“You saw that coin. You know where it’s from. I was over talking to John Kvichak and he’s thinking about going back up to the crash himself. Hell, it’s only Bear Glacier; we can drive to Icky and four-wheel it the rest of the way in.”

“Bags of gold so heavy you’ll strain yourselves carrying them down the hill, is that it, boys?” Bill said.

They jumped and looked around. “Oh. Bill. Hey.”

“Hey, yourself. You thinking of mounting an expedition up to that plane crash John and Teddy found?”

Moccasin Man gave her his best grin, a vast expanse of white enamel, a heated promise of full-blown sexual fulfillment, and a total lack of sincerity. “Well, hell, Bill. We were just talking.”

“The site’s being treated as a crime scene, Evan. I don’t think the troopers are going to be best pleased if you bunch of yahoos go up there and start messing around in search of this mythical gold.”

Evan looked amazed. “Why, Bill, we’d never do that.” He winked at the other men. “Would we, boys?”

There was a chorus of agreement. Over her shoulder Bill saw the men at the bar cocking a collective ear, even Eric Mollberg, who looked anxious, as if he hadn’t quite remembered how to interpret data sober.

Better and better. She could only hope that Liam had covered the ground thoroughly and that there was no evidence left to be messed up.

Or that the glacier would calve on top of the Gray gang upon their arrival. Cheered by this vision, she returned to the grill and watched through the pass-through as the Gray gang sidled out the door.

ELEVEN

Liam hadn’t been able to go home the night before, not even as far as the Jayco popup in the front yard. He was embarrassed and ashamed of his reaction to Karen’s advances. It bothered him that even in his sleep he hadn’t been able to tell Karen from Wy. He knew it was irrational but it was how he felt. He didn’t want to see Wy until he had calmed down. He wanted a shower before he saw her. He wanted to dip his penis in a jar of disinfectant before he saw her.

He didn’t want Wy to see him, was what it amounted to. He was afraid she would be able to read what he’d been doing all over his guilty face. Besides, Jo and Gary might still be there, and if she couldn’t read him Jo sure as hell could. The reporter had the most unnerving stare Liam had ever encountered, one that cut right through any bullshit he might be able to throw up about where he’d spent the last hour.

Besides, he told himself, with Gary there maybe Wy didn’t want him in the house.

He knew it wasn’t true, but it was an excuse he grabbed at. He went back to the post. He would have sacked out in the front seat of the Blazer, but he didn’t want anyone driving by the following morning to see him. The chair behind the desk was on casters but it was well padded and leaned back pretty far, and it wasn’t like he’d never slept in it before. He loosened his tie, propped his feet on the desk, and prepared to wait out the night.

His mind wouldn’t let him alone. Images of Lydia giving him the once-over, the pure female appreciation in her eyes even more unsettling when she depreciated thirty years in age and became her daughter Karen. The gold coin rolling out of the dead, desiccated hand, winding round and round and round on the dance floor of Bill’s Bar and Grill. Wy’s expression, comprised of horror at the sight of the arm and guilt at the presence of Gary in the booth with her. The slab of ice separating from the face of the glacier, falling he could believe almost intentionally right on top of the two of them.

The snarl of John Dillinger Barton over the phone: “What the hell’s keeping you; get on the goddamn plane!”

He grieved again for Charlie, but the grief was no longer the crushing, debilitating force it had been. Instead it brought his son back in all his round-cheeked, dimpled glory, and he was grateful, would always be grateful. He wanted to remember Charlie, always and forever. His son. Likely the only child of his body he would ever have.

He must have dozed off at some point, because the next thing he heard was a loudbang! For one disoriented moment he thought he was back at the foot of the glacier. “Look out, Wy!” he shouted, and dove for cover.

Only he fell out of his chair instead, into a sticky pool of coffee spilled the day before that he could swear he had cleaned up. He lay where he was, swearing feebly.

“That’s my boy,” he heard someone say.

Oh, no.

He raised his head cautiously to peer over the edge of the desk.

It was.

Col. Charles Bradley Campbell of the United States Air Force, eagles and all.

But wait, there was more. Colonel Campbell had not come alone. Behind and slightly to the right of the erect figure in immaculate blue was a slender young man in neat chinos and a light blue button-down shirt with a dark blue tie under a dark blue windbreaker. He had neatly cut straight black hair and round, no-rim glasses perched on the end of a thin, high-bridged nose through which he peered at Liam with some puzzlement.

Liam got to his feet. “Hi, Dad.”

Charles smiled. “Hello, son. Great to see you again.”

Uh-huh. Liam shook the hand extended to him and offered no explanation of his swan dive out of the office chair. Charles was tactful enough not to ask for one. “You must have had a late night.”

“Yeah.” Liam glanced surreptitiously at his watch. It was past ten. Where was Prince?

Firm footsteps sounded on the stairs, and the door opened to admit Prince. “Charles!”

“Diana,” Charles said, a wealth of information in that single word.

Prince recovered fast; Liam had to give her that. “How nice to see you again,” she said, eyes cast demurely down.

“How very nice indeed,” Charles said.

More footsteps. Already the morning was not turning out well, and when he saw who it was, he groaned inside.

“Liam,” Jo said, “I need to talk to you about this crash site. How do I get to it, and-”

At that moment Col. Charles Bradley Campbell sprang into her dazzled view. Liam, while not a vain man, knew that he was good-looking, and knew that he looked like his father, but although he’d had his share of women there was something about the elder Campbell that made them go down like ninepins in his presence. Jo, the hardest of hard-nosed reporters, all but went over flat on suddenly very round heels.

Charles was a tall man, as tall as Liam, and the similarities didn’t stop there. His eyes were as blue, if less warm, his dark red hair, if shorter in style, as thick and as yet not gray even at the temples. His jaw was as firm, his shoulders as broad, his waist and hips as trim, his legs as long, and he looked just as good in the snug jacket and slacks of his dark blue air force uniform as Liam did in his trooper blue and gold.

Liam, looking at Charles through Jo’s eyes, remembered his state of deshabille and snugged up and straightened his tie. It was pretty much all he could do without a dry cleaner.

For her part, Jo, not a woman easily impressed, for the first time received an inkling of what was itching at her friend, Wy. What she didn’t see in Liam was manifestly obvious in Liam’s father. “Jesus,” she said, looking from one man to the other and pleased that her voice was light and steady. “The apple sure didn’t fall far from this tree.”

Charles Bradley Campbell grinned, a quick, lethal grin with razor-sharp edges. “Why, thank you, ma’am.”

Liam, Jo was interested to note, looked less than thrilled. “What are you doing in town, Dad?”

Charles looked wounded. “What, I can’t drop in once in a while to visit my son?”

“Drop in all the way from Washington, D.C.?”

Charles smiled with all the warmth and charm at his command, both of which were considerable. “Newenham’s just like everywhere else, son. A plane ride away.”