"I knew he had trouble handling it, but…"

"There was no handling, believe me. Not for Dan. It was something he never accepted, never even got used to. Something he hated. Which is bad enough, considering he married Paris anyway. Telling strangers in bars that your wife really does know what you're thinking and dreaming and it makes you sick to your stomach is stepping way over the line." Marc shrugged. "Whether anybody ever listened to him or just chalked it up to drunken ramblings doesn't mitigate the fact that he acted like a jerk. He was drunk a lot toward the end. Spent more than one night in my jail, sobering up."

Paris had told her that Marc was sheriff now, but Dani felt the need to comment. And to change the subject. "I never thought you'd end up in law enforcement."

"Yeah, well, things change."

Not everything changed, Dani thought, but she felt unnerved and uncertain and was very aware that they were standing on the sidewalk in front of the pharmacy in downtown Venture, in full view of God and half the town's citizens, and that everybody south of God was taking it all in with interest.

"I should be going," she said abruptly. "My ice cream is melting."

To her utter relief, he didn't respond to that lame comment as it probably deserved, but merely said, "You were digging for your keys, I think. Find them?"

Dani produced the keys, used the remote to unlock the Jeep parked only a few yards away, and, as its headlights flashed in acknowledgment, accepted the bags he held out to her.

"Take care, Dani."

It held the sound of finality, something she should have accepted gratefully, but he hadn't moved more than a few steps away from her when she heard herself speak. And even as she did, she was aware of a fatalistic certainty that she was turning a critical corner in her life.

And had no idea what lay ahead.

"Marc?"

He paused and looked back at her, eyebrows lifting but otherwise expressionless.

"Has anything… bad happened in Venture lately? In the county? I mean, anything really bad? I read the paper, but-"

"Are you talking about a crime?"

"Yeah."

He was frowning now. "Nothing really out of the ordinary. A few robberies, domestic disturbances, possession, a couple of meth labs busted."

"Nothing else?"

Slowly, he replied, "Two missing persons I've been uneasy about."

"Women?"

"One teenage girl; her parents believe she ran away a couple of weeks ago. One wife whose very scared husband insists would never have left him of her own free will."

"How long ago was that?"

"Last week. And no sign of her yet. What do you know, Dani?"

"Nothing. I don't… know… anything. Just… be careful, that's all."

He took a step back toward her and kept his voice low even though nobody else was near. "What have you dreamed, Dani?"

She couldn't look away from him. And she couldn't lie.

Not to Marc.

"There's nothing concrete. No name or face. Not even a crime I can be sure of, except… except that it's bad." She thought of a missing teenager, a missing wife, and felt cold despite the warm early-afternoon October sun. "I know that it's bad, that it's a poison here. Somebody evil, I don't know who."

"Dani, we both know evil doesn't wear horns and a tail to signal that it's with us. If there's anything else you can tell me-"

"There isn't. Not yet, at least."

Marc's frown deepened, and he took another step toward her. "You've had this dream more than once?"

She nodded, unwilling to admit that it was pretty much a nightly occurrence now.

"Okay. Tonight, come get me. Take me in with you."

Dani realized only later that she wasn't nearly as shocked by the idea as she should have been. In that moment, however, she just shook her head and said, "I can't do that."

"Sure you can. You've done it before."

"That was years ago, Marc. Another lifetime ago." And I had no idea how dangerous it was.

He took another step, and now he was standing in front of her, so close she had to tilt her head to look up at his face.

"It never made my skin crawl, Dani," he said softly. "It never creeped me out. It was never something I hated. It never made me think of you as anything other than the unique and remarkable woman I loved. Just in case you didn't know that."

She had the vague suspicion that her mouth was open.

"Come get me tonight," Marc repeated. He turned and walked away.

Somehow Dani managed to get herself and her bags into the Jeep. She thought the homemade raisin cake she'd bought was probably crushed, because she'd been holding on to those bags for dear life, and she was sure now that the ice cream was melting. She didn't much care about either.

Just in case she didn't know.

Just in case she didn't know.

Jesus Christ Almighty.

She was still rattled when her cell phone rang, and it took several rings for her to dig it out of her purse. Making a mental note to get another damn purse or at least to better organize this one, she answered, knowing without the need for caller I.D. that it was Paris.

"We have visitors," Paris announced without preamble.

Dani closed her eyes. "Don't tell me."

"Afraid so. Miranda Bishop is here. With John."

Deputy Jordan Swain prided himself on his professionalism. His dedication and intelligence. His rapier wit. And his ability to look like a cool stud in his uniform, thanks to the kind genetics of blond good looks and a rigorous morning workout routine.

He was also well known for his cast-iron stomach, and it was that which failed him late Wednesday afternoon.

"Sorry about that," he muttered, as he returned from his hasty visit to the bushes a few yards away and well outside the yellow crime-scene tape.

With a grunt, the sheriff said, "Well, at least you made it outside the tape. I would have been pissed if you'd contaminated the scene, Jordan."

"How could I possibly have contaminated it any more than it already is?"

"Funny."

"Actually, it isn't." Jordan swallowed and tried not to think about all the blood and viscera spattered and scattered around them. Which was more than difficult since it was all around them and pretty damn well impossible to miss.

The house-vacant and with a For Sale sign in the neat front yard-was at the end of a long driveway and on considerable acreage, which was probably why nobody had noticed the butchery that had taken place in the well-maintained, previously very lovely and peaceful backyard patio/pool area.

Nobody, that is, until the gardener had shown up for his routine maintenance work and rounded the back corner of the house, his wheelbarrow filled with the tools and implements he needed to begin getting the plantings ready for the coming winter.

The wheelbarrow, overturned, lay where he had abandoned it just outside the pool area, when he had fled after his first glimpse of the carnage.

And it was a scene of carnage. The comparison that had sent Jordan fleeing into the bushes to lose his lunch was that it looked rather like someone had fed a medium-size cow into a wood chipper.

"Jesus, Marc, what kind of animal would do something like this?"

"The kind we have to catch." Marc held up a clear plastic evidence bag containing a very large, very bloody hunting knife with a serrated edge. He studied it with a frown. "How many places you figure sell these?"

"Oh, hell, at least a dozen or more in the county. Not counting pawnshops."

Marc nodded. "That was my take. We're not likely to get any kind of useful lead from this. Plus, leaving it right here at the scene marks the perp as either very stupid-or very sure we won't be able to trace the knife back to him."