Diana's sad, bitter smile made tears burn in Carly's eyes.

"I have only one more thing to say, then we will never speak of this again," Diana said. "Ever."

Slowly Dan released Diana and looked down into the eyes of a woman who was both his mother and a woman he'd never known. "I can't promise that, because I'm certain you haven't told me all you could. Why?"

"The words would choke me," Diana said in a raw voice, "and they would destroy you. Take your woman away from here. Evil wants her, and evil always wins."

Chapter 58

QUINTRELL RANCH

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

MELISSA WAS PACKING AN OVERNIGHT CASE WHEN PETE CALLED HER.

"The governor's here," Pete said. He stood in the doorway to their apartment in the big house.

"What are you talking about? No helicopter would fly in this weather."

"He drove. I'll bet he has our pink slips."

Melissa's full mouth turned down. "We knew that was coming when we were told to pack up the house."

"How soon can we get our stuff out of here and head for the land of perpetual sun?" Pete asked. "I'm sick of this place."

"The furniture we own isn't worth moving," she said. "Same for dishes and stuff. It'd be easier to walk away and replace what we need at the other end than fuss with an international move."

"A few days? More?" Pete pressed.

"What's the rush?"

"The governor isn't the Senator. I'm having a hard time keeping my temper with him. It's time to move on, begin the rest of our life."

Melissa's dark eyes searched her husband's face and found only impatience.

"A week," she said. "We need at least that much lead time or the plane tickets will cost a fortune."

Pete nodded. "Okay. A week. Then we're gone. And if the books are a mess, the governor can just cope. I'm sick of this job and the ranch. Too many people dying."

"They were all as old as dirt." She shrugged. "What do you expect?"

The doorbell chimed.

"I'll get it," Pete said. "You finish packing for our time off in town. It's snowing pretty good. If we don't get out in the next hour, we might not get out at all."

Melissa hesitated, then followed Pete down the hall instead of staying and packing. She listened while the men exchanged meaningless words about the weather and how sad Winifred was dead yada yada yada.

The governor must have been as impatient as Pete. It didn't take but a few minutes to get to the bottom line: as of midnight, everyone at the ranch was terminated. As soon as they vacated the ranch, they'd receive three months' pay to ease the transition.

"I'm sorry," the governor said. "I know you've given long and faithful work to the Quintrell family. There will be an extra six months' pay for you and Melissa. And of course I'll be happy to provide any references you need."

"I appreciate that," Pete said, managing a smile. "I'll tell the rest of the staff as they show up Monday, unless you'd rather do it?"

Josh closed his eyes briefly. "I should, but I don't have the time. I didn't have the time to come up here, but I just couldn't do this over the phone. Not with you two." He looked up, saw Melissa, and walked swiftly to her. "I'm very sorry, Melissa. I wish there was another way."

"It's all right," she said, her smile almost real. "There have been so many changes lately, this isn't exactly unexpected."

A few minutes later, Pete and Melissa watched the governor drive away. His generic white rental disappeared into the snow.

"He can't fire us, we quit," Melissa said, laughing without humor. "He just didn't know it."

"Good thing, too. You don't get severance pay when you quit." Pete smiled rather fiercely. " Rio de Janeiro, here we come."

Chapter 59

TAOS

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

THE PACKAGE FROM THE LAB WAS WAITING BY DAN'S FRONT DOOR. CARLY PICKED IT up and held it while Dan unlocked the door, locked it again behind them, and reset the alarm system.

"Okay," she said. "Spit it out."

"What?"

"Whatever it is that's making you look like you want to hit something."

"I'm just kicking myself for being an idiot."

"Anything in particular?" she asked.

"Yeah. No matter how many times my nose was rubbed in it, I still acted like I was on vacation."

"You've been shot, had a brick heaved through your living room window, suffered a sneering sheriff, been drugged until you yakked up your toenails, and twice drew a gun with every intention of shooting someone. Which part of that qualifies as a vacation?"

Dan would have smiled if he hadn't been so disgusted with himself. "My job is to gather and analyze information and draw pretty damned accurate conclusions, but so far I haven't been real effective. Comes from being too close to the problem."

"I'm not sure I like being called a problem."

"Not just you, honey. The Quintrell mess. Mom knows a lot more than she's telling me."

"Do you think your father knows, too?"

Carly set her package down long enough to shake the snow off her coat and hang it by the front door. She toed off her snow boots and walked across the floor in thick wool socks. Dan did the same.

"If Dad does, he's never admitted it. But, no, I don't think he knows," Dan said. "He'd never have pushed Mom hard enough to make her talk."

"Who, besides your mother, might know?" Carly asked.

"That's just it. Her mother is dead. I don't know who Mom's father is and she says she doesn't know either." Dan shrugged. "The Senator might have known, but that's no help now."

"Ditto for Sylvia and Winifred."

"Jim Snead," Dan said.

"Who?"

"The wolfer. His family has been around the Quintrell ranch forever."

"So has Melissa's," Carly said. "But she won't talk about it. What about the Sandovals?"

"They'll talk only if the pertinent statutes have run out," Dan said. "Jim is probably our best bet."

"Doesn't he have a brother?"

"Blaine. If he's not too drunk or whacked out on something, he might talk to me. Or he might have the same problem with statutes that the Sandovals do. For sure he's on parole."

"Lovely."

Dan shrugged and started stacking kindling and pinon chunks in the little adobe hearth. "Welcome to rural America. Folks who think crime only happens in the cities have never lived anywhere else. People are people no matter where they call home."

Carly watched Dan strike a match. Smoke curled up, then tiny flames bit into fragrant wood. Soon light danced and glowed in the small hearth.

"I wish," she said, "that Winifred was alive and could give us permission to take a tissue sample from the Senator. And your grandmother."

"Why?"

"I've been thinking about Sylvia, about her going ballistic and at-tacking the Senator. Why would she suddenly just lose it? She already knew he had the fastest zipper in the West. Was there any scandal, local or otherwise, that hit about then?"

"That was '67, right?" he asked.

"Yes."

Mentally Dan flipped through the history he'd once drawn of the Quintrells. "All that was going on was the hippie invasion in Taos, the Vietnam War, that sort of thing. No big divorces. No wife-swapping or getting caught with the gardener doing the nasty. No election or money-laundering scandals."

"That's not much help. I'm trying to put myself in Sylvia's shoes, how I'd feel if I was married to the biggest womanizer this side of Don Juan. What would it take to make me go crazy?"

Dan laughed softly.

"What?" she asked.

"If you'd been married to the Senator, the first time you found out about his women, he'd have awakened two balls shy of a reproductive package."

Carly looked surprised. "What makes you say that?"