She dropped the dishcloth in the sink. The mayo was gone, but now she had an enormous oily wet spot on her midsection. "I suppose the police will want to see it."

"I s'pose they will." Mr. Hadley unzipped the bag and held it toward her, opened wide.

"Holy-" She inhaled. Inside, a monstrous.357 nestled between wrapped stacks of currency.

"Oh, dear lord." She thought of the young Latino's nervous eyes. The way he'd scrub at his half-grown mustache when she spoke to him. "What did you get yourself into?"

III

He wished he had kept the gun. It would have felt good, riding heavy against the waistband of his jeans, raising a bruise as he toiled up and down the forested hills, making his way to the Christie farm. It was a form of communication those hijos de putas could understand.

Amado paused and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. The air was sticky with the scent of pine. Only an hour past dawn and already hot beneath the forest cover. Raul thought he was a liar, with his stories of cool mountain mornings and evenings where you needed to wear a jacket. Those were past years. This year was different.

He wished he had never come back to this place.

He wasn't sure how he was going to get them to admit what they had done with Octavio. He wasn't even sure they were there. The policewoman who had come last night, asking questions while her partner searched the bunkhouse and the barn and the outbuildings, had said other police were talking with the Christies at the same time. She had said they should call if Amado showed up. Everyone looked straight ahead and pretended they didn't know the real Amado had swapped names and papers with his brother. She had said they should watch out for anyone suspicious and should stick together in pairs. She didn't know much about dairy work.

He had two utility knives in his pockets. A farmer's tool. Sharp enough to slash through tangled leather straps, sturdy enough to pry a stone out of a hoof. He was a farmer, not a fighter, but he knew he could hurt the Christies badly enough to make them talk. If they didn't kill him first.

He hiked up the last rise-the same stretch of woods he had stumbled through a month ago, fleeing with gun and money and Isobel's kiss and the sounds of her beating in his ears. He wondered, for the hundredth time, if he should have stopped her brother and taken her away. To save her. To save Octavio from this stupid mix-up he had created. One lie, to keep Octavio from deportation. And now it might be the boy's death warrant.

Did they come after him because they thought he was the brown-skinned man kissing their sister? Or had Isobel crumbled and told them a man named Amado had the gun and the money, sending them after Octavio in a stupid, deadly mistake? Either way, he was to blame. For losing his mind and pretending he could be with an Anglo woman. For agreeing to keep her secrets, even when he wasn't sure what they were. For handing a bag full of death over to Octavio. He had counted the money. It was more than enough for someone to kill for. And he had given it to the boy with no more warning than to keep it private. What could be safer than a church?

What had he been thinking?

He heard something ahead of him. He froze. A ting-ting sound, like sweet small bells. The skritch-skritch of squirrels running up a tree. Bleating. He relaxed until he remembered Isobel's family raised sheep. If they were grazing in the old wood-ringed pasture, would one of the brothers be there? He reached inside his pocket and gripped the handle of the utility knife. One man, he could take on and hope to succeed. Unless there was a dog, too.

He slunk to the edge of the pasture like a wolf. There were perhaps fifteen or twenty sheep mowing the grass, their coats half-grown from a spring shearing, belled to make them easier to track. No shepherd. No dog that he could see, although that didn't mean there wasn't one napping in the shade of the pole barn.

A fox skull hung beside the hayloft door. Facing him. He almost turned and retraced his steps, but he was a man, and a man didn't run from a woman. He emerged from the underbrush and headed for the barn. Maybe she had news of Octavio. Maybe she wanted the gun and the money back. Maybe she needed his help again. Maybe she found herself thinking of him in the quiet moments of the day, pausing at the sight of hay in the cow barn, drifting away when the men discussed their women back home…

He jerked himself into the moment. The knife handle was slippery in his hand. He ought to stab himself in the thigh. Perhaps that would keep him focused. He reached the door. Hauled himself up over the lip. Heard her whisper, "Amado?"

For a split second, he worried about a trap, but then she bounded across the bales toward him, arms outstretched, hair streaming behind her like a pennant. She flung herself at him, arms wide, and all he could do was embrace her, teetering, and then he lost his balance and the two of them toppled backward onto the hay.

She was speaking, a torrent of English like choppy water pouring over him, and he could hear relief and fear and apology in her voice. He rolled to one side, letting her slip off him, and the motion seemed to make her aware of where they were, chest to chest, arm by arm, legs entangled. She said something, fast and low, and scrambled out of range. When she turned again, her cheeks were pale pink.

He sat up. Marshaled his thoughts. He couldn't afford to let sentiment mess up his judgment. "Your brothers," he said, "take Octavio." He rose to his feet. He wasn't any taller than she, but he was strong. Very strong. "Where?" he demanded.

She shrank back. He felt like a slug, but he continued to glare at her. "Where?"

"Octavio?" Another flood of English, this time questions.

He held up one hand. He didn't want her to know the relationship between Octavio and himself. Anything she knew, her brother might beat out of her. "Octavio work at"-he sketched a cross in the air-"la iglesia."

"The church?"

"The church, yes. Your brothers take him."

"Mi familia," she said, "no take him. No." She spread her hands open. "I ask. They no take him. Yo promesa."

"You promise? You promise?" He spat on the hay next to his work boot. "Your brothers lie."

"No." She should have been offended or angry, but instead her face softened. She stepped toward him, tentatively, as if he might snap and slap her like her abusive brute of a brother.

Mother of God. What sort of man was he, frightening a woman who had learned to expect the side of a hand? He reached out to her. "Isobel," he said. She came to him, no reluctance now, and he held her as he would hold a child, his anger and misery leaching away as he murmured, "Lo siento. I am sorry. Lo siento."

After a few moments, she pushed away from him. He released her instantly. She faced him, her lips pressed firm, her eyebrows knitted, the face of someone trying to put something complex into simple, understandable words. "La policia ask for…"-she frowned-"Octavio?"

"Octavio."

"La policia ask my brothers." She mimed a burly man, arms akimbo, holding out one arm in a sign to stop. "No here," she said in a gruff voice. "No Octavio." She reverted to her own voice. "I ask my brothers. They-" She held her belly and faked a deep laugh. "Ha-ha-ha!"

"Risa."

"¿Risa? Laugh?" She nodded. "My brothers"-she enacted the big man again, complete with deep voice-"El hombre de la iglesia? Pffft." She made an elaborate show of who cares? She shifted back to herself. "I ask, me promesa? My brothers"-she dropped her voice again-"Okay. Promesa."

She came to a standstill. "Lo siento, Amado." He could hear the truth in her words. A cautious voice inside him whispered, She may be a brilliant liar, but one thing he had learned, traveling through a strange land, is that sometimes you have to trust. And believe. He wanted to believe in Isobel. He wanted that very much.