The trunk was empty, but Harper ran his fingers the width of it once, twice, then stopped, pressed, and lifted his fingers toward Anna. They were black in the light. He pulled them back, sniffed, and he said, 'Blood. Not much. So she probably was alive when he took her out of here.'

'How do you know?'

'Why take her out if she's dead?'

Anna nodded, and crawled toward a window facing the house. 'So he's here. Now what?'

'I was afraid. What's that?'

Anna looked to the right, saw the splash of light off the brush beside the house.

'Car coming up the hill,' she said. Anna heard the slide of the rifle as Harper jacked a shell into the chamber. She fumbled the pistol from her pocket as the lights grew brighter on the trees.

Ten seconds later, a pickup pulled into the yard, and a woman hopped out and stormed toward the porch. They could see her face when she first opened the truck door, and her figure as she hurried under the yard light to the porch.

'That's Daly,' Harper said.

'Jeez, do you think she knows?' Anna asked.

'She looks mad about something.' The woman fumbled at the door, unlocking it, then pushed inside and flicked on a light. She slammed the door behind her, but before she did, they heard her shout, 'Steve?'

'Wonder what happened?' Harper asked.

'I don't know, but if he's still in the house, and we want to move up, this is the time. If he's in there, it sounds like he'll have his hands full,' Anna said.

They crawled back out through the garage door, circled back around the barn, into the darkness of the brush, and came up behind the house, near the corrals. An animal made a spitting sound as they passed: 'What the hell was that?' Harper whispered.

'I don't know; I hope it doesn't bite.'

They stopped at the side of the corral, and looked across the intervening fifty feet at the house.

'Gonna have to decide something,' Harper said.

'Whatever's in the corral. Probably the llama. I don't think they're dangerous,' Anna said. 'I'm gonna roll through there and work my way up to the gate. 'If I don't see anything, I'm gonna make a run across the yardyou get ready with the rifle.'

'Maybe I oughta make the ran.'

'No. You've got the rifle, I've just got this thing,' Anna said, holding up the pistol. 'At fifty feet I might not be able to hit the house.'

As she said it, she slipped under the lowest rail of the corral. Whatever was in the corral stayed at the back. She could here it stomping nervously, maybe the Llama, maybe a pony, as she moved to the gate.

Taking a breath, she glanced back at the spot where she'd left Jake, and stuck one leg through the gate.

BAAAAAZZZZZZZZ.

The buzzer sounded like the end of the world, as loud as a jet plane, fifteen feet overhead.

In a half-second, she knew exactly what had happened: the gate was alarmed, just like the gate at the bottom of the hill. A light beam or movement sensor was probably buried in the gatepost, out beyond the gate itself, so an animal inside the corral couldn't set it offbut she'd put her leg right through it.

She'd been so occupied with the thought of closing on the house that she hadn't thought to look. And she didn't stop to think when the buzzer went. Instead, she scrambled sideways, across the corral, to the far corner, holding tight to the pistol.

The buzzing went on for three or four seconds, and then, just as abruptly, stopped. For another twenty seconds, nothing moved inside the house, and Anna, watching the back door, began to relax.

'Anna?' Jake's stage whisper cut through the dead silence. She turned her head to answer when the back door banged open, and what looked like a drank staggered onto the back porch, twisting, turning in the dim light.

'Anna?' The voice. She knew it this time. 'Anna, I know you're out there.'

Anna, straining toward the turning figure, finally made it out; not one person, but two. A man with his arm around a woman's neck, the woman struggling against him; and when her struggles became too violent, he would lever her off the ground until she stopped.

'Anna.' Judge was screaming her name. Anna said nothing. Maybe he'd decide that an animal had set off the alarm. Maybe he'd come out where they could get at him: but at the moment, the woman's body blocked any possibility of a shot.

'Are you out there? I know you're out there.' The straggle on the porch started again, and Anna lifted the pistol and aimed it, took it down again: no way.

'Anna.' He was bawling into the night. Then: 'You think I'm fucking around? Think again, huh? Think again, Anna.'

He moved back toward the door, reached inside, and clicked on a yellow porch light.

'I know you're out there. You like to make movies? Make a movie of this.'

He suddenly kicked the straggling woman's legs from beneath her and she went down. At the same moment, he let go of his grip on her neck. She landed on one thigh and her hand, twisted, head down: the man pointed his hand at her head and there was a sudden crack, and an arrow of flame, and the woman flattened.

Shot in the head.

Anna, not thinking, only reacting, thrust her pistol at the door and fired, and a half-second later Jake opened up: but the man was already back through the door. Anna, though, was rolling under the bottom bar of the corral, on her feet, running at the porch, firing a second time at the dark rectangle of the open door. In the back of her head she could hear Jake screaming, 'Anna! Anna! No, Anna!'

But at the same instant, she was through the door. To her left, the back of the man, turning to look at her just as he went through an internal doorway.

Steve Judge, but strangely different than the animal rights raider she remembered: he seemed older, thinner, harsher, wilder, with a long black pistol in one hand. But he was reeling away from the gunfire, and in the half-second he was visible to Anna, she managed to get the gun down and fire another shot, wildly, but in his direction. He screamed, then a second later, fired back, the bullet burying itself in the wall to Anna's left.

Belatedly, she went down, now holding the pistol out in front of her. And from behind, Harper was suddenly there with the rifle. He knelt beside her, and she saw that he was feeding fresh shells into the magazine.

'He's through there,' Anna said, in a harsh whisper. 'He's running. Let's take him.'

'For Christ's sake, rush him in a dark house? He'd take both of us.'

'We gotta.'

'No. What we gotta do, is look at the woman on the porch.'

Anna turned her head: 'JeezI thought she was dead. He shot her in the head.'

'I didn't have time to look, but lots of times, people don't die.'

'Keep the gun on the door,' Anna said. 'I'll go look.'

'Is he still inside?'

'I didn't hear the front door go. I think so.'

Harper braced the rifle against the wall as Anna slithered toward the door. Just before she got to the doorstep, Judge screamed from the front: 'Anna. I'm gonna cut your friend's belly open. You wanna hear it?'

Anna stopped, glanced at Harper.

Harper shrugged, got halfway to his feet and whispered, 'Yell something at him. A threat, anything.'

Anna screamed, 'You motherfucker, if you hurt Pam, I'll cut your balls off. I promise, I'll cut your balls.'

As she screamed, Harper pushed to his feet, did a quick tiptoe across the door, hesitated just an instant at the far door where Anna had last seen Judge. He looked back, then burst through the door, out of sight: Anna was four steps behind him, but the dark room ahead was suddenly lit by a half dozen muzzle blasts, the crashing of furniture, Harper screaming, another shot, and the banging of the front door.

Then Anna was through into the dark chaos of the office, pushing the gun in front of her, moving. and stumbling over a body.