Dan went still. "Go on."

"What if we also assume that your grandmother was more than a pathological liar and an addict? That maybe she knew what she was talking about, at least some of the time? Again, a possible rational basis for her actions."

His eyebrows lifted. "That's a stretch."

"Wait."

Carly went to the bedroom, returned with her recorder, and found what she wanted on the second try. Diana Duran's voice whispered into the room, followed by Dan's.

"It's happening again."

"What is?"

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

"Why was she screaming?"

"Because the dead walk among the living. I know this for truth. My mothers friend saw it. Susan. She told my mother and my mother told me. My mother saw the ghost of another man. A dead man walking, using the name of life. Two days later she was dead."

Then Carly's voice, gently questioning, "What other man did she see?"

"Cain."

After a moment, Dan's voice asked another question.

Diana's haunted voice answered. "I remember. I remember the exact words. They live in my dreams. Nightmares. She said, 'The dead walk and eat at my father's ranch. Cain lives and Abel is dead.'"

Carly stopped the recorder. "The Senator had two sons to speak of."

Dan looked at the envelope he still held. "And a lot he didn't speak of."

"Is it possible that Josh killed his older brother?"

Dan's eyes narrowed. He went to his computer, called up files, searched. "Not likely. The newspaper articles about the Senator's valiant sons in Vietnam make it clear that Josh wasn't there when the heir apparent was. In any case, there were witnesses to the older son's death. Viet Cong. He died saving the lives of his fellow rangers. If he'd survived, he'd have so many medals he'd have a hard time standing up straight."

"Okay. So Cain and Abel aren't an exact description." Carly paused. "But what if one of the bastards-"

"Somehow took the place of a legitimate son?" Dan cut in.

"Yes."

"How? When?"

She fiddled with a strand of her hair. "It would have to be after Sylvia had her stroke, or whatever happened to put her in a coma."

"Why?"

"No way Sylvia would let the Senator put one of his bastards in the family line of succession."

"I agree. Especially if she thought he was shagging their daughter."

Carly winced. "Not to put too fine a point on it."

"There's no nice way to talk about incest."

She let out a breath. "You're right. I just find the whole idea hateful."

"I'd be worried if you didn't." Dan kissed her gently, then released her, only to find she didn't let go.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I forgot for a moment that your mother…"

"Might be a child of incest?"

Carly nodded.

"That's no one's fault but the Senator's, and he's dead."

Dan led Carly back to the work area they'd set up. They were using the bed as a table, the card table as a computer center, and various cowhide chairs as storage units for files. The floor took the overflow.

"Okay," he said, feeling the excitement of the chase humming in his blood. Even if the ideas went nowhere, they went nowhere in new territory rather than trudging through the same old'same old. "Following your assumptions, the switch had to take place no earlier than Sylvia's stroke."

"Unless the switch was what set her off so that she jumped the Senator," Carly said. "My point was simply that she wouldn't have sat still for it."

"Agreed."

Dan sat down in front of one of the three computers they were using-two were his and one was hers. He woke up his own, which had a much more flexible program for retrieving data than Carry's, and which now held everything about the Quintrell family that hers did. Plus the ranch records he hadn't told her about yet.

"At that time," Dan said slowly, "Josh would have been about twenty-seven. Anyone doing a switch with him would have to be close in age and build. Probably no more than five years on either side, and an inch either way in height. Also, that person would have to have 'died' when the switch was made. So I'm looking for a male senatorial bastard who was between six feet and six feet two inches in height, and between twenty-two and thirty-two years old, who died a few years on either side of 1967. Death certificates don't give height, so I'll do the age thing first."

He pulled out the CD Gus had left, fed it into the slot, and downloaded it. Very quickly he was querying his data pool.

" Vietnam," Dan said after a moment. "Has to be."

"Where he died?"

Dan nodded. "And where the switch was made. If there was a switch."

"If there wasn't, our assumption will fall apart pretty fast, won't it?"

"You'd be surprised," he said absently. "Assumption is the mother of all fuckups and has many children."

Carly watched the screen anxiously. "Remind me to steal this program from you."

"I'll modify it just for you. For a price."

She gave him a sideways glance, saw him watching her, and said, "It's a deal."

"You don't want to know what the price is?"

"If I can't afford it, I'll think of something. Or you will."

"You're distracting me," he said.

"Thank you."

"I'll be damned," he said, looking at his computer.

"Excuse me?"

"There are five candidates who fit the profile. Nine if you go the full five years on either side of twenty-seven years old."

Carly didn't know whether she was excited or dismayed. "That many?"

"Those are only the ones who died or disappeared and are reasonably close in height. A lot more than nine males were born in the area in the search years."

"They're all the Senator's?" she asked in a rising voice.

Dan laughed. "No. There's just nothing to prove they aren't his bastards."

"I feel better. I think. The Senator might yet give Genghis Khan a run for his money."

"What do you mean?"

"According to some genetic studies of Y-DNA in Asia, around eight percent of the population are direct patrilineal descendants of Genghis Khan," she said. "Compared to the average man, that's an astronomically successful rate of reproduction."

"What was his secret?"

"Rape and murder. Murder the men and boys, impregnate the women and girls, and move on. If the accounts passed down can be believed, he was, um, tireless on more than the battlefield."

Dan's eyebrows lifted. "The things I learn hanging around with a naive genealogist."

"Naive?"

"Beautiful. Did I mention beautiful?"

"Now I know that bullet caused brain damage."

Before Dan could retort, he felt the brush of her lips against his temple. Distracting. Very distracting.

"Candidates," he said out loud. "What other requirements would they need beyond dying or disappearing or-honey, if you keep breathing in my ear, you're going to be in my lap real quick, and I'm going to be in yours real deep."

Carly straightened and stepped back from temptation. "Candidates. Um, age, death. Got that." She blew out a breath. "What about height, eye color, that sort of thing?"

"Give me a minute."

She went to her own computer, booted up the family pictures and descriptions, and brooded over them. AJ. IV had black hair like the Senator and dark eyes like his mother. Josh had black hair and blue eyes, a complete senatorial copy. Liza had blond hair and dark eyes. The sister who had died of polio at nine had brown hair and blue eyes. Diana Duran had black hair and dark eyes. Dan had dark hair and the most amazing green eyes…

Don h even start.

Carly jerked her mind back to phenotypes. There certainly was a variety to choose from. Everything from black hair and dark eyes to blond and blue-eyed. No help at all.