you as suspicious?"

"Occupational hazard. We're trained to be suspicious of something new or anyone who shouldn't be there."

"That's the thing. The people running this new company aren't trained. They recruit people with exactly the right talents and they're red-blooded, clean-as-a-whistle, true-blue American citizens. Some of them would be our brightest and best. That's the horror of this report; they planned to use our own people against us. The company would think it was getting exactly what it needed and welcome them into the firm with open arms. Some of them would be agents. Most would be innocent new employees who could be co-opted into small, isolated fragments of the greater project. They would be unaware they were helping a seditious cause."

He kept looking around the room and wiping his brow.

She said, "Assuming these true-blues got past screening, they would then move on to the second phase of their plan. They would identify and replace people in crucial positions within the company to get access to our security network. They would implement their spreading infection in small steps and gather all the data they could along the way."

"Then they begin phase three: complete system shutdown. I think Mark gave me this report, as redacted as it is, because he read the whole thing and is scared shitless." He came to the desk and tapped the binder again. "I would call this a leak. No one would authorize handing this over to me even with my special status. He's worried someone in his office is already corrupted. Someone got to Wiley even in prison. It's probably why he didn't want to bring you in even after helping to get you here."

Someone else had just been added to the list of those who had some input in hiring her. "No one could do all that. They would make mistakes, lose control. It's just too massive."

"You do realize how ridiculous you sound. Chinese and North Korean hackers have caused worldwide problems for banking, law enforcement and government operations. And what about all the time, energy and resources needed to deal with the Conficter worm? Our government was really up to speed on that, wasn't it? Even if they only achieve ten percent of what they're planning, we'd be weakened . . . maybe only one percent would do it. In most cases they really only need the right person in the right place at the right time doing the wrong thing. The goal is to let it infect, spread and disable. Even as just an idea, it's highly contagious and deadly."

He opened the binder. "Look at Wiley's list of international business partners." He turned the binder around and showed it to her. "Some of them reside in the who's who of nations with factions hostile to the US."

She read the list aloud. "Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Colombia, China, Venezuela, Russia, North Korea. Could just be money laundering."

"No doubt it started out as that, but, I'd say that list just might be big enough. He was dealing with North Korea, for Christ sake." He turned to another page. "And then there are the ports. Remember what happened in Houston last Sunday? It was a suicide bomber."

The page contained a list of the major port cities in the US: Boston, New York, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and more.

"They want to cripple as many ports as they can. One of their options is to dock ships loaded with explosives and then set them off."

"Where did Wiley fit in all this?"

"Mark now has evidence that Wiley was behind the increase in drug trafficking through Dominion. He had ties to motorcycle gangs from California and Mexico. They were being played against each other to provide the cheapest service. Caroline told us he had been trying to obtain Plutonium, and that terrified him."

"They're trying to make a dirty bomb."

"How long do you think that would prevent us from repairing and reopening our ports? What do you think that's going to do to our economy? Who's going to want to import or export anything through contaminated American ports?"

"The explosion is more dangerous than the radioactive material in it."

"Yes, but they're called weapons of mass disruption for a reason, like that anthrax scare. We've had the training for that, too, but the public hasn't. Fear breeds panic. News reports would make a big story of the radioactivity detected. They'd have special features on the health risks from exposure to it. Chernobyl would be mentioned frequently. That's what the public will latch on to. It won't matter if _NOVA_ has a show that provides the real facts. People will remember the sensational both in the US and with our trading partners."

"Operation Gangrene is a good name for what they're trying to do. The more people read this report, especially with the redacted parts still there, the more distrust is going to spread throughout both the government and the private sector."

"Nothing in this report that we can see says so directly, but, to me, it's implied our security people believe the infiltration process is already underway. Suspicious bureaucrats are going to start restricting the flow of information and terminating contracts at the slightest hint. They'll say it's just a matter of budget cuts and redundancies, but they'll sever essential lines of communication. Vital sections of our security network are going to be cut off from each other. Holes are going to open up."

"You're implying we'll go back to the same lack of cooperation and coordination that many believe left us vulnerable to the nine-eleven attacks."

"And it will have all started right here in Dominion."

"What do you know about Zemar and Saleha?"

"They are not terrorists."

"Zemar has ties to the Taliban. Craig and Randal smuggled them into the US."

"They smuggled Zemar out because he was trying to escape the Taliban. He saved their unit when it was targeted for a suicide bomber. The Taliban found out and were after him. Craig and Randal got them out to save their lives, Zemar because he was supposed to be the suicide bomber, Saleha because she is his sister and because of her orientation."

"How long have you known all this?"

"For about a year. You see, I had little birdies fluttering about my ears, too, singing these very interesting songs. I checked it out for myself. They have been trying to find Zemar and Saleha homes with relatives in other countries."

"And you believe Harding's side of the story?"

"And so does Kate and Susan, who is just like Saleha, and Kelly. It's the birds singing the songs that we should be looking at."

Her private line rang. "Sheriff McGowan."

"I can't find Mattie anywhere, ma'am."

She put the phone on speaker. "I left her handcuffed to her bed."

"I went there first thing. She was gone and the bedpost was broken."

"She couldn't break a post that thick."

"I don't think she did, ma'am. I looked all through the house and then knocked on a few doors. Trudy Bellows told me she saw Mattie drive off in a Jeep with two men. From her description, I think they belong to Colter. She says they were dressed in camouflage gear and looked ready for war."

"Can you go to the farm and check? Bring her back if she's there."

"Yes, ma'am. Should I take Rob and Jacob with me?"

"No, just get one of them into the office to cover for you. They're not up for something like this."

"Like what, ma'am?"

"On second thought, just keep out of sight and take a look around. If you see something you don't like, don't be heroic. Keep your distance and call it in."

"Like what, Joan?"

"You'll know it if you see it." She hung up.

Her phone rang again. It was still on speaker.

"Sheriff McGowan."

"Joan, Colin. I couldn't find any more on Colter or his unit. The DOD has sealed their records. But we have the preliminary on those bodies from the fire."

"And?"

"What's going on in that little town of yours?"

"Why?"

"That guy who disappeared, he's one of the bodies."

Harry said, "Are you sure?"

"Albert Nguyen, yeah, dental confirms; all his fingers are missing, though. Four of the bodies we've tracked through the Los Angeles Gang Activities Task Force to the Los Demonios motorcycle gang. The sixth body is a DEA agent, Vince Deacon, who was undercover with the gang as John Hill. He was about to become the liaison between Los Demonios and someone in your area. He had just made that report when the Los Angeles office lost contact with him."

Harry asked, "What did Nguyen have to do with any of them?"

"He was undercover with the DEA working on tracking Wiley's drug dealing. Wiley had offered to bring him in on the operation as a transporter. Apparently, Nguyen was a stand-up guy and contacted the DEA. They persuaded him to work with Wiley for a bit longer. Nguyen was supposed to get in tight with him and then hand him off to another undercover agent who would coordinate efforts with Deacon."

They were in danger of being swept away by the audacity and insanity of the operation.

"You know, Joan, we're getting quite jealous back here in Portland. It's been so damned quiet since you left. Why do you keep all the good stuff to yourself?"

"You're welcome to join me on this one. Get everyone you can and get here as fast as possible."

"I thought you might say that. We'll be there in an hour."

"Harry will coordinate with you. Be careful, Colin. This does have that Crowley feel all over again only much bigger."

"Understood." He hung up.

"Is that why you told Kelly what you did?"

"I don't know."

"But you have that Crowley feeling all over again."

"Operation Gangrene is based here. It started with Wiley here. He didn't just call someone in Islamabad or Basra or Pyongyang and ask them if they had nothing better to do could they join him in this little plan of his to attack the US from within. He got help here first."

"You're on the right track, but I think it went in the other direction. They recruited him. It's what they do." He ran his hands through his hair and exhaled hard. He still had little color on his face. "Mark and I got this completely ass-backwards. We thought Craig's poachers might have been another cell hiding in the mountains. The one that you suspected escaped from the Crowley farm."

"We thought there might have been two more cells there, six other terrorists who escaped. We found no evidence at the Crowley farm to support that, however."

"Yeah, well, those six might not have fled into the mountains. They had a home base nearby they could return to."

"We have no proof of that either."

"Do you detect a certain military precision behind all this?"

"Someone who knows terrorist strategy and tactics and still has a lot of loyal men under his command; Craig told me yesterday he found something."

"What are you going to do?"

"First, I'm going to talk to a radical veterinarian about what he has on his neighbor and about his illegal immigrants. Then I'm going to talk to his neighbor."

"What do you want me to do?"

"When Colin gets here, take him to Colter's farm, set up a command center and then notify me. You guys are going to be my big stick. Tell Huard to get all the legal stuff in order and to send everyone he can round up. National Guard would be good."

"And if we're wrong?"

"I'm more worried about being right."

# Chapter 43

Forbidding her from going to the Harding farm made it easier for her to hook up with Lily and Donny. She didn't have to make some excuse to Craig and Saleha for skipping out of work. And if she found something mom could use, that would make the apology she was going to have to make to her go a bit smoother. The issue of her _kleptizing_ things, well, they'd have a long talk about that.

The rendezvous was at the gate to the service road. Lily was there when she arrived. She wore a pink sweatshirt that displayed an angry girl in a black Ninja outfit wielding nunchuks and the warning _GRR-L_ _POW-R_ printed below in yellow-lightning letters. A tablet hung down from the girl's belt.

"I just called him," Lily said. "He'll be here in a few minutes. They took his mom."

"Who took her, Colter?"

"He thinks it was the FBI. They just showed up in two black SUVs yesterday and took her away."

"Why?"

She shrugged and looked at the gravel road. "Shouldn't we go back to where we were the last time?"

"Saleha told me this road goes up into an area of the hills that will give us a better view of Colter's farm."

"I found out who the other hacker is."

"Who?"

"Someone where you work."

"Zemar, it has to be Zemar. He knows computers."

"I sent him a cyber-decoder ring." Lily whispered, "Shana, I think Colter is a very bad man."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"If he catches us, we could get seriously hurt, like, dead hurt."

Donny came over the hill on his bike.

Two weeks ago, she and mom had raced along this road carefree and oblivious. She'd sworn off stealing. Now, mom was forbidding her from going to the Harding farm but wouldn't tell her why. She had betrayed mom's trust by stealing a stupid wallet. Lily had just told her their lives could be in danger if Colter caught them spying on him. Her stomach, heart and knees all seemed to wobble at the same time.

Donny, in camouflage pants and T-shirt, brought a camouflage backpack with him after putting his bike with theirs. He pulled on his shirt. "Dad and I tried hunting once; bought all the gear. It didn't work out, but it might be useful this time." He pointed to Lily's sweatshirt. "That is not a camouflage color. It's more like a here-I-am-come-get-me color."

She made a face at him.

He shrugged and withdrew a digital video camera from the backpack. "Canon Vixia HF G-twenty, with telephoto," he said. "Dad never went halfway when he wanted something. You should see our home theater set-up." He returned it to his backpack.

She said to Lily, "You don't have to, but I'm doing this."

"I didn't say I wouldn't come. I just said we could die."

"Whoa." Donny backed up. "Die? I must have missed that staff meeting."

"Lily found something."

"Colter is building up an arsenal at his farm. I decoded some of his stuff on his hard drive; stuff that looks like farm supplies but is really guns and ammunition and bombs, lots of bombs. Those twins you told us about are bomb guys."

"Are you sure?"

Shana pointed to the hills. "There's only one way to find out." She reached for Donny's backpack. "Sorry about your mom."

He pulled the backpack away. "We better get going."

"I found something else out, too," Lily said. "He and dad were working together. I haven't found out what it was yet, but they were doing something together." She wiped away a tear. "It sort of clinches that dad is guilty, doesn't it?"

Donny embraced her. "You can wait here."

Shana nodded her agreement with Donny.

"I have a little something I want to give him, but I have to get closer to do it."

The ride along the service road wasn't as difficult as the mountain bike trail they'd taken yesterday. Lily and Donny had an easier time keeping closer to her as they climbed along a number of switchbacks to get a bit higher into the hills than their previous spot. Other than the young, second-growth woods to their right, it had less plant cover, but it had a much better view of Colter's farm from the north. Buildings and sections of the main compound in the northeast corner that were blocked last time were clearly visible this time.

As soon as they were laid out on the bluff overlooking the farm, Donny got out the Canon and started recording.

"They're doing a lot of standing around and talking," he said. "Most of them are at that garage. I didn't see those big piles of dirt around it yesterday. Can you see where they've been digging?"

Lily looked down at the farm. "No."

He tugged on his T-shirt. "Notice what they're wearing?"

She brought out binoculars from her small pack and looked down at the men in camouflage gear. "There's about ten of them. Where are the rest?"

"Maybe they're in those trucks."

Two troop transports approached the garage. They stopped to let the ten men in before entering it.

Looking through a small pair of binoculars, Lily asked, "Why load up into trucks just to drive into a garage?"

Donny said, "And how could that garage hold those trucks?"

"And two Hummers," she said.

Two Hummers drove into the garage. All four vehicles were camouflage shades of green and brown.

"Four huge vehicles drive into a garage that's only large enough for maybe four cars. How'd they do that?"

She said, "I hate math word problems."

Lily pointed. "Then you're going to totally hate this."

A squad of another ten men in combat gear complete with camouflaged faces and helmets, and carrying automatic rifles, approached the garage.

"This is like trying to see how many people you can get into a phone booth or a Volkswagen Beetle."

She looked at Donny. "Did those people carry guns?"

Lily said, "Or a bazooka? I think that's a bazooka."

A group of six men followed the squad of ten. Three of the men carried rectangular canisters. The other three men carried large, khaki-colored metal cases.

Donny leaned out a bit more over the cliff. "We know now where they were digging. And those are portable rocket launchers. And I think it's time we got out of here."

"Why?"

"Because two of those men with rocket launchers just looked up at us and pointed."

Something buzzed loudly and zipped past overhead from behind. It circled and returned to hover over them. A contraption about two-feet square, made of metal and wires, held up by propellers at its four corners like a helicopter, drifted back and forth above them. Two lenses adjusted to focus on them.

A second, louder buzz came up the cliff and flew past.

"An RPA," Donny said, "remotely piloted aircraft." When she and Lily just kept looking at him, he said, "Drones."

The second one, a lumpy plane about six feet long and with a propeller at the rear, circled above them and came back. It roared past and returned to the farm. The helicopter contraption rose up and hovered over them for a few seconds longer before it chased after the lumpy plane.

What had she got them into? This was that moment of action or paralysis mom told her every agent in the field experienced when confronted with imminent danger. You either engaged or retreated. You had to make that decision quicker than a finger snap. If you froze, you were dead. Lily and Donny were looking to her to be like mom, but mom had years of training to be able to evaluate a situation like this and make a quick decision.

Donny still held the camera out over the cliff to record activity on the farm. When Lily started to speak, they heard the barking.

"We're being hunted." Colter's militia was a superior opponent. "Run."

Donny snatched up his backpack. "What about the bikes?"

"Forget the bikes. They'll be watching the road and there's no other way down from here on them. We have to run."

"Where do we go?"

"If we go south down the hill through the woods we can get to the Harding farm. They'll help us." And she'd be bringing the danger right to them.

"Wait." Lily took out her phone and pushed a few buttons. Her head kept nodding as the barking got closer and she counted down silently. "There, now we can go."

"Why don't we call someone?" Donny took out his phone.

"There's little signal up here because of the mountains. Saleha told me it's almost a dead zone."

"But she just sent something."

Lily said, "I sent something to Colter's farm. It's a direct line of sight transmission from up here. Did you want to call _him_?"

Donny tried his phone anyway. He got nothing.

The barking, joined by men shouting, was rapidly coming closer. They were running now that they had their bearing.

"Come on." Lily pulled on Donny.

Quicker than snapping fingers, he was crying out in pain and clutching his left ankle.

Lily screamed. "A snare." She glared at Shana with wide, terrified eyes. "You're the amazon, do something!"

"It's cutting into my leg." He tossed the camera to Shana. "Are you really as fast as you told us?"

She nodded.

"Get that to your mom. She has to call the FBI or someone."

Lily tried helping him, but Donny pushed her away.

"Get out of here, now! RUN!"

A Rottweiler came charging for them from the woods.

Unable to free himself and stuck where he was, Donny swung his backpack into the dog, sending it rolling and sliding toward the edge of the cliff. He then grabbed his ankle and fell over.

Lily hollered at her, "We have to help him,"

Six men and two more Rottweilers charged out from the woods.

"No. We have to go."

Donny had regained his feet and faced the men holding his backpack up as if it were Green Lantern's ring.

She and Lily started running down the hill, but she quickly left Lily behind and entered the woods alone. The dogs barked and growled, Lily screamed. Then she heard nothing. Had they used a silencer on her?

She stopped and looked back. The dogs started barking with eagerness again, but they were receding rather than coming closer. After listening until she could barely hear the dogs, she ran back up the hill.

Another helicopter contraption buzzed overhead.

She ducked back into cover under the trees.

The surveillance drone, bigger and with only three, larger propellers, alternated between hovering over the clearing and zigzagging back and forth above the trees. It continued this for close to ten minutes before finally leaving.

The men came across the clearing up near the cliff. The three dogs were on leashes and struggled to get free but did obey their handlers. Donny, limping, and Lily, helping him as much as she could, were surrounded by the men. Their wrists were bound in front with plastic straps. They had bandaged Donny's ankle.

Leaning against the tree for support, she aimed the camera, started recording again and zoomed in on the group.

One of the dogs raised its head, pulled hard on its leash and pivoted to point in her direction. Its handler raised binoculars to look before pointing directly at her.

She pushed away from the tree and ran as fast as she could toward the Harding farm.

# Chapter 44

Almost everyone at the Harding farm was scurrying about the grounds checking everywhere when she arrived. They were all calling for Saleha. Near the office, Craig, Barbara, Doug, Nigel and Zemar were talking together. Barbara, Doug and Nigel soon left to join the other staff. Zemar left to join the search as she parked the Suburban.

"What's going on?"

"Saleha is missing."

The animals growled and paced about in their enclosures.

"They've been like that since before dawn."

"Do you think her disappearance has anything to do with the tiger and whatever else you found out about Colter?"

"I don't know. If the information is correct, and I can't be sure it is, then Colter and his men are up to something very nasty, which could include taking hostages."

"Hostages? What is this information? Would Saleha know anything about it?"

He stopped watching his colleagues searching areas others had already searched, and finally looked at her. "Only Zemar and I know about it."

"And why is that?"

"Can we do this later?"

"Saleha and Zemar are here illegally."

"Yes, they're here illegally, but if you're going to arrest them, shouldn't we find her first?"

"What information do you have on Colter?"

"Now you're interested in what I have to say about Colter?"

"I have my reasons."

"What reasons would those be?"

"Just tell me what you have."

"Zemar hacked into Colter's website. We were trying to get evidence that would prove he was behind the trapping and hunting. Zemar did it without my permission, but once I knew, I had him continue. All we got was a list of farm supplies."

"And that's supposed to be proof of what?"

"It looked like nothing, but someone else also hacked into his website. They call themselves Tarot and they claimed to have decoded Colter's list. When we applied the cypher they sent us, the list of all that farm stuff became weapons and ammunition and components for bombs."

"But you don't know who this Tarot is. You don't know if they just sent you their made-up list rather than an actual decryption of Colter's so-called code."

"Billy and Bobby are explosives specialists."

"Tarot told you that, too, I suppose. And I'm also supposed to believe a man who was part of the Taliban when he was a teenager and the man who smuggled him into this country. Why? Because we danced once?"

"I was hoping to trade on a little more than just that."

"And what would that be?"

He stepped forward and kissed her.

She kissed him back only to push him away a moment later. "What kind of answer is that?"

He threw up his hands. "I don't know what kind of answer to give you. Whatever I say could sound self-serving. Zemar and Saleha have been with us for over five years. Except for being here illegally, they have been model citizens. Saleha is one of the gentlest people you could ever meet. She loves animals and this country. Zemar is one of the most fiercely loyal people you could ever meet. He loves Saleha and this country. And both of them know they can't stay here. We failed to get them legal status, but we have plans to get them—"

Shana screamed from the hills to the north.

She reached for her Beretta and tried to locate where the scream came from.

"There!" Zemar was running back to them while pointing toward the wooded hills behind the barn.

Shana was running downhill between the trees. She cradled something black in her right arm as if it were a football.

"He got them." Breathless, she said, "Donny was snagged by a trap. Colter's men took him and Lily."

Colter had the children of the two men he'd probably had murdered.

"What are you talking about? What were you doing?"

Caesar scampered over to Shana and fell on his side at her feet. Kneeling down to rub his belly seemed to calm her. She started taking normal breaths.

"We were getting evidence." She held up the camera. "Mom, you have to watch this." She stood up, opened the view screen and started the playback.

She, Craig and Zemar watched too many vehicles drive into a building that was too small to hold them. Mounds of dirt were piled high near it.

Zemar said, "I made a similar recording."

A unit of men in militia gear and carrying automatic rifles marched into that same building. Three units carrying portable rocket launchers followed them. Those men suddenly stopped, looked up directly at the camera and pointed. A loud buzzing noise crackled through the tiny speaker in the camcorder before the recording stopped.

"There's more."

Another video started that showed a unit of men and dogs escorting Lily and Donny along a clearing near the top of a hill. Both Lily and Donny had their wrists bound. Donny was limping. Lily struggled to support him. Just before the unit was about to enter the woods, the video zoomed in on the lead man and the dog he was holding. The dog seemed to have caught the scent of something. It started barking and tugging hard on its leash. The recording stopped.

"That's when I just started running. Donny told me to get this to you."

"Show me that second part again."

Shana fumbled with the controls.

Zemar took the Canon away from her and replayed the recording.

"Stop."

He stopped the playback at the close-up of the unit.

"Those two men in the lead were part of the crew who installed the network upgrade in my office." They had worn those gloves to hide their tattoos.

Harry had good reason to be looking for hidden cameras. If they had spliced any of their malware into the network, they could have been spying on her and tapping into all the other security and law enforcement departments that were connected to it: Operation Gangrene.

A buzzing noise like the one on the camcorder but louder and fuller came from the hills Shana had just raced down.

"They're here," Shana said.

Caesar bounced up beside her.

Two rectangular contraptions, one with four propellers at its corners, another with three larger propellers, exited the woods, took positions above the farm and rose up until they were only dots in the sky.

A whining noise followed the surveillance drones out of the woods and roared past. It headed due south over the farm, gained altitude and circled back. A puff of smoke came out of the back of it, followed by a smoky contrail and a painful screeching sound heading for the main grounds.

Craig hollered, "Incoming! Take cover!"

# Chapter 45

One of the empty enclosures exploded in flames.

The drone accelerated right for them, veered away at the last second, crashed into the barn and exploded. Another one screeched out of the woods and struck the office.

This was how the cabin fires were ignited. They had dumped the bodies in the cabin at night and had then sent a drone crashing into it. They were both trying to eliminate evidence and test the efficacy of the drones as incendiary devices.

No, that wasn't right. They weren't trying to eliminate evidence. They were planting evidence for their purposes and only trying to give the impression of getting rid of it. They were setting up a frame. Colter had fed Mattie the information so she could pass it on. Zemar was the perfect pick. They would point everything at him, Craig and Randal, and by extension, anyone connected to them.

Shana screamed. She and Caesar cowered together.

This was the Crowley farm all over again. She pulled out her Beretta 92FS and grabbed hold of Shana to get her running toward the Suburban.

Another explosion destroyed another animal enclosure. People were now running everywhere trying to save themselves and the animals. Craig was torn between helping her and Shana and helping his people.

Fred, two foxes and the wolf brothers escaped the destruction of their enclosures and fled into the hills. Cleo roared. Caesar, terrified and confused, ran to his mother.

She held on tight to Shana. "Craig, come on!"

The door to an old tool shed crashed open. Men swarmed out and opened fire at both people and animals. One of the men aimed a burst at Cleo and Caesar. Caesar ducked away and fled into the hills. Cleo was struck several times.

She could barely keep Shana from going after Caesar.

Craig got to them as some of the men started throwing grenades. She covered Shana. Craig tried to cover them both as they ran to the Suburban.

An explosion sent them diving for cover. Craig went one way, she and Shana the other. Bullets zipped past them, hitting the Suburban, splintering the fence of the paddock where they had kept the elk.

She rolled up onto her knees, leaned over Shana and with her first two shots took down a man who was aiming at Zemar and Barbara. She shifted a few degrees to her right and took out another standing over Nigel, then a man at Cleo's pen who was firing into her body. A fusillade of bullets forced her to duck over Shana to cover her.

A bullet grazed her upper right arm, knocking her backward. Dozens hit the ground in front of Shana. She screamed and curled into a tighter ball.

Joan continued firing in the direction of the men until her Beretta was empty. She quickly replaced the magazine with another containing 17 9mm bullets. Before she could fire again, bullets hit the ground between her and Shana, sending debris into her face. She had to cover and fall back.

Shana screamed again when two men grabbed her and carried her away.

Another fusillade of bullets came at her as she started after them. Someone tackled her and carried her back toward the Suburban. She hammered down on the man's back with her gun and recognized the grunt.

Craig carried her along the driver's side of the Suburban to the rear. "Have you got any other weapons?"

Barbara screamed from somewhere near the hospital. A short burst of gunfire cut her off.

"They have Shana."

"We need more firepower."

"There's a Mossberg five-hundred and an AR-fifteen in the back." She handed over the key fob and got up to go after Shana.

He yanked her back down. "You're wounded."

"Let go of me." She twisted away and got up again.

More bullets struck the Suburban.

She took one step to get around to the side to see where the men with Shana were going. She felt the impact against the back of her left thigh and the sharp, burning sting an instant later that sent her falling to her side. As Craig dragged her back behind the Suburban, she caught a glimpse of the men dragging Shana into the tool shed.

The shooting was subsiding.

Craig checked both wounds. "Your arm is just a scratch. The bullet didn't penetrate your leg, but it left a good sized slice in you. You're bleeding quite a bit."

She tried to get up but her left leg wouldn't support her.

"I need a first aid kit."

Someone came sprinting up behind them. She turned against the pain spreading through her leg and raised her gun to fire.

Zemar slid down to duck behind the Suburban. "They dug a tunnel. They must have taken Saleha as a hostage, too." He said to her, "I will get them all back."

He slipped over to the paddock and snuck along the fence to get behind one of the men. When the man started to turn around, Zemar jumped him, snatched away his rifle and shot him without hesitation. He then ran into the shed.

She peeked under the Suburban, but could only see legs and feet. She estimated three men went after Zemar.

A few seconds after the men entered the shed, gunfire started that indicated an intense firefight.

Craig grabbed her and started dragging her toward the paddock. He whispered, "They're coming this way."

Helping with her good leg as much as she could, they snuck along the paddock to the northwest corner and ducked behind the hedge running along the north side just before three camouflaged men passed the Suburban. Their guns were still smoking.

Craig pressed down on her leg as he peaked out through the hedge.

"What do you see?"

"They've killed all the animals that didn't get away. They got Nigel and Barbara, that I can see, but I don't know if they're only wounded or. . . ." He ducked back. "How much ammo have you got left?"

"Two magazines, thirty-four rounds in total."

He peeked out from their hiding spot again. "It looks like they're leaving. Stay here." He put her hand on her wound to replace his. "Press as hard as you can."

Crouching down, he ran along the north side of the hedge past the burning barn toward the hospital.

Pressing against the hot, wet pain at the back of her leg, she dragged herself to the hedge and peeked out. Two militia men lay on the ground near the shed. Zemar must have killed them to get in. There was the one he'd killed by the paddock fence and two of the three men she had downed. Men from the attacking unit recovered the bodies and carried them back into the shed.

They had dug a tunnel to the Harding farm. True believers and maniacs were just points close together at the extreme end of the insanity continuum; one with purpose, one with no purpose at all. They had Shana in that tunnel, possibly Lily Wiley, Donny Nguyen and Saleha as well. Her best hope was they were all being held hostage as insurance against a failed mission, whatever that mission was supposed to be.

They had dug a fucking tunnel!

She couldn't see Barbara, but she could see Nigel on the ground near Cleo's enclosure. He was lying on his back. His blue T-shirt had dark stains down the front of it. Cleo had been cut to pieces.

A burst of automatic weapons fire came from near the hospital, followed by several more bursts and shouting.

Had they spotted Craig? Had they hit him?

She aimed her Beretta through the hedge.

"Harry!" She reached into the back pocket of her trousers and pulled out her phone. "Shit."

She had been struck twice. The bottom quarter of her phone had been shot away.

She felt her arm; no significant pain or bleeding. She felt the wound on her leg; a diagonal slice three inches long about eight inches above the back of her knee. It felt wet, but had sealed a bit. The bleeding had stopped. It stung when she touched it. Her leg tingled with pain and trembled.

The barn was fully ablaze. She had to veer wide of it as she crawled toward the hospital. The radiating heat made the back of her leg sting. It jerked of its own accord and sent her over onto her back. Above her, the rising smoke from the fire swirled away, dispersed by the downdraft from one of the surveillance drones. Colter was watching the mission. Could he see her through the smoke? Did his drone have infrared capabilities?

The barn fire would mask her heat signature from it.

After first aiming her Beretta up at something she couldn't see to shoot at, she rolled back onto her side and started crawling again. At the end of the hedge, about thirty yards of concrete parking lot lay between her and the hospital. She needed to get up. Dragging herself across that distance would be too much like an earthworm trying to get across a highway.

There were no bodies, human or animal, between her and the hospital entrance. Whatever they had been shooting at, it hadn't likely been Craig.

She took another quick peek through the hedge, had to wipe her eyes when a swirling gust sent smoke into her face, but saw no militia men in the area. She checked the entrance to the hospital and saw no one. Just as she was about to get up, Craig looked out the window beside the entrance door. He spotted her and pointed to Cleo's enclosure.

Three of Colter's men were bringing Doug Lancaster and two other members of the staff closer to Craig. Barbara Nyland lay at to the door used to get the large animals into the hospital.

Craig held up what appeared to be a pistol when she looked back at him.

She rose to her knees and signaled for him to wait for her to get into a better position, but they both had to duck back when the men stopped near the entrance.

The trio forced their three captives to kneel and placed guns to the backs of their heads. One of the men raised a machete.

That's when Craig came sprinting out of the hospital with two dart guns aimed at Colter's trio.

# Chapter 46

The biggest surprise for Colter's men wasn't Craig firing two tranquilizer darts into one of them or her taking down the man with the machete; it was Doug. When the men raised their guns to counter the attacks from both sides, Doug swung his left elbow into the knee of the man behind him, spun around on his knees as the man went down, smashed his palm into the man's chin, grabbed the man's gun away from him and hit him in the face three times with the butt of it as hard as he could.

There was little left of the dead man's mouth and nose.

"Canadian Armed Forces," he said once she had limped over to him. "Craig and I met in Afghanistan and found out we shared the same interest in animals. Come on, we need to help Barbara."

He took them to Nyland. She was wounded in the right hip and just below her right shoulder, but she was still alive.

Craig and Doug tended to Barbara as quickly as they could with the kit Craig had retrieved from the hospital.

"What about that guy with the tranquilizers in him?"

"He's dead," Craig said. "About one-quarter will take down a gorilla or a tiger. Half-full will take down an elephant. I just filled them all."

"What will that take down?"

He shrugged. "The Hulk, maybe."

Barbara moaned.

Doug said, "One bullet just grazed her shoulder, but the other one hit the bone and is still in her hip."

"Take the truck." Craig got up. "I called Harry. Your FBI has just arrived in Dominion. Units from ATF and Portland SWAT arrived with them. FBI, ATF and Harry are on their way to Colter's farm. Portland SWAT is coming here. National Guard and a Portland Police bomb disposal squad arrive in an hour or so. Looks like you had an idea something like this would happen."

"I had no idea something like this would happen. How could anyone possible know someone would dig a tunnel so they could launch an attack against their neighbor?"

They loaded Nigel's body into the box of the truck beside Barbara. Doug stayed in the box with her. The two staff members got into the cab and drove away slowly.

She started to limp toward the Suburban, but her left leg gave out.

Craig caught her.

"I have to find Shana."

"And we will, but how good are you going to be if you keep falling down?"

She let him tend to her wound while she took a look around the farm. Only Nigel was dead. Barbara was seriously wounded, but because the Oregon State students had returned to school and there were no animals from zoos and the people who would come with them, there had only been a skeleton crew here. The other staff had taken off when the explosions started and were hiding somewhere. Nigel was killed because he tried to protect Cleo.

"This is sick. I don't care what they think they're trying to accomplish."

"I need to seal the wound. I could put in a few staples."

"Then do it." She pulled down her trousers.

"You're wearing red. Is that supposed to mean something?"

"Just get on with it."

The wound required four staples. He bandaged it once they were in place. "Done, but I can't guarantee it won't open again. I can give you a shot to ease the pain."

"Will it knock me out?"

"It could make you a bit dizzy, but it should make it easier to move."

She nodded. He gave her the shot in her leg. She pulled up her trousers and headed for the Suburban.

"Joan, you need slow down and—"

"I need to get my daughter back. Help me or get out of my way."

At the Suburban, Craig gave her back the fob to open the rear door. There were eight rounds for the shotgun and two magazines for the AR-15. She took out another two magazines for her Beretta, handed the AR-15 and its extra magazines to Craig. She kept the Mossberg.

"We should wait for Portland SWAT to get here. We could use the reinforcements."

"I'm not waiting."

Faint laughter from the tool shed grew louder. Bobby and Billy led a squad of twelve men out. Two men followed the squad out. One of them carried a portable rocket launcher. The other carried the case containing the rockets.

She and Craig ducked down behind the Suburban.

"This is getting us nowhere."

"They're the mop up crew. Can we use the Suburban?"

She peaked underneath. "It's lost all of its fluids. We wouldn't get far even if we could get it started. They'd fire on us the moment we tried."

Two explosions went off one after the other. The enclosures caught fire.

"They're obliterating everything. They're mimicking a Taliban attack."

"Why? They can't possibly get away with it now."

"Keep with the mission."

Her report on the Crowley farm had drawn a similar conclusion to explain the motivation for the terrorists to continue fighting against overwhelming odds once the reinforcements had arrived. The terrorists had simply kept firing and started destroying everything with explosions.

The rocket team, the ones laughing the most, fired again. Three rockets struck the hospital. Two more hit the office building to finish it off. Two struck Craig's house and two turned the visitor's dormitories into piles of smoking rubble.

"Maybe we can sneak past them and get into the tunnel."

"I don't think so."

Guns started firing, bullets began hitting the Suburban. Craig fired back, but others started shooting, too.

"We need to get to the trees." He pointed to where Shana had come running down the hill north of the barn.

He shot another burst as covering fire while she limped to the hedge. He ran after her just ahead of the rocket hitting the Suburban. The explosion knocked him down, but he rolled, scrambled to his feet and caught up to her at the hedge.

After waiting for the initial destruction to subside, the men came to the Suburban to check for bodies.

"We blew them to hell," the trigger man said and they all started laughing.

Bobby barked, "Shut the fuck up and keep looking. The Colonel wants bodies."

"There's a path over this way." Craig took them toward the burning barn. At the barn, he pointed into the woods. "There are caves up there that we can hide in on the way to Lookout Peak."

"I'm not hiding in any caves. I'm going after Shana."

"It's a longer trek, but we can still get to the Colter farm. We don't know what's waiting for us in the tunnel, and we can only go in one direction, assuming they dug only one tunnel. This way, we have a number of paths to use. They won't know which direction we're coming from."

A scream that sounded like Shana came from the shed. Gunfire erupted again inside the tunnel. On orders from Billy, four of the unit ran back to respond. The firefight was more intense and sustained than the previous one. There might have been a few grenade explosions.

Were some of Colin's men attempting a rescue? How could they? They couldn't know who else besides Colter's men were in there. If they had found the tunnel, they might just have launched an attack or else been ambushed by Colter's men. If it was only Zemar, he couldn't stand up to all that firepower for long on his own.

Had Shana screamed because Zemar had gone down? She started for the shed just as something to her right moved.

A man ran out from behind a tree and tackled Craig. They rolled on the ground, just missing the trunk of another tree. The man on top of Craig raised his knife. The macho asshole was determined to get a kill his own special way. Craig had a good hold of the man's knife hand, but the blade was slowly getting closer to his throat.

If she fired the Mossberg, it would only bring the other men to them. She limped up behind the man and struck him with the butt of the shotgun.

He tumbled off Craig onto his back.

"Where's my daughter?" She aimed the shotgun at his camouflaged face.

He just looked up at her and licked his lips. "Yummy."

She struck him again.

He groaned and started laughing. "She was delicious. Her skin was so smooth, so supple, it just peeled right off."

"He's just trying to keep us here. I heard her, too. She's still alive."

A bullet struck a nearby tree, then another struck and another. She and Craig ducked.

The man rolled away, retrieved the knife and rose up to throw it as more firing came from the burning barn.

She fired and hit him in the chest with both rounds.

Craig picked up the AR-15 and returned fire. He was soon out of ammunition while the shooting from the other direction only increased. It was still random fire. They didn't know exactly where their targets were, they were just hoping to hit something or flush them out.

"Where are the other magazines?"

"I lost them in the explosion."

She fired three rounds with the shotgun as they started backing up along the trail. The shooting from the other side stopped.

"How many darts have you got?"

"Two more."

"Shit."

"This way."

She fired two more rounds before taking Craig's hand.

The screech came from behind them. The rocket hit uphill about sixty yards in front of them, exploding with a shockwave of flames that set grass and trees on fire.

She handed the shotgun to Craig, drew her Beretta and pushed the both of them behind a Douglas-fir.

The rocket launcher team came along the trail. The one with the case also carried an Uzi sub-machine gun.

"We can't outrun those. They probably only missed with that one because they haven't spotted us yet."

"I'm open to suggestions," he said.

"How good are you with a gun?"

"I was part of the Medical Corps. I'm better at taking bullets out of someone than putting them in."

"I can hit a gnat at one hundred yards, but I can't move fast enough to get both of them and retrieve the launcher before the rest of their unit catches up to us."

The pair reloaded the launcher. The trigger man dropped to his knee and lifted it to his shoulder. The other man looked through a pair of targeting binoculars.

"If I take out the spotter, the other one may see the flash or get a bearing from the sound to locate us."

"Not if I fire from somewhere else at the same time." He pointed downhill. "I can take care of the launcher."

"Where are the other guys?"

"Standard operating procedure; they will stay back to keep out of the way until they get the all clear. I'll signal when I'm ready."

He left the medical kit behind and ran downhill, keeping in the shadows of the forest canopy and zigzagging from tree to tree. He signaled to her once he was beside the men about fifty yards away.

Her best shot was the spotter. He was standing and didn't have a portable rocket launcher acting as a partial shield. He was standing because these guys were conceited enough to believe their prey was fleeing. Any moment now, their targets would reveal themselves and it would be all over. It wouldn't occur to them that the hunted might turn on them.

She aimed the Beretta at the man with the binoculars and squeezed the trigger.

Craig fired off the last two rounds from the shotgun and missed both men.

She fired, hitting the standing man in the head. When the trigger man turned in reaction to the shotgun blast, she stepped out from behind the tree and fired four times, hitting him in his right leg above the knee, his ribcage and his right ear.

The other men immediately opened fire and came running into the woods. She ducked back behind the tree, emptied the magazine, shoved in another and kept firing.

Craig ran to the launcher, hit it with the butt of the shotgun and pulled something off it. He then sprinted up the slope, grabbed hold of her and the medical kit on the way and took them into the hills.

Her left leg twitched and tightened. The pain killer wasn't doing the job it was supposed to. She tried hopping for few steps to keep from bringing both of them down.

When Craig turned to take them northwest, and further from Shana, she glanced back to see only four men coming after them: the two men who had installed the new network in her office and the Cotton brothers.

Why had Shana screamed? If Zemar was down, she had no one left to protect her.

She cajoled herself to keep going against the pain that threatened to topple them with every step. The quartet behind them was fit, angry and armed with guns, hatred and devotion to whatever was behind all this madness.

Hold on, baby, just hold on. Please, oh please, oh please.

# Chapter 47

The trail took them up along switchbacks, circled the edges of cliffs where it narrowed to barely wide enough for one person, crossed sub-alpine fields of grass and exposed rock. The trees thinned out around them, as did the understory. They were becoming more exposed to the four men coming after them.

She had the fitness to make the ascent, but her left leg alternated between twitching and stiffening to aching and weakening. With Craig having to constantly support her, it was a miracle they were staying ahead of their pursuers.

Craig brought them to a plateau of moraine deposited during the last ice age. Huge scars had been scratched into the stone of the plateau by the receding glaciers. The cliff they stopped at provided a view of the last field they had crossed as well as three shallow valleys dug out by the ice.

"We can see them from here if they come this way." He sat down at the edge.

If she sat down, her left leg might not have the strength to get her back up again. She leaned against a waist-high boulder. "Why did they take Shana? Why are we getting farther away instead of going to get her?"

"We have to survive first before we can do anything. They might take one of the other trails."

"You should have brought the launcher."

"There was only one rocket left. I didn't have the chance to fire it down there and I couldn't carry it, the medical kit and support you at the same time."

"You should have tried. You should have at least grabbed the Uzi."

"Joan, they were closing but we had some distance between us. I could either take advantage of that distance to keep us ahead of them, or risk having them close on us and not get all of them with only one rocket. I didn't see the Uzi."

"Shit."

He was right. There were more than just four men at the farm and they were spread out all over the grounds. He wouldn't have gotten them all and the survivors would have been on them before they could get away.

"How did you end up smuggling Zemar and Saleha into the country?"

"Zemar was sixteen, Saleha was fourteen. They were orphans living on the streets. Like all the other orphans, they would come to our site offering to do work for us. At first, we just shooed them away, but their persistence eventually wore us down. Randal was the first to let them in. Both of them could speak English. Their father had been a scholar before he was murdered because he spoke out for peace and a more secular way of living. He was a graduate of Harvard. He taught them our language and told them all about us. It sounds corny to say it, but he taught them about our sense of individual freedom and belief in democracy. They hold sacred what a lot of us take for granted."

"And their mother?"

"Also a proactive academic, she just disappeared one day." He tossed a rock over the cliff and watched it fall. "If we could get the one you're resting against over the cliff, we might do some real damage to them."

"Let's try it."

"I did say if. And there's no guarantee we'd take any of them out." He looked over the edge one more time. "Zemar was great at organizing and prioritizing the locals. He was a natural at triage. Saleha worked with patients in post-op care. I can't tell you how many wounds she had to keep clean or bodies she had to wash, but she was there every day. Sometimes it seemed like she was doing the work of four people. Everyone who knows her loves her."

Shana included. "What went wrong?"

"What do you think? The Taliban knows everything over there. They came after Zemar to join them. They threatened to give Saleha to a local pimp. They knew her orientation and wanted to force her to service men. If not that, they'd have her stoned to death."

"He joined the Taliban."

"He was protecting his sister. We helped him provide incorrect but plausible intelligence reports, but then they decided to use him as a suicide bomber to take us out. They also had a back-up plan. They had another bomber already working with us. Zemar stopped that other suicide bomber, his fifteen-year-old cousin."

"He killed him."

"They had to go into hiding after that. We were leaving and we couldn't take them with us. When we found out the Taliban were closing in on them, we went back and got them out."

"And because he'd been in the Taliban, there was no chance of becoming a landed immigrant."

"Randal had to tiptoe around that issue. He's been in contact with a buddy at DHS-ICE for the last three years trying to find a way they could come forward. His contact thinks they're hiding in Mexico seeking asylum. The derailment, that attack in Houston and the elevator explosions ended any chance they had. They'd both be deported the moment they showed themselves."

"And that would be a death sentence for each of them."

"They're going to cousins in Brazil now, the family of the boy he had to kill. They'll get new identities and a chance there at a good life." He dropped another rock over the edge. "Some crazy shit, huh?"

"Some crazy shit."

"Like digging a tunnel so you can attack your neighbor."

"It sounds ludicrous way up here. It is ludicrous. I've seen things like that before, but usually only with survivalist nuts and militia digging bomb shelters. One group dug down almost one thousand feet because their leader believed it would prevent neutron bomb explosions from reaching them. The punch line is that physicists took over the tunnel, dug even deeper, filled it with water and all kinds of sensors so they can search for neutrinos."

"Like Colter and his men."

"Partly, but Colter's far worse. Those kooks do it because they believe some end of the world thing is coming. They want to be prepared. Colter has a vision. He's trying to create some legacy he thinks this country needs. That's why he did it."

"At the pinch between our two farms, it would be only about a half-mile from his compound to ours. That's how they got in to mutilate the elk."

"A trial run. I think they've done a lot of those."

"They took Saleha that way."

"We can circle back and take it to get to the Colter farm. It will be our surprise attack."

"Circling back is going to have to wait. They figured out which trail we took."

A bullet ricocheted off a boulder next to the one she was resting on.

Craig rolled back from the edge and ran to her. "Rest time is over."

"Help me to the cliff." When he hesitated, she growled, "Now."

"Yes, ma'am." He took her arm. "We're wasting—"

"Shut-up."

At the cliff, he held her by her belt while she looked over the edge. The four men were crossing the field. They were less than a quarter-mile away.

She took out her Beretta and aimed at them.

"Isn't that a waste of bullets?"

"I want them to know we're still armed. We're not just elk they can hunt at their leisure. I want to take one of those bastards down if I can."

She fired six shots. One whizzed by Bobby's head. He swatted at it as if it were a bee. The other five struck the ground in front of the thick network installer.

The four men scattered for cover behind rocks.

"I wish I had a slingshot." Craig looked around. "I could throw a few at them. That might scare them off."

"It may come to that." She took another few shots at Bobby.

The bullets landed three feet to the left of the boulder he was crouching behind.

"The wind's too strong."

Craig pulled her back from the edge just before a fusillade of bullets broke off a section of it.

She picked up a rock, though bending over almost toppled the both of them, and threw it at the four men before Craig took them higher up into the mountains.

That had been Shana's scream coming from the tunnel. What were they doing to her in there?

# Chapter 48

"That painkiller is wearing off." She took her arm from around his shoulder. "I need to rest."

"Just over here." He took her across a flat expanse littered with Spirea, Huckleberry, Juniper and dry, yellow grass to a clump of boulders beside a cliff that rose up another one hundred feet or more. "There's a cave we can hide in."

The cave was little more than a hollow in the cliff face twelve feet high by ten feet deep, but boulders as big as tanks blocked it from view to anyone coming along the expanse. The four men would be the exposed ones walking into an ambush.

Once they were inside the cave, she asked, "And what kind of plan do you have for me?"

"I don't suppose you're talking about how we're going to get out of this."

"Since returning, I've had this persistent feeling that everyone else has their own plan for me. They know everything there is to know about me—some, it turns out, know more about me than I know myself—and they all have a plan. And then there is you. Do you know everything there is to know about me, too?"

"I think I'm screwed no matter how I answer that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Harry told me a bit about you after you were hired."

"What bits?"

"You had recently gone through a number of personal challenges. He didn't tell me what they were, only that you were going to have some trust issues for the first while on the job. He asked me to help you settle in any way I could. I didn't think he meant I was supposed to meddle with your life." He went to look out through a v-shaped opening between the two largest boulders in front of the cave. "Or fall in love with you."

Pain rose from her thigh up to the back of her neck and along the back of her leg down to her foot as though someone had just inserted two hot needles under her skin. She inhaled sharply. "What?"

"How many bullets do you have left?"

"Not enough. What did you just say?"

"I've got one dart left in each pistol." He looked back at her. "They must have split up. I only see two of them."

She limped over and leaned against him to look out through the crack. "Where are the Cotton brothers? I did hear you, you know."

"You can cover me from here. I'm going up to get a clear shot. And remember, I'm no marksman. I know you heard me."

"They're needles. You should be better at sticking needles into people than bullets. You stuck a needle into me."

"You were only six inches away and I wasn't trying to shoot you with one, though I did have your lovely red butt in my face. That was quite the distraction."

" _Men_."

"Yes, don't hold it in, we're all pigs." He took a look through the crack. "Can we do this? They're getting closer."

She grabbed him and kissed him. "I had an affair with my FBI partner. It consisted of one night together at a conference in San Francisco. We agreed it wasn't love and wasn't right for either of us, but, still, I did it and I can't take it back. I was planning to leave my husband before he died, but it had nothing to do with my one-night stand. Unfortunately, both of them were killed on the job and people started rumors that didn't fit the facts." She kissed him again. "Even Shana has a distorted view of what really happened and I haven't had the courage to sit down with her and straighten her out. And I wasn't looking for any kind of personal relationship with a man. Now you know everything there is to know about me. What's your plan?"

His smile might be wonderful to wake up to, along with those twinkling grey-blues. "We take out the two who aren't the Cotton brothers. We save ourselves, then we save Shana, then we see where this relationship that you found without even looking goes." He circled around the boulder and started climbing.

An eagle circled overhead and screeched.

She peeked out at the two men and aimed her Beretta. It was difficult to get a good line of sight. The shrubs were no barriers to the men. They didn't have to stay on any defined trail so they could spread out, but they also had fewer things they could use for cover. They knew they were vulnerable. They walked about twenty feet apart, crouched down and avoided taking a straight line.

Where were those damn Cotton twins?

The eagle screeched again.

One of the men stopped to look up.

"If he aims at it," she muttered, "I'm going to shoot him right in the balls even if I have to stand clear."

The eagle screeched and flew away.

Buzzing descended from above. One of Colter's whirligigs lowered itself to hover over the clearing.

She heard the _phfft_ of the dart gun. The man who'd been looking up staggered back and reached for his right thigh. He pulled out the dart and looked for the shooter. A second _phfft_ had him reaching for his stomach only to crumple to the ground before he could pull the dart out.

The other man, the short, thick one, opened fire at the top of the boulder.

She heard Craig drop off it somewhere behind her as she looked through the crack. Where was the second man? She shifted onto her left leg and almost went down until she fell against the boulder to prop herself up.

The man was firing short, controlled bursts at the boulder as he ran toward it. The drone came along with him.

She aimed the Beretta and fired when he stopped to check for any results. Her fifth shot struck him in the neck.

"Two down," Craig said from the cave.

Another fusillade of bullets hit the boulders and the rocks around the opening of the cave.

She opened fire on the drone. At least two bullets hit it. It wavered and spun wildly before dropping onto the second man. Without looking, she then pointed the Beretta through the crack and fired until her gun was empty. The other shooting stopped.

Craig took hold of her arm and led her to a narrow footpath between two boulders on the left side of the cave, something a mountain goat might use. They had to place their hands against the two boulders they were squeezing past and hop onto the trail.

She glanced back to see Billy and Bobby crossing the field. Had they forced the other two men to go first, giving them the choice of being shot if they didn't and possibly shot if they did?

They gave their two fallen comrades no more consideration than to pick up their rifles and ammo clips.

There were two down and only two to go, except those two were probably the most vicious men under Colter's command. Each one of them carried grudges against her and Craig along with two automatic rifles. And she was still getting farther away from Shana.

# Chapter 49

The strain on her leg from the constant climbing culminated in a fall when they reached Lookout Point, an alpine meadow being buffeted by a biting wind from the mountain peaks to the northwest. She didn't see the root curving out of the ground and stubbed her right toe on it. Her injured left leg reflexively shot out to stop her, but a tearing pain buckled her knee. She fell, smacking her chin against the ground.

Craig was beside her in an instant. "Don't move. You've popped some staples."

She barely felt the stab of the needle into her leg, but it went numb quickly. She just lay on her belly while Craig tended to the wound. A bruise was swelling on her chin. A trickle of blood was running down her left cheek. She didn't remember it hitting anything.

There were patches of glistening snow at this elevation. Low, sprawling shrubs clung to the shallow soil against the winds that blew across the bluff. Her eyes watered when she looked to the northwest.

Craig didn't ask her to pull down her trousers. He just cut them open at the back and worked as fast as he could to reseal the wound. He then pressed two or three adhesive bandages onto it.

"Can you stand?"

"I think so."

He helped her up. "Hold still." He wrapped her left thigh tightly with an elastic bandage and secured it.

"I'm sorry if my butt's getting in your way."

"I'm not." He finished by putting a small bandage on her cheek.

"Now what? This is as high as we can go and there are two men with four guns only minutes behind us."

There might be another surveillance drone, too.

With his support, they headed for the northwest corner of the bluff. At the edge, she could look down on Dominion.

"It would be a beautiful view under other circumstances."

"Randal often brought the students up here as part of their research. He'd land over there." He pointed back to a large, mostly flat, platform of rock.

"What's to research up here but a few runty bushes with a nasty sense of humor?" On second glance, the patches of snow turned out to be tiny white flowers trembling in the wind.

"This way." He supported her, but he also tugged on her to get them going toward a trio of egg-shaped boulders ranging from eight to ten feet high that stood at the edge of a copse of spindly aspen. Once he got them behind the boulders, he ducked them down. "The Cotton brothers just arrived."

"Is there another way down? Is there somewhere else we can go? You told me you were taking me to Colter's farm."

He pointed to the south. "Down that side is Quarrelle Creek valley. There's a steep, narrow path that circles back to trails leading to the north side of Colter's farm, but they'd spot us before we ever got to it." He pointed north. "There's a trail leading further into the mountains that way, but we'd have the same problem trying to get to it."

"We've accomplished nothing. We might as well have taken our chances with the rocket launcher."

"There were more men there; up here we only have two."

"Two with two guns each."

She peeked around the boulder. Bobby and Billy were crouched down and proceeding cautiously the way the other two had. No runty bush had tried to trip either of them. They didn't know where their targets were, so there wasn't likely a second drone. They also didn't know she and Craig were out of ammunition.

"Wait here."

She grabbed hold of him. "No. We stay together. Colter might have something unique in mind for us; crackpots like him usually do. Surrendering to them would get us down from here and buy us more time."

Craig peeked out from behind the boulder. "They've separated. Billy's closest. Bobby's coming via the south edge of the cliff. I think that's Bobby."

She fell over onto her side to peek out and watched Bobby walking along the edge of the cliff straight for them. If she could hit him with a rock, it might knock him off. She looked around and found one slightly smaller than a softball. It was too heavy to throw with any accuracy while she was lying on the ground, though. She took hold of the boulder to get back up.

Craig helped her and embraced her when they heard the growl above them. Caesar was crouched on top of the largest of the three boulders looking down at them.

She peeked out to see where Bobby and Billy were. Bobby spotted her the moment she did, pointed their location out to the other evil twin and started running.

Caesar roared and sprung from his perch. Billy must have fired and missed because a moment after the bullets struck the boulders. He screamed briefly.

Bobby stopped jogging and turned. His arms fell to his sides. Unable to accept what was happening to his brother, he just watched for a few seconds before running to Billy's defense.

Craig shot past her straight for Bobby, tackled him to the ground, rolled and landed on top of him. He smashed down on Bobby as hard and as fast as he could and managed to land a few blows to Bobby's face and neck. He got the one rifle Bobby had managed to hold on to away from him and tossed it aside, but that gave Bobby the chance to get a good hold of him.

She came out from behind the boulder and limped as fast as she could for the rifle. To her left, Billy was writhing on the ground and clutching his throat. Caesar was gone.

Bobby managed to get to his feet while holding off Craig's attack. He punched Craig twice in the face and tossed him aside. They were equal distance from the one rifle she could see when he spotted her. He started running for it after taking a quick look at his brother. Craig tackled him from behind.

They rolled over the south cliff together.

"Craig!" She fell when she tried to change direction. Clutching her leg, she got to her feet, retrieved the rifle and went to the edge of the cliff. "Craig! Craig!"

All she could see were rock outcroppings, plants that clung to the side of the cliff, one broken when Bobby and Craig must have hit it on the way down, the forest in the valleys below and a meandering white line that had to be Quarrelle Creek.

Billy emitted a gurgling moan.

She limped over to him.

His left arm had two gouges in it, defensive wounds. Caesar had slashed through his bulletproof vest and taken a large chunk of flesh out of his massive chest. He'd also gashed Billy's throat. Blood squirted out sideways with every beat of Billy's heart despite his efforts to stanch the flow. He glared up at her.

"I'll bet when you were fifteen and bullying every other kid in your neighborhood, you never dreamed you'd grow up to have your throat torn out by a sissy mountain lion half your size." She kept glaring back at him until he was dead.

"Caesar! Caesar! Come here, boy!"

Caesar didn't return.

She started back for the cliff where Craig and Bobby went over, but stopped after only a few strides. Her left leg throbbed. When she touched the bandage it didn't feel sticky and she could see no blood stain on it. Craig's repair work was still holding up. The bandage did, however, feel tight enough to be cutting off the flow of blood to her lower leg.

Fleeing had taken her at least a thousand feet higher into the mountains and farther away from Shana. Even if her leg held up during the descent, and it wouldn't, she would take too long to get back down. She was effectively stranded up here.

Using the rifle as a cane, she went back to Billy and went through his pockets but found no communication device on him. Unless Bobby had something, that meant the Cotton brothers had been given their orders, they'd been given free rein on how to carry them out and there had been no need to communicate with their command center, which meant she had been wrong. Surrendering to them would not have saved their lives.

The pain in her shoulder and at the back of her leg became a tingling numbness that overtook her whole body only to give way to trembling and dizziness that threatened to bring her to her knees until that, too, was replaced by heat snaking through every sinew and muscle, spreading out, rising up and radiating off her. She screamed as loud and as long as she could. The echo reverberated back to reinforce her cry, but both it and her energy soon faded.

Wind buffeted her from behind, her legs threatened to give out when she resisted. When she looked up at the cloudless sky, the faces of everyone she'd lost were there: her father's insane rage in his eyes, his furrowed brow and snarling mouth as he closed his hands around her throat; her mother's kind and tender smile at the travails of her daughter's young life, the infatuations and heartbreaks, the triumphs and losses; Travis' regret that he may have cause her guilt and doubt; Michael's passive mask that she had interpreted so many different and disturbing ways; Craig's eyes that her vanity had allowed her to believe were twinkling because of her the moment she'd looked into them; Shana's scream of terror distorting her lovely features as those two men dragged her away.

Vivid and awful, she squeezed her eyes shut to all of them and the tears they brought.

Another gust of wind took out her legs. She collapsed, slapped her hands against the stone and wailed into the emptiness until her voice grew too hoarse and she could only whimper, "Shana, I. . . ."

The eagle came rising up on the thermals. It screeched as it flew over her and fled to the north ahead of the roar of rotors rising up behind it. Another RPA sent by Colter to monitor the progress of the mission, or to conclude it quickly with a rocket now that Billy and Bobby were down?

She got up, cocked the rifle and started for the cover of the egg-shaped boulders. Judging by how quickly the roar was getting louder, she was going to get caught out in the open. She turned to face the approaching noise and aimed the rifle. The roar increased to a much louder and more substantial level than at the lower plateau. A Forestry helicopter rose up over the bluff.

Randal landed it on the spot Craig had pointed out, turned it off and came to her.

"Where's Craig?"

The tears started again when she pointed. "He and Bobby."

"Come on. It's really ugly down there. There have been explosions in town: the Mayor's office, Fire Hall Number Three, the one with the big truck, and your office." Randal lifted her into his arms and carried her back to the helicopter.

Her mouth moved but she couldn't get any words out.

"Rob got some shrapnel in his leg, but he noticed something before the explosion and got Amelia and Janine to cover. They have only minor injuries." He placed her into the back of the helicopter.

"Harry called me," he said as he restarted the Bell and lifted off. "I went to the farm. There was nothing there but bodies and Portland SWAT. I took a chance Craig might have come up this way."

"Take me back."

"It's secure. The action is at Colter's farm."

"There's a tunnel."

"Man, that guy's an even bigger nut job than we thought."

"The biggest there is. Shana would call him a real triple-O: a weirdo, wacko, psycho."

"You have a very intelligent daughter."

"I hope I still do." She wiped away tears. "What's happening?"

"It's a standoff at Colter's. There's been shooting and explosions. Four agents have been injured. I think one lost his leg. Your colleague from the FBI, Colin Foster, and Harry are negotiating with Colter, who is holed up in his house with Kelly, Kate, Susan, your friend Mattie and Leo as hostages. That was the last I heard before I came looking for you."

"He also has Saleha, Shana and two other children."

The moment she closed her eyes, she started shaking. Her leg, chin and shoulder throbbed. She would kill Colter if she got the chance. He was responsible for all this death. He had Shana, Lily, Donny and Saleha.

Her hands opened and clenched repeatedly. Shana had to still be alive. She couldn't have come back to Dominion only to lose her goddess, too. She had to keep wiping tears from her face.

# Chapter 50

Captain Wallace Nash and his SWAT unit of eight men were in standby mode when they landed. Randal helped her out of the helicopter but she walked over to Nash and his team unassisted.

"Joan," Nash said, "it's good to see you again."

"Hi, Wally." She waived to the unit. "I'm glad it's you guys. They took Shana and two other kids."

"We were only told about the ones Colter has with him."

"Just let me get my vest and we'll go."

"Joan, we've been ordered to stay put. Colter has saturated the area surrounding his main compound with mines and IEDs. We've lost six agents, three from your FBI friends, three from ATF. Our bomb disposal unit is out there now clearing what they can. Two more units from the army will be here in two hours. I was told there were hundreds."

"We're not going that way. There's a tunnel."

Nash and his whole unit perked up at that news.

"You're kidding."

"It comes up in that old shed over there."

"He dug a tunnel? To here? Why?" He quickly shook his head and held up his hand. "On second thought, don't bother."

"They likely have the kids in the tunnel. And it will get us past the traps on his farm."

"That's assuming there are no surprises waiting for us in there. You have a knack for finding these guys, don't you?"

"I think the tunnel was dug to be an escape route. Colter hadn't intended to launch anything yet. My daughter and her two friends triggered all this when he caught them spying. He knew they had recorded evidence against him. He knew Shana had escaped with it. They were forced to come here to retrieve that evidence if their bigger plan was to proceed as intended."

"He has a bigger plan? This guy sounds like a real—"

"He is." She looked over to the unit. "All of you were at the Crowley farm. You know what that was like. This is much bigger. I have the utmost respect for all of you, but the truth is I can't guarantee there aren't traps in the tunnel or men waiting to ambush us. I am going to get my daughter and her friends. If you—"

Nash and his unit slapped their guns.

"Thank you. I'll be as quick as I can."

She retrieved her bulletproof vest from its box in the back of the burned-out Suburban. The lower third of it was scorched.

Nash had a Colt M4 for her when she returned to them at the shed. He signaled two of his men to take point and sent them ahead. After giving them a thirty second head start, and hearing no gunfire, the rest of them entered the building.

The tunnel was a model of military engineering ingenuity. If it had been big enough and long enough, it could have been a commuter tunnel for New York. Colter's crew had angled the exit to the tool shed at a gentle slope that brought it to an eight-foot vertical hole below the floor. They had cut an opening in the floor and secured a ladder to the wall of the hole. The sloping part of the tunnel was the tightest part after the vertical drop. They had to proceed in single file for about sixty yards before the tunnel leveled out and opened into the spectacular achievement it was.

Randal whispered into her ear, "I think we've just crossed that fine line between."

The arched tunnel rose thirty feet or more above them. It was wide enough to drive a tank through it. Three trucks parked off to the side directly ahead of them were easily visible because of the overhead lighting. One of them was Albert Nguyen's Golden Star Deliveries van.

Nash and his unit looked over their surroundings. Most of them had the same expression of wonder and disbelief on their faces at what they saw. There was some damage from small explosions and signs of gunfire.

The two men Nash had sent ahead came trotting back past the trucks. The lead one whispered into Nash's ear.

After getting the report, Nash turned to her and shrugged. "They're all dead." Realizing he'd said the wrong thing, he quickly corrected himself, "Colter's men are dead. They're strewn all over the place up ahead."

The two lead men took them along the tunnel past the parked trucks, two motorcycles, three riding mowers, and a Hummer. Once past the obstacle course, they had an unobstructed view to the other end. They proceeded cautiously anyway, with the unit surrounding her and Randal, but they reached the other end of the tunnel without an IED going off and without being ambushed.

They passed a dozen or more bodies, all of whom had been shot. She didn't look at them. What if they weren't all Colter's men?

At the other end, they found Shana, Lily and Donny unharmed. Zemar was guarding them. Boxes of weapons and supplies were piled everywhere.

Shana ran to her crying. "He killed Saleha. She was looking right at me. She held my hands and told me it would be all right, but he snuck up and stabbed her from behind. She died holding my hands. She just fell into my arms still holding my—"

She embraced Shana and looked at Zemar. Saleha was lying at his feet.

"He hid us," Shana sobbed into her shoulder. "He killed the men guarding us and hid their bodies. He hid us when more men came through the tunnel." She took deep, ragged breaths. "When they left men behind to look for the others, Zemar killed them, too. When more came back, he killed them. He protected us, but Saleha was already gone when he got here." She bawled in her mother's arms.

The SWAT team suddenly turned to face the way they'd just come and aimed their guns.

"No," Zemar shouted. "He's tame."

Caesar, his head held low, came trotting along the tunnel to Shana. When Shana dropped to her knees and hugged him, he started purring.

"He saved my life," she said. "I'll tell you about it later."

Zemar picked up his sister and came to her. "I kept them down here when I heard shooting and explosions. I didn't know if it was safe to return to the farm. I didn't know if it was safe to take them out at this end."

"Thank you. I'm so sorry about Saleha."

Randal stepped forward. "Can we do anything?"

"I've got her."

Nash came over to her. "I've let Foster and Madsen know we're in here. They recommend we return to the Harding farm."

"That's exactly what we're going to do."

One of Nash's men brought over Lily and Donny.

Donny had his arm around Lily for support and wore a bloody bandage on his left ankle. "Is it true? Are they both dead?"

She nodded.

Lily, her head bowed, said, "Our guards told us, but we hoped they were just. . . ."

"I'm sorry."

Still on her knees with Caesar, Shana said, "Mom, these guys are sadistic, vicious pricks."

"Triple-O."

Nash said, "Let's go, everybody." He gathered his men around Joan, the teenagers and Caesar.

Caesar jumped to his feet and started growling.

"It's okay." Shana reached down to reassure him, but he jerked back, turned and ran.

Explosions started going off overhead at the Harding end of the tunnel.

# Chapter 51

She grabbed Shana and ran after Caesar. Wally and Randal carried Donny. The SWAT team surrounded the others and followed them up the cement ramp to the garage and then out. A cloud of smoke, flames and burning debris chased after them. Some of Nash's men received minor shrapnel wounds or burns.

The FBI SWAT team leader spotted them first and sent four of his men to help bring them in. They hesitated when they saw Caesar, which brought smiles to the Portland SWAT members.

Harry and Colin had set up their command center among some trees in a pasture directly opposite the front of Colter's house but about one hundred yards away. It consisted of one large tent, two black FBI vans and one Lenco BearCat. Two MD500 helicopters circled overhead. Higher up, two Cessna airplanes made wider circles. Two ambulances were parked farther into the pasture next to an opening in the fence.

"How is every—" Harry stopped when he caught site of Zemar carrying Saleha.

"Colter destroyed the tunnel," she said. It was 12:03 pm. "Right on schedule, I imagine."

"Most of his men scattered into the hills when we arrived. ATF and National Guard units are out rounding them up. Where's Craig?"

"He's dead, as are the Cotton brothers and two men who helped install our network upgrade."

Harry nodded. "Colter probably still thinks he can get out of this."

Colin shook her hand. "What's with the cougar?"

"He's the only surviving animal from the Harding farm that didn't escape."

"We have snipers in position, but they can't get a good shot at him or the two men with him. He might be wearing a vest full of explosives; it's hard to tell."

Three paramedics came from the ambulances. Two took charge of the teenagers. They put blankets around them and took them into the shade behind a clump of trees to be out of the line of fire. Lily accompanied Donny to the ambulance. Caesar stayed at Shana's side and lay next to her when she sat down beside one of the trees. They would, Joan hoped, keep each other from falling apart.

"It's clear," Colin said when he saw where she was looking. "The bomb squad swept that area before going into the field."

Zemar and the injured SWAT members went with the other paramedic. Zemar placed Saleha into one of the ambulances and remained with his sister.

"What happened here?"

"You just experienced it firsthand. He's set mines, IEDs and trip wires everywhere. There are hundreds of them, ranging in size from small man-down types to pressure-cooker bombs with nails in them, ones with gas-soaked cotton batten and matches, to ones with C4 and Semtec. I think they made up every kind they could brainstorm."

Colin said, "They even had drones. Two of them took out ATF's armored car before it all just stopped." He pointed to the scorched remains. "Two other ambulances took away our injured."

She said to Randal, "That's what those wire traps could have been. They didn't care about snagging animals; they were just testing their designs. The pits were only misdirection."

Randal said, "What about the hostages?"

Colin answered, "As far as we can tell, none of them are hurt except Kelly. Colter said she's only unconscious."

"Can I talk to him?"

"That might not be a good idea," Harry said. "Once the tunnel explosions started, he broke contact as soon as he saw you come out of the garage. Before that, he was demanding confirmation you were dead before he would negotiate anything."

"He knows how this works." Colin checked his watch. "We're scheduled to talk again in eight minutes."

"Come get me when you do."

Shana, Lily and Donny were sitting in silence when she reached them. They still had blankets around them and each of them had a bottle of water. Donny had a new bandage around his ankle.

She slid down next to Shana. Her left leg twitched as she settled and felt like it was splitting open at the back. Her chin felt thick and hot, some lower front teeth felt loose. Her eyes stung.

Shana leaned over and rested her head on her shoulder. "You're hurt." She handed over her bottle of water.

Joan took a drink and then felt thirsty. "A small cut. Craig fixed it up. I'm sorry I took so long to get to you."

"Zemar kept telling me you'd come. Where's Craig?"

"He and Caesar saved my life. The twins had chased us up into the mountains. I couldn't move very well because of my leg and we had run out of ammunition. When they got close, Caesar jumped Billy. Craig tackled Bobby and they went over the cliff."

"All of this is my fault. If I hadn't been so determined to get evidence against him. . . ." She started crying again.

"No, sweetheart, it isn't. Colter's been making crazy plans for years. You three were just in the wrong place at the wrong time trying to do the right thing."

Donny asked, "Was my dad working with him?"

"No, your dad was a hero." She hoped she didn't sound patronizing. "He was working with the DEA to get information against Colter and his connections in the drug trade."

Lily said, "Why did they kill my dad?"

"They might have been afraid he was going to tell what he knew. In the end, he was trying to protect you."

"I'm so sorry," Shana said.

"It's that wild-woman gene. You can't help yourself."

One of the paramedics came over. "I should take a look at your wounds."

"I'm fine."

"Please, mom, let him." She sniffed. "I couldn't bear it if I lost you, too."

She kissed Shana, got up with the paramedic's help and went to a picnic table they had set up as a first aid treatment area. The SWAT members had been treated and had returned to the command center. Blankets were hung to form privacy screens. She kept watch on Shana over the top of the screen.

"Your teeth are fine," the paramedic said after checking them. "The sensation will go away as the swelling decreases."

He then put one small bandage on her chin and one on her cheek before taking off the tight wrapping. The dammed-up pain cascaded down along her leg to her foot. She couldn't help but moan when she pulled her pants down.

"The wound looks good," he said once he had the bandages off. His touch was delicate, but not as soothing as Craig's touch had been. "It just needs a new bandage." He put one on. "Do you want the wrap? I don't think it's necessary."

"No." She pulled up her pants and started back for Shana.

Randal caught her attention and waved for her to rejoin them at the command center.

She paused to pet Caesar and kiss Shana on her way.

# Chapter 52

The explosions went off right on time, but those three kids were still alive. That McGowan woman and those brats were all still alive. Portland SWAT brought them out of the tunnel, along with a cowering mountain lion that stayed close to the McGowan girl. And then there was Khan carrying his sister, too.

"It was a simple mission," he shouted at Gotlieb and Rush. "There would be little or no resistance. The explosions in the tunnel should have buried them. But, look, there they are. Jesus-fucking-Christ, that bitch is still alive."

He'd watched the pursuit of McGowan and Harding into the mountains on the monitors. They had been cornered before the feed was lost. One wounded head case and a stupid veterinarian; it should have been easy.

Rush said, "I can take her out now, sir."

"Fuck her, fuck them all. I'll fix this soon enough." He looked out the front bedroom's window. "Harding's not with them. They must have at least got him. And the sister is dead; that's good."

He backed away and scanned the four monitors in the room. A 360 degree view of the compound's main grounds revealed no other nasty surprises. He then checked his hostages. Kate and Susan sat on the floor together. Kelly had regained consciousness and sat next to them. She was the only one bound at the wrists with a zip strap. Jones lay closer to the door with his right foot propped up on three pillows and covered with ice packs. They all wore vests identical to his. Mattie stood by the door. She didn't wear a vest.

His phone rang. "She's still alive."

"Yes, she is," Madsen said, "There's been enough killing, Mort. What do we need to do to end all this?"

"Is Harding dead?"

"He went over a cliff with Bobby."

"Where is his brother?"

"Caesar killed him."

"Why are the kids still alive?"

"Do you want a complete body count, Mort?"

He hollered into the phone, "Why aren't they dead?"

"Give me a moment." Harry started talking to someone at his end of the phone.

He peeked out the window, adjusting his hunting vest when it tapped against the wall. The vest pockets were full of C4 explosives wired to a timer-detonator.

Madsen was talking to Vance, McGowan and the commander of the Portland SWAT team. If there had been a firefight, why hadn't the kids been shot first thing as ordered? He should have put CCTV cameras in the tunnel, too.

"Mort, are you still there?"

"What a stupid, fucking question."

"Do you know Zemar Khan Marwat?"

"Do you think I'm blind? He's that terrorist Harding smuggled into our country. I saw him come out with McGowan. Do you think I'm fucking blind?"

"Maybe you should be talking to someone else, Mort. I don't think I'm the right person to negotiate with you."

"I'll end this, Harry. Until I do, I'll talk only to you. You thought you were on top of this. You thought you were going to trip me up, but it's too late. Nothing can stop this now." He growled into the phone, "You were going to bring that woman in on the investigation. I talk to you or it's all over now." He chuckled to himself; if they only knew.

Leo moaned. Rush aimed his SIG556 at Kate to keep her from going to him. Gotlieb pointed his at Susan for added incentive.

"Who killed Marwat's dyke sister?"

"Saleha's dead?"

Kate put her arm around her daughter.

"Mort, what are you asking?"

"It's a simple question. I want to know which one of my men killed her. He deserves a medal."

"We don't know. She was killed shortly after your men brought Shana McGowan into the tunnel." He paused to speak to the others at his end.

"And?"

"Zemar followed your men. He didn't reach them in time to save Saleha, but he had a gun and killed them before they could harm the children. He killed others when they attacked."

"That's impossible. My men are the best there is."

"I don't know what to tell you. That's what happened."

"And you let him get away with that?"

"He was protecting the children. And we didn't even know there was a tunnel. We didn't know the children had been taken."

"Knowledge is power, Harry." He took out his smartphone. "And you don't know what I know."

"The mission is over, Mort. Operation Gangrene is finished before it ever began."

"You think _this_ is the beginning? Check in again in fifteen minutes." He hung up. "Sniper, Tulsa, the house is completely surrounded, correct?"

Rush said, "Sir, yes, sir, everyone is in position."

"Get back to your posts."

Rush and Gotlieb saluted before leaving the room.

He adjusted his vest and tightened its straps. Then he punched a button on his smartphone. An image of a red button appeared on the screen. He pressed his right thumb against the image. _ACTIVATED_ appeared after he removed his thumb, followed by an image of a black button.

"Please, Morton," Mattie said, "just let me go."

"Shut up." He walked over to Kate. "Get out."

"Not without Susan and Kelly. You can keep those other two."

"I'm only letting you go because I need to deliver a special message to those idiots outside."

"What about this vest? I won't go out there as your bomb so you can kill more people."

"I don't need you to kill anyone."

"I'll go." Mattie came to him. "I'll be the messenger. I've done everything you've ever asked of me. You have to give me that. I've delivered whatever you wanted me to. You have to give me that, too. Come on, sweetie, let me deliver this message." She reached for him. "You owe me that after last night."

"You called me to come get you. You said you wanted in. Well this," he said as he swept his hand to indicate all of them, "is in. And you're in to stay, _sweetie_."

"Please?"

Leo groaned, "Let me be the messenger. I need to get to a hospital."

Kate barked, "Shut up, Leo. This isn't about you."

Detonating Jones at the hospital would leave a meaningful impression. He smiled at the thought.

"Mort, please, just let me go."

When Mattie tried to embrace him, he shoved her away as hard as he could, sending her tumbling to the floor and banging her head against the wall.

"You bastard." Her forehead was bleeding. "Look what you did to me." She got up, grabbed something from the top of a dresser and came at him as she lifted it to strike.

He stepped back, pulled out his Colt .45 1911A1 and fired.

"Oh, God, no." Susan buried her face in her hands.

Mattie dropped the hairbrush and clutched her stomach. Her eyes opened wide, her mouth gaped. A hiss of air came out of her as she staggered backward.

Rush and Gotlieb came running into the room and aimed their rifles at the hostages. They looked to him for orders.

He looked down at the Colt in his hand. "It was just reflex." He took a step toward Mattie.

She kept staggering backward. Blood seeped through her fingers, spread out across her blouse and down along the front of her slacks. She still didn't say anything.

"For God's sake, Mort, get her help."

Kate and Susan had stood up. Kelly, at the edge of his vision, struggled to her feet, too.

Rush and Gotlieb cocked their rifles.

He slid the Colt back into its holster. "Return to your posts."

The men left the room.

Mattie, propped up against the wall between the dresser and the door, was looking down at her bloody hands when he went to her.

"I thought we—" She slid down the wall and fell over to block the doorway, her eyes frozen open and staring up at him.

Kate went to her and checked her pulse. "She's dead."

His phone started ringing.

He said to the three women, "Get out."

Leo started to say something, but stopped when Colter's hand went to his Colt.

"What about these?" Kate pulled on the vest.

"Come here."

The three women lined up. In turn, he entered the three-number code and then pressed the button to release the locks on their vests. Entering a fourth number would have started the countdown.

"I have a message for them. Repeat exactly what I tell you. Then go somewhere and pray."

# Chapter 53

Their discussion of the few options possible was turning into another circular conversation characteristic of life in Dominion.

"If we storm the house," Colin said, "the hostages would likely be killed before we could get to them."

Wally scanned the house and their surroundings again. "There's little chance of getting on the roof and in through the windows."

"Not with Colter and two of his men keeping watch. Stun grenades are out if those vests contain explosives."

"Which they probably do," she said. They kept coming to the same point that stalled any progress.

A shot came from inside the house. Everyone ducked for cover before peeking out as if they actually could see what was going on inside Colter's headquarters.

"Wait," Harry said. "It's only one shot." He called Colter's number. "He's not answering. Maybe he shot himself?"

"What about his two men?" She looked up at the bedroom window but only shadows moved past it.

"He's still not answering."

"Can one of our snipers see what happened?"

"There!" Colin pointed to the house.

Kate and Susan were helping Kelly out the front door. None of them were wearing vests anymore.

Two men from FBI SWAT ran to them while the rest of their team and Portland SWAT took up positions to provide covering fire if required.

Colin held his finger to his ear to better hear what he was being told. "It's the Griffin woman. Our south sniper says he shot her. They were having some kind of argument, she charged him. It may have been an accident."

"I'm supposed to believe Colter shot Mattie by mistake?"

Harry stopped trying to reach Colter by phone and hugged Kelly when she arrived with Kate and Susan.

Joan asked, "Are you all right?"

Kelly gave her a weak salute and nodded. "Yeah, a sucker punch, that's all. Mostly, I feel stupid for not seeing it coming."

"None of us saw this coming."

Harry said nothing as the paramedics took Kelly away. Susan went with her. Kate remained at the command center.

She hugged Kate. "Mattie?"

Kate shook her head. "Of all that's happened, I think that was truly unintentional."

"How did you end up here?"

"That was Leo's doing."

"He's in on this?"

"Only as an idiot. He got a call from Mort about the fair. He decided to exert his leadership over the location of Mort's stands. He asked us to come with him because he still needed someone else to supply a backbone if he was going to face down the mighty Colonel Colter. We got here just as they were going after your daughter and her friends."

"So there was no chance of turning around and leaving."

"Not that Leo didn't try. The moment he saw the guns, he bolted past us to get back to the car and tripped. He broke his ankle." She looked for Susan. "I have a message for all of you. Mort says the whole farm is full of mines and IEDs."

"We know," Colin said. "We have a bomb disposal squad in the field now."

"Not out there, here, right here." She pointed around the main grounds of the farm. "He says there are still more than enough left after he let your unit clear the others. He has a special app on his smartphone. They've all been activated and he can set them off with a push of a button, one at a time or all at once. You are to send the helicopters and planes away, call in your snipers and lay down all your weapons. If any of us tries to leave or charge or stop him in any way, if anyone tries to call for more help, he will set off every bomb left on these grounds. We're all hostages now."

Joan looked at Shana, Lily and Donny. "Would he at least let us send the kids away?"

Harry answered, "From what he's told me, I doubt it."

Kate said, "He has some on each floor of the house. He showed them to us to prove his point. They're all wired and prepped in there, too, according to him."

"We have to get the kids out of here."

"He has cameras everywhere. He's been watching all of you since you got here and chuckling to himself the whole time." She said to Joan, "He's seriously pissed that you're still alive."

"Fancy that."

Harry's phone rang. "Mort, I'm glad you called. Thank you for releasing the hostages." He nodded, looked at her and held out the phone.

She took it. "Sheriff McGowan."

"You do love saying that, don't you? Did Kate deliver my message?"

"She did."

"Right about now, you probably wish you had taken those brats out the other way, don't you?"

"I wish a lot of things had gone differently."

"Of course, you never would have made it. This must feel like déjà vu to you."

"More like act two."

"I'm impressed, Sheriff. I was able to lead Harry and his colleagues around easily enough, but you figured it out."

"You were at the Crowley farm."

"Not personally, no, but I had a hand in giving you your scars."

"Why do this? You served your country with distinction."

"I'm still serving my country. I'm helping it make the hard choices facing it."

"What do you want? Do you want me? I'll come in and you can let everyone else go."

"I knew you would offer yourself."

"You've thought of everything. This has been an efficient operation from the get go."

"Indeed it has. If not for your curious and meddlesome daughter and her friends, it would have begun as scheduled on Friday. But there was always enough flexibility in the plans to start earlier. Now, before you make some last desperate attempt to appeal to my last shred of humanity, you should know that both my men and I knew there would be casualties on both sides. We were prepared for that. We are still prepared for that; mostly your side now, though."

"What is it you want from all this?"

"None of you are leaving here alive."

She looked to the trees. "You don't have to—"

"When I'm through, there will be plenty of job opportunities open in local law enforcement, and everyone's going to blame Zemar Khan Marwat."

She kept her tone as neutral and non-challenging as she could. "Do you think that's still possible? Our superiors have been kept up to date on what's happening. They know who is behind this."

"Once you're all dead, I have evidence in place that will convince them Marwat tried to frame me and my men. They will also be convinced that the rest of you were all duped. You will be remembered as hoodwinked simpletons and ironic victims of his terrorist bloodlust."

"And you and your men will be the heroes."

He chuckled. "In three minutes, I want to see the aerial surveillance gone. In five minutes, I want to see the snipers out of their perches. And be assured, we know where all of them are. When everyone's present and accounted for, bring in the bomb squad. I will give you fifteen minutes to get them back and recall the National Guard and ATF squads pursuing my men, which, by the way, was by design. And remember, Sheriff McGowan, we can see all of you better than you can see us." He broke the connection.

She managed to repeat Colter's demands to Wally, Harry and Colin before she began trembling.

"We have to keep him talking," Colin said.

"How the hell do we do that? We have nothing to negotiate with."

Kate put an arm around her and took her aside.

"He's insane. He's convinced he's going to come out of this the hero." She clenched her fists. "I'd tear his head off if I could."

The snipers began returning to the command center. The helicopters and planes flew away.

"Come with me." Kate guided her toward the first aid area.

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"It hardly matters now, but Susan and I wanted to talk to you about Zemar and Saleha. We were worried you might be getting suspicious and we wanted to put in a good word." She chuckled harshly. "And I wanted to discuss my concerns about what Mort might be up to. I thought he was going to expose Zemar as Taliban, but not like this."

Kate went to Susan, Kelly and Zemar at the ambulance holding Saleha. Zemar had his arm around Susan.

She went to Shana, Lily and Donny, who were still sitting in the shade under the trees.

Caesar raised his head from Shana's lap for Joan to pet it before going back to sleep.

She sat beside Shana and put her arm around her.

"We're screwed, aren't we, mom?"

"It's not over yet."

"I'm sorry I stole that stupid wallet."

She stroked Shana's hair, her beautiful goddess, bold, courageous and overconfident. She lost her mother and father to a sick obsession. She lost Michael as they were reconciling. She lost Travis and twelve other colleagues, Craig and even Mattie to insane beliefs and violence. "I don't care about a stupid wallet."

"I love you, too, mom. How do we get out of this?"

"I don't know. He has the whole farm mined with explosives and an app on his phone to set them all off whenever he wants. There's no way we can do anything without him seeing us."

Kate, Susan and Kelly came over and sat down on the grass.

"Excuse me, Sheriff," Lily said, "did you just say he has an app on his phone?"

"Yes, to set off the explosives."

"No he doesn't."

"What do you mean he doesn't?"

She took out her phone. "Anything he has on that phone is DOA as soon as I call him."

"How did you do that?"

"Believe me, Sheriff," Donny said, "if she says she's done it, she has."

"What have you done? How could you possibly . . . ?"

Donny said, "You don't know what happened at Lafleur and Thatcher, do you, Sheriff?"

"I remember," Kelly said. "We never found out who did it." She smiled at Lily. "Impressive."

"It's a gift."

"What was impressive? This is all nonsense."

"No, mom, it isn't." Shana kissed her cheek. "You need to listen to Lily. And don't glaze over on her."

Donny said, "Lily sent a worm through Dominion's two private schools, the Lafleur Academy and the Thatcher Arts and Science Institute. It wiped out all their records."

"I spoofed the school board's email address and used that to send it as an attachment to both schools. It was crude, but they just opened it like it was a box of chocolates."

"You never know what you're going to get."

"That gave me access to a peer-to-peer port and my worm just wriggled its way in, sealed the port behind it and started munching its way into a Root Directory. Then it was just a matter of inundating them with requests until the buffers overflowed and that led to a complete direct denial of service blitzkrieg. My worm then ate all their records and self-destructed."

She looked at Shana.

"Mom, you're glazing. I've seen her in action; trust me, she's good."

She looked at Donny.

"She's really good; a total Ninja."

She looked at Lily.

Lily pointed to her sweatshirt. "A security Ninja now; the best there is."

Zemar arrived. "You're Tarot, aren't you?"

"That's one of me."

He said, "Sheriff, she _is_ good."

"Tell me what you've got."

"The programmer working for Colter is brilliant, but conceited. He's created two viruses. The one called Necrosis is designed to use a bot-net of computers to launch attacks on lots of different sites at the same time. Necrosis attacks chunks of code in their defenses: firewalls, virus detection and deletion programs, stuff like that."

Kelly said, "It's like HIV. It attacks the immune system of computers."

"It creates openings for worms and Trojan horses to enter. Vigilante, his other program, is protection for Necrosis while it's doing what it's doing."

She looked back at the people gathering at the command center. How receptive would Wally, Colin and Harry be to the prospect of a high school senior trying to save them with a counter-virus? What choice did they have?

"But he's a total loser when it comes to protecting his own stuff. He should have kept them isolated until he was ready to launch, but he put them on the same hard drive with everything else two days ago to start the countdown. He did have defences in place, sure, encryption and deception, but they were simple, primitive and slow because he didn't think anyone would come after him. With a little brute force, he was totally hacked by Chinese. I own him and his puny code. Necrosis and Vigilante are vulnerable until they launch at midnight Friday. I was able to penetrate both and set up a worm that will munch its way through them the moment they're initiated. I call it Pox."

"Hence," Shana said, "they are DOA."

"How?"

"The worm does to Necrosis what it would do to other programs. It turns it on itself. It will also stop Vigilante before it even starts. This guy linked all the phones on the farm, including Colter's, with all the computers, which are linked to their website. Once I got access to one of them, I had access to all of them. Seriously, it wasn't that difficult."

Kelly said, "What do you think, Joan?"

"I don't understand any this."

Zemar said, "I do, and it should work."

"You don't have to understand it, mom," Shana said. "You just need to know that our geek can totally beat up their geek. My best friend is the best weapon you have."

"She's the only weapon we have, if it will work."

"It will," Zemar said. "I wish I'd thought of it."

Lily said, "I know I shouldn't have, Sheriff McGowan, but they really pissed me off when they killed the elk."

"I'll overlook it this time. What about that app on his phone?"

"You mean this one?" Lily pressed some buttons on her phone and then held it up for her to see.

An image of a black button appeared on the screen.

"That's even easier than the viruses. The moment you call him on my phone, Pox will infect all of his phones and computers through his wifi. I sent the first part of it just before they captured us. I'm ninety-five percent sure he won't be able to do anything."

"What about that five percent?"

Shana said, "We won't have to worry about it for very long."

Lily said, "I added a little extra feature into Pox."

"Show me."

Lily took her and Zemar aside. "See that button. That's an image of the button on his app. I didn't know what he was up to, so I included a little bit of code that would send his app back at him when he pushed the button, sort of like a feedback loop to fry his software."

"You're brilliant," Zemar said, "and a bit scary."

"Totally."

"I gather it will do something else, too."

"Once you call him, it will cause his phone to send out a spike that should fry everything on his wifi. It might trigger any explosives timers nearby if they're connected to that wifi."

"How nearby?"

"Only a few feet. I mean, he'd have to be standing right next to the receiver on the bomb for anything to happen. It's not a very big spike, really, being that it's just a cell phone signal. That's the five percent uncertainty."

"You're sure about that?" She looked to Zemar.

"Theoretically," he said, "it has a ninety-five percent chance of working."

Lily held up her phone to show Joan a QR code. "That's his trigger. The trick is to get him to answer his cell phone not his hard line."

Again she turned to Zemar for verification.

"Joan, if she says so, it's so."

"Perfect. Show me how to work it. Then get everybody together for a picture."

# Chapter 54

The vest was gone. He'd taken it off after letting the three women go and tossed it onto the ones they'd left behind. He had then spent the time since he'd talked to McGowan just looking at either Mattie or Leo.

McGowan was quite inconsequential. Letting her think he was a madman would make her end a bit easier to take. These valiant Americans would die thinking they had just stumbled into a nest of insane vipers, not the first wave of a tide his people were sending across a country that sorely needed to regain its confidence and reassert itself on the world stage. The United States of America was more than just a bully police force that other nations hated, including many who counted themselves as allies, but still turned to when someone needed a beat down.

They'd think his men were apostles to his messianic, lunatic fringe militia movement, but he was the only apostle here. Only he and the other apostles knew who the real messiah was. Only Proteus knew how the fortunes of America and its people were going to play out because only Proteus controlled what happened next. Decades of patient planning was coming to fruition.

With so many operations planned in the coming years to keep the momentum going, they would soon learn of the others. This operation would appear to have been nipped in the bud, but it had been a suicide mission from the beginning. He would go down a believer knowing the work would continue until it solidified America's spine once again.

He went over to Mattie, picked her up and placed her on the hard, bare cot he slept on. He folded her arms across her chest.

"It's a shame, really." He checked his watch before peeking out the front window to confirm the aerial surveillance was gone and the snipers were returning to their command center.

Leo groaned and clutched his leg.

He said to Jones, "In her own way, she still had so much more to offer."

Leo nodded vigorously, as if he believed his emphatic agreement would somehow lead to his release. That was Leo Jones; the consummate ass-kissing politician to the very end.

He kissed Mattie's forehead before wiping his eyes.

His phone rang. "Hello, Harry. What's the progress report?"

The phone crackled with every word Madsen said, "The helicopters and planes are gone. The snipers are coming in." The phone went silent for a moment. "Sorry, Mort, the battery's dying. The bomb . . ." He waited through more crackling and another moment of silence. ". . . call you right back."

The connection broke.

Madsen was probably about to tell him the bomb squad, ATF and the National Guard were on their way back. The round up was on schedule. The monitors displayed no unexpected activity. McGowan was gathering the kids and the civilians together at the first-aid station to await their end.

He said to Leo, "Get out."

Jones wasted no time crawling through the doorway. He didn't even ask to get the vest removed. At the top of the stairs, he checked to see if his captor had changed his mind.

Colter's smartphone rang. "Why are you calling me on this phone?"

"Hello, Mort," McGowan said, "how's it hangin'?"

Jones had pulled himself up using the railing.

He drew his Colt and fired twice at him.

Jones grunted, collapsed and tumbled down the stairs.

McGowan said, "What was that?"

"Just the end of a very disappointing relationship."

Rush and Gotlieb came running into the room. Gotlieb ducked out to check on Jones. He held a thumb up when he returned.

"Sorry for the delay, Mort. You won't believe this, but in all the excitement no one thought to make sure their phones were fully charged. We had to look everywhere before we found just the right one."

"It doesn't matter. I don't believe there is anything left for us to talk about."

"I couldn't agree with you more. I just wanted to thank you for your input that helped get me this job." She paused. "Oh yes, and to let you know we've sent out emails to all major news services giving them the details of what's happening and identifying you and your men as the perpetrators. How's that sound to you?"

He scowled at his phone. "What the hell are you doing?"

"You shouldn't have come after my daughter, you sadistic, vicious prick."

His phone beeped three times before McGowan hung up.

He looked out the window to see both SWAT teams and the snipers in position and aiming their weapons at the house. It wasn't surprising. He had left them no options. These were honorable men and women. They were going down fighting. They were people to be proud of; perfect martyrs for the cause.

"Find McGowan and take her out."

Rush crouched down and went to the window. He peeked out to acquire his target, but that's as far as he got. What sounded like every rifle there was outside fired at once. The window glass shattered, bullets penetrated through the front wall and hit the ceiling. Rush fell back dead; struck at least eight times.

He called up the black button on his phone and pressed it. Nothing happened. He pushed it again. Still, nothing happened.

He barked at Gotlieb, "The laptop."

Gotlieb flipped open the laptop and stood back.

He called up Necrosis and Vigilante and typed in the password. The _INITIATE_ button appeared on the screen. He clicked on the image and stood back.

An image of the American flag flapping over the White House appeared, followed by a video of a ballistic missile being launched. The video vanished before the missile could clear the bunker, leaving the screen blank.

All the monitors in the room switched off.

The laptop beeped three times and returned to its desktop display. He stepped up to try again, but a fractal rash spread over the screen in red, white and blue. Once the screen was completely infected, three white capital letters materialized: _POX_. That was followed by: _I'm the HBIC BAC_. _U GTH_.

A text message scrolled along the bottom of the screen: _YOU'RE BUSTED, SHITHEAD_. _POX: 2 NECROSIS: 0 VIGILANTE: 0_.

He tossed the laptop against the wall. "How? It was all set. How?"

His phone beeped. He looked down at the black button, pressed it again as hard as he could.

The monitors came back on with a cell phone video feed of Joan McGowan, the teenagers and his former hostages on all of them. They all gave him the one-finger salute before vanishing.

The button on his phone vanished. The QR code replaced it.

"What is that?"

"It's the code for the fair, sir."

"What the fuck do I do with that?" He shook the phone. "What is this shit?" He pushed buttons to remove the QR code.

A beep sounded at the bottom of the stairs and in the corner of the room.

"Jesus, what have you done?" Gotlieb pointed to the discarded vests.

A red light blinked on each of them. The timers began counting down: 10, 9, 8, 7. . . .

# Chapter 55

Both SWAT teams and the snipers remained at the command center after her phone call to Colter. They took up positions by the two vans, the BearCat and any other cover they could find. Everyone else headed for the first aid area.

As they went, Harry said, "Did you hear more gunshots?"

"I don't think Leo made it."

She went to Shana and Caesar. Picking up on the tension, Caesar bounded to his feet and pranced about around them.

"This is it," she said to Lily and handed back her phone. "I sure hope you're right about Pox."

Lily said, "I do, too."

"I sent him your message."

The SWAT teams and the snipers opened fire on the house for a few seconds.

"Everyone take cover where you can." She took Shana to hide behind a huge Douglas-fir tree. She scanned for any sign of recent digging nearby that would indicate an IED was present. She could see nothing out of place but that was hardly reassuring. She could find nothing that might indicate the tree was wired with an incendiary device.

Zemar and Randal got Donny and Lily behind trees.

Colin and Wally were signaling their teams to hold fire and keep covered.

Shana said, "We'll know soon, won't we?"

She thought she heard a cry of rage just before the house exploded from top to bottom. SWAT members and snipers were knocked over. One FBI van was toppled. At the first aid area, the force of the explosions knocked over the picnic table, sent medical equipment flying and sent everyone to the ground.

Caesar took off the moment the house blew up.

She ducked them down, pressed Shana against the tree and covered her.

Debris started to rain down all over the farm. Another explosion was followed by another explosion until nothing was left of the house but a burning crater and echoes of the explosions reverberating around them. Nothing nearby exploded, however.

Everyone stayed under cover until the heavier falling debris stopped crashing to the ground and the prevailing westerly wind started carrying away the lighter stuff and the thick smoke.

She got to her feet and checked for anyone who might have been injured. Everyone in her area appeared to be fine. When she reached for Shana, a violent push from behind sent her hurtling through the air over her daughter to land ten feet away on her back. Pain pulled against the staples in her leg but they held.

Shana scrabbled over to her on hands and knees. "It's the tunnel and the cargo containers. The signal must have reached something still in them."

She got up with Shana to see the last of the smoke and debris being ejected from the garage. It then collapsed into burning rubble. The cargo containers resembled giant dumpsters split open and on fire. From a distance, the smoke would indicate a huge forest fire.

She started to inspect Shana for injuries, but her daughter grabbed hold of her and just hung on.

Randal and Zemar brought over Donny and Lily.

Zemar said, "I would say that was one hundred percent effective."

"Well done," she said to Lily.

Lily held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Lily Wiley. I'm Shana's new best friend, though you should know I am introverted. This is Donny Nguyen. He's also her new best friend. He's with me. Your daughter is really cool."

"She sure is." She shook hands with them. "And she has some really cool friends."

Two paramedics ran past them on their way to the command center.

Harry said, "One of Colin's men is pinned under the van. Two others are injured."

"I'll let you know," Randal said and ran off to lend a hand.

"If I understand what just happened," Harry said, "and I don't, Colter's weapons of mass destruction had a malfunction."

"Harry, that's as good an understanding of it as you need."

Kate, Susan and Kelly came to them.

Shana hugged each one of them, then Zemar. "Will Caesar ever come back?"

"I don't know, sweetheart."

She wiped her eyes. "Can we go home now?"

"People will want to talk to us."

Harry said, "Let me take care of that for you." He headed back to the command center.

While everyone else waited in silence, Shana kept looking around for Caesar to return. She and Zemar took turns calling for him. It took over an hour, but Harry returned with the FBI van that hadn't been knocked over. The driver's side was pockmarked from the explosions.

"I tried to get the BearCat, but Colin wouldn't give it up."

"That sucks," Donny said.

"They got him out from under the van," Harry said. "He only has a few bruises. The other two should make it."

They all got into the van as the ambulances drove slowly past to retrieve the injured. Zemar returned to the one holding his sister and helped get the injured agent on board. They let both ambulances leave first before taking the silence with them back to Dominion.

They dropped Lily and Donny off at Lily's townhouse.

Harry said to Donny, "I'll do what I can to speed up the return of your mother."

They dropped Kate and Susan off at the Nite-Lite per Kate's request. She and Harry both insisted Kelly go to Dominion General to get checked out. Harry escorted her into the hospital.

He then dropped them off at home.

She came around to his side of the van. "What are you going to do once all of this wraps up?"

"My plan was to move to Palm Springs and become the town drunk."

"I have another option, if you're interested. I hope I don't sound too much like I'm massaging your ego, but I could use your wisdom now and then."

"These days, my ego is a little arthritic. It can use all the massaging it can get."

She ducked her head into the van and kissed his cheek.

She and Shana waved when he drove away. He honked.

The clouds she hadn't notice move in earlier announced themselves with a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder and began dumping their load on Dominion.

Inside the house, Shana sagged against the wall, but held her mother off with a wave when she started for her.

"Is that what it was like at the Crowley farm?"

"It was faster and more chaotic. They had dug tunnels there, too, though they were much smaller."

"That kind of crap belongs in video games and movies, not in real life. No, you know what, not even there." She started up the stairs. "I'm going to take a long, hot bath, remember some wonderful people and animals who shouldn't have died and cry my heart out."

# Chapter 56

The hastily organized commendation ceremony took place in the banquet room of city hall Sunday at 1:00 pm. Stephanie visited with her before the ceremony. They talked with sadness and regret about Mattie. Stephanie had decided to stay in Dominion as the manager of the new Safeway, though she was going on an extended vacation first. They promised to get together again next week before she left.

Deputy Mayor, now acting Mayor, Brian Stern, presided over the ceremony. There had been some debate over the three days between the end of the Colter militia incident, so named to avoid confusion with the Crowley farm incident, and the ceremony about whether or not to present the commendations at the fairgrounds as part of the Fall Farm Fair. Given the reasons behind the ceremony, and the fact that the Portland Police bomb disposal squad had to be called back to dismantle the three booths Colter's men had delivered to the fairgrounds when they were discovered to contain explosive materials imbedded and impregnated within them, city hall was selected.

Susan took care of the arrangements. "I need to keep busy and my mind focused on something else."

The recipients of the commendations were her, Deputy Kelly Strickland, Special Investigator, Harry Madsen, Forestry Ranger, Randal Vance, Dr. Craig Harding posthumously, Colin Foster of the FBI and his SWAT team, Wallace Nash and Portland SWAT, the ATF unit, the bomb disposal units and the National Guard units. ATF, National Guard, FBI and Portland Police recipients did not attend. She had been unable to find a valid reason to excuse herself. She and Kelly wore their uniforms. She did not wear the hat.

As soon as Stern had handed over the medals and the scrolls of commendation for Craig and her and kissed her cheek, the ceremony was officially over and the luncheon began. She walked off the stage behind all the other recipients.

Attendance was light because it was the Sunday before Labor Day, it was sunny and warm after three straight days of heavy rain, and the people of Dominion, being sensible, had gone to the fair to enjoy themselves.

National and international news teams had left Friday after getting all they could because the DHS had clamped down on any further information dispersal for national security reasons. It hadn't stopped repeated calls to her, however.

Harry had commented about more redacted reports.

Susan had countered with, "They can hardly redact our memories."

Susan's comment had reminded Joan that her daughter had witnessed the savage, coldblooded murder of Saleha. Shana had barely been able to talk about Saleha or Caesar or Craig these past few days without crying.

Kate and Susan attended the ceremony, as did Barbara and Doug. A number of students from Oregon State had come back to Dominion for it.

Kelly intercepted her at the buffet table. "I have to get to the fair. Rob just called. Three tough-looking guys with white beards just arrived on Harleys."

"Go easy on those two. Rob did need stitches, and they do bring us tasty fish."

"I consider it practice for bossing around the two new ones when we get them next fiscal. I will get to boss them around, right, ma'am?"

"Not enough to scare them away."

"I can live with that." She snatched up a couple of sausage rolls and stuffed them into her mouth. "Maybe I'll send them to the bingo tent to make sure no one's cheating. How's Shana?"

"She's had a few bad dreams and she has her tough moments, but she's holding up as well as can be expected." It was a weak but apt description of her life, too. "She just wanted to hang around the house today and do a bit of tinkering."

Shana had been held hostage, terrorized, seen Saleha killed with a knife, seen Zemar kill to protect her, Lily and Donny, seen Colter turn both farms into bombed-out ruins. Those memories would be with her for the rest of her life. If she wanted to leave Dominion, they would just get in the car and go.

"Give her my love. I'll let you know about the geriatric motorcycle gang. Oh, yeah, Janine and Amelia called me this morning. They've decided to stay on as they are."

"With all this commotion I haven't had a chance. Thank you for what you did for Shana, and me."

Kelly turned as red as she usually got. "I'm glad she told you. I was losing sleep over it."

"Don't do that again, okay?"

"Sure thing, but I don't think there will be any more need." She snatched up a few more sausage rolls and left.

Randal went with her.

Harry took her place. His plate was full of stuff a man in his condition should not be eating. She must have scowled at what she saw, because he said, "Don't be a nag, Sheriff."

"That is not brain food."

"Questioning my wisdom already?"

"Just having a few nagging doubts."

"Don't worry. The part you might call on is encased in a sphere of plaque that nothing can penetrate."

She loaded up her plate quickly and they went to a table.

As soon as they were seated, he said, "We'll keep looking. The rain's just delayed us a bit. We will find him."

"I have my first consultation request for you," she said.

"The posting and panel for the two new deputies."

"The posting goes out in two weeks. Stern, Sheriff Callas from Widow Creek and I will be the panel, but I'd like to review what you did on my panel. Can you come by Wednesday?"

"I'll check my busy schedule and get back to you. Have you talked to Colin?"

"Not since Friday. They're pretty busy with all this."

"Lily gave them the Rosetta stone. She found a flash drive among her father's things and broke through its security. They might even find the money trail thanks to her. She's also recruited the geek network to watch for anything else Colter's people may have let loose on the internet."

"We'll have to see she gets a medal."

"We'll have to see she comes down on the right side of the law. An anarchist with her magical skills is scarier than Colter and his bunch. Everything is on the drive, including all the Operation Gangrene initiatives. There were more train derailments planned, selective kidnappings, even a series of attacks on churches, synagogues and mosques. Colter was in charge of recruiting other militias and white supremacist groups to the cause."

"He told me a congressman and two senators have being indicted. All three are claiming coercion by people calling themselves the Proteus Group and are cooperating fully."

"These nuts weren't content with just the US. They had plans to stir up tensions at all the hot spots in the world: North and South Korea, North Korea and Japan, China and Tibet, China and Taiwan, Pakistan and India in Kashmir, Israel and the Palestinians, Turkey and Syria, even Turkey and Greece, Chechnya and Russia."

"Yes, but we were first. Have they found all of Colter's men?"

"No one really knows." He looked around the banquet room. "People are going to say Colter had quite a sense of humor when they find out he planted a bomb inside a deputy's desktop and used a stuffed coyote to blow up the Mayor's office."

"I won't."

"I wonder if Do-Dads and Karyon will change their minds when they learn Dominion is also going to be infamous for something."

Barbara and Doug came over. Doug had a plate of food but still managed to push Barbara's wheelchair. Barbara had no food.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" Barbara said.

She picked up her plate and they found another table to be alone.

"I worked with Craig for eight years. Doug and I are more the research types, but Craig, he was the one who would take on any bird with a broken wing. He was determined to save every animal that ever came to us. I believe they sensed that in him, too. Then you came along. He was still as determined as ever, but he lost some of his focus after he met you. You could see it in his eyes. I was a little jealous, as were a number of female students from Oregon State. I just wanted you to know."

She patted Barbara's hand. "What about the farm?"

"We'll rebuild. Doug is going to stay rather than return to Saskatchewan."

"Count us in. As a matter of fact, you should be warned. You're not going to be able to keep Shana away."

"I look forward to it." She wheeled herself back to Doug, who then took her away. The Oregon State contingent went with them. Some of them were wiping their eyes.

She pushed her plate aside. She hadn't eaten a thing.

Her phone rang. The number was unknown. It could be the relentless press again. "Sheriff McGowan."

"Hi," Craig said hoarsely through a faint crackle, "can you come to Lookout Peak?"

She looked around at the people still there, which only made her dizzier. "What the hell are you doing? No one could find you. You're dead. I just heard some wonderful things about you. You received another medal. You can't come back from the dead now; that would ruin everything." She covered her mouth because it was unable to stop on its own.

"I was afraid of that, but I couldn't stay dead forever, not after I finally woke up."

"What happened? How are you calling me? You are using a phone, aren't you? It's someone else's phone, that's why the number is unknown."

"I'll explain when you get here. And yes, I am using Bobby's phone. It also turns out he was a decent cushion to land on after falling forty feet or so. Now, I keep passing out and this phone is losing power, so if you could get here as fast as you can and bring any assistance you can muster, I would appreciate—" The connection broke.

She hollered across the banquet room at Harry, Susan and Kate, "He's alive on Lookout Peak. Get everyone standing by at Dominion General." She raced out of city hall in search of Barbara and her group. Instead, she ran into Randal and Zemar coming out of the Seven Eleven store beside it.

Randal said as fast as he could, "I know you can turn us in, but Zemar is leaving. In twenty-four hours, he will be on his way to relatives in Brazil with Saleha."

"You saved my daughter. I've never known two people more deserving to stay here. If there is anything I can do. I'll vouch for you if you think that would help."

Zemar said, "Thank you, Joan, but I believe this is for the best."

She hugged Randal, then Zemar. "I hope you find all the peace and happiness possible for your life." She hugged Randal again. "He's alive."

"How can we help?"

"Take care of Zemar and Saleha first. Then meet me up at Lookout Peak. Bring the helicopter."

At the damaged and cordoned-off Sheriff's Office, she retrieved her Mazda. She just needed to make one stop on the way.

# Chapter 57

Two vehicles were parked in front of her house when she arrived. A black Toyota Tacoma 4X4 was parked in front of a red Honda Civic Si Coupe. She hadn't seen either of them in the neighborhood before. She released the strap on her holster and got out of the Mazda with her hand on the Beretta.

Music was playing with a bit more bass than she liked when she entered the house. Shana, Lily, Donny and three other teenagers, two boys and a girl, were cleaning, covering and prepping to apply the second coat of paint to the living-dining area. The two boys were huge, not Billy and Bobby huge, but big enough. One was African-American. The girl, normal size, was also African-American.

Shana ran to her and hugged her. "I've got some more new friends." She waved for her three new friends to come over. "This is Dean Bilsbarrow."

She shook hands with a handsome boy about 6'4" tall and probably close to 220 pounds.

"This is Leon Redding."

She shook hands with a handsome African-American boy the same height as Dean but about fifteen pounds heavier.

"This is Diana Cobble."

She shook hands with Diana.

"This is my mom, Sheriff Joan McGowan."

"Please to meet you, Sheriff," Dean said.

Leon said, "We thought we'd give Shana a hand, if that's okay with you."

"No problem. Just don't let her boss you around too much."

The trio went back to work with Lily and Donny.

"Didn't we decide this area only needed one coat?"

"They wanted to help, you know, keep busy. I'll keep an eye on them and they'll only get decaf. Who knows, if they're any good at this, I might hire them when I start my own business."

"And Dean?"

"He's so cute." Shana squeaked and rose up on her toes. "He spotted me at the mall. When they heard what happened, he wanted to make sure I was all right. Isn't that sweet?"

"What about Ian?"

"Who?" She rose up on her toes again. "Dean and Donny and Leon are, like, best buds. He's going to be the starting quarterback this year. And he's just the right height for me."

"We'll talk later. Right now I have to get to Lookout Peak. Craig's alive."

Shana squealed, jumped up and down and hugged her again. "What are you waiting for? Go!"

She ran upstairs despite the pain in her left leg and changed into more appropriate clothes. She stuffed a first aid kit, towels and two bottles of water into a gym bag. On the way back out the front door, she caught a glimpse of Shana playfully hip-checking Dean as they started painting the wall near the covered dining table.

It was going to be a long and overdue talk later.

At the Harding farm, she parked beside the wreckage that used to be a Suburban. Hiking along Lookout Trail wasn't as frantic as it had been Wednesday, though it was mucky from three days of continuous rain. She could go faster this time, but by the time she reached Lookout Peak her left leg let her know it still needed to finish healing.

Craig wasn't there. Pale-blue sky that reminded her of his eyes reflected in the pools of water that had accumulated in the depressions of rock and earth. She took out her phone and pressed the last call button. She didn't hear any other phone nearby start ringing. After a few seconds, her phone advised her it was unable to connect with the number she had just called. His phone could be out of power.

Ignoring the pain in her left leg, she jogged along the bluff searching for any sign of Craig. Her second to last stop was the cliff he had fallen over after tackling Bobby. She looked down and saw only the same view of the valley she had seen Wednesday.

She limped over to the giant-egg boulders.

He couldn't have passed her on the trail. If he had been able to make it back to the farm, why hadn't he come to her when she arrived? Was he unconscious again?

"Where are you?" She sagged against a boulder. "Please, don't do this to me again." She slid down to the ground.

The growl came from above. Caesar stood on the boulder he'd launched himself from to defend her against Billy. He growled again and lay down to watch her.

"Shana really misses you."

He flopped onto his side and started purring, but only settled for a few seconds before jumping back up to his feet.

She pushed off the boulder to get herself up.

An eagle took off from its perch on an aspen. The wolf brothers emerged from the forest to the north. Craig came out behind the wolves, a soaked, filthy mess of torn clothes and clotted blood, most of that on his left arm and his face. He staggered.

She helped him over to the boulders. He had a gash on his forehead and another on his left bicep. He was covered in bruises, which reminded her of the last time she saw Mattie alive. She sat him down and gave him a bottle of water to drink while she cleaned and dressed his wounds.

"Why did you wander off? You knew I was coming."

"What day is it?"

"Sunday."

"It's been four days. When ya gotta go, ya gotta go."

"Why didn't you contact us before now?"

"I'm getting to that. If this is Sunday, then I woke up Saturday. More accurately, I woke up about twenty times Saturday. I woke up mostly for good a few hours ago." He rubbed the back of his head. "These guys were sitting around me. Ed was circling above. I think they just wanted to stay close. Maybe they thought I'd protect them. Maybe they expected me to take them back to the farm. I just don't know."

"We couldn't find you. It was raining too hard. We had to. . . ." She sounded like she was admitting she'd abandoned him.

"We were completely covered on an outcropping. I don't think even the best tracking dogs could have caught our scent in that downpour."

"How did you get off the outcropping?"

"I remember climbing up something and then crawling along something, but that's it. I remember taking Bobby's phone off his belt. There's not much left of him, by the way. I guess they got hungry. They brought me his arm."

"I won't hold that against them. Can you walk?"

"I don't think we'd get very far."

"We don't have to; Randal's coming with the helicopter. You have a concussion, but nothing appears to be broken. How'd you remember my phone number?"

"I don't remember. About the only thing I do remember is remembering you. I remember the dance. I remember our third date at the pub." He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut.

"That was our second date."

"I remember the handcuffs."

"Okay, our third date." She kissed him. He kissed back and sagged against her. "You still remember how to do that."

In the distance, Randal's helicopter was coming up the valley.

His beautiful eyes fluttered and began to close. His words were slurred and came slowly. "I should have remembered to tell you to wear something red." He passed out in her arms.

She blushed and kissed him again. "I am."

### THE END

Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer.

K.G. Lawrence

Other Books by K.G. Lawrence

### Rembrandt Be Damned

Jaxon Trevelyan is trying to develop a career as an artist in New York City. He usually overthinks and catastrophizes everything that comes his way. The intrigues and increasingly dangerous mysteries he encounters when he takes a job at Remington Bakersfield Draper, however, may justify his suspicions this time if only he lives long enough to prove them right. Available October 2015, _Rembrandt be Damned_ is the second book of the Proteus Group series.

Look for Jellyfish the third book of the Proteus Group series Spring 2016.

