As he walked past them, he spoke to Fiona. “He tell you about the contact lens? Frickin’ piece of genius.” And he continued into the office.

“Genius, huh?” Fiona said, trying to make Walt look at her.

“At some point I’m likely to wake up,” Walt said, watching the Suburbans pull out, one by one. “And when I do, I’m going to be dying for a cup of coffee.” Start small, he was thinking. Work your way up to lunch.

“So call me,” she said.

“I will.”

“I hope you will, but fear you won’t.”

He drove home alone. Took a shower alone. Sat down on the bed alone with plans to call Mark Aker about the dog’s condition, and wanting to follow up on Kevin’s legal status. He looked forward to the girls being home and getting back some semblance of life. The phone rang, and he nearly didn’t answer it, but something compelled him to-he had a hell of a time saying no.

“Walt?” Liz Shaler’s distinctive New England voice.

“Your Honor?”

“You weren’t going to call me that, remember? Forgive me for taking so long to call.”

“Hardly necessary.”

“You did it again, Walt. Saved me. I hope this isn’t becoming a habit. I’m going to have to knight you, or something.”

He could only think of clichés, and he didn’t want to use one. While he tried to come up with just the right choice of words, she interrupted.

“I attended that conference for all the wrong reasons. Welcome to politics. And I listened to the wrong people. Most importantly, I ignored the few warnings you gave me, and I feel like a complete ass for doing so. I told you I was going to put my faith in you, and then I did the opposite, didn’t I? The good news is, maybe I learned something here, and if I did, it’s thanks to you, and that’s all I really called to say: thank you.”

He was too tired to play games with her. “I could say something like ‘Just doing my job, Your Honor,’ but it sounds so ridiculous that I’m trying not to. But that is the truth, more or less. I was just doing what I do. I like doing it. And I like you, Your Honor-Liz-so I’m especially glad it worked out. That sounds equally stupid, doesn’t it? Sorry about that.”

“No. Not at all. It’s touching. Listen, I know a little bit about the differences between your father and you-it’s a small valley-but if you ever have anything like an inkling to take your work to the federal level, I could pave the way, make the transition both smooth and rewarding for you. And if I happen to win this election…Let’s not lose touch in any case.”

“If you win this election and make Sun Valley your winter White House, you’re going to give me a whole bunch of problems. Maybe I’ll vote for the other guy.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Walt thanked her for the call and sat on the edge of his bed reflecting on the past few days. He considered taking an hour or two to start his report before he forgot the details. But he fell asleep still sitting up, slumped down onto the bed with his head nowhere near a pillow, his feet touching the floor. Woke up twice from nightmares, the first involving Trevalian and his thumb on a white button; in the second, he was being mauled by a cougar. He never found his way under the covers. He slept, buck naked, on the bedspread, through the rest of Monday and into Tuesday.

And when he woke up, he made a phone call and headed for a cup of coffee.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A special thanks to Walt Femling and the many outstanding officers of the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office. Walt has allowed me to fictionalize his character, and just for the record, he and his father, Jerry, and he and his wife, Jenny, enjoy wonderful relationships-nothing like what is depicted here. Being sheriff in an Idaho county the size of New Jersey is no easy task. Walt has worn that badge many years, and the citizens of Blaine County owe him a huge debt, as do I.

Thanks to the colorful personalities of the Sun Valley area where I’ve lived, at least part-time, for the past twenty-six years. I’ve fictionalized many friends in these pages, and I beg their forgiveness.

Thanks too, to Dan Conaway, my editor at Putnam. I owe him for hours of work and guidance put into Killer Weekend.

Thanks, too, to Nancy Litzinger, who runs the business side of my life; to dear friends David and Laurel Walters, who put in copyedit hours on the manuscript; to Joey Lambert for all her enthusiasm and energy in the office.

Thank you, Mark and Randy Aker and the Sun Valley Animal Clinic, for allowing me to sit in on canine surgery, and to Barb for her help with the dog training.

Though I fictionalized it, I did my best to represent the business conference as a compilation of many of the (sometimes unbelievable) events (and excesses) that occur in the Ketchum/Sun Valley area. No reference was intended to any one single conference.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ridley Pearson is the author of more than twenty crime novels and several books for younger readers. He and Dave Barry cowrote the award-winning children’s novels Peter and the Starcatchers and Peter and the Shadow Thieves. In 1990, he was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship at Oxford University. He lives with wife, Marcelle, and their two daughters, dividing his time between St. Louis and Hailey, Idaho.