So she smiled and commented on healthy babies, beautiful young girls, and handsome men as picture after picture drifted into her lap.

"Wait," Carly said, holding up a faded color photo. "Isn't that Senator Quintrell on the right?"

Dan went from half-asleep to full alert.

"Si, yes," Lucia said. "He gave a big party on his ranch the first time he was elected from this district, and every year thereafter. Armando's grandfather, Mario, was always one of his biggest supporters. The Senator remembered friends." She flipped through a lapful of pictures. "See, here he is again, at the baptism of Armando's father, and at Easter mass in the San Geronimo chapel in Taos."

Carly looked at all the photos, but reserved special attention for the ones that had been taken at the yearly barbecue. Winifred hadn't showed her anything like these. From the clothes and hairdos on the women, the first barbecue had been held in the 1930s. Another photo displayed clothing from the 1970s, platform shoes and unlikely combinations of colors and fabrics. A third photo showed the full-circle skirts, stiff petticoats, and poodle appliques of the 1950s.

One of the women-a teenager, actually-tickled Carly's sense of the familiar. She was certain she'd seen the woman before, or maybe her sister or mother or cousin or aunt or daughter. It was in the way the young woman held herself, the tilt of her chin, the shape of her eyes.

"Who is this?" Carly asked.

"The Senator's daughter, Liza." Lucia crossed herself. "La pobrecita."

Silently Dan willed Carly to put the photo down and keep going.

She didn't. She let other photos pile up in her lap while she memorized the young woman in the picture. This was one of the few pictures she'd seen of Senator Quintrell's second daughter. The wild child. Either the Quintrell collection had been purged after the family threw her out, or else there never had been many photos of the beautiful baby who grew up to be something ugly-clinically diagnosed as a pathological liar, arrested as an alcoholic, a junkie, and a whore.

Impassively Dan looked at the picture of his grandmother and said not one word.

Chapter 15

QUINTRELL RANCH

TUESDAY, BEFORE DAWN

CARLY STRUGGLED OUT OF A NIGHTMARE OF GUTTED RATS AND BLOOD SPURTING IN time to a ringing phone. The phone, at least, was real.

With a groan she sat up, shivering in the chill air, and tried to remember where she was so she would know where the phone was. The only light in the room came from the moon. Her breath hung in the air. Despite her best efforts, the fire in the little adobe hearth had gone out, leaving the room without heat.

And the phone was still ringing.

"Quintrell ranch house," she said, remembering. "Light switch by the door. Telephone in the hall. Incoming calls only. Wouldn't want the maids or guests to take advantage, would we?"

She kicked off the heavy covers and reached the door in two strides. The bare tile floor was icy against her feet. The light switch didn't work.

"Hell," she said, smacking the wall with her fist.

The light flickered on, all forty watts of it.

The phone kept ringing.

She dragged a chair away from the door-no lock, no key, and she was damned if she was going to sleep in an unlocked room after the rat. She yanked the door open and stumbled into the hall. Like everything else, the hall was cold. The phone was even colder.

"Hello?" Carly said automatically.

Silence.

Breathing.

A woman's scream that climbed and climbed, breaking into sobs, pleas, then a shriek driven by unimaginable pain.

Carly was too shocked to move. "Where are you? Who are you? Let me help!"

The scream fragmented into sobs.

Silence.

And a voice whispering, "Get out of Taos or you 11 be the one screaming."

The receiver slid from Carly's numb fingers. Sickness turned in her stomach. She leaned against the wall and tried to slow the terrified beating of her heart.

Chapter 16

QUINTRELL RANCH

TUESDAY MORNING

JOSH QUINTRELL HUNG UP THE PHONE AND RUBBED HIS FOREHEAD.

"Headache, darling?" Anne asked.

He looked up from his desk. His wife, as always, was a walking definition of wealth and breeding. At the moment she was dressed "casually" in supple leather jeans and handmade Ruidoso boots, five-hundred-dollar designer shirt, and discreet Tiffany jewelry at ears and wrists and throat. A four-carat diamond flashed against her simple gold wedding band. If there had been a photographer around, the diamond would have been in a locked case and the gold band would have sent its own quiet message to the voters who cared enough to look: despite family wealth and the fame of high political office, Josh and Anne were real people.

"He wants me to step up the amount of time I'm on the road," Josh said.

Anne knew that "he" had to be Mark Rubin, Josh's campaign manager and the one man Josh took orders from.

"Isn't it a bit soon after the funeral?" she asked.

"That's what I said. He said that voters have a short attention span. I've been out of circulation too much. I need to be on some front pages and be featured in some six o'clock news leads."

"We can be packed and gone by afternoon."

"What about Andy?"

She hesitated. A line of tension appeared between her beautifully shaped eyebrows. "He'll go with us. He thought about what you said and decided rehab was best for everyone."

"Translation: He put the bite on you and you turned him down."

She nodded jerkily. "I still think…"

He bit back a twist of anger and said, "Yes?"

"I…" Slowly she shook her head. "I wish there was another way."

"Can you think of anything we haven't tried?" His voice was patient despite the frustration that gnawed a hole in his gut every time he thought of his spoiled son screwing up a lifetime of work. Two lifetimes, if you counted the Senator. "We've done shrinks, meds, military schools, soft-love schools, tough-love schools, guilt trips, shouting matches, and New Age fuzzy-wuzzy. Nothing has done any good. The older he gets, the more he reminds me of Liza. Wild, careless, dangerous. Hell-bound and willing to take everyone along."

Tears glistened. Anne didn't argue.

"I know it's old-fashioned," Josh said slowly, "but I think there's some bad seed in the Quintrell line. Sure as hell there are some kinks. The Senator knew what he was doing when he cut Liza loose. She would have ruined his public life."

"Are you," she swallowed, "thinking of legally severing ties between us and our son? Of disowning him the way the Senator disowned Liza? At least he-he gave her money sometimes. Didn't he?"

Josh ignored the hopeful question. "I'm praying Andy will get his act together. I'm hoping you'll help him by letting him go. He'll never stand on his own as long as you're busy giving him money and propping him up behind my back."

Anne flushed. "I've only done that-"

"Every damn time he got close to hitting bottom," Josh cut in coldly. "Every damn time he would have had to suck it up and grow up."

"I couldn't see him go hungry!"

Josh snorted. "Fat chance of that and you know it. When he's sober, he can charm chrome off a trailer hitch."

Her fingers twisted together. "I know you're right. It's just… he was such a beautiful little boy."

"Liza was a beautiful little girl. As an adult she was a liar, a whore, and a junkie." Josh stood and went to Anne. He needed her for the campaign to come, needed her as first lady if he won. And he had a very good chance of doing just that. The other candidates from his party would drop out after a few primaries. After that his only opposition was the aging vice president to a president nobody liked anymore. "I can't do this without you. Are you in or out?"