"Not unless the governor agrees, and I figure that will be about the time they hold the Summer Olympics in Siberia. Josh Quintrell really doesn't like Winifred's project."

"Ya think?" Dan asked sardonically. He lit a match, turned on a burner on the stove, and started heating chili.

"So why keep on pursuing the maybe offspring?" Carly asked. "It's a waste of time. We can't prove anything more than rumor and innuendo, and that's not the sort of thing I feel happy about putting in a family history."

"Why pursue the offspring? Because Winifred told you to and she's paying the bills?"

Carly smiled wryly. "Okay. But it doesn't get us any closer to why somebody wants me to leave."

"If we assume that someone doesn't want the history done-"

"Good assumption."

"-then getting the history done will get us closer to whoever is behind scaring you," Dan finished.

It will also get Carly the hell out of Taos.

But he kept that to himself because she didn't want to hear it.

Carly's expression said that she wasn't impressed with her assignment. With a shrug, she got a three-ring binder from one of her boxes in the living room and sat at the little card table that served as a dining table.

"Okay," she said, flipping the binder open. "Here's what I have so far. Let me know if any of the names tickle your fancy. Jesus Mendoza-son of Carlota Mendoza, a maid at the Quintrell ranch-went into the army, went to war, got decorated, married a San Diego woman, had four kids, died fifteen years ago. None of the kids have any connection to Taos or the Quintrells that I've been able to discover."

Dan wrapped some tortillas in tinfoil and tucked them in the oven.

"Maria Elena Sandoval, daughter of one of the many Sandovals running through New Mexico in general and the Quintrell ranch in particular. Cousin lovers every one of them."

He snickered.

"Maria Elena Sandoval finally married a gringo and moved to Colorado. Two children. No particular contact with New Mexico. She's dead, the children have married and had children of their own. One lives in Florida. One in California."

Dan tested the chili, stirred, and listened to the litany of people who were either old as dirt or already dead. Some hadn't left children. Most had. None of their names made him pause.

"Randal Mullins. His mother was Susan Mullins, who worked at the ranch."

Dan frowned and stirred chili. "Mullins. Susan's son."

Carly checked. "Yes."

"I've run across his name before. Isn't he on the Senator's monument to the local dead in Vietnam?"

Carly flipped to the back of the binder, where she had printouts of important documents. The newspaper article that had listed the dead soldiers was one of them. She ran her finger down the column of names.

"Good catch," she said after a moment. "Randal Mullins. Died in 1968. Four years after the Senator's first son died. Wonder if they knew each other?"

"It's possible," Dan said slowly. "A lot of guys made it a point to get to know other soldiers who were from their own home areas. Made them feel less lonely. But since Mullins and A.J. are both dead, having them know each other won't do us much good."

"Do you suppose the governor knew about Mullins, a man who was possibly his half brother?"

"Doubt it. The governor didn't spend much time here as a kid, so he wouldn't have heard the gossip. I think he was in Vietnam when Mullins died. I'll have to check."

Carly sighed. "Right. Anyway, Randal never married, so we can't ask his children what they remember, if anything, of their father's childhood or their grandmother's likelihood of having a Quintrell child."

"Randal could have had children without a marriage license."

"Bastards having bastards," she muttered.

He smiled slightly.

She made a mark by Randal's name. "How would we go about chasing his offspring?"

"He had a half sister, Betty. Mom went to school with her."

"Your mother mentioned her?"

"Fat chance." Dan spooned chili into a bowl. "There's a photo somewhere in the newspaper archive of two pretty grammar school kids dancing around a Maypole. Mom was one of the kids. Betty was another."

"Is Betty or her mother still alive?"

"Susan Mullins was killed along with my grandmother in 1968. Another sex worker was killed at the same time. Some guy wired on angel dust."

"So Susan knew your grandmother?"

Dan shrugged. "They worked the same alleys, if that's what you mean."

Carly winced. "What about Betty?"

"She died twenty years ago, after her husband divorced her. Suicide. She worked at the Quintrell ranch until the booze and downers got to her. I think you have the article about it on your computer or in the printouts."

"I do?"

"Under the single or double hits for the name Quintrell. How hot do you like your chili?"

"Are we talking temperature or spice?" she asked, flipping through a list of articles she'd printed out.

"Temp," he said.

"Anything above freezing."

He smiled, dished a bowl of chili for her, stuck a spoon in, and set everything in front of her on the card table. "Tortillas?"

"Please," she said absently, reaching for her computer. She booted it up and began to eat while the machine tested all systems, reassuring the silicon brain that everything was in working order.

Dan sat down kitty-corner from her, uncovered the tortillas, and flopped one over her bowl of chili. She rolled the tortilla, scooped chili, and kept on eating, waiting for her computer to be fully functional. Then she did a search of the Quintrell database for an article that mentioned the Quintrell name along with the name Betty.

"Was Mullins Betty's last name?" Carly asked.

"No. It was something common. Smith or Jones or Johnson, something like that."

"How do you know all this stuff? And don't tell me you grew up here. A lot of people did and they don't know squat about the local begats."

Dan chewed, swallowed chili, and swallowed again. "I was an odd kid. People interested me. Not just in the here and now, but what they were when they were young, and their parents, and grandparents." He shrugged. "Maybe it came from not knowing who my grandfather was. Maybe I was just nosy. I spent a lot of time checking out old school yearbooks, working in the newspaper archives, trying to computerize everything so all I had to do was hit a button and watch the patterns emerge."

"Patterns?"

"Who was named, who wasn't, who stood next to the Quintrells in the photos, who didn't, who went to weddings and funerals and baptisms and political rallies." He shrugged. "All kinds of things. Like I said. Nosy."

"Or curious about all the things your mother refused to talk about."

"That too."

"So what did you learn?"

"More about local marriages, births, divorces, and drunks than I should have," he said dryly. "Mom saw me drawing up these elaborate relationship charts featuring people on the Quintrell ranch and their cross-connections with the local community-it was for my senior high school project. Man, did the caca fly. She got furious and said that the past was dead and buried and should stay that way."

Carly's spoon stopped halfway to her mouth. "Did you argue with her?"

"No, I asked her if it was true that the Senator was my greatgrandfather."

Carly swallowed hard. "What did she say?"

"She told me if I ever mentioned that name again in her home, I could start packing."

"Yikers."

"Yeah. So I shifted the topic of my senior project to protecting newspaper archives through specially designed computer programs. Then I started applying to every out-of-state college that might have me. I'd had a gutful of this place."

"Where'd you end up?" Carly asked.

"Georgetown. Did I mention I was a geek with high grades who swam a mean backstroke and won various shooting contests? Georgetown gave me a full scholarship."