Remember your CSI training, Greggo. This guy might think he’s a killer, but you’ve got a fair bit of range time under your belt. Don’t get spooked.

A hard voice called out, “Hey! Kid! I’m getting tired of this. You know you don’t stand a chance-why don’t you just face me and get this over with?”

“If that’s the way you want it,” Greg called back. “Let’s see how good you are…”

Greg whirled a round the corner, gun held straight ahead of him, already aiming at where the voice had come from. He snapped off a quick shot-

Two bullets slammed into his chest. The first caught him in the breastbone, right over the heart; the second smacked into his shoulder.

As he collapsed, one thought flashed through his mind: This hurts a lot more than paintball…

3

GRISSOM STUDIED THE BODY of the millipede with a magnifying glass. He’d hoped to find something that might tell him where the arthropod had originated, some trace on one of its many legs perhaps, but so far his search had proven disappointing.

“So,” said Brass, strolling into the lab, “this is the part where you tell me the bug you’re examining is found solely in one corner of North A f r ica and is only eaten by blue-crested finches.”

Grissom glanced up. “I’m afraid not. The cyanide millipede is extremely common in the Pacific Northwest, found in forests from California to Alaska. They may not be from around here, but that doesn’t mean they’re difficult to obtain.”

Brass shrugged. “Worth a shot. You really think one of your fellow experts could be our killer?”

Grissom shrugged back. “It’s certainly possible. Their presence here at the same time a very singular method of homicide turns up-well, the coincidence seems unlikely.”

“Uh-huh.” Brass looked away. “And how are you doing? You okay with all this?”

Grissom frowned. “You mean deceiving my colleagues?”

“Yeah, that.”

He considered the question for a moment before answering. “Jim, you know as well as I do that any time an outsider tries to involve himself in an investigation that the probability he’s who we’re looking for shoots up. It’s why we take pictures of crowds at arson fires or funerals of homicide victims. Besides, only seven attendees arrived for the conference early-and the alibis of the other three checked out, correct?”

“I know it makes sense. But still-they are your peers.”

Grissom shook his head. “That’s irrelevant. If one of them is a killer, lying in order to catch him hardly seems like a breach of professional ethics.”

“And how about the two-sorry, three-who aren’t?”

“They’ll have experienced being on the inside of a police investigation into a murder. I doubt they’ll be offended.” He paused. “Well, maybe Quadros will. He seems a little touchy.”

“Which brings me to my next question: how well do you know these guys?”

“Not well, I suppose. I’ve known Jake Soames for years, but we see each other only at conferences. I’ve met Khem Charong only twice before. Nathan Vanderhoff and Roberto Quadros I’ve only corresponded with online.”

“Any of them strike you as the homicidal type?”

“No. But we both know it’s hardly ever that easy.” Grissom frowned. “I’ve never understood the psychology of protecting your own social circle at all costs. I’ve seen it many times-especially in law enforcement-but it still seems counterintuitive. You’d think that if on e of your own went bad, you’d see their removal as desirable.”

“That’s because you have no guilt in your soul,” said Brass. “It’s a lot easier to chuck rocks when your house isn’t made out of glass. And, Grissom, you practically live in a bunker.”

“That’s not true, Jim.” Grissom’s frown turned into a wry smile. “You know perfectly well I live in a townhouse.”

Greg opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a woman standing over him. She wore red cowboy boots, jeans, a plaid shirt, and a red Stetson over long, honey-colored hair.

“Are… are you an angel?” said Greg.

The woman grinned, then turned and called over her shoulder, “Hey, Neal! I think you musta shot him in the head!”

“Nah, Miss Tracy. I got him right in the ticker. Twice.”

Greg propped himself up on an elbow and pulled off the protective mask that covered his face. “Technically, you only got me once in the heart. Your other shot was wide.”

The man who’d shot him strolled up, twirling his own six-gun on one finger. He was dressed much the same as the woman but favored black over red; that included a black leather vest, a black hat, and a ferociously bushy black mustache. “Technically? Kid, dead is d ead. Ain’t nothin’ technical ’bout it-the word you want is technique. As in mine is unbeatable and yours just got beat.”

“All right, you got me,” Greg admitted as he got to his feet. “But to be fair, I’m not used to this gun. If I’d been using my own, things would have been different.”

“Mebbe,” Neal said. “Guess we’ll never know.”

Greg glanced around. He, Neal, and Miss Tracy stood in the middle of a broad, dusty street. Ramshackle wooden buildings lined either side, with hitching posts outside most of them. “Wind’s picking up,” said Tracy. “Reckon we should head indoors.”

“Lead on,” said Greg.

“Indoors” was the interior of a 2005 Suncruiser Winnebago, complete with kitchen, shower, and satellite TV system. It was decorated in an Old West motif: knotty pine wallpaper, antique table and chairs, saloon doors in the hall between the bedrooms and the living area. Tracy sat down at the table, while Neal put on some coffee.

“I gotta say,” said Greg, “that when I got up today I didn’t expect to be getting shot. Even by wax bullets while wearing a vest-which, by the way, is more painful than I expected.”

Tracy chuckled. She was a tall, rangy woman with a spray of freckles across her nose. “Well, you said you wanted to know what it was like. Now you do.”

“Yes, I do,” Greg said ruefully. “But it was worth it-how m any times does a guy get a chance to actually play cowboy?”

“If you’re us,” said Neal, “all the time.” He drew his pistol, twirled it around in a complicated and impressive way, then stuck it back in its holster.

“Quit showing off,” said Tracy. “You already killed him, remember?”

Neal nodded, looking pleased with himself. “Don’t take it too hard, kid. I spend as much time practicing my draw as you probably do flossing your teeth.”

“To give you a proper answer,” said Tracy, “the Quick Shooters Society does not actually endorse shooting cowboys. In fact, we’d probably get in a fair bit of trouble for what we just did, so we’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread that around. Gunfights are fun, but they’re dangerous unless you know what you’re doing. Mostly we shoot at targets.”

“Fair enough. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, how about telling me about your ammo?”

Tracy nodded. “We use wax bullets, loaded with black or smokeless powder for the primer. Once the bullet’s pressed into place, you stick a shotgun primer into the hole that’s been countersunk at the base of the shell.”

“Or you could use a twenty-two blank,” said Neal. “There, the hole’s drilled off to one side-twenty-two’s a rimfire.”

“Okay. Now, the bullets themselves-you two make them in bulk, right?”

“Sure,” said Tracy. “Have a nice little mail-order business going. Approved by the World Fast Draw Association and the CSS. Wax bullets are cheap and easy to make-we turn ’em out by the hundreds.”

“And they make you a whole lot less dead if you accidentally shoot yourself while trying out a fancy new draw,” said Neal. “They don’t penetrate walls, so you can even use ’em indoors.”

“Can I see where you make them?”

“Follow me, greenhorn,” said Neal.

He led Greg out of the RV and to a wooden shack in a little better shape than most of the other buildings; it had a hand-lettered sign over the door that read BLACKSMITH. Inside, cartons of cardboard boxes labeled PARAFFIN were stacked against one wall, while a pair of propane camp stoves with several large iron pots on them rested on a plain wooden table. The casts for the bullets were on another table, just two long wooden boards clamped together with a row of holes drilled along the seam so that the bullets could be removed easily when the boards were unclamped.