"It's okay. I'm okay, really. It was just the TV."

Bobby's eyes widened suddenly as he stared at her.

"Oh!" he said.

"What?"

"Mexico, oh, my G.o.d! We haven't had a television, and we have it for two minutes...was that Alex on the screen? With that girl?"

Double-D Debbie from Accounting.

She didn't say it out loud.

"Oh, Wenna, I'm so sorry," Bobby said.

"It's okay, really. It's okay," she said.

He looked at Gabe. "You knew. How the h.e.l.l did you know?"

Before Gabe could answer, they were all startled by a different voice coming through the speakers. "We are interrupting your local programming for a news bulletin. Be on the lookout for-"

The screen suddenly turned back to snow; no words issued through the speakers, only a fizzing sound that went with the snow.

"Lost it again!" Mac said, walking back from the kitchen area into the bar. "It's been like that all day, on one minute, and gone the next. Little Miss MacDougal, I will have your turkey out in just a matter of minutes."

"Turkey," Mike echoed, staring at the snow-covered television screen, and then lowering his head as he shook it.

"Can you believe the TV went out right when it did?" Bobby asked rhetorically.

"Yes, I can," Gabe said. His eyes were downcast. He was talking to himself, really, Morwenna thought, and he sounded a little bitter, and somewhat resigned.

"Bobby, dear baby brother, let me out," Morwenna said. "I'm going to go and help Mac with the dinner plates. He's all alone here, and nine of us just plopped into his bar. He definitely needs a hand."

"Sure. I can help, too," Bobby said.

"No, no-two can handle it. You stay here-and keep an eye on him," she said, looking at Gabe.

His eyes met hers. Still that clear green, and so seemingly without guile.

He didn't smile; he didn't say a word. He just looked at her, and when she turned to walk away, she knew that his eyes were following her.

He may not be the con, she thought. But there was something odd going on. It was as if he knew far more about them and their situations than they did.

She turned and stared at Luke DeFeo. He was looking back at her. "We'd love turkey, too, you know. Please," he said politely.

She nodded. "We don't intend to starve anyone."

He smiled.

And it was strange; she thought that he, too, knew something that she didn't.

A chilling thought struck her: What if they were both cons, just playing a game with the family? And what if...?

What if they were both just depending on the decency of the family, waiting for a chance to rob them all blind or-or worse?

She squared her shoulders. There was nothing she could do that they weren't already doing.

Waiting.

Hoping.

Praying.

Shayne finally left his position at the bar and walked over to the booths; Bobby was across from Gabe, keeping an eye on him.

He slid in across from Luke DeFeo.

"You would have seen it. You would have seen that he was the homicidal escaped con if the television hadn't gone out."

"Maybe," Shayne said, reminding himself to maintain a poker face, no matter what the man had to say to him. "And maybe we would have seen that you're a lying sc.u.mbag."

DeFeo took a swallow of his beer. His handcuffs clinked together as he did so.

Despite the hindrance, he seemed to really enjoy the beer.

He lifted his gla.s.s. "I'm grateful...grateful to your family. At least, you're not treating us like animals. At least, not too much so."

"You're not animals. And, frankly, around my family, animals are treated like people. My mother is a sucker for any lost puppy or kitten that comes her way."

"And what about you-and yours?" DeFeo asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot-you're divorced. I guess it would be the wife who wanted to take in every stray."

Shayne blinked, not speaking for a minute. Yes, of course, over the years, they'd had many a visitor. When a dog or cat made it into their yard without a tag, they kept it, and Cindy spent endless hours walking the streets, putting up flyers and heading to every animal shelter in the area to see that a flyer went up. She raged against those who didn't neuter or spay their pets; she cried over the fate of ill-treated creatures. And, to her credit, any time Cindy hadn't found the rightful owner, she had found someone in need of a stray.

"Sorry, didn't mean to cause you any pain. I know what it can be like. I've gone the route," DeFeo said.

"We're all doing all right," Shayne said.

"Sure, sure, of course."

"Turkey!"

Shayne heard the excited cry come from the bar; it was Genevieve, of course. Mac had decided to bring the first plates out to Shayne's mom and daughter.

But Genevieve squirmed off her grandmother's lap and reached for the plate. "I think they're hungry," she told Stacy, inclining her head toward the booths. "They looked like they were fighting before. Maybe 'cause they were hungry. Daddy told me that people do bad things sometimes 'cause they don't have anything, and they're hungry. So I'll give that man my plate, and maybe he won't look like he's snarling all the time."

Shayne smiled, and he reminded himself that whatever agony and loss he felt over his marriage, Cindy was a good person, and a good mother, and between them, they'd created a couple of really good children.

Genevieve, the plate wobbling a little precariously in her hands, walked over and set it in front of Luke DeFeo.

He studied her for a long moment.

"Thanks, kid," he said.

The television screen flashed back into working order; local news was on.

"We expect snow at this time of year," a weatherman was saying, "but the intensity of the drifts that reached the mountains was higher than predicted. Plows are busy, and police and rescue agencies are out on the roads searching for those who started out for homes in the Blue Ridge area and didn't quite make it home for Christmas."

A cameraman was focused on a car that had slid into an embankment, precariously near the guard-rail. From that area, if a car had gone over...

Shayne leaned forward, feeling as if his heart were caught in his throat.

It couldn't be. It couldn't be Cindy's Subaru! Cindy was on her way to Paris; she'd started seeing a travel agent when the divorce had been final and he'd been offered a freebie at a chalet in France. She'd been due to leave on Christmas Eve.

Of course, it couldn't be Cindy's car. There were thousands of Subaru Foresters in the area. They were good cars for harsh winters.

It was a moss-green Forester, just like his wife's car.

Ex-wife's car! he reminded himself.

Shayne glanced around quickly, wondering if the children were watching the screen; they weren't. Genevieve was still staring at Luke DeFeo, smiling, as if she admired him a great deal, and Connor was involved in his game.

He stared back at the television screen.

If there was a cameraman there, the driver and pa.s.sengers, a.s.suming there were any, had to be all right.

"It's an overhead shot," DeFeo said.

"What?"

"Look, it's an overhead shot. Must be a helicopter... Look how the shot shakes, zooming in and out."

He was right.

Shayne felt every muscle in his body tighten; he studied everything he could for the seconds that the waving shot remained on the screen. He searched for a sign of some kind that would tell him exactly where in the mountains the car was stranded.

He found it, right before the screen switched to a traffic pileup in Charlottesburg.

Dead Man's Curve.

It wasn't an official designation, and he wasn't sure just what mile marker it was in the Blue Ridge. It was about five miles down from them. He knew it from the overlook at the ap.r.o.n of the curve and the flat-face rock just to the side of it.

He stood, heedless of DeFeo. He walked over to the bar. Mac had paused to exchange a few words with his father.

"I don't know, and I don't know why, but I think that Cindy is stranded on the mountain, maybe freezing to death. Dad, I'm going down there."

Chapter 9.

There would be no arguing with Shayne; Morwenna knew that.

Stacy, of course, was upset. Shayne might be a working physician in his mid-thirties and a father himself; he was still her child. Stacy was disturbed already-of course they all were-and now this new danger to her family seemed to be making her even more anxious. "But, Shayne, really-Cindy is supposed to be in Europe by now," Stacy said.

"There's no way you could know that you saw Cindy's car," Mike said.

"Look, I know exactly where the car was stuck," Shayne said. "You don't understand. I have a feeling. A gut feeling. And I know Cindy, and I know that she never knew these mountains like we do. She's probably in that car-maybe even injured. I have to go. I have to."

"I'll go with you," Morwenna said.

Both her parents gasped.

"No, Morwenna, let me go with Shayne," Bobby said.

She turned to look at her brother. "Look, Wenna, I'm not saying you're out of shape or anything. You're in great shape. But I do way more in the snow than you do. I'm a far better skier, I am much better with a s...o...b..ard and I'm even a better hiker."

"You can't take skis out there," Stacy said. "The snow is covering too many ruts...you won't always see the ledges-with the sun out, the snow can be blinding."

"And if you walked again, it could take forever," Mike said.

"I've got a snowmobile out back," Mac said. "She's not the newest model, but she's a work horse. If you follow close to the road, you'll be safe enough in it."

"You have any survival kits?" Shayne asked him. "Bobby, don't make Mom and Dad worry for two. If Mac can lend me the snowmobile, I'll be there and back in no time."

"h.e.l.l, no," Bobby said. "I know the roads better than any of you. I'm the one who still spends the most time here."

"Kid!" Luke DeFeo called from the booth. "Your brother doesn't know that his wife is in any car stuck anywhere. She's in Europe. That car could belong to anyone. I understand how you feel, but you need to be sensible."

Morwenna looked at him. Could the man really be worried about her family?

Genevieve had been standing there, looking from adult to adult. She suddenly cried out and ran to her father. "Daddy, is Mommy out in the snow?"

Shayne shot Luke DeFeo a murderous stare. "No, darling, probably not. I'm just kind of a worry wart, you know that. I saw a car stuck that looks kind of like Mommy's."

Morwenna hadn't even seen Connor come over to stand behind his grandfather.

"It could be Mommy," he said. "She was crying before you came to get us yesterday morning, Dad. She wanted us to be with you, but she didn't want to be away from us."

Morwenna felt something behind her back and she turned around, startled. Gabe Lange had left his booth, and stood just behind her.