Ellen paled slightly, and her eyes moved to her husband. "Marsh, what's he talking about?"

"I'll tell you later," Marsh replied, but the look on Ellen's face told him that she was going to demand an explanation right now. He sighed, and hung his jacket in the armoire that stood opposite the front door. "We were dissecting their brains, to see how much damage they could sustain before they died."

Ellen's stomach turned queasy, and she had to struggle to keep her voice steady. "You killed them?" she asked. "You killed those three helpless creatures?"

Marsh nodded. "Honey, you know perfectly well that rats die in laboratories every day. And there was something both Alex and I wanted to know." He stepped past Ellen and moved into the living room, then glanced at Alex. "Why don't you make yourself scarce?" he asked. Then he smiled tiredly. "I have a feeling your mother and I are about to have another fight." Alex started toward the stairs, but Marsh stopped him, fishing in his pocket for his car keys. "Why don't you go find some of your friends?" he asked, tossing the keys to his son.

Ellen, watching, felt a chill go through her. Something had happened between her husband and her son. She was certain that an alliance had somehow formed between them that she was not a part of. A moment later, when Alex spoke again, she knew she was right.

"You mean do what we were talking about?" he asked, and Marsh nodded. And then something happened that Ellen hadn't seen since the night of the prom last spring.

Alex smiled.

It was a tentative smile, and it didn't last long, but it was still a smile. And then he was gone.

Ellen stared after him, then slowly turned to Marsh, her anger evaporating.

"Did you see that?" she breathed. "Marsh, he smiled. He actually smiled!"

Marsh nodded. "But it doesn't mean anything," he said. "At least it doesn't mean anything yet." Slowly he tried to explain the conversation he and Alex had had on the way home, and what they had decided Alex should do.

"So you see, the smile didn't really mean anything at all," he finished fifteen minutes later. "He doesn't feel anything, Ellen, and he knows it, which is making it even worse. He told me he's starting to wonder if he's even human anymore. But he said he can mimic emotions if he wants to, or at least mimic emotional reactions. And that's what he did. He intellectually figured out that he should be happy that he gets to go out for the evening and use my car, and he knows that when people are happy, they smile. So he smiled. He didn't feel the smile, and there was nothing spontaneous about it. It was like an actor performing a role."

The growing chill Ellen had been feeling as Marsh talked turned into a shudder. "Why?" she whispered. "Why should he want to do such a thing?"

"He said people are beginning to think he's crazy," Marsh replied. "And he doesn't want that to happen. He said he doesn't want to be locked up until he knows what's wrong with him."

"Locked up?" The room seemed to be spinning, and for a moment Ellen thought she might faint. "Who would lock him up?"

"But isn't that what happens to crazy people?" Marsh asked. "You have to look at it from his point of view. He knows we love him, and he knows we care for him, but he doesn't know what that means. All he knows is what he's read, and he's read about mental inst.i.tutions." His voice suddenly broke. "h.e.l.l," he muttered. "He reads d.a.m.ned near everything, and remembers it all. But he just doesn't know what anything means."

Maria Torres shifted the heavy weight of her shopping bag from her right hand to her left, then sighed and lowered it to the sidewalk for a moment.

Ramon had promised to come that evening and take her shopping, but then he'd telephoned and said he wasn't coming. Something had come up with his patient, and he had to stay in his office. His patient, she thought bitterly. His patient was Alejandro, and there was nothing wrong with the boy. But Ramon couldn't see that, not for all his schooling. Ramon had forgotten. Forgotten so much. But someday he would understand. Someday soon, Ramon would know that all the hatreds she had carefully nursed in him were still there. But for now, he still pretended to be a gringo gringo.

And tonight, the shopping still had to be done, even though she was tired after working all day, so she'd walked the five blocks to the store, which wasn't too bad. It was the five blocks home, with the full shopping bag, that was the hard part. Her arms aching with arthritis, she picked up the bag and was about to continue on her way when a car pulled up to the curb next to her. She glanced at it with little interest, then looked again as she recognized the driver.

It was the boy.

And he was returning her gaze, his eyes studying her. He knew who she was, and the saints-her saints-had sent him. It was an omen: though Ramon had not come to her tonight, Alejandro had. She stepped forward, and bent down to put her head through the open window of the car.

"Vamos," she whispered, her rheumy eyes glowing. she whispered, her rheumy eyes glowing. "Vamos a matar." "Vamos a matar."

The words echoed in Alex's ears, and he understood them. We go to kill We go to kill. Deep in his mind, a memory stirred and the mists began gathering around him once again. He reached across the front seat and pushed the door open. Maria Torres settled herself into the seat beside him, and pulled the door closed. As the old woman whispered to him, he put the car in gear and started slowly up into the hills above the town.

Fifteen minutes later, he parked the car, still listening to the words Maria was whispering in his ears. And then he was alone, and Maria Torres was walking slowly away from the car, her bag of groceries clutched close to her breast.

Only when she had finally disappeared around a bend in the road did Alex, too, leave the car, and step through the gate into Valerie Benson's patio.

In the dark recesses of his throbbing brain, the familiar voices took up Maria's ancient litany...

Venganza...venganza...

Vaguely he became aware of another sound, and turned to see a woman standing framed in the light of an open doorway.

"Alex?" Valerie Benson asked. "Alex, are you all right?"

She'd heard the gate open, and waited for the doorbell to ring. When it hadn't, she'd gone to the door and pressed her eye to the peephole. There, standing in the patio, she'd seen Alex Lonsdale, and opened the door. But when she'd spoken, he hadn't replied, so she'd stepped outside and called to him.

Now he was looking at her, but she still wasn't sure he'd heard her words.

"Alex, what is it? Has something happened?"

"Ladrones," Alex whispered. Alex whispered. "Asesinos..." "Asesinos..."

Valerie frowned, and stepped back, uneasy. What was he talking about? Thieves? Murderers? It sounded like the ravings of a paranoiac.

"K-Kate's not here," she stammered, backing toward the front door. "If you're looking for her, she's gone out."

She was inside and the door was halfway closed when Alex hurled himself forward, his weight slamming into the door, sending Valerie sprawling to the floor while the door itself smashed back against the wall.

Valerie tried to scramble away across the red quarry tile of the foyer, but it was too late.

Alex's fingers closed around her neck, and he began to squeeze.

"Venganza..." he muttered once more. And then again, as Valerie Benson died: he muttered once more. And then again, as Valerie Benson died: "Venganza..." "Venganza..."

Alex stepped through the door of Jakes and glanced around. In the booth in the far corner, he saw Kate Lewis and Bob Carey sitting with Lisa Cochran and a couple of other kids. Carefully composing his features into a smile, he crossed the room.

"Hi. Is it a private party, or can anybody join?"

The six occupants of the booth fell silent. Alex saw the uneasy glances that pa.s.sed between them, but he kept his smile carefully in place. Finally Bob Carey shrugged and squeezed closer to Kate to make room at the end of the booth. Still no one said anything. When the silence was finally broken, it was Lisa, announcing that she had to go home.

Alex carefully changed his expression, letting his smile dissolve into a look of disappointment. "But I just got here," he said.

Lisa hesitated, her eyes fixing suspiciously on Alex. "I didn't think you'd care if I stayed or not," she said. "In fact, none of us thought you cared about anything anymore."

Alex nodded, and hoped that when he spoke his voice would have the right inflection. "I know," he said. "But I think things are starting to change. I think..." He dropped his eyes to the table, as he'd seen other people do when they seemed to be having trouble saying something. "I think I'm starting to feel things again." Then, making himself stammer slightly, he went on. "I...well, I really like you guys, and I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings."

Once again the rest of the kids glanced at each other, their self-consciousness only worsening at Alex's words.

It was Bob Carey who broke the embarra.s.sed silence. "Hey, come on. Don't go all weird on us the other way now."

And suddenly everything was all right again, and Alex knew he'd won.

They'd believed his performance.

But slowly, as the conversation went on, he began to wonder, for Lisa Cochran still seemed to be avoiding talking to him.

Lisa herself was not about to tell him that she was wondering exactly what he was up to.

Long ago, before the accident, she'd heard Alex stammer and seen him look away when he was talking about his feelings.

And always, when he did that, he'd blushed.

This time, everything had been fine except for that one thing.

This time, Alex hadn't blushed.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

"Come in with me."

Bob Carey couldn't see Kate's face in the darkness, but the tremor in her voice revealed that she was frightened. His eyes moved past her silhouette, focusing on the house beyond. Everything, he thought, looked normal. Except for the gate.

The patio gate stood open, and both he and Kate clearly remembered closing it when they had left earlier in the evening.

"Nothing's wrong," he a.s.sured her, trying to make his voice sound more confident than he was actually feeling. "Maybe we didn't really latch it."

"We did," Kate breathed. "I know we did."

Bob got out of the car and went around to open the other door for Kate, but instead of getting out, she only gazed past him at the ominously open gate. "Maybe...maybe we ought to call the police," she whispered.

"Just because the gate's open?" Bob asked with a bravado he wasn't feeling. "They'd think we were nuts."

"No they wouldn't," Kate argued. "Not after..." She fell silent, unable to finish the thought.

Bob wavered, telling himself once more that the open gate meant nothing. The wind could have done it, or Mrs. Benson might have gone out herself and left the gate open. In fact, she might not even be home.

He made up his mind.

"Stay here," he told Kate. "I'll go see."

He went through the open gate into the patio and looked around. The lights flanking the front door were on, and the white walls of the patio reflected their glow so that even the shadowed areas of the little garden were clearly visible. Nothing seemed to be amiss, and yet as he stood in the patio, he sensed that something was wrong.

Bob told himself the growing uneasiness he felt was only in his imagination. As soon as he rang the bell, Mrs. Benson would come to the door and everything would be all right.

But when he rang the bell, Mrs. Benson did not come to the door. Bob rang the bell once more, waited, then tried the door. It was locked. Slowly he backed away from the door, then hurried to the car.

"She's not here," he told Kate a few seconds later. "She must have gone somewhere." But even as he spoke the words, he knew they weren't true. He started the car.

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to call the police, just like you wanted to. It doesn't feel right in there."

Fifteen minutes later they were back. Bob parked his Porsche behind the squad car, then got out and went to the patio gate.

"Stay in your car," one of the cops at the front door told him. "If there's a creep in here, I don't want to have to worry about you." Only when Bob had disappeared did Roscoe Finnerty reach out and press the bell a second time, as Bob himself had done only a few minutes earlier. "She probably just took off somewhere," he told Tom Jackson, "but with these two, I guess we can't blame them for being nervous." When there was still no answer, Finnerty moved to a window and shone his flashlight through into the foyer. "s.h.i.t," he said softly, and Tom Jackson immediately felt his stomach knot.

"She there?" he asked.

Finnerty nodded. "On the floor, just like the other one. And if there's any blood, I don't see it. Take a look."

Tom Jackson dutifully stepped to the window and peered into the foyer. "Maybe she's just unconscious," he suggested.

"Maybe she is," Finnerty replied, but both men knew that neither of them believed it. "Go ask the Lewis girl if she's got a key, but don't tell her what we've seen. And when you ask for the key, see how she reacts."

Jackson frowned. "You don't think-"

"I don't know what I think," Finnerty growled. "But I sure as h.e.l.l know Alan Lewis didn't do this one, and I keep thinking about the s.h.i.t that came down in Marin a few years back when that girl and her boyfriend killed her folks, then went out and partied all night. So you just go see if she has a key, and keep your eyes open."

"Is she all right?" Kate asked when Jackson approached the car.

"Don't even know if she's here," Jackson lied. "Do you have a key? We want to take a look around."

Kate fumbled in her purse for a moment, then silently handed Jackson a single key on a ring. "Stay here," Jackson ordered. He started back to the house, wondering what he was supposed to have been looking for. Whatever it was, he hadn't seen it-all he'd seen were two kids who'd had a horrible experience only a few days ago, and were now very frightened.

"Well?"

Jackson shrugged. "She just gave me the key when I asked for it. Asked if the Benson woman's okay."

"What'd you say?"

"I lied. Figured we should both be there when we tell them."

Finnerty nodded, and slid the key into the lock, then pushed the door open and led his partner into the silent house. One look at Valerie Benson's open eyes and grimace of frozen terror told him she was dead. He called the station and told the duty officer what had happened, then rejoined Jackson. "Might as well tell them."

From then on, the long night took on a feeling of eerie familiarity, as Finnerty replayed the scene he'd gone through less than a week earlier when the same two kids had found the body of Martha Lewis.

The dusty road wound steadily up the hill, and Alex looked neither to the left nor to the right. He knew every inch of these hills, for he'd ridden over them with his father ever since he was a little boy. Now, though, he walked, for along with his father's land, the gringos gringos had taken the horses as well. Indeed, they'd taken everything, even his name. had taken the horses as well. Indeed, they'd taken everything, even his name.

Still, he hadn't left La Paloma-would never leave La Paloma until finally the gringos gringos had paid with their lives for the lives they had taken. had paid with their lives for the lives they had taken.

He came to a house, opened the gate, and stepped through into the patio. Not too long ago he'd been in this patio as an honored guest, with his parents and his sisters, attending a fiesta a fiesta. Now he was here for another reason.

For a few centavos centavos, the new owners would let him take care of the plants in their patio. Idly he wondered what they would do if they knew who he really was.

As he worked, he kept a watchful eye on the house, and one by one the people left, until he knew that the woman was alone. Then he went to the front door, lifted the heavy knocker, and let it fall back against its plate. The door opened, and the woman stood in the cool gloom of the foyer, looking at him uncertainly.

He reached out and put his hands around her neck.