"Thought you should know," Mr. Santos said.

"Maybe I should have told them," Mrs. Carson worried.

"You did right," he rea.s.sured both of them.

He left his office and drove to Holly's house. Her car was gone. Still, he knocked. No one answered.

He sat in front of the house for several minutes, then decided to try Marty. She might know something. He might also get a glimpse of the three people asking questions about someone who sounded very much like Liz.

He found them in a bar across from Special Things. It was quite obvious that they weren't tourists. They were staring across at Marty's store.

He wandered in and ordered a c.o.ke. He sat at the bar and studied the trio.

A pretty young woman. A man in his early fifties who looked like an ex-boxer and a man who looked like a cop. He could always spot them. Their eyes never stilled. Just as this one's didn't still.

He finished his c.o.ke and sauntered over. "How do you like our little town?"

The woman looked disconcerted, then smiled. "I like it," she said.

He stiffened. Her eyes looked just like Holly's. So did the smile.

Nothing else did. She was slim, but more roundly built than Holly. Taller. Her face didn't have the fine bones that Holly's did, and the nose was larger, yet the accents were similar. So was the musical quality of their voices.

"Good," he said. "I'm the county sheriff. Anything I can help you with?"

He saw them stiffen this time. He didn't wear a badge on his shirt, nor did he carry his gun in an obvious place.

The man he had pegged as a cop stood. He held out his hand. "I'm Gage Gaynor. Detective. New Orleans."

"Doug Menelo. You here on official business?"

"No. Vacation. My girl is trying to find her sister. Meredith's mother just died and left them both a rather large estate."

"What's her name?"

"Holly," the woman said. "Holly Ames." She pulled out a photo. It was Liz.

He shook his head. " 'Fraid I can't help you. Don't know anyone named Holly."

The woman persisted. "She might be using another name. She has a son. She might be in a great deal of danger. We have to warn her."

"Now that sounds mighty interesting. Care to tell me more about it?"

"That would take time. We need to find her."

"I have all the time in the world," Doug said as he settled down in a seat overlooking the window. The others had to turn away from it to talk to him.

"We're looking for the person who runs the shop across the street," Gaynor said.

Doug saw Marty then. She'd parked in the city lot and was walking toward her store. He didn't want her talking to anyone until he had.

"Marty sometimes goes to the bank about this time of day," he said. "It's two blocks down."

"She'll be back, won't she?"

"Doubtful. She's a free spirit. Often takes off early."

He watched as Marty turned the CLOSED sign to OPEN. He hoped the town's newest visitors didn't notice.

He got up. "You said your name was Gaynor?" he said. "What division?" He intended to call the NOPD as soon as he could.

"Homicide."

Doug didn't like the sound of that at all. "Well, good luck to you. If you want to find Marty, you might try the bank first, then her house. You go straight up this road. Just keep climbing until you reach the last road, then turn right. Ask anyone."

He rose and went to the bar, paid for his soda.

Then he sauntered out, went down the road and came up to the back of Marty's store. He pounded on it.

Finally, Marty answered.

"You're going to have company soon. A New Orleans detective and some woman who claims she's Liz's sister."

She didn't look surprised.

"Where is she, Marty?"

"At a cabin fifteen miles from here." She went in and jotted directions for him on a notepad by the telephone. "It's an old miner's cabin I fixed up."

"I think I know it," he said. "What's this all about?"

"She'll tell you. She's ready now, I think." Marty hesitated, then added, "She needs you."

"Keep those folks busy."

"I can do that."

He returned to the sheriff's office, called the New Orleans police department and verified they had a Gage Gaynor in homicide.

"Where did you say you were?" a voice on the line asked.

He hung up. He wanted to talk to Holly first.

Doug decided not to use his official vehicle. Instead he jumped in the Jeep. Heart speeding he started west.

A pounding shook the door. Marty left the storeroom and went out to check. She expected the three people Doug had described. Instead two men in sports coats stood there. They couldn't have looked more out of place if they wore devil suits in Disneyland.

She had just locked the door again and now she shook her head no.

The pounding grew more insistent.

She turned away, lowered the shades.

Then she heard a click in the door. She started for the phone. She didn't make it.

She'd always known she needed better locks.

That was her last thought before losing consciousness.

*Chapter Thirty-one*

'BISBEE'.

Gage found the owner on the floor in the back of the shop. Her head was cut and she was moaning.

Dom administered first aid while Meredith called the police department and an ambulance.

They had tried Marty's home only to find no one there, then returned to the store. The CLOSED sign was still up but the door was half open.

They went inside, and Gage found the woman on the floor. Blood seeped from a cut on her head. He thought the desk in the shop had been searched--or perhaps the woman simply was messy.

He stooped beside her.

"Gage?"

"Over here," he answered, moving aside as Dom and Meredith joined him.

"Someone hit her very hard," Gage said. "She's alive but just barely. Her pulse is thready and I don't like the sound of her heart."

"Could someone have followed us?" Meredith asked.

Gage shook his head. "I don't know how. We had a rental car. There couldn't have been any kind of tracking device. And I watched. No one tailed us."

"Maybe they tracked her through the website as well," Dom said.

"But now someone may know where she is, and we don't," Meredith said.

Gage stood. "That sheriff... He might be able to help."

The police arrived, screeching up to the door and parking in the middle of the street.

Two officers entered. One knelt next to the woman. "Marty?"

"A head wound," Gage said.

"Who are you?"

"We found her," Gage said. "The door was open and we came inside. She was on the floor along with the telephone. She must have been trying to reach it."

"I asked your name."

"Gaynor. I'm a tourist. But I'm also a homicide detective with the New Orleans Police Department."

"Have any identification?"

"Driver's license. No badge. I shot a man several days ago and I'm on suspension until the shooting board meets."

"He shot to save my life," Meredith added. She didn't want them to think Gage was a trigger-happy renegade.

"And who are you?"

"I'm an attorney from New Orleans."

"Christ," one of the officers said in a low tone.

Then the ambulance arrived and two paramedics rushed in, checking the woman's pulse, then heartbeat. They prepared to load her on a stretcher.

The woman moaned again, and Meredith moved closer to her.

A police officer joined her. "Marty?" he asked. "What happened?"

"Doug," the woman managed to say. "Contact Doug. Tell him to hurry to--"

She lapsed into unconsciousness.

"Must mean Sheriff Menelo," one of the officers said. "I know they're friends." He took a radio off his belt and asked his dispatcher if he could locate Sheriff Menelo and tell him to meet them at the hospital, that Marty had been badly injured.

"I suspect my chief is going to want to talk to you three as well," the officer added.

"We'll go to the hospital," Meredith said, catching the gazes of Gage and Dom. They nodded.

This woman, Marty, was their only lead at the moment. They had struck out everywhere else.

Meredith worried that time was growing short. If the sculptor 'was' Holly Ames, then had Marty given whomever was here her address?

If her half sister was hiding under another name, why? What did she fear?

The same violence that had followed Meredith?

She knotted the fingers of one hand in a ball. She would have bet that the sheriff earlier had recognized the woman in the photo. Meredith just hadn't understood why he tried to hide it. Unless he knew something that made him protective. If so, he was an ally.