“I imagine so. Collins has everything I have. It’s up to him now.”

Sarah ran out the back door. Nate tried to smile into the phone, hoping it’d somehow take the edge off his words. “Take care of yourself. I’ll be in touch.”

Thirty

Juliet tried to remember what Rob had told her about Night’s Landing. A wide bend on the Cumberland River east of Nashville, rural, picturesque, rolling fields and hills. She pictured the photographs he’d shown her. A John Wesley Poe campaign ad.

Nothing helped.

She was lost.

She turned up a country-western radio station and tapped the steering wheel to the beat of a tune she’d never heard before. She was on some godforsaken back road. The river, wide and slow, snaked below her, intermittently visible through thick woods and fields. She finally pulled over in front of an abandoned brick house with an overgrown yard and, incongruously, white lace curtains in the windows. She needed to get her bearings. Her entire body was on fire with pain. She half wished someone had stopped her from heading south. But no one had. She’d been x-rayed and gooed up at the E.R. She’d answered every damn question Joe Collins snapped at her. She’d visited Rob and told him what she was doing. He was recovering from a serious injury-he couldn’t be expected to knock some sense into her.

She’d stopped at the apartment to feed her fish and put on decent clothes and get her gun, all without anyone hog-tying her to keep her from going off half-cocked.

Well, maybe not half-cocked. Maybe only a quarter-cocked. She wanted to talk to Nate. He was an experienced senior deputy who not only could advise her but would want to know what was on her mind.

Something was off. The shooting, the guy Sarah Dunnemore had seen in the park, the anonymous letter, the parents missing their flight in Amsterdam, those assholes snatching her at the crack of dawn.

Hector Sanchez.

The tone and direction of Joe Collins’s questions.

“Yeah,” she said aloud. “Something’s definitely off.”

She switched off the engine of her rented car, a cheap compact-she was down here on her own nickel.

The damn road look like a dead end.

How fitting, she thought, pushing open her door and climbing out.

The air was moist, warmer than New York. Fresher. She groaned in pain, leaning on the door as she gazed down at the river and tried to figure out where she’d gone wrong. God, she hurt. She’d had her ass kicked that morning in the city, and here she was in Tennessee. Her own doing. The truth was, she’d made sure no one dissuaded her. She’d all but lied to Collins, letting him assume she was going home to rest after her ordeal. She’d told him if he had any more questions he could reach her on her cell phone.

She assumed that next she’d get her ass kicked by the chief deputy. Or Nate. She’d be seeing him sooner.

She could just turn around and head back to New York.

Nah. In for a penny, in for a pound. It’d always been her way.

She walked onto the gravel driveway and stood in the shade of a tall oak tree. The ground was damp, the sky clearing with golden sunlight sparkling on a huge, scraggly pink azalea.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” a southern male voice asked behind her.

Juliet turned too fast, a bone-deep stab of pain shooting through her ribs. She almost doubled over, but the man didn’t make a move to help her. He had on muddy overalls over a T-shirt, his dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, his brown eyes sweeping over her in a frank, assessing glance. Despite his simple attire and deferential manner, she could see that he was thinking five steps ahead while remaining focused on the moment.

She wore a pantsuit, her weapon, a Glock semiautomatic, concealed under her jacket. But she had a feeling he knew it was there. “I’m looking for the Dunnemore place.”

He gave her a dubious look. “Lost, huh? Right. What are you, another reporter? Have fun.”

He turned to leave.

So much for deference. “I’m a deputy U.S. marshal.”

He glanced back at her, the brown eyes almost amused. “What, you want a quarter to call Washington, or do you have a phone in your shoe?”

She probably wasn’t looking very marshal-like. “You couldn’t be more obnoxious, could you? I’ve had a hell of a rotten day.”

She started to reach for her badge, but he grabbed her elbow before she’d even realized he’d moved. Normally she was more on the ball. She blamed the pain pill she’d let the doctor give her that morning in the E.R., the fuzzy head she still had from the flight down and her wanderings through middle Tennessee.

She noticed the black tattoo on the man’s muscular upper arm. “Relax, okay? I’m just going for my badge.”

“Save it.” He released her. “You can explain yourself to your buddy Deputy Winter. He’s pretty much in a rotten mood.”

“That sounds like Nate. And you would be?”

“Ethan Brooker. I’m the Dunnemore gardener.”

Gardener? She snorted in disbelief. “Trust me, it’s more believable that I’m a federal agent. You always manhandle Dunnemore visitors?”

“Only lately.”

“Where is their house?”

“You drove right past it.”

“The log house? I guess I was expecting something fancier. Well, I can find my way back. A pleasure, Mr. Brooker.”

She didn’t bother making it sound like she meant it. She started for her car, but winced, her road rash killing her. She had no reserves. She might have even moaned.

“You going to pass out?” Brooker asked. “Because if you are, give me your car keys. I’ll drive you and your car down to the house. Easier than having to haul you on my shoulder. Looks like you carry some muscle.”

Had he just called her fat? “I’ve never passed out in my life.”

“Who hit you?”

She automatically touched her swollen lip-she’d given up too soon on icing it. “Long story. Let’s just say it wasn’t a guy wearing overalls.” She pulled on a low branch of the oak. “Nice beech tree. Beautiful area to work.”

“Yes, ma’am, it’s a real pretty place to work.”

He’d amped up the down-home accent and manner, but he was no damn gardener. Then he leaned toward her. “Don’t get excited, Deputy. It’s an oak tree. You’ll have to do better than that to trip me up.”

She ignored him. “Is this the house where President Poe was raised?”

“It is.”

“I guess you don’t keep up this place, do you?”

“No, ma’am.”

She rolled her eyes and climbed back into her car, giving a shudder of pain when the wheel brushed against her bruised rib. Brooker frowned at her through her open window, a spark of concern in his brown eyes. “You look like shit, Deputy. Want me to drive you to the Dunnemores’?”

“That good ol’ boy act comes and goes, doesn’t it?”

He grinned at her. “Two minutes, you’ll be talking to Deputy Winter.”

“He’s not going to tell me a posse’s out looking for you, is he?”

“No, ma’am.”

She thought he winked. She started the engine and pulled farther into the driveway to turn around. Brooker walked alongside her, toward the river. He was a buff gardener, that was for damn sure. A danger-courting type, never mind the overalls.

He got close to her car and tapped the roof. “Hold on, Deputy.” His voice was quiet, serious. “We’ve got a problem.”

She’d seen it at the same moment he had. Two bodies were sprawled on the edge of the bluff above the river.

Juliet stopped the car and drew her weapon. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Brooker didn’t argue.

Ignoring her pain, she got out of the car and had him lead the way through the tall grass to the bodies.

Both were men. Obviously dead. White.

One blond, one dark haired.

Christ.

They were the two men who’d snatched her on the Upper West Side that morning. The blond one was facedown in the grass, one foot hanging over the edge of the bluff, at least forty feet above the river. The dark-haired man-the one who’d stuck the gun in Juliet’s gut and hit her when she didn’t answer his questions right-was on his back, his chest covered in blood.