The state cabin was older, smaller, and more beat-up than Joe had imagined it would be. The setting was nice, though, and the cabin had a small front porch that looked out over a meadow and a small lake that had been named, without much imagination, State Lake.

In the last half hour of dusk, he corralled the horses, dragged the panniers into the one-room cabin, unshuttered the two cracked windows, and got a fire going in the ancient woodstove. He worked quickly, his goal to enjoy a light bourbon on the front porch as the sun set. He was delayed when he had to sweep mouse excrement off the floor and counter, and clear a bird's nest from the top of the chimney pipe. By the time he poured warm bourbon from his flask into his metal camp cup, the sun had sunk into State Lake.

While steak sizzled and potatoes fried in cast-iron skillets, Joe sipped and took measure of the cabin. The logs it had been built with were grayed and cracking with age, and they needed re-chinking. Rusted spikes driven into the logs served as coat and equipment hangers. A calendar from 1963 had never been replaced. The bed was an old metal-framed single, with a thin mattress, gray with age and dirt. He flipped through a puckered journal that listed the cabin's visitors and occupants for the last twenty years. He recognized the names of game wardens and biologists, and saw where Trey Crump had signed in fifteen years before. The last page and a half of entries were all by Will Jensen. Joe was surprised to see that the last entry by Will was made just three weeks before.

Somehow, in the sequence of events that led to Will's death, he had missed the fact that the ex-game warden had used the state cabin. In fact, he had been up there for the week preceding his death.

Joe looked at the last signature. Although it looked like Will's writing-Joe had seen so much of Will's cribbed style that he felt he was an expert on it-the name was written in a shaky, uncertain hand. There were loops in the letters where there normally weren't loops, and the pen had crossed over the lines. And something else, something so tiny that Joe had to lift the journal to the propane lamp to see it. At first, he thought that Will, for some reason, had jotted a period after his name, as if making some kind of statement. But it wasn't a punctuation mark, it was a single, tiny letter: "S." He recognized the scrawl from the invitation he had held in his hand two days before.

Joe lowered the journal. Stella had come up here with him?How dare she? How dare he? Despite himself, he looked over his shoulder at the bed and imagined her in it. He was jealous of Will, and ashamed of himself.

Then something occurred to him, and he quickly walked across the cabin and flipped up the old mattress. There it was: Will's last notebook.

And something else. A nicker of a horse outside the cabin, followed by a deep, throat-clearing cough.

"Hey, FNG! Something smells mighty good in there! And I brung along a bottle!"

Joe's stomach clutched and his mouth went dry as he recognized Smoke's voice. He tossed the notebook back under the mattress and turned toward the door, noting that his shotgun was within quick reach in the corner. He wondered if Smoke had seen him coming down from Clear Creek and was there now to make sure Joe wouldn't be able to ever tell anyone.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Sheridan had overheard the plan her mother and Nate made regarding the 720 phone calls to their house. Despite the fact that it seemed like a good plan, she wasn't very happy about it. In fact, she wasn't very happy about anything at the moment.

For the third time that week, Nate was eating dinner with them. Sheridan noticed the first night that her mother had used the nice plates from the pantry, the ones they usually used only on holidays or when they had special company. The playful way her mother and Nate talked with each other, adult-to-adult, bothered her. And she noticed- boy did she notice-how attentive her mother was when it came to Nate, asking questions and saying things like: "Would you like some more? I seem to have made too much" and, "I've never seen anyone enjoy my cooking so much"

Maybe, Sheridan thought, if her mom cooked like that when her dad was home, and used the nice plates, her dad would enjoy it as much. When she had told her mother that earlier, before Nate arrived, she received a withering look.

Sheridan had first noticed the friendship between Nate and her mother the year before and at the time couldn't process what bothered her about it so much. Now she knew. Her mother was mildly flirting, and Nate didn't mind. Because of her feelings for them both, and for her father, Sheridan's only way of dealing with it at the time, and now, was to be angry with her mother, to create disorder. This was becoming easier to do all the time.

"Nate is here to help us," her mother had said. "The least we can do is give him dinner."

"He hasn't had time for a falconry lesson for two weeks," Sheridan countered, "but he sure has time to come over here"

Sheridan couldn't believe what she felt-jealous of her own mother. But there was more to it than that. What about her dad?

Lucy was oblivious to it all, which also angered Sheridan. Her sister made things worse by asking, "Is Nate coming over tonight?"

After dinner, Nate and her mother waited for a call from 720, and Sheridan thought it was a pretense. Nate didn't needto sit in the living room after dinner drinking coffee for his plan to work.

Nate had found out that area code 720 was from Denver. When her mother said they didn't know anyone in Denver, Nate replied that he didn't think the calls were coming from there.

"I'm pretty sure it's the number from a calling card," Nate said. "The company that distributes it is based in Aurora, Colorado, which is a suburb of Denver. I think the calls are being made locally by someone disguising his identity by using a third-party number. I have an idea where the calls might be coming from, but I can't prove anything unless I catch him in the act"

"What do you want me to do?" her mother had asked.

"Next time he calls, keep him on the line. Don't hang up on him. Talk to him instead, ask him questions. I think that's what he wants, to get you upset. But while you've got him on the line, call me immediately on your cell phone so I know we've got him live and I'll know if he hangs up or not. That way, I can check out my theory."

"Where do you think he's calling from?"

Nate shrugged. "Didn't you say you can hear some background noises sometimes? People talking, even some music?"

"Yes"

"There are only a few public places open that late at night," Nate said. "So I'm thinking it's a bar or a restaurant"

"I see. Who do you think it is?"

"It's just a guess," Nate said. "I don't want to say anything until I confirm it."

"Just make him stop," her mom said. "Every time the phone rings I think it's Joe. And I don't want to miss Joe's call because this idiot is on the line."

Nate nodded, and sipped his coffee.

"Don't hurt him, Nate."

"Never," Nate said, in a tone meant to be disbelieved.

When the phone rang an hour later and her mother said, "Seven-two-oh," to Nate, he was out the door and in his Jeep before she picked up the receiver.

Sheridan watched as her mother opened her cell phone and speed-dialed Nate's number while asking, "Why do you keep calling me? Is there something you want? Why won't you talk to me?"