They started toward the barn, and suddenly Shadow stiffened, then a growl rumbled up from the depths of his throat.

"Someone's there," Michael whispered. "Someone's inside the barn."

As if in response, Shadow whimpered, then leaped forward into the darkness, disappearing into the building. There was a scuffling sound, and Shadow began barking. Then his barking subsided into a steady snarl, and Buck Shields moved forward, taking the light from Anna Hall's hands.

He slipped through the door, then paused. Shadow's snarling was louder, coming from the far end of the barn. Buck made his way slowly along the inside of the door, then felt on the wall for a light switch.

The blackness of the barn's interior was suddenly washed away with a brilliant white light from three overhead fixtures. Buck blinked, and shaded his eyes with one hand.

Sixty feet away, at the far end of the barn, he could see Ben Findley, his eyes still open, his clothes covered with blood, held upright only by the pitchfork that impaled his throat, pinning him to the wall. Buck stared at the dead man for a few seconds, trying to control the churning in his stomach that threatened to overwhelm him. Then his eye was caught by a flicker of movement.

Slowly, Buck started down the center aisle of the barn, approaching Ben Findley as if he were some grotesque religious icon hovering above an altar.

Like a supplicant at Ben Findley's feet, Shadow was crouched low to the ground, his tail sweeping the floor in slow movements, his eyes fixed on the dead man's face.

Nathaniel lay in Potter's Field, his eyes fixed on the barn. Light glimmered through the cracks in the barn's siding, and it almost looked as if the building were on fire.

He knew he should get up and move. Soon, he was sure, people would come looking for him, and when they found him-

Not yet. They couldn't find him yet.

Even though the three of them were dead now-the one who had wanted to kill him when he was born, and the two who had kept him a prisoner all his life-there was still something he had to do.

He had to go home. His eyes turned away from the barn, and focused on the little house where he'd been born.

With his mind, he reached out to it, exploring it.

There were people in it tonight. His sister-Laura-was there, and Michael's mother was there. And someone else, a stranger. So he couldn't go there tonight. Tonight, he must hide, and stay hidden until it was safe. Softly, inaudibly, he sent out an urgent signal.

In the barn, Shadow suddenly rose from his position at Ben Findley's feet and trotted out into the night.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

There was no funeral for Amos Hall, none for Ben Findley. Anna had forbidden it.

"I won't do it," she'd said. "I won't pretend to shed tears for Amos, and as for Ben Findley-well, he lived alone for twenty years, and he can be buried alone, too."

She'd told no one of her conversation with Ben Findley the night Amos had died, and now she knew she never would. There was no point, she'd decided. There was no one left who knew the whole truth of what had happened all those years ago. And she'd decided it no longer really mattered. Finally, it was over. They were all dead, and even though they could no longer give her the answers to her questions, neither could they hurt her any more than they already had.

They'd talked to her about Ben Findley, of course, when they came down from Mulford to investigate his death.

She hadn't told them about Nathaniel. That, too, was something she'd decided never to speak of again. So when they'd asked her if she had any idea who might have killed Ben Findley, she'd only shrugged. "A drifter, I suppose. Ben didn't have any friends, but he didn't have any enemies, either. So it must have been a drifter."

No one else in Prairie Bend had been able to offer a better idea, nor had anyone given credence to Michael's insistence that Nathaniel had killed the recluse.

The investigators went over Ben Findley's farm, but paid scant attention to the little room below the barn, dismissing the cell as nothing more than the storm cellar it appeared to be. In the end, they went back to Mulford, sure they would never find Ben Findley's killer, and equally sure that no one in Prairie Bend would care.

For Janet, the days following the deaths were increasingly difficult. She found herself watching Michael closely, guarding herself against the moment when he would suddenly be attacked by one of his headaches, then insist that Nathaniel had shown him something both hideous and impossible. Even as the days went by, and nothing happened, she did not calm down. Instead, she only grew more nervous, sure that whatever was happening to Michael had not yet ended.

Part of her certainty that things were not over involved Shadow.

Since the night Ben Findley had been found dead in his barn, the huge black dog had not been seen. Nor had Michael seemed upset by his disappearance.

"He's helping Nathaniel," Michael had said. "He'll come back. Nathaniel will bring him back."

And so Janet was waiting.

It was on the fifth day, near dusk, that Shadow returned.

Janet and Michael were in the kitchen. Michael was at the sink, doing the last of the supper dishes, while Janet sat at the kitchen table laboriously attempting to master the basic manipulations of the knitting needles that Anna had given her that afternoon. "Learn now," Anna had told her. "In the winter, it will help pass the time." And so she was trying, but it was not going well. In fact, Michael could already do it better than she could.

"I just don't get it," she said at last, dropping the work on the table. "I can't keep the same number of stitches in a row, and they just keep getting tighter and tighter." Then, when Michael made no reply, she looked up to see him staring out the window. His right hand was raised as he rubbed at his temples. "Michael?" When he still said nothing, Janet rose to her feet. "What is it, honey? Is something wrong?"

Then her eyes followed his, and in the distance, in Potter's Field, she saw the familiar black mass that was Shadow.

"He's looking for the babies," Michael said in a faraway voice. "He's looking for the babies that Grandpa killed."

Holding her emotions tightly in check, Janet slipped her arms around her son. "No, Michael. There's nothing out there…"

"There is," Michael repeated, his voice growing stronger. "Shadow's out there looking for them, helping Nathaniel find them."

"No!" Janet exclaimed.

Michael pivoted to face her, glaring at her with furious eyes. "Yes! They're out there, and Nathaniel has to find them, and I have to help him."

He began struggling in her arms, trying to wriggle free, but Janet hung on. "No!" she screamed. "There's nothing out there, and there is no Nathaniel, and you have to stop pretending there is! You have to stop it, Michael! Do you hear me? Just stop it!"

Michael was still in her arms, but suddenly his eyes, blazing with fury, gazed into hers.

"You don't know," he whispered. "You don't know, because you don't know Nathaniel."

For several long minutes the two of them stood frozen in a contest of wills. Then, at last, Janet knew what she had to do.

"All right," she said, letting go of Michael. "Let's go find out. Right now, let's go find out what the truth is."

Taking Michael by the hand she left the house and strode across the yard to the toolshed. Seconds later, Michael's arm still firmly gripped in her right hand, a shovel in her left, she started toward Potter's Field. "We'll dig them up," she told Michael as they climbed through the barbed wire. "If there are any bodies in this field, we'll dig them up right now, and look at them."