This was the moment Greg had been hoping to avoid. Someone had to tell her, and it looked as if he was elected. He could stall her, maybe for another half hour, an hour at the most. Let her recover more. But for all he knew, her family was waiting outside for him to be finished here. Would it be cruel to leave it for them to tell her?

Family would be the lucky thing. What if some reporter got in here and asked her about it? He didn't know if the media had found out yet, but if they had… he didn't want that to happen. Anyway, she had been strong enough to tell her story, so he thought she was strong enough to listen to his. "I'm very sorry, Daria," he said, his voice low and gentle. "There's something I need to tell you…"

24

Sam Vega drove onto the Cameron estate just as Catherine was finishing with yet another phone call. She greeted him, and the two of them started toward the house. Dustin Gottlieb opened the door before they reached it. "Does Mr. Coatsworth know you're coming?" he asked, allowing them into the foyer. "He's not here at the moment."

"We just need to see Mrs. Cameron briefly," Sam said.

"Well…"

"It's official business, Mr. Gottlieb." Sam gave Gottlieb a look that conveyed both gravity and weariness in equal proportion, the kind of look that young cops had to practice in the mirror because it would serve them so well over the years.

"Fine, I'll fetch her. Wait here."

"You are good," Catherine murmured after Gottlieb left.

"I try."

Catherine had filled Sam in on everything she had learned but only the shorthand version. He eyed her curiously as they waited. "You sure you've got what you need?" he asked.

"I have enough to know what else I need," she replied. "That's the important thing. You brought the warrant, right?"

He touched the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket. Before he could speak again, Drake McCann entered the parlor, followed by Helena Cameron, Craig Stilton, and Dustin Gottlieb. Stilton and McCann got Helena situated on a chair, then turned to Catherine and Sam, who were still standing. Gottlieb leaned against a wall, at some remove from the others.

"Should we ask Marvin Coatsworth to join us?" Stilton asked. "He's just a phone call away."

"That's up to you," Sam said. "For everyone's convenience, we'd like to get this done as quickly as possible."

Helena lifted a weary hand and tapped Stilton's side. "Let it go," she said. "If we need Marvin, we can stop everything until he gets here."

"What can we do for you both, then?" Stilton asked. "You know how hard this whole ordeal has been on Mrs. Cameron."

"Believe me, I know," Catherine assured him. "And we don't mean to make things difficult." She shifted her gaze, addressing Helena directly. "I think you'll feel better after we talk," she said. "I have some of the answers we've been looking for."

Helena looked exhausted, even more so than usual. Her orange-tinged face was drawn, with heavy bags under her bloodshot eyes and a disconcerting quiver to her lower lip. "Answers would be nice," she said in a weak, scratchy voice.

"I'll do what I can," Catherine promised. "First, you should know that we've found Daria." Helena's left hand went to her mouth. "She's alive,' Catherine added quickly, before the old woman could misinterpret. "She's at Desert Palm Hospital. A crime scene investigator found her out in the desert and suffering from exposure, as well as the… the condition that has affected both of you. But now that the doctors know the real source of that condition, they're confident they'll be able to help her. And you, too, Mrs. Cameron. They should be able to get you back to normal."

"I… I don't understand."

"You've been poisoned, Mrs. Cameron. Probably slowly, over a period of time. You're not sick, you and Daria didn't catch the same virus or anything. You're being poisoned, and now that we know what it is, all we have to do is cut off the source and treat it, and you'll be fine."

"That's good news," Stilton said. "If it's true. Although I'm not sure how that could have -"

"It's definitely true, Mr. Stilton," Sam said.

"Oh, thank God," Gottlieb said. He leaned against wall as if his knees had lost their structural integrity. "Thank you, Supervisor Willows."

"When can I see her? Daria?" Helena asked.

"Very soon, as soon as she's stabilized."

"Was she found at a crime scene?" Stilton asked. "You said she was found by a crime scene investigator."

"She was." Catherine answered. "Not the scene of a recent crime but a crime scene just the same. Our investigator followed some directions found among Troy's possessions, and they led him to a cave out in the desert, walled off with rocks. Inside the cave, he found Daria, alive, and someone else – your husband, Mrs. Cameron. Long dead but almost certainly him."

"He… found Bix?"

"That's utterly impossible," Stilton said. "His body would have decomposed after all these years. How could he know?"

"We don't know precisely when he died," Catherine countered. "Only when he disappeared. But in fact, his body was mummified by the dry air and protected by the cave. It's on its way back to our lab to be CT-scanned and DNA-tested. We'll get a positive identification, and I'm sure that will tell us exactly what happened to him."

"That's simply remarkable," Gottlieb said. "You people really are good at your jobs."

"We try to be. There's one more thing, though."

"What now?" Stilton asked. All the news so far hadn't changed his attitude, which was antagonistic. Every word he spat at them was some sort of challenge. "You haven't thrown enough surprises at poor Helena for one day?"

Sam Vega took this one. "Maybe not," he said. "We're pretty sure that when your husband's body is scanned, ma'am, it will turn out that he was shot. Probably with the same weapon that was originally used on your son. Our working theory is that the same person shot them both and left them to die in the desert. But Troy survived, sealed up his father's body with stones in that cave, then made his way back to the city, noting the landmarks along the way. Because of the brain damage he had suffered as a result of that gunshot wound, by the time he reached the city, he didn't remember where the landmarks led, but he never forgot that the destination was an important one. Over all these years, he kept recopying the directions to make sure he never lost them."

"This is all quite remarkable," Stilton said, almost echoing Gottlieb's words and tone but with an undercurrent of impatience. "But if you'll excuse us now, I think Mrs. Cameron could use some time to take this in and process it."

"Now, Craig -" Helena began, but he cut her off with a wave.

"Helena, please, let me take care of you."

"There is one more thing," Sam said, drawing the warrant from his pocket. He pointedly dodged Stilton and handed it to Helena, who then turned it over to Stilton without so much as a glance at it. But at least she had held it in her hand. "That's a warrant to search these premises."

"Searching for what?" Stilton asked.

"Specifically, we'd like to look through Mr. McCann's gun collection."

"Why?" McCann demanded. It was the first word he'd uttered since they had arrived. "You already have the gun I accidentally shot Troy with."

Catherine noted his emphasis on the word accidentally. She didn't doubt the basic truth of his story, and the surveillance video backed it up. But his word choice was strange. She didn't think the shooting was an accident, just that he didn't know the victim's identity. Even then, because there was no way McCann could have known, he wasn't being blamed. Not even by the victim's mother, it seemed. Still, he sounded as if someone was accusing him. "We have our reasons, Mr. McCann," she said.