"It's difficult to know what happened. Isaiah Hood could be innocent. The Bakers--Emily Baker, because of her troubled past--could be guilty of something. You and I know firsthand that scenario is realistic. But she could be the victim of circumstance. Who knows?"

"Hmmm." Ann digested what her husband said. "Well, the entire search story is playing big here. Front of the Tribune and the Sun-Times. Local TV have people on the scene."

"It's the story of the moment."

"I'd love it if you were here right now, Tom."

"Would you?"

"Mmmm. To help me undress and rub my back."

"Well, I'd love it if you were here in the Sunshine Motel with me."

"Hey, are you sure you're going to make it to Chicago for the wedding?"

"Yes. Molly Wilson's here. I've checked flight times and--"

"Molly's there? Why?"

"The Star wanted more bodies on the story; it's building. Besides, I can throw to her when it's time for me to go."

"Well, you just better make it for the wedding in Chicago, or you're fired."

"Fired. From what?"

"Your job as my personal masseur."

"Don't rub me the wrong way, lady."

He loved the way she giggled.

"Good night, idiot. I love you," she said.

Reed switched off the TV and fell into a fitful sleep, wondering if Isaiah Hood, a man he had met a few hours ago, was innocent of the crime he was going to be executed for a few hours from now.

In the darkness, Reed saw Hood's eyes. Pleading.

"I'd like to know why she put me here."

Emily Baker sobbing before the cameras for her lost daughter.

"She is all we have in this world."

Her letters to her friend over her little sister's murder twenty-two years ago.

"I am guilty of her death. I will never forget her eyes staring into mine as she fell. God, please forgive me."

FIFTY-SIX.

Four guards, bearing chains and somber faces, came to Isaiah Hood's cell, standing before him like his pallbearers.

The most senior guard, the one with the kind eyes, touched his shoulder and said softly, "It's time, Isaiah. We have to move you now."

Move you closer to your death.

The other men averted Hood's gaze, allowing him a final, private look at the eight-by-ten-foot space that had served as his tomb for twenty-two years of his life. All of his personal effects had been dispatched, given to other inmates--his books, his chess game. Hood swallowed hard, absorbing his cherished poster of Montana's Rocky Mountains. That was going to David Cohen, for his Chicago law office. Hood was transfixed by it. His gateway to paradise.

That is where I live. That is my home.

Although it was a practiced security ritual, the guards were more solemn than usual slipping the chain around the waist of Hood's orange prison jumpsuit, locking a link to the handcuffs that secured his wrists.

Hood closed his eyes, clasping his hands.

Tense seconds ticked down with all four corrections officers hoping Hood's sessions with his spiritual adviser and the Warden, who gently stressed the virtues of "being a man and facing his consequence with dignity," would make the process a smooth one for them.

Hood opened his eyes to his poster. A last drink of paradise.

Then he faced the senior guard. His knees weakened. He overcame it, nodding.

"Let's go, boss."

The machine was in motion.

A certified copy of Hood's death warrant had long ago been delivered to the Helena office of the state's director of the Department of Corrections. In accordance with Montana's Corrections Act, Montana's Execution Procedural Manual requires that at least twenty-four hours before execution, a condemned offender is moved from his cell to an isolated holding cell.

The Death House.

The ringing of Hood's shackles echoed as he was escorted down death row's corridors, past the cells of other condemned men, who offered farewells.

"God's speed, Isaiah."

"Meet you on the outside, my friend."

"Freedom, brother. Freedom."

Hood looked straight ahead. Unblinking. His body numb. He was taken to a seldom used area of death row. Out of range of the noise and clamor of prison activity, the place where his death sentence would be carried out in the manner prescribed by law.

Electric current hummed. Keys jingled. Steel doors clanked, rolled and thudded. Hood entered his new reality.

The Death House.

He felt the temperature drop. His heart skipped a beat. He exhaled slowly. They had incarcerated him in the holding cell with floor-to-ceiling bars so they could easily keep a suicide watch.

The senior guard, his eyes mixed with duty and compassion, looked hard into Hood's face after they had removed his restraints.

"You take it easy now, Isaiah," he said softly.

Hood nodded.

Then the barred door closed on his cell.

It was the same size as other cells, only its walls were cream-colored. Supposedly, psychologically soothing. There was a bunk, a pull-down shelf table, a pad of lined yellow prison-issue paper and envelopes for letters, and a form for last meal request. Nearby, outside the bars, there was a TV stand supporting a small color TV controlled by the prison. Near it stood a small table draped in white linen with a telephone and a Bible resting upon it. A short distance down the corridor was a private shower. As the Warden had already explained to Hood days earlier, "You can shower beforehand if you choose, Isaiah." Several feet from Hood's cell sat a guard at a desk with a computer and telephone. He gave a gentle wave. According to the procedural manual, guards would take shifts performing the pre-execution duty of keeping a vigil over the condemned offender.

Upon Hood's arrival, the guard's computer keyboard began clicking as he created a new file and typed: AO#A041469.

ISAIAH HOOD.

DEATH WATCH.

The guard noted the time and Hood's activity.

"Sitting on bunk."

An hour later, the guard typed: "Talking with spiritual adviser."

Reverend Phillip Wellsley was from a small church near Anaconda. In his late seventies, with a hunched back, he had white hair and a pale wrinkled face. He smelled of vinegar and sat in the chair on the other side of the bars of Hood's cell, reaching in to pat his shoulder as he talked.

"Soon you will stand before the Creator debt-free, my son. To begin life anew in eternity."

Hood was motionless. His eyes glistening. His whole life was a mistake.

The first of the cars and vans of death penalty opponents began arriving in Deer Lodge. They had come at their own expense from all over the United States and Canada. College students, doctors, mothers, clergy, retired soldiers, school teachers, compelled to act on their beliefs. They assembled that night at a local church to make placards and begin a prayer vigil. At dawn on the day of Hood's execution, they would travel to the edge of state property where they would stand in serene protest before prison security vehicles within sight of the penitentiary and the majestic Rocky Mountains. Among prison staff in death penalty states across America, they were known as "the candle people."

Inside the prison, as Reverend Phillip Wellsley said good night to Hood, preparations for Hood's death were being made.

Outside, just beyond Hood's cell, within a few final paces was the double-wide trailer that has been fashioned into Montana's execution chamber.

Hood knew the procedure. Every detail of it. Tomorrow night, at the stroke of midnight, the Warden would come to his cell and read his death warrant; then he would be handcuffed, removed from the cell, escorted outside a few short steps to the small death chamber and the waiting gurney. Hood would be requested to hop up on to it, whereupon his body would be secured at five points by thick caramel-colored leather belts. His arms would be extended and secured onto the armrests, which were encased in white medical tape, filling the chamber with the antiseptic smell of a health clinic.

As a medical official would affix an IV to Hood's arm and a monitor cable to his heart, he would gaze around the intimate plain room, at the bright light above, hearing the witnesses shuffle into place at the nearby viewing area, feeling their steps vibrate on the trailer floor. He would look at the two dedicated phone lines on the wall of the room. One to the governor's office, the other to the attorney general's office. The lines would remain open during the process in the event of a last-minute stay.

The warden would ask him for any final words, then offer him best wishes, as the prison chaplain would pray and the process would commence. Beyond the prison walls, the candle people would begin singing "Amazing Grace." The IV tubes from Hood's arm would run through a small port into the executioner's room where an anonymous medical official would begin the lethal injection as the chaplain would pray.

"Naked and alone we enter this world. Naked and alone we leave it."

First, a flow of Sodium Thiopentol would put Hood into a deep sleep.

"Look to the light, son."

Followed by a large measure of Pancuronium Bromide to relax his muscles. Then the lethal dose of Potassium Chloride, which stops the heart. The price of death? About $75 for a process that would take less than ten minutes. Hood would be declared dead and his death certificate would be signed. A hearse waiting at a secured area within the prison walls would take his body to a local Deer Lodge funeral home where his remains would be cremated and, in keeping with his wish, his ashes taken by his lawyer, David Cohen, to be dispersed in Glacier National Park among the Rocky Mountains.

"It is not over yet, Isaiah."

Odd, he heard David's voice comforting him. Then Hood saw him, on the other side of the bars of his cell, as he came back from his thoughts to listen to his lawyer.

"The interview with Tom Reed will help. His story will have an impact, take us closer to our goal."

Hood just stared at him. He could see David was ashen, scared to death himself. "I've got something planned for tomorrow morning, Isaiah."

So do I, Hood thought.

Hood heard the clicking of the guard's computer keyboard.

"Visiting with lawyer."

"I am not guilty of her death anymore, David."

"Yes, I believe you. I am doing something in the morning."

"What is there left to do?"

Cohen did not answer because the guard apologized and said their "time was up."

Cohen patted Hood's hand, his eyes shone. He bowed his head and left. "I'll be back to see you tomorrow."

That night, after the lights dimmed in Hood's cell, he lay on his bunk. For a time, he watched the computer screen glow on the face of his guard, then closed his eyes.

He felt her little wrists in his hands.

Smelled the sweet forest-scented breezes sweeping up to the cliff as she gasped, sobbed, pleaded for her life. She was so light in his large hands.

It was just a game.

He'd played it before with the dog, then the rabbit.

Now the butterfly girl with the bright eyes.

She said she wanted to play.

She weighed nothing at all. Surely, she would float in the air. He had to know if she could fly.

All of them thought they were better than him.

"We're not supposed to play with you."

Liked they walked on air.

How could they say he murdered her? It was just a game.

The keyboard was clicking "Sleeping."