That's two he owes me.

The shadow withdrew, taking with it a woman's life.

Chapter 50

QUINTRELL RANCH

VERY EARLY SATURDAY MORNING

PETE MOORE WOKE UP WITH A STIFF NECK AND DROOL MARKS ON THE SPREADSHEET he'd been reading when he fell asleep in the Senator's office. Groaning, he straightened and reached for the mug of coffee that was as cold as the room.

Now that the old bastard was dead, maybe he could sneak a microwave into the office; he really hated cold coffee. But it was better than no coffee at all. These days Melissa was too busy taking care of Winifred and packing up the house for sale to keep him in hot coffee.

He took a swig of the bitter brew, shuddered, and took another. The clock struck three. In the silence, the chimes were almost like distant church bells. The Senator had loved that sound.

Pete stared at the numbers on the spreadsheet he'd used as a pillow. The figures and their meanings were as blurred as his mind. It was time to give up and go to bed.

He turned off the office light as he went out. In the wide gallery/hallway, moonlight was bright enough to see by. Even if it hadn't been, he'd walked this way many times before at night while the household slept and Melissa waited in their small apartment watching television. The glassed-in walkway was as cold as the night. He walked quickly.

He opened the door to the apartment and hurried inside, shutting the door behind him. The flickering bluish light and vague colors of the TV screen lit the room. The laugh track of an old comedy show drowned out the lonely wind and silence of the night.

Melissa was on the sofa, snoring along with the laugh track. Pete bent down and shook her shoulder lightly.

"Time to go to bed," he said.

She woke up and yawned. "I'd better check on Winifred. Did you hear any more shooting?"

"No. Probably some fool tripped over his own feet with a loaded rifle."

Melissa shook her head. "Poachers shouldn't drink."

Pete grinned. "Maybe he killed himself rather than a cougar. But I'll go with you and make sure the outer doors are locked, just in case our poacher has a little winter larceny in mind."

"Jim Snead would track him down and skin him out like a coyote, and everyone around here with a rifle knows it."

Rubbing her eyes, yawning again, Melissa followed Pete back to the main house and to the suite of rooms at the end of the house. At every exterior door, she waited while he checked the lock. Finally he pushed open one of the double doors to the suite and went on through to check the outside entrance at the far end.

"What a smell," he said as he locked the outside door. "Has she become incontinent?"

"I hope not."

The night-light gleamed on the steel oxygen cylinder. Melissa walked quietly to the recliner, saw that the oxygen tube was displaced, and reached for it. Winifred's skin felt cool.

Too cool.

And the room was too quiet.

"Winifred?" Melissa asked in an odd voice.

Pete walked back quickly. "What is it? Is her fever worse?"

"I think she's dead."

With a muttered word, he bent over Winifred. No sound of breathing. No pulse in the lean wrist. No tension in the muscles.

And the smell.

"Call the doctor," Pete said. "I'll call the governor."

Chapter 51

TAOS

EARLY SATURDAY MORNING

THE GRAY-BLUE CURTAINS SURROUNDING HOSPITAL BEDS IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM gave an illusion of privacy, but the confusion of the ER surrounded them. Dan and Carly would have been long gone from there, but the sheriff had made it clear that he would be the one to interview them. Then he'd told them it could be at the ER or at the jail, their choice.

Carly had voted for the ER.

She was beginning to wonder if it had been the right choice. It had been a busy night. One facial numbness of unknown origin lay on the bed just beyond the left curtain, waiting for test results. In the other adjacent bed lay a slip and fall, which was headed for knee surgery just as soon as the doctor finished with an emergency appendectomy. Another slip and fall, broken wrist, was waiting for a second X-ray to make sure the cast was keeping the bones properly aligned. A screaming child with a high fever and a frantic mother were just beyond the curtains.

Then there was Dan, the gunshot wound. He had a bandage over a short, nasty-looking furrow at his hairline. He'd been X-rayed and CAT-scanned, cleaned up and disinfected, and given pain pills, which he ignored. The doctor had also told him he was lucky to be alive, which Dan already knew.

Carly looked at the grim line of his mouth. "Are you sure you don't want the pain pills? I'm driving whether you take them or not."

"The stuff they hand out doesn't work on me any better than aspirin and a pat on the cheek," he said. "And yes, you're driving. If you hadn't been there to help me on that last part down to the truck and drive us out, I don't think I'd have made it."

"Then why didn't you ask for something that works?"

Because I don't want to be half whacked if a sniper draws down on you again.

But all he said was, "It doesn't hurt that much." Which was true. Once the burning and dizziness had worn off, the dull pain was easy to ignore. He'd been hurt a hell of a lot worse. "It's a scrape."

"From a bullet."

"Yeah, velocity does add a certain bite. Good thing I have a hard head."

She muttered under her breath and gave up trying to get him to take something stronger than aspirin.

Sheriff Mike Montoya's voice carried clearly through the background noise of the ER. "I'm looking for the gunshot wound."

"Curtain five," the nurse answered. "Don't take long. He's ambulatory and we need the bed."

A few seconds later, the curtain whipped aside and a sleepy, irritated sheriff glared at Dan.

"Nice to see you, too," Dan said. "I'd have been happy with the night duty officer."

"What the hell is going on?" the sheriff demanded.

"Why don't you shout?" Carly asked. "That way people won't have to strain to hear what's none of their business."

"You want privacy," the sheriff said, "we can go to the jail."

"No thanks," Dan said. "Whatever we say will be all over town anyway, just as soon as your clerk types up your report. Good old Doris has a mouth a lot bigger than her IQ."

"She's not the only one," Montoya retorted. He flipped open a notebook, took out a pen, and said, "What happened?"

Carly and Dan had already agreed that Dan would be the one to answer the sheriff's questions. She was exhausted, had never liked Montoya or his attitude, and was likely to let him know just how much. Then, Dan had assured her, what should have been a brief interview would take hours. Dan pretty much felt the same way about the sheriff, but had gotten over it a long time ago.

"Carly and I went out to see Winifred at about eight o'clock last night," Dan said. "Afterward, we decided to spend some time on the ranch outside, so Carly could get the feel of the place."

"Or the feel of something," Montoya said under his breath.

Dan's fingers curled around Carly's hand and squeezed gently, a reminder of their deal.

She gave the sheriff a smile that was all teeth.

"We spent some time in the graveyard, looking for gravestones and taking pictures," Dan said.

"How much time?"

Dan shrugged. "Half an hour, forty-five minutes. Long enough to get cold."

Montoya waited, pen poised.

"Carly wanted to climb to the top of the ridge-Castillo Ridge-to see the view from there," Dan said.

"In the dark?" The sheriff's voice was rich with disbelief.

"The moon was quite bright," Carly said, giving the man another double row of teeth.