“No one goes against the Prophet. No one ever fights back, not even my mom. Not even when they-” He stopped talking and suddenly focused his energy on attacking the ridge.

She halted on the slope, out of breath. “What did they do to your mom?”

He just kept climbing, his anger driving him at a killing pace.

“Rat.” She scrambled to catch up. “Listen to me. I have friends, people I trust. Just get me to a telephone.”

He paused, his breath clouding the air like a steam engine. “Who are you going to call?”

Daniel was her first thought. But she remembered all the times when she could not reach him, all the awkward phone conversations when others were listening in, and he had been forced to speak in code. Now, when she needed him most, she did not know if she could count on him.

Maybe I never could.

“Who is this friend?” Rat persisted.

“Her name is Jane Rizzoli.”

25

SHERIFF FAHEY DID NOT LOOK HAPPY TO SEE JANE AGAIN. EVEN FROM across the room, she could read his face through the glass partition, a look of dismay, as if he expected her to issue some new demand. He rose from his desk and resignedly stood waiting in his doorway as she crossed toward him, past law enforcement personnel who were now familiar with the three visitors from Boston. Before she could ask the expected question, he headed her off with the same answer he’d given her for two days in a row.

“There are no new developments,” he said.

“I didn’t come in expecting any,” said Jane.

“Trust me, I’ll call you if anything changes. There’s really no need for you folks to keep dropping in.” He glanced past her shoulder. “So where are your two gentlemen today?”

“They’re back at the hotel, packing. I thought I’d come by to thank you before we head to the airport.”

“You’re leaving?”

“We’re flying back to Boston this afternoon.”

“I hear rumors there’s a private jet involved. Must be nice.”

“It’s not my jet.”

“His, huh? The guy in black. He’s a strange fella.”

“Sansone’s a good man.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to know. We see a lot of folks around here who are loaded with money. Hollywood types, big-shot politicians. Buy themselves a few hundred acres, call themselves ranchers, and then they think they got a right to tell us how to do our jobs.” Although he was talking about nameless others, his words were really directed at her, at the Boston outsiders who’d swooped into his county and sucked up his attention.

“She was our friend,” said Jane. “You can understand why we’d want to do everything possible to find her.”

“Quite a group of friends she collected. Cops. A priest. A rich guy. Must’ve been quite a woman.”

“She was.” She looked down as her cell phone rang and saw a Wyoming area code, but she did not recognize the number. “Excuse me,” she said to Fahey and answered the call. “Detective Rizzoli.”

“Jane?” The voice was close to a sob. “Thank God you answered!”

For a moment Jane could not utter a sound. She stood mute and paralyzed, the cell phone pressed to her ear, the noise of the sheriff’s office drowned out by the pounding of her own pulse. I am talking to a ghost.

“I thought you were dead!” Jane blurted.

“I’m alive. I’m okay!”

“Jesus, Maura, we had your memorial service!” Tears suddenly stung Jane’s eyes, and she wiped them away with an impatient swipe of her sleeve. “Where the hell are you? Do you have any idea what-”

“Listen. Listen to me.”

Jane sucked in a breath. “I’m right here.”

“I need you to come to Wyoming. Please come and get me.”

“We’re already here.”

“What?”

“We’ve been working with the police to find your body.”

“Which police?”

“The Sublette County sheriff. I’m standing in his office right now.” She turned to find that Fahey was right beside her, his eyes full of questions. “Just tell us where you are and we’ll come get you.”

There was no answer.

“Maura? Maura?”

The line had gone dead. She hung up and stared at the number on her call history. “I need an address!” she yelled, and recited the phone number. “It’s a Wyoming area code!”

“That was her?” Fahey asked.

“She’s alive!” Jane gave a joyous laugh as she dialed the number. It rang and rang unanswered. She disconnected and redialed. Again, there was no answer. She stared at her cell phone, willing it to ring again.

Fahey went back to his desk and tried calling from his phone. By now everyone in the office was riveted to the conversation, and they watched as he punched in the number. He stood drumming his fingers on the desk and finally hung up.

“I’m not getting an answer, either,” he said.

“But she just called me from that number.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked me to come get her.”

“Did she give you any idea where she is? What happened to her?”

“She never got the chance. We were cut off.” Jane looked down at her silent cell phone, as if it had betrayed her.

“Got the address!” a deputy called out. “The phone’s listed to a Norma Jacqueline Brindell, up on Doyle Mountain.”

“Where’s that?” said Jane.

Fahey said, “That’s a good five miles west of the accident scene. How the hell’d she end up out there?”

“Show me on the map.”

They crossed to the county map displayed on the wall, and he tapped a finger on a remote corner. “There’s nothing but a few seasonal cabins. I doubt anyone’s living there this time of year.”

She looked at the deputy who’d given them the address. “Are you sure about that location?”

“That’s where the call came from, ma’am.”

“Keep calling it. See if anyone answers,” said Fahey. He looked at the dispatcher. “Check and see who we’ve got in that area right now.”

Jane looked at the map again and saw wide expanses with few roads and rugged elevations. How had Maura ended up there, so far from the wrecked Suburban? She scanned the map, her gaze moving back and forth between the accident site and Doyle Mountain. Five miles due west. She pictured snowbound valleys and towering crags. Scenic country, to be sure, but no villages, no restaurants, nothing to attract an East Coast tourist.

The dispatcher called out: “Deputy Martineau just radioed in. Says he’ll handle the call. He’s heading to Doyle Mountain now.”

THE PHONE in the kitchen would not stop ringing.

“Let me answer it,” said Maura.

“We have to leave.” The boy was emptying out pantry cabinets and throwing food into his backpack. “I saw a shovel on the back porch. Get it.”

“That’s my friend trying to reach me.”

“The police will be coming.”

“It’s okay, Rat. You can trust her.”

“But you can’t trust them.”

The phone was ringing again. She turned to answer it, but the boy snatched the cord and wrenched it from the wall. “Do you want to die?” he yelled.

Maura dropped the dead receiver and backed away. In his panic, the boy looked frightening, even dangerous. She glanced at the cord dangling from his fist, a fist that was powerful enough to batter a face, to crush a trachea.

He threw down the cord and took a breath. “If you want to come with me, we need to leave now.”

“I’m sorry, Rat,” she said quietly. “But I’m not going with you. I’m going to wait here for my friend.”

What she saw in his eyes wasn’t anger, but sorrow. In silence he strapped on his backpack and took her snowshoes, which she would no longer need. Without a backward look, without even a goodbye, he turned to the door. “Let’s go, Bear,” he said.

The dog hesitated, glancing back and forth between them, as though trying to understand these crazy humans.

“Bear.”

“Wait,” said Maura. “Stay with me. We’ll go back to town together.”

“I don’t belong in town, ma’am. I never did.”

“You can’t wander alone out there.”