"You were the one who wrote 'Quantum.' In blood. So you were really writing 'Blood Quantum,'" Nick said. Torres would have to be charged. He had interfered with an investigation, fled the scene of a murder without reporting it. He'd probably get off with a slap on the wrist, make a movie about the experience.

"That's right. As long as Domingo ran things, he had complete control over the tribal rolls. But with him gone, maybe people would get active, take back the tribe from the special interests running it for their own benefit. That's what I was hoping, anyhow."

"Robert ran it for everybody's benefit," the man with the mole said. "This nation has never been better off."

"If by everybody you mean the rich," Torres said. "Or the people who backed him. Not all the people who've been cut from the rolls these last couple of years."

"They're not real Grey Rock."

"Real enough. You can't just wipe away someone's identity and not expect them to be pissed. Anyway, all I was doing was trying to make people talk," Torres insisted. "Not just go along with the same old thing but to consider all the options when it was time to vote for a new chairman."

"Well, between the murder and your little message, you definitely had an impact," Nick said. "Maybe not the one you wanted, though. There have been fights all over the reservation today, people getting beaten, stabbed, shot. It's like a small-scale civil war out there."

Torres covered his face with his hands. "Dammit, that's not what I wanted at all. You gotta believe that. I just wanted conversation. I wanted to get peoples' minds going, make 'em think, not hate."

"People are thinking," Nick said. He let the words hang there for a moment. Was that a siren in the background? "Trouble is, some people are acting, too."

"I never meant anybody to get hurt," Torres said.

"Sometimes what we mean to happen and what really happens are two different things," Nick observed. It was one of those things he had always kind of understood but that Gil Grissom had made clear to him during the time he had run the lab. "Actions have consequences, and you can't always predict what they're going to be."

"So what? Don't ever act?"

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, be prepared to accept the consequences. Because whether you like it or not, they are what they are."

28

The sun was edging toward the west but still high enough that Lake Mead's ripples caught its light and kicked them out in sharp-edged fragments. You could cut yourself on that light, Ray thought, and remembered the last time he had been to the lake at sunset, after a stormy day, when the water was still and bloodred.

That had been a happier occasion, the wedding of a former student and one of his student aides, who had met because of Ray. One of the perks of a university career, he knew. Crime-scene investigators tended to encounter people at their worst, not when they were young and enthusiastic and brimming with life's possibilities but when they were witnesses, victims, or suspects. Funny how one career shift – albeit entirely within his area of expertise – could so dramatically alter the circumstances under which he interacted with his fellow human beings.

He went to the ticket window and bought a ticket for the dinner cruise, then went back outside and stood on the dock, watching waves lap against the pilings, listening to the excited chatter and the echoing clomp of people crossing the gangplank to the big steamboat. The air smelled like most lakeside docks he had visited, except those in remote wilderness areas, that fishy undertone trying with only limited success to cut through the oily fumes of boat engines.

Ray was waiting for Keith and Ysabel to show up. He had promised to meet them there if he could, and he had made it with time to spare, before the ship even steamed in from its previous cruise, its paddlewheel carving a wide wake behind it. He had watched the passengers crowding the rails on all three decks, sunburned and tired – the littlest kids fussing, teenagers bored or pretending to be, talking or texting on mobile phones as they neared the landing. Children in between those ages, their parents, and lovers young or old, unencumbered by family responsibilities, seemed to have enjoyed the excursion the most. Gulls wheeled around the ship, looking for last-minute handouts, calling out their plaintive cries.

When the ship was cleared of its passenger load, hands swabbed and wiped and polished, working with practiced efficiency, and in no time it was ready for the next batch. Dollies of food and beverages, paper products, and galley supplies were loaded aboard. Then the crew boarded, the rope was taken down, and passengers were invited aboard.

He saw them as they approached from the parking area, Keith walking slowly, one arm out for Ysabel to hang on to. She wore a long skirt and walked with slow, even steps, so from a distance she seemed to be floating toward the landing. Above the skin, she had on a blouse and a light leather jacket, and in one hand she carried a canvas bag with a wolf's-head design. Keith, ever the college professor, wore tweed, an Oxford shirt, jeans, and loafers. Ysabel saw Ray first and tugged on Keith's arm, an unself-conscious smile lighting her face. Keith's grin was less committed but appeared just as heartfelt.

"You made it!" he shouted as they neared.

"I said I'd try," Ray replied. "I'm glad I got here before she shoved off."

"We have to pick up our tickets," Ysabel said.

"I'll do that," Keith offered. "Why don't you wait here with Ray? You have yours yet, Ray?"

Ray showed his ticket. "I'm good."

Keith turned Ysabel over to him, and she took Ray's arm instead of her husband's. She barely needed the support; either that, or she weighed less than Ray had thought. She had definitely lost a lot of weight, and it was more apparent there than it had been when she was sitting in her bed. She seemed shorter, less solid – less present, somehow. Her gaze flitted about from one spot to another, as if afraid she might miss something.

"I love it here," she said. She swept her free hand across the landscape. Ray looked out at the hills ringing the blue, blue water: dun-colored, brown, gray, and purple at the farther reaches. "It's so different, isn't it? Like someone turned on a hose one day and decided to fill a desert valley with water."

"That's not far from the truth." Ray reminded her. "Except it was the Hoover Dam, not a hose, that filled it."

"I know, it's unnatural. It doesn't belong here. But water is life, and so much of it in one place… I can't help it, it just makes me smile."

"That makes me smile," Ray said. "Here comes Keith."

He started toward the gangplank, walking at her pace. Keith joined them. "We're all set," he said. Something about his enthusiasm for the journey seemed forced. "Let's see if we can stake out a good spot on the deck."

The boat launched a few minutes later, the two men flanking Ysabel as it went. Her grip on the deck rail was firm, Ray noted, and Keith kept a hand on her the whole time they stood there watching the landing recede. Ysabel enjoyed the gentle rocking motion of the boat, the smell of the water, the sight of desert mountains slipping into shadow as the sun sank farther.

After a while, they took her inside the main cabin to their reserved table. "I'm going to get a drink," Keith said. "You sit here, Ysabel." She sat down, and he wandered off toward the bar. From her bag she took a partially completed basket and her basket-making kit. She loosened the ties and unrolled it on the red tablecloth, revealing her weaving tools. "Will you sit with me. Ray?" she asked.

"I will, in a few minutes," he said. "First I'm going to talk to Keith a little. But let me ask you – that kit you have? What's that made of?"