"Okay," Singer said, chancing a small smile. "You're the sheriff. We're here to help, not to tell you what to do. But please realize that when the FBI comes in, it will no longer be your show. The Feds will look at everything. The way the investigation was run, how you manage your office, everything. If they don't find Boyd or those bodies, they'll say it's because the investigation was botched in the early stages. They'll hold hourly press conferences to feed the networks their raw meat, and you'll end up getting the blame. You don't deserve that, Sheriff Carey. You've done nothing wrong. You've worked your a.s.s off, just like we have. But in the end, however it goes, there will be people out there, voters, who will think you waited until the case was botched before you called in the cavalry. Didn't you say you won with fifty-one percent of the vote? How many votes would swing it back? Less than a hundred, I'd guess. How many people will think you f.u.c.ked up, even though you didn't? I haven't been here all that many years, but I've been around long enough to know that the citizens aren't fond of federal involvement. They're an independent bunch up here. Why elect a sheriff when all he's going to do is bring in Federales when he doesn't know what to do next?"

Carey listened in silence, never taking his eyes off Singer. Finally, Carey shifted and looked at Gonzalez, who was sitting back in his chair, arms crossed, obviously disappointed with him. The sheriff turned back to Newkirk, who said, "Do what you need to do, Sheriff."

"Twelve hours," Carey said, standing up. "You've got that time to clear things up. There's a guy down in Coeur d'Alene with bloodhounds we contract with. And we'll need to reissue the APB for Boyd along with the Amber Alert, to make sure everybody in the country is looking for him. We'll say we suspect him to be armed and dangerous. But if we don't have Boyd or those bodies in twelve hours, I'm calling in the FBI."

"Fair enough," Singer said.

Newkirk found himself staring at Singer. What was he thinking? What did a day really matter?

Carey left the room and shut the door, only to reopen it and lean in.

"You'll ask Swann to break the news to the mother?"

"I will," Singer said. "I'd hold off on any public announcement about the confession, though. At least until tomorrow, if we can."

"I'll tell the press about the alert," Carey agreed. "Until then, we'll have to see more and more stories about the white supremacists who used to be here."

SINGER WAITED until the sheriff was back in his office down the hall before addressing Gonzalez and Newkirk.

"That means we've got today to find those kids."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Gonzalez said. "Maybe the tape was a bad idea."

Singer shook his head. "No, no, it wasn't. There's no doubt in that sheriff's mind who did it now. That was the purpose of the tape, after all."

"What if the FBI looks at it?" Newkirk asked. "What if they figure out where it was made? Or they see Boyd looking to Gonzo to see if he's said everything right? I thought I could see that stun-gun burn when he turned his head."

Singer responded with a cold stare. Newkirk stopped talking.

"We've handed the sheriff a confession, Newkirk. We gave him a f.u.c.king slam dunk. He'll think about it and realize it's better to close this thing than to keep it open."

"What if he doesn't? He seemed pretty determined."

"Then we'll deal with it," Singer said. "We'll stay ahead of him. It's not that hard."

"Where are those f.u.c.king kids?" Gonzalez asked rhetorically, looking at the map of the county pushpinned to the wall. "Maybe they are dead by now. How long could a couple of kids survive out there in those woods and not be seen by anybody?"

Singer's voice dropped to a whisper. "It could be that somebody is hiding them. If so, we've got to find out who."

"What if they are found?" Newkirk asked.

Singer snapped back, "If they show up, we're in perfect position to take care of it. We'll be able to get to them before they can yap. We've got a man with their mother, remember? You think they'd talk if they knew what could happen to her if they did? There is no way they'd be out of our control long enough to f.u.c.k us over.

"But I'd rather not have to go that route," Singer said, abruptly changing his line of thought. "It's too messy. Someday, one of them would talk. So we've got to get out and find them, now. They're out there somewhere, we know that. We've got to deal with this now."

Gonzalez agreed. Newkirk said nothing.

"Gentlemen, make sure your cell phones are charged up. After we take care of the package, I want both of you out in the field. Start with where we last saw them, Swann's place. I've kept the volunteer search teams out of that area so far. They've all been concentrating on the river, where we know those kids can't be. So start at Swann's. Go house to house. Start checking buildings. They could be hiding in some old shack or abandoned barn."

Newkirk suddenly remembered he was supposed to pick up his sons after baseball practice that evening. Jeez ...

Singer was on his cell with Swann. He gestured to Gonzalez. "Swann can meet you at his place in forty-five minutes. Can you deliver the package by then?"

Gonzalez nodded. "Same as before?"

"Yes."

"How much can they eat, for Christ's sake?"

Singer smiled. "They can eat a lot, Gonzo."

"Isn't it inhumane to feed them meat laced with steroids?" Gonzalez laughed. "It won't be organic pork anymore."

"Hold it," Newkirk said, stepping forward. "What aren't you telling me?"

Singer said, "Mr. Boyd expired on us."

"He wasn't so tough after all," Gonzalez said. "He died of fright or something. I found him dead this morning."

Newkirk let that sink in. Gonzalez put his hands out, palms up, in a what-can-you-do? gesture.

"You were too rough," Newkirk said to him.

Gonzalez shrugged.

To Singer, Newkirk said, "You said you were going to keep him alive."

"We'll deal with it," Singer said dismissively. Then: "Go fill in for Swann at the mother's house while Swann is away. Don't let her answer the phone or talk to anyone without you clearing it. In fact, just keep her the f.u.c.k away from everybody. Swann will be back soon enough to relieve you."

Newkirk nodded his head. Like Gonzalez, he instinctively patted his weapon under his jacket and his cell phone in his shirt pocket. He had an urge to seat his nightstick in his service belt, but of course he no longer had one.

"Oh," Singer said to Swann on the cell, "tell her Tom Boyd confessed. That ought to keep her locked away in her room for a while."

He snapped the phone closed and dropped it in his pocket.

"Newkirk, you with us?" Singer asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"You're not wavering, are you?"

"No. It's just that I had things to do tonight."

Gonzalez snorted.

"This is a little more important, don't you think?" Singer asked, stepping across the room and throwing an arm over Newkirk's shoulder. Despite the gesture, Newkirk could feel Singer's fingers digging hard into his neck. "I'll get us through this, Newkirk. Then everything will be like it was, and we can forget about it and move on."

"Okay."

"Trust me," Singer said. "It's under control." Newkirk could feel Singer's fingers stop digging and relax. Singer tousled Newkirk's hair, knocking his cap off.

"Keep your cell phone on," Singer said.

Suddenly, a thought came to Newkirk, something he had meant to tell Singer earlier.

"I saw that Barney Fife dude again this morning, at the restaurant. The ex-cop from Arcadia."

"Villatoro?"

"He was sitting there watching everything. The f.u.c.ker makes me nervous, Lieutenant. There's something about him."

"I'm running a check on him," Singer said. "He'll likely turn out to be trouble."

Gonzalez actually laughed. "Good. More trouble. The hits just keep on coming."

NEWKIRK MADE it to the bathroom before he threw up. As he cleaned his face with a wet paper towel, he looked in the mirror and saw the janitor trustee, the same one who had b.u.mped the door with his mop the night before.

"What the f.u.c.k are you looking at?" Newkirk asked.

"Nothing," the janitor said. "I guess I gotta clean that up."

"I guess you do," Newkirk said, going out the door, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

Sunday, 10:15 A.M.

MONICA TAYLOR took the news with a calmness that surprised her, and told Swann, simply: "I don't believe it."

"What do you mean you don't believe it?" Swann said, closing his cell phone. "He confessed on videotape."

Monica shook her head. "No."

Swann's eyes were unblinking. "Why would he lie about something like this? What could possess you not to believe it?"

She didn't know, and she didn't care. And it wasn't about Tom Boyd at all, she thought. It was about the feeling she had when she'd awakened that morning. She couldn't explain it to herself, much less to Swann. But she had awakened simply knowing that her children were still alive. It was as if, for the first time, she had recognized an invisible cord that connected her to Annie and William that had always been there. She was sure it hadn't been severed. They were still out there. Probably scared, probably alone. Possibly hurt. But they were still out there.

"Do you want to see the tape?" Swann asked, his voice rising. "We could go down to the station right now, and you can watch it."

"I don't want to see it."

Swann sighed angrily and turned away. Monica sipped her coffee. She had refused to take the prescribed medication that morning. Her head was clearing. She could see Swann near the stove, see him thinking while holding his phone. Was he weighing whether to call someone back?

He turned back to her. "Denial is a powerful emotion, I realize that," he said. "It's a natural first reaction. At some point, though, you need to accept the truth, Monica, as hard as that may be."

"I don't have to accept anything, Oscar."

Again, his eyes bulged, and he turned away. It seemed odd, she thought. He was dealing with her intransigence not with sympathy or pity but with anger. She thought: As if I wasn't playing the game correctly. She almost smiled to herself, thinking, I've never played any game correctly. That's been my problem. Maybe this time, it's my advantage.

"Maybe I can ask the sheriff's office to make a copy and bring it here," Swann said, mostly to himself. "You've got a VCR, right?"

"I do," she said. "But it doesn't matter."

"Is it Boyd?" Swann asked. "Is that your problem? Do you think the guy just isn't capable of this?"

She didn't answer. She knew Tom was capable of anything when he was angry.

"Do you still love the guy, or what?"

"I never loved him, I realize now," she said. "Not the kind of love I have for my children."

Swann started to speak, then drew back. He simply stared at her, as if she were a mutant, devoid of appropriate human emotion.

"What was the name of that rancher you talked to yesterday? Do you remember?" she asked.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Swann said. "Besides, he didn't give me a name."

"Why did you open my door last night?" she asked.

The question derailed him. "What?"

"Why were you standing in my room?"

Swann leaned back on the kitchen counter, still looking at her in that way. "I was making sure you were all right."

She smiled slightly. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"You weren't hoping I would invite you into my bed?"

She watched him carefully, saw his neck flush.

"You're nuts, lady," he said, but he couldn't meet her eyes.

"That's what I thought," she said.

How could a man who seemed to be as kind and mature as Swann portrayed himself even think of bedding a mother whose children were missing? Why would his reaction to telling her about the murder of her children be anger when she didn't fall apart?

Was he really there to protect her, to provide guidance and comfort? Or was Swann there to keep her imprisoned? And if so, why? What did he know?

Monica held all of this in. She hoped her face didn't betray what she was thinking. She hoped she wasn't nuts, after all.

Swann antic.i.p.ated the doorbell ringing in the front room and was moving toward it before it did. Monica waited, frozen with her thoughts, as she heard a brief conversation on the threshold.

Swann ushered a man younger than himself into the kitchen. The visitor looked at her cautiously.

"This is Officer Newkirk," Swann said. "He'll be staying with you for a couple of hours while I attend to some business at home. He knows the situation, and he's a good guy. He's here to help you, Monica."

She looked Newkirk over. He was shorter than Swann, with a shock of dirty blond hair sticking out from beneath his baseball cap. He looked strained, and pale, but his eyes had the same hardness Swann's did. Another ex-cop. She noted his wedding ring.