Just before Dan skylined himself on the uneven ridge, he stopped and searched the moonlight and darkness for any change, any movement, anything that could explain his occasional, uneasy sense of being watched. Like now. Someone was watching him.

You're paranoid.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

"What caused that?" Carly asked.

"What?"

"That grim little smile."

"I was talking to myself," he said.

"About what?"

"Paranoia."

"Was this a general or a particular conversation?"

"Particular."

She waited.

He didn't say anything more.

"Sometimes getting you to talk is like pulling hen's teeth," she said.

"Hens don't have teeth."

"That's what makes them hard to pull. What form did this paranoia take?"

"Sometimes I feel like I'm being watched," he said calmly.

Carly's breath came out in a long plume. "Me, too. Usually it's in an old house. So I'm paranoid, too?"

He laughed softly and finished the last few yards up to the ridge, pulling her along behind him. "You're something else."

"And that something is paranoid?"

"No, Carolina May. That something is-"

Suddenly Dan staggered back and away from her, yanking her with him as he went down the far side of the ridge.

The sound of rifle fire cracked like edgy thunder down the valley.

A snow-buried ravine broke Dan's fall. He hit bottom hard enough to make his head spin.

"Dan? Dan!"

Carly skidded to her knees and started clawing snow away from his face. Some of the snow looked black and shiny.

Dan's eyes opened and he groaned. "Bastard missed."

"It doesn't look like it from here," she said tightly. "You're bleeding."

"And you aren't. He missed."

"You're hurt. Let me help you up."

When she started to stand, Dan pulled her down into the uncertain shelter of the ravine and put his lips against her ear. There was snow in her hair, and her scarf was more off than on her head.

"Quiet," Dan murmured, finally starting to think past the ringing in his ears. "He might be coming back to finish the job. I sure hope so."

Only then did Carly see that Dan had eased off a glove and drawn a gun. She hadn't even known he was armed. She shivered with more than the cold, though the cold was bad enough to make her shake. It felt like a vampire drawing warmth and life out of her.

You asked for it, she told herself. You could have quit the job and you didn't. Dan paid the price. Now suck it up and deal.

She would rather have run screaming into the night, but refused to leave Dan behind. Since he wasn't going to leave voluntarily and was too big to carry, she was stuck lying in the snow watching him bleed and knowing the bullet had been meant for her.

Carly bit the inside of her mouth, hard, then harder, until the urge to scream died to a whimper she couldn't stifle. Her mouth tasted of salt and fear.

"It's okay, honey," Dan murmured against her ear.

She turned her head to him and breathed, "Bullshit."

His grin flashed white against the bloody shadows of his face.

Dan and Carly lay quietly while blood from a scalp wound ran down his face into the snow. She packed snow against his head, hoping to reduce the bleeding. It helped, but not enough.

Very slowly, he wiped blood away from his eyes with his free hand. Nothing moved on the ridgeline thirty feet above. No sound came from footsteps crunching through snow toward them.

Cold bit into him, numbing him until he knew it would be more dangerous to stay than to move. Neither of them were dressed to spend a night in the snow and freezing wind.

And despite the constantly renewed snow on his forehead, it felt like he'd been hit by a white-hot hammer. When it really thawed out, he would be screaming. Thank God Carly would be there to drive him out.

"Make me some snowballs," he murmured to Carly.

"What?"

"Snowballs."

She wondered if getting shot made someone crazy, but she carefully began scooping up snow and packing it into hard, rather eccentric balls. When she uncovered some small rocks, she included them in the mix.

Dan waited, thinking about where he had been when he was hit, where he'd fallen, where the shot probably had come from.

On the ridgeline, where it bends back toward the valley. Probably that group of boulders to the right. Maybe the trees farther on. Eight hundred feet. A thousand at most. Easy enough shot with a nightscope.

Impossible without one.

Cold clenched Dan's body. Without special gear-at the very least a survival blanket-a man had to keep moving to stay alive. That wind was a killer.

"Here," Carly whispered. "Some of them have rocks in the center."

"Sweet," he murmured, smiling thinly. "Give them to me first."

He felt something cold and hard nudge his left hand. He wasn't very accurate throwing left-handed, but that didn't matter. He just wanted to see how jumpy the sniper was.

In a single motion Dan rose to his knees, fired the snowball in the direction he would have taken if he planned to retreat over the ridge toward the ranch, and dropped back flat in the ravine.

No shot, no narrow thunder, no motion at all.

Silence.

Wind.

More silence.

Something hammering in his head and the feel of Carly shivering uncontrollably against him.

Time to go.

"Follow me," Dan said.

"What if he starts shooting again?"

Then we're dead.

But all he said was, "Let's go."

Chapter 48

CASTILLO RIDGE

FRIDAY NIGHT

THE SNIPER TRACKED CARLY AND DAN THROUGH THE NIGHTSCOPE, NOTING THAT Dan took advantage of every bit of shadow and rock and tree for cover. The sniper didn't get a single clean shot at either of them.

When he was certain they were on their way to the ranch house, he slipped down the back side of the ridge to collect his pay.

Chapter 49

QUINTRELL RANCH

VERY EARLY SATURDAY MORNING

MOONLIGHT GLOWED IN FRAIL SPLENDOR AGAINST THE WALL OF GLASS FRAMING the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The only light in the front of the house came from the Senator's office, and it was no more than a thin strip of yellow between the bottom of the door and the polished marble floor.

A shadow slipped down the hallway. Any sound of footsteps was muffled by Persian rugs as the shadow slid to the back of the house. There was a tiny glow beneath the big double doors leading to the suite. Silence, a faint brush of cloth against the wall, a murmur from the heavy hinges on one door giving way to steady pressure.

The shadow eased inside, leaving the door slightly ajar. A night-light from the bathroom cast a vague illumination that darkened everything not directly touched by light. Winifred lay in the recliner. Every few seconds the oxygen tube took on a faint, shifting glow, sensitive to the movement from the old woman's shallow breaths. Heavy blankets shrouded her body. While she slept, the oxygen tube had fallen away from her nose.

Easy. They make it so easy for me.

Gloved hands shifted the blankets, pulling them higher and then tucking them tightly around the old woman. Gently, relentlessly, blankets flattened down over Winifred's face.

Her nostrils flared, seeking oxygen, finding only cloth too dense to breathe through. Her mouth opened, dry as the pillow itself. Her head jerked. Nothing changed except her body's hunger for oxygen. It raged through her, twisting her. She tried to free her arms, to kick, but it was too late. All she could do was open her eyes and look into the face of her murderer.

Finally her motions stilled completely.

Gloved hands pulled blankets back as they had been. Fingers hesitated over the transparent flexible tube connected to the steel oxygen tank. Then the hand passed on, leaving the oxygen tube as it had been found, hissing faintly against Winifred's neck.