As Frank had suggested, Joanna scanned several more articles from Seattle-area papers. Most of them were from immediately before and after the fatal shooting. One piece was a blatantly snide commentary from a columnist named Maxwell Cole connecting Detective Beaumont with a “mysterious lady in red.” Finally, Joanna came to a much longer, denser article from the Denver Post. This one, running several pages in length, was an in-depth piece that had been part of an investigative series dealing with female serial killers.

A look at the clock told Joanna she was running out of time. Intriguing as the article might be, her first responsibility was to be properly prepared for the upcoming task force meeting. Thoughtfully, Joanna shoved the collection of papers back into the envelope, which she dropped into her briefcase.

From the moment Joanna had met J.P. Beaumont, she had thought of him as a smart-mouthed jerk. Last night, at the Copper Queen, when he had been straight with her and told her about his interview with Marliss Shackleford, she had glimpsed something else about him – that he was probably a good cop, a straight and trustworthy one.

Now, though, she realized there had been something else there as well, a certain indefinable something she had recognized without being able to put her finger on it, a sort of common denominator between the two of them that she couldn’t quite grasp. Now she knew what it was. Beaumont’s wife had died tragically; so had Joanna Brady’s husband. Having survived that kind of event didn’t excuse the man’s smart-mouthed attitude, but it made it a hell of a lot easier to understand.

For the next while Joanna concentrated on reading the material Frank Montoya had brought her. Lost in her work, she jumped when her phone rang and was astonished to see that her clock said it was already twenty minutes to one.

“I’m guessing you won’t be coming home for Sunday dinner, is that right?” Butch asked.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The time got away from me. I’m due to be in a meeting at one. Save some for me, will you?”

“I already did.”

WITH LARS JENSSEN’S TIMELY INTERVENTION I managed to avoid that first drink. When I finally went to bed around one, I fell right to sleep. The problem is, the dream started almost as soon as I closed my eyes. It’s a dream I’ve had over and over for years. Even in my sleep, it makes me angry. I want to wake up. I don’t want to see it again, and yet there’s always the faint hope that somehow this time it will be different. That it won’t end with the same awful carnage.

I know from interviewing crime scene witnesses that human memory is flawed. Dreams, which are memory once removed, are even more so. The events of the few jewel-like spring days I spent with Anne are jumbled in my dreams, sometimes out of sequence and often out of sync with the way things really played out. The words we said to each other are hazy; the scenes slightly out of focus. Still, they always leave me wrestling with an overriding guilt and with the same unanswered questions: When did I fall in love with her? How did it happen? What else could I have done?

In the dream I usually relive feelings rather than what actually happened: The joy I felt when I asked her to marry me and she said yes. The amazement as I slipped my mother’s treasured engagement ring on her waiting finger and saw how perfectly it fit. There’s the fun of the surprise wedding shower the guys from Seattle PD threw for us down at F. X. McRory’s and the blue-sky perfection of our early-morning wedding.

But then a cloud moves between us and the sun. The scene darkens. Sometimes I manage to wake myself up here, but it doesn’t matter. When I fall back asleep, the dream will be there again, cued up and waiting at the exact same place.

I’m in the interview room on the fifth floor of the Public Safety Building, listening to that poor, terrified phone company service rep. “I left a message,” he tells me hopelessly. “I left a message with your wife. Didn’t you get it?” But, of course, I didn’t get it. I didn’t have a wife then – not until that very morning in Myrtle Edwards Park.

The scene goes darker still. I’m driving toward North Bend, toward Snoqualmie Falls, squinting through a daytime blackness no headlights can penetrate. I try to fight off the yawning chasm of despair that threatens to engulf me, because I know by then – know beyond a reasonable doubt – that Anne Corley is a killer. A murderer. People are dead, and it’s all because of me. My fault. My responsibility.

And then I walk into the restaurant. She’s seated across a crowded room from the door. Sometimes she’s wearing her vibrant turquoise wedding dress. Sometimes she’s in a jogging suit. Sometimes she’s swathed all in black. This time it’s the bright blue dress. Our eyes meet over the heads of the other carefree, unsuspecting diners. The look she gives me is electric, chilling.

This is another point in the dream where I sometimes manage to wake myself up. I used to have a drink – make that another drink. Now I go to the bathroom and have a glass of plain water. But it’s no use. Whatever I do, I’m trapped in the dream’s inevitability. When I close my eyes again, she’s there waiting for me, beckoning to me from across the room.

The dream usually skips that last conversation. And I know why. Even when I’m awake, I can’t remember it exactly, and I consider that a blessing. It would be too painful to remember. She simply stands up and leaves. As she maneuvers through the tables, I see the gun in her hand – a gun no one else can see – and know it as my own.

Next we’re racing down the path toward the pool at the bottom of the falls. She’s ahead of me. There are people in my way – gimpy, slow-moving tourists going up, coming down. I thrust past them, push them out of my way. And then we’re at the bottom. She turns to face me. I see her raising the gun and feel the bullet smash into my shoulder. I fall – fall forever. And then, once I land, I fire, too.

I’m a good shot. An excellent shot. I shoot to disarm, not to kill. But she’s standing on wet, moss-covered rocks. As I pull the trigger, she somehow loses her footing. She slips, and the motion moves her ever so slightly. My bullet misses her arm and slams into her breast. As she falls, a crimson stain blossoms across the fabric of whatever she’s wearing.

In the Copper Queen Hotel that night, that’s when I woke up – sweaty, shaken, and filled with remorse. I stayed awake for hours after that, fearing that the dream would come again the moment I closed my eyes. The sun was just rising when I finally went back to sleep. Thankfully, the dream did not return.

WHEN I FINALLY STAGGERED DOWNSTAIRS late that Sunday morning, I was as bleary-eyed and hungover as in my worst drinking and stinking days. I barely made it into the dining room before they stopped serving breakfast at eleven. As soon as I finished eating, I headed for the Cochise County Justice Center. It was just twelve-thirty when I arrived there for the one o’clock meeting. Still not sure of what my reception would be, I opted for being prompt. After all, Sheriff Brady may have relented enough to allow me inside the investigation, but I didn’t want to do anything that would screw things up.

The same lady I had met the day before, Lupe Alvarez, manned the front desk. She greeted me with a smile. “Good afternoon, Mr. Beaumont. Sheriff Brady asked me to give you this to use while you’re here.”

She handed me a badge that had my name on it, along with the initials MJF. The other side contained a magnetic strip.

“What’s MJF?” I asked.

“The Multi-Jurisdiction Force,” Lupe explained. “When members of the MJF work joint-ops out of our building, it’s easier to give them badges so they can come and go as they please without our having to buzz them in and out. The card works on all the lobby security doors. Also the rest rooms,” she added.