"Too late. This isn't a game anymore." Dan got out and said through the open door, "But you don't have to come. It's not your problem."

"What?”

Carly shut off the engine, shot out of the truck, and hurried to catch up with Dan. She hit the small front porch at the same time he did. He put his arm around her as if he'd been doing it all his life, knocked, and opened the door.

"Company," he called out, pulling Carly in and shutting the door behind them. Knowing his mother, he headed straight for the kitchen. "I brought Carly."

"Come in," Diana said, hurrying into the kitchen from the greenhouse. Her dark eyes were stormy and her smile was enough to turn heads. "Have you eaten lunch?"

"We're not hungry, thanks," Dan said. "We had a late breakfast."

"You taught your son to make a mean chili," Carly added.

"He's a good cook, when he bothers." She looked warily at her son, then at Carly. "Should I ask why you're here?"

Before either could answer, Diana turned her back and went to the sink to wash her hands.

"Have you talked to Winifred today?" Dan asked.

Diana went still. "No. Is something wrong?"

"You tell me. You'd hear rumors before I would, especially from the hispano grapevine."

Diana gripped the edge of the sink. "Then it's true? She's dead?"

"No one has announced it."

An odd shiver went through Diana. She crossed herself and said, "It is done. It is finally done."

"Not yet," Carly said. "Someone shot Dan."

Diana whipped around, her shock clear.

"Guess the grapevine didn't have my name on it," Dan said, peeling off his hat.

Diana swayed and clenched her trembling hands together to keep from reaching for the son who watched her with distant eyes. "You are-all right?"

"As you can see, I'm fine. I have a hard head. The guy was trying for Carly. I just got in the way."

Diana's glance moved over Carly, taking in the protective way Dan stood close to the young woman.

"Stop asking questions," Diana said bluntly to Carly. "The violence will also stop."

"Do you know who's behind it?" Dan asked, his voice careful. Neutral.

Diana tilted her head back and fished in her pocket for a tissue. Even though she'd added another humidifier to the house, her nose was bleeding again.

Dan grabbed a clean tissue from a nearby box and pressed it into his mother's hand.

"Thank you," she said. "It will pass soon."

"My questions won't," Dan said evenly. "Do you know who is behind the violence?"

"No."

"Any guesses?"

"No."

"But you'd be happy if whoever it was succeeded, right?"

Dan's tone made Diana flinch. She looked automatically toward the back door, where John would come in as soon as he got back from buying a part for the old tractor.

"He isn't here," Dan said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. "Even if he was, I'd keep on asking. If anything more happens to Carly, it will be over my dead body."

Dan handed his mother another tissue and took the soiled one.

There was silence for a long time. Then Diana sighed and stuffed the second tissue in her pocket. For now, the nosebleed was gone.

"I wouldn't ask you if I had any other choice," Dan said, shoving the first tissue into his jeans pocket. "I'm not a teenager anymore, curious about my grandparents and my mother's childhood. I'm a man who has been trained to evaluate threats and remove them when necessary.

Please don't get in my way. I don't want to hurt you." His mouth settled into a grim line. "Carly is innocent of whatever happened in the past. It's the innocent who must be protected first. You taught me that, Mom."

Diana bowed her head. What Dan was saying was true. But there was another truth, and its ugliness made her stomach clench and cold sweat slick her body.

"Take her away from here," Diana said in a hoarse voice. "Far away. Don't come back until the last of the devil's spawn is dead."

"I won't go," Carly said gently. "I made a promise to Winifred. I keep my word. Do you know anything that would help me do my job?"

"I know evil exists."

Carly had no idea how to respond to that.

Diana looked at Carly, saw she didn't understand, and said to her, "You don't believe in evil, just in good. Evil knows its enemy. Good knows only itself. That is why the good die young." She looked at Dan again. "Take her away from here."

"Kidnapping is against the law." Dan pinned his mother with a bleak glance. "Do you know anything that could help us find out who's behind all this?"

"I haven't heard anything."

"Have you tried?" he asked.

She hesitated. "No."

"Try," he said. "Please. If we know which part of the Quintrell history is causing the problem, we'll have a handle on who as well. Your past can't be remade, but Carly's future can."

Diana closed her eyes and fought against the nausea turning in her throat, the memories of drunken men and a mother who never heard her own child's screams, a father who was more than that, hideously more.

"It's happening again," she whispered.

"What is?" Dan asked, his voice gentle. She looked so pale, so worn, her eyelids closed, quivering.

"Evil. Death that shouldn't have been. My mother, screaming and laughing, then just screaming."

Dan's breath caught. It was the first time he'd ever heard his mother mention her childhood. "Why was she screaming?" he asked softly.

"Because the dead walk among the living. I know this for truth. My mother's friend saw it. Susan. She told my mother and my mother told me."

Dan bit back a curse. His grandmother, the liar and addict, lost in her own twisted mind.

"My mother saw the ghost of another man," Diana said, opening her eyes. They were wide, staring, fixed on nothing. "A dead man walking, using the name of life."

The darkness in his mother's eyes made Dan want to hit something. He hated doing this to her.

"Two days later she was dead," Diana said in a raw voice.

"What other man did she see?" Carly asked gently.

"Cain."

Carly looked at Dan, who was watching his mother with sadness and pity combined.

"Is that what your mother said?" he asked.

"I remember. I remember the exact words. They live in my dreams. Nightmares." Diana spoke quickly now, the past a river whose dam was crumbling, a torrent seeking release. "She said, 'The dead walk and eat at my father's ranch. Cain lives and Abel is dead.' Then she started screaming and laughing and smashing everything she could reach, cutting herself on the glass, throwing knives and dishes and splashing blood everywhere, shrieking about a prodigal daughter finally getting even with God, and then she came at me with a knife and her hands were bloody and her eyes… her eyes…"

Diana's throat closed as she stared through the present into a past no child should ever have seen.

Dan caught his mother in a hug, trying to comfort her, hating himself and whatever had happened in his mother's past.

"I ran," Diana said starkly, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I knew she needed help but I didn't get help for her. I hated her and I hated the evil she sold me to, so I hid in the church and told no one." A shudder racked her body. "The next thing I remember, she was dead. I could have helped her but I hated her too much. I wanted her dead. She was evil and the evil came down to me. No matter how much good I do, I

am as evil as my mother and her brother were, and my grandfather who addicted her and turned her into a whore who sold her own child."

Dan bent until his cheek was on his mother's hair. He held her, simply held her, hating the questions that had brought such pain.

And that was all they'd brought. Nothing in Diana's and his grandmother's half-crazed memories of the past could help the present.

"I've seen evil," Dan said, tipping up his mother's chin, kissing her cheek. "You aren't it. You're simply human. You were an abused, terrified child who grew up into a woman children run laughing to meet, knowing that they're safe with you. You're not evil at all. I love you and I'm very proud of you."