Her chair scraped the floor. No one spoke. A search helicopter flew overhead. No one spoke of the surreal twists of the case. Even having Crow present before they went at Emily was unusual.

The young lawyer reasoned that the FBI was striving to see that every aspect of their investigation, no matter how wrong-headed it was, went by the book and then some.

Emily arrived with Bowman, who helped her to the same position she had taken before.

"Would you like coffee or anything?" Bowman asked.

"Just some water, please." Emily cleared her throat.

Bowman set a small plastic cup before her. Zander, folded his arms and began.

"Emily Baker, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...."

She bowed her head and wept softly.

This was not real. What is happening? Is Paige dead? Where is Doug? Oh God.

"You have the right to consult an attorney and have them present with you while you are being questioned. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?"

Emily nodded slowly. Tears streamed down her face.

"Please answer."

"Yes, I understand my rights."

"Knowing your rights, are you willing to answer our questions without an attorney present?"

Emily stared at her cup, blinking through her tears, looking toward the window, the mountains, rubbing her nose and nodding.

"Yes."

"Emily, no!" Crow was startled. "Emily, no! I advise you--"

Emily was puzzled.

"That's enough, Ms. Crow, please leave us," Zander said.

"Who are you?" Emily asked. "Who is she?"

Standing, Crow scowled at Zander, "I am Doug's lawyer."

"What!" Emily glared at Bowman. This is a betrayal. "You never...no one told me Doug has a lawyer. Has he been charged?"

"Emily, do you want an attorney present?" Zander thundered.

"No."

"No?" Crow was incredulous. "Emily I advise you--"

"Get out now, Ms. Crow. You are interfering."

Emily slammed her palms on the table, her cup jumped without spilling.

"Please. I just want to find Paige. I do not need a lawyer for that. I don't care what they think or suspect. I do not care." Eyes wide, she looked into her empty hands. "All I want to know is if I will ever hold my daughter in my arms again. I'll answer any questions for that. Oh, please, I--" Emily covered her face with her hands. "Why does Doug have a...oh God...let me talk to my husband. Can I please talk to Doug?"

No one answered her.

"Emily, this is a mistake," Crow called as she was escorted from the room. Zander closed the door behind her.

Bowman passed Emily a tissue.

The only sound to be heard in the room was Emily's sobbing.

Zander let several long tension-filled moments pass before he asked his first question.

"Emily, it's been five days since Paige disappeared. The rangers know that region. They have been scouring it relentlessly, even risking injury. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian officials are doing the same on the Canadian side of the park. Now, why do you suppose we have not found any trace of Paige or her dog? Why is that?"

"I don't know."

"Now, why is it we did not find out about your connection your sister's death in the same region of the park, twenty-two years ago, and your connection to Isaiah Hood?"

"It was a very painful part of my life. Very painful."

"So you admit keeping that from us when we asked you to tell us everything about your history, anything that might help us understand what happened to Paige?"

"I did not even tell my husband. It was very painful. Doug will tell you. Has he told you?"

"He has told us things."

"What things?" Where is he? There's something you're not telling me."

"What is the real reason you came to Montana with your family, Emily?"

"To deal with my sister's death, the deaths of my parents. My counselor told me if I was here when Isaiah Hood was executed, I could use his ending as a turning point, as a way to put it all behind me."

"Or try to get away with it again."

"What?" Emily began weeping. "I cannot understand...why--"

Suddenly, a radio crackled.

"This is Clovis to Zander. Over."

Zander reached for his radio, quietly acknowledging Clovis's call from the crevasse.

Clovis then reported: "All set to broadcast here. Over."

Zander moved closer to Emily.

"You and Doug have been evasive and deceptive from the beginning. But here are the facts." Zander was leaning on the table, his face inches from Emily. "We found Paige's T-shirt. Bloodstained." Zander thumped the table with his forefinger, causing Emily to flinch. "We found Doug's ax. Bloodstained." Zander thumped the table again. Emily raised her hands to her ears. "You and Doug tell us either one of you could have been alone with Paige for hours, unseen by anyone. What you've done is given each other convenient alibis that are difficult to challenge. Then we find disturbing questions have been raised about your involvement in your sister's death in the very same area and in the very same fashion as Paige's case."

"No."

"Only a few days before you came here, the San Francisco Police Department was called to your house. A neighbor reported Doug was violent."

"No, that was a misunderstanding."

"We also learned that a student at Doug's school has accused him of a violent outburst, of striking her, in the days before you came here."

"No. I didn't know that--"

Striking a student? Doug? No.

"Twenty-four hours before Paige vanishes, your family is witnessed having a heated argument on the trail."

"That was about me. It had nothing to do with--"

"And we found some blood, tiny drops of blood, and some of Paige's hair near the mouth of a remote crevasse, just under two miles from your campsite. Soon we'll put it all together and you can tell us what went wrong and how."

"Oh God." Emily began shrieking. "She's not d-d--"

Zander switched on the room's large TV, turning to 00, nodding to Bowman, who raised her radio to her mouth. "Go ahead, Clovis."

A blurring image began swimming on the screen, filled with static.

"Can you hear us, task force? Over." Clovis's voice was tinny but clear.

"We hear you fine. Go ahead, Rob. Over."

"OK, we've just set up and we'll start lowering the camera. It's going to take time. Over."

"Can you tell us anything at this point? Over," Zander said.

"Roger. We dropped a vapor probe. Early indications are there is definitely a body mass down there. Confirmed."

Zander's eyes burned into Emily's.

Her face went white.

SIXTY-TWO.

High atop the treacherous fissured cliffside of Sector 23, the ultra-soft hum of a lightweight gas-powered generator traveled throughout the glacial valley and alpine forests.

Members of the FBI's ERT worked quietly at the mouth of the crevasse where traces of Paige Baker's blood and hair had been discovered.

Special Agent Rob Clovis knew it was a critical procedure. The probe would determine the outcome of the investigation. He felt the weight of it on his shoulders. In twenty years of duty, he had been called out to work on some difficult FBI operations, but he had never attempted anything quite like this. He looked at his watch again. It seemed he was looking at it every five minutes well aware Frank Zander and the other investigators were counting on ERT.

No one beyond the people atop the cliff and the task force knew about the probe. The massive search operation for Paige Baker in all other sectors was ongoing and would not be officially terminated until Clovis and the evidence team concluded their work here.

Clovis surveyed the area, again grappling between his professional expectations and private emotions. It was an ideal location to dispose of a body. A small body. The mouth opened wide to swallow it into an eternal abyss. He tried to block out the images of her slipping and scraping down into the darkness. He had two granddaughters about the same age as Paige Baker.

Imagine the condition her corpse will be in. What kind of monster would...

Clovis shifted his thoughts to inventory the equipment, anxious about its reliability. Much of it had been put together urgently for this emergency by the high-tech company in Mountain View. The stuff was not field-tested. There had been no time.

The generator was a new model with a microprocessor that controlled its sine-wave inverter, greatly reducing voltage fluctuations and wave distortion. It had an output of 3,000 watts to power the highly sensitive remote-controlled fiber-optic probe and video transmission system that was linked to a network of satellites. The two thousand feet of flexible hybrid cable was coiled on a spool straddled over the crevasse. Controls for it and the tiny camera at the end of it were linked to a powerful computer and monitors.

Clovis watched as the technician, wearing a headset microphone to narrate, used the keyboard to command the drop rate of the camera, pivot and focus, retrieving images and displaying them on the computer screen and monitors at the work table, which were connected in tandem. At the same time, with a two-to-three second delay factor, the images and his narration were transmitted to the large TV in the task force room at the command center.

"We're ready," the technician advised Clovis, who nodded.

This better work, Clovis told himself, hoping he could trust the untried system.

He heard a dog's yelp. It was Lola, the shepherd who found the site. Her handler, the kid from Colorado, soothed her. He sat off to the side with the rangers, SAR people and paramedics. All were somber.

Clovis knew the work from this point on would be meticulous. The process would be agonizingly slow, moving at a rate of a few inches or feet every few minutes.

The screen showed nothing but sweating black rock as the tiny camera slowly descended.

Clovis and the task force at the command center were riveted to their monitors.

Yes, this was a perfect place to dispose of a body.

Perfect.

SIXTY-THREE.

Isaiah Hood stood in his death cell and rubbed his stomach tenderly, taking comfort in feeling the small lump of hardness near his navel.

Soon. Very soon.

"Feeling alright, Isaiah?" his deathwatch guard asked.