Hood nodded, careful to display the precise measure of discomfort on his face.

Biting his lip, studying the closed-circuit TV, the guard was wary. Determined to have no incidents of any sort on his watch, he reviewed his options. He knew Hood's medical history and risk of seizures. Most officers in the death row housing unit did. He heeded DOC policies and procedures.

"Want the nurse or Medical Services, Isaiah?"

Because the law requires we keep you healthy for your execution.

Hood shook his head.

The keyboard clicked as the guard entered the small development into the death watch activity log. Then his phone rang. "Really?" he said. "Fine, I'll ask him." He replaced the handset. "Isaiah, seems your lawyer is live on CNN discussing your case. Would you like to watch it?"

Hood nodded.

Then David Cohen was there before him, telling America about his case.

"...the governor to reconsider his position on the fate of my client, Isaiah Hood, whose execution is set to go ahead at midnight tonight."

"Why?"

"On what basis, Mr. Cohen?"

"What's your reason for..."

"You're referring to her so-called confessional letters?"

"Sir, are you are implying that Emily Baker murdered her sister?"

Yes, that's right, David. Hood smiled to himself.

The cameras captured Emily Baker escorted by the FBI from a helicopter; then they once again showed Hood's picture, Paige Baker's picture, the prison, the gurney, and an old photograph of the dead girl from over twenty years ago.

The only girl who ever agreed to be Hood's friend.

He stared at her eyes, feeling everything around him dissolving into a bright light.

The guard's jaw dropped.

Isaiah's eyes rolled back. Just the whites were visible. His arms rose from his sides, extending before him.

Jesus Christ he's going into one of the friggin' trances.

"Isaiah!"

He feels her little wrists in his hands. Smell the sweet forest-scented breezes sweeping up to the cliff as she gasps, sobs and pleads for her life. She is so light in his large hands. Her little feet dangle, kick.

It is just a game. One where he can strike fear in the heart of a weaker thing. He has learned that from his father.

The hooks.

Those rounded, steel, hard hooks hammering his forearms, his shoulders, his neck, his head. One day, a direct blow connected like lightning, exploding in his brain. His eyes blinded with a painful white flash.

He ran from the house and spent the next few days alone in the mountains. So painfully alone. All of his life he had no one but the mountains. His head hurt so god-awful bad he thought his skull had split and his life and thoughts were leaking out. He had a hard time concentrating. Forming a thought. The whole time he ached to be with someone. Anyone to play his game.

Just a game.

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

But it didn't feel right.

They did not walk on air.

Then he came upon the butterfly girls with bright eyes.

The big one did not want to play. But the little one did.

She comes to him right away.

Eager.

But the big one pushes him. Snotty. Stuck up.

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

Like they walk on air. Go to church every Sunday and treat people the way they do. It was their doing. All of them in town.

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

Well, he was going to play with them. He'd show them.

The little one weighs nothing at all. Surely, she does not walk on air, like the rest of them. That was the game. She plays it well. How she kicks and screams. But the big one tries to stop him. She was trying to ruin it, trying to ruin everything. Like she is now. It was just a game. Just the game of a lonely boy in the mountains.

Now they want his life for it.

They could not have it.

No. He is tired of paying. He had given them twenty-two years. That is enough. Maybe Emily, the big one, should pay something for what she took from him. She knew it was a game, but she never told them that. He knew why she came back.

To watch him die.

Well, that is not going to happen.

It is time for her to learn.

"Isaiah!"

Someone was calling him. Far off and far away.

It was time.

Hood's heart began throbbing, slamming against his rib cage. His brain began pulsating. Bringing this one on could kill him. That was one secret he kept from the doctors. He could bring on his seizures and almost control them depending on the magnitude. They were dangerous to control. This time, he needed to bring on the largest fit he had ever summoned. It was time. It was coming. He felt it rising from within his brain waves, popping like broken malfunctioning electrical circuits. His heart stalling, galloping...

"Isaiah!" the guard yelled.

Hood's body was quaking and flopping on the floor like a fish jerked from a lake to a dock. His head was banging against his cot, his chair, he was growling and howling, his head twitching spasmodically.

"Open the cell! Open the cell! one of the male nurses shouted. The guard had summoned medical help. Two nurses and two guards arrived, one pushing a defibrillator. They worked on him swiftly. Check vital signs. One nurse opened the medical bag, placing a rubberized tongue guard in Hood's mouth. "He's going into cardiac arrest!"

They prepared an injection.

"Call the warden! He better alert the director," said one of the nurses.

"His heart has stopped! I'm getting nothing!" said the nurse with the stethoscope.

"Get him out of the cell. Set the machine! Pass me the paddles! Clear!"

They worked on Hood on the floor outside his death cell.

After two attempts, Hood's heart resumed beating. One of the guards quickly cuffed Hoods hands and put restraints on his ankles.

"He's in bad shape. He's got to be airlifted to Missoula."

Everyone stared at each other, then down at Hood.

The guard on the phone passed it to the senior nurse.

"The warden needs to talk to you."

SIXTY-FOUR.

Emily Baker's world turned black.

Voices. Yes, she heard voices.

The FBI agent was talking to her. The technicians at the mountain on their radios. Everyone distant, distorted, like people talking underwater, drowned out by the beating of her heart ringing in her ears.

"...we're at one hundred feet now..."

Every iota of Emily's being was focused on the TV monitor and the tiny camera searching the crevasse for her daughter. The horror was clawing at her; the camera was dropping deeper and deeper, its intense light reflecting the slick, sweating rock walls, like the throat of some overwhelming evil entity.

"...one hundred twenty..."

Did she fall here?

Was Emily's only child devoured by the mountains that haunted her for much of her life?

The camera was descending.

Darkness into darkness.

"Every family has secrets, Emily," Zander's attention, like those of the others in the small task force room, was on the monitor. "Tell us what you think happened."

Doug?

Where is Doug? What did they do to him? He has that cut on his hand. He has a lawyer. He was the last to be with her. Emily sobbed. Her body convulsing.

"...one hundred ninety..."

This time, no one comforted Emily as she wept.

"Oh, Paige," she whispered through her tears.

Inspector Walt Sydowski glanced at her briefly. He was troubled. Zander was the lead and he was very good, but Sydowski did not like this approach. Something about the pieces just didn't fit. It was close but it wasn't there. Hood's case was forcing them to accelerate. Lives and careers were on the line. The entire file was a national, political time bomb ticking in their hands. But what they had so far didn't feel right to Sydowski. It gnawed at him yet; he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Maybe we should consider removing Emily from the room for the time being, Frank, since we don't know what's coming."

Zander's attention remained on the monitor.

"...two hundred ten feet..."

Zander did not respond.

"Frank?"

"You can step out if you like, Walt," Zander didn't turn from the TV. "Emily, are you prepared to tell us what happened? It might help you."

"I don't know what happened."

"...two hundred twenty-wait, we've got something..."

Everyone in the task force room froze as the three-second delay passed. The FBI agent operating the probe narrated as a white fabric-looking object came into view. "It looks like a...wait--" The camera turned and moved in, then pulled back. The object was hung up on a small, sharp edge.

Emily groaned. "It's her sock." She thrust her face into her hands.

"Should I bring this pair, Mom?" White cotton with pink frilled ankles. "Will these work in the mountains?" Purchased one night a few weeks ago during a mother-daughter shopping expedition to Stonestown. Oh, my baby.

The camera resumed its descent.

Emily trembled; someone said something.

"It would be in your interest to tell us what happened, Emily," Zander continued to work on her. "To tell us what you think happened?"