“No kidding. So, anything else?”

Prince gathered up her notes. “Not for the moment. I’ll call if I think of anything else.”

“Me, too. Diana?”

Prince paused, one hand on the doorknob.

Charlene’s voice remained pleasant and even. “I’d take it as a personal favor if you found this son of a bitch and strung him up by his balls.”

Diana touched the brim of her flat-brimmed hat. “I’ll do my best.”

THIRTEEN

The phone rang as he was getting out of his blueberry-stained uniform and into the last clean one hanging in Wy’s closet. Since Wy didn’t own a lot of dress-up clothes, most of hers were folded into the dresser drawers and he had most of the closet for his own. It hadn’t been like that with Jenny, a true disciple of the women’s department at Nordstrom. He remembered having to hang his uniforms in Charlie’s closet, and thinking that that would be a problem in fifteen or sixteen years.

He wondered what kind of a teenager Charlie would have been. Probably not as high-maintenance as Tim Gosuk, but you never knew. He’d dealt with enough parents in severe shock at their offspring’s behavior to know that all biological, sociological and anthropological studies to the contrary, much of the time procreating was a crapshoot. He’d read another study recently that claimed that a bad kid in a good neighborhood had a better chance of succeeding in life than a good kid in a bad neighborhood. The author of that study had obviously never been to the village of Ualik, where Tim had gotten his start.

The phone rang. He heard Wy answer it in the living room.

She was upset about something, and it wasn’t his not coming home last night. He’d finally told her that he’d spent the night at the office, and she’d nodded without much interest, her mind obviously elsewhere. He’d expected irritation, even anger. What he hadn’t expected was indifference. It unsettled him.

It made him wonder where Gary had spent the night.

“Liam?”

He buckled his belt and padded out to the living room, snagging his shoes on the way. He tucked the receiver in between his shoulder and his chin and sat down on the couch. “Campbell.”

“Sir, this is Prince. I have interviewed all of Lydia’s book club members.”

“Yeah?”

“No hope there; they were all pretty tight. But she did do some volunteer work down at the Maklak Center.”

TheMC on Lydia’s calendar. “Any run-ins with clients?”

“They’re closed for the day. They open again tomorrow at eight.”

“Baloney. Nose around, find out who works there, call them at home.”

“Yes, sir. Also, one of Lydia’s friends thinks she might have had a gentleman caller.”

“A what?”

“A boyfriend, sir.”

Liam remembered the frankly female appraisal in Lydia’s eyes the night they had met. “I wouldn’t bet the farm against it. Got a name?”

“No. One of the Literary Ladies-”

“The who?”

“The book club, that’s what they called themselves. Anyway, one of them saw a bouquet of flowers Lydia got. She said it was a birthday present from a friend, and that she got the distinct impression that the friend was male and that the relationship was romantic.”

“Any indication it was a local guy?”

“No. But Charlene Taylor says Lydia never went farther from Newenham than a Costco run to Anchorage.”

“So a local guy. How did the flowers get here?”

“Sharon-Sharon Ilutsik, the one who saw the flowers-didn’t know, but she figured they were Goldstreaked down from Anchorage. There isn’t a florist in Newenham, and this was a professional arrangement.”

“She remember the date?”

“No, but Lydia said they were a birthday present.”

Liam got his shoes tied and stood up, changing ears. Wy was standing out on the deck, staring across the river. The wind had picked up and was teasing curls out of a fat braid, forming a bronze corona around her head. Clouds, low and thick and dark, were scudding by, and Liam thought he saw a snowflake in the dimming light. “Okay, Diana,” he said, “find out Lydia’s birthday and call Alaska Airlines to check their records to see when the flowers came in. Should have been paid by credit card, if he called it in to Anchorage.”

“Will do. You coming back in?”

“No. I’ve got a dinner date with my dad.”

“Lucky you.” She meant it.

“Yeah.” He didn’t.

He hung up and joined Wy on the deck. “Hey.”

She looked up at him with a faint smile showing through the escaped wisps of hair. “Hey, yourself.”

“How was your day, dear?”

She laughed, as he’d meant her to. “Not bad. Got a flight from the U.S. Air Force, a thing that hardly ever happens, since they prefer to fly their own. Not to mention the FBI. We small-time air-taxi outfits just love federal expense accounts.”

He grinned. “I should start taking a commission.”

“Right after you take your first flying lesson.”

“That’ll happen.”

“I can hardly wait.”

A gust of wind whistled overhead and tugged at their clothes. She was in a blue plaid shirt tucked into blue jeans cinched down by a wide leather belt. Her hiking boots were stained with salt, mud and wax, held together by a new pair of shoelaces, red-and-white-striped like a barber pole. It didn’t vary much from what she had been wearing the day before, or three years before. It had to be one of the most unseductive outfits he’d ever seen on a woman of his acquaintance, and he didn’t understand why his first, last and only inclination was to rip it off.

As if he had spoken his need out loud she looked up and met his eyes.

“Where’s Tim?”

Her eyes widened. “Basketball practice.”

“When will he be back?”

“They’re going out for pizza after.” Her knees were shaking. She wasn’t sure how much longer they’d hold her up.

His eyes narrow and intent, he reached out a hand and unbuttoned the top button of her shirt.

“Not out here,” she said, her voice weak, her head falling back.

“Why not?” He unbuttoned the second button.

“In the wind, and the snow, and the cold?”

“I’ll keep you warm.” He lowered his mouth to her throat.

“Someone will see.”

“Let them,” he said, and bit her.

Liam Campbell was a civilized man and an intuitive and generous lover, but that evening something feral had gotten off the chain. He took her down to the deck with hands that were rough and impatient, and he knew it and didn’t seem to be able to control it. He ripped open her shirt and pushed up the T-shirt and bra beneath it and put his mouth on her breast, sucking hard. She made a sound deep in her throat, her own hands fumbling with his clothes, but he would have none of it. He didn’t want her participation; he wanted her submission, and he pulled at her jeans until they tangled around her feet, unzipped his, and pushed inside.

“Liam!” The word was almost a scream.

He managed to hold it together for one frantic, heart-thumping moment. “Don’t let me hurt you.”

“You aren’t. You won’t. You couldn’t.” She pulled one foot free of her jeans and hooked it around the small of his back, tilting up and pulling him deeper. “Do it.”

She screamed for real this time, a sound swallowed up by the wind and the snow and the dark. For a split second he could feel everything as if with a separate sense. The sudden quick flush of heat rising up from her torso. The kiss of snowflakes on his ass. The long, lovely line of her throat as she arched up into him, like she couldn’t bear an inch of space between them.

“Do it again,” he muttered.

Her eyelids fluttered. “What?” Her voice was slurred.

He thrust again. “Come on,” he said, “come again for me, baby.”

“No, Liam, I can’t-”

“Sure, you can.”

And she could.

And then he followed her into the dark.

Neither of them moved for long moments afterward, lying in a stupor of sexual satisfaction on the deck, the wind gusting to twenty-five knots, the temperature dropping another degree every minute, the snow moving from a snow flurry to a snowfall. Liam thought he could stay there, in that position, on top of that woman, forever, and he might have, if she didn’t eventually exhibit some signs of being unable to breathe.