Marty put down his utensils and narrowed his eyes. "Not very. He and Bloom didn't get along, but they're in politics, so nobody gets along. Why?"

Ethan told him about the meeting. When he finished, Marty said, "Well, that moves him up a few notches, for sure. But if he was involved, I doubt he was the triggerman. Or knife man, in this case. He's a backroom negotiator all the way."

"Maybe he hired a hit man."

Marty chuckled. "A hit man? Have you been watching cop shows again? Next thing, you'll want me to *put the word on the street.' "

Marty's teasing annoyed Ethan. "He's already trying to horn in on the project, and Bloom's not even in the ground yet. I just wanted to pass on the info, smart-ass."

"Sure. And thanks." Marty reached over and took a swallow of Ethan's beer.

"Hey!" Ethan protested.

Marty burped slightly. "I'll have to work all this off in the gym tonight. By the way, have you talked to Rachel?"

"I tried. I called her twice. She didn't answer."

"And you're going to leave it at that?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I said I would. I shouldn't have even tried to call her."

Marty nodded. "I still eat breakfast at her diner, you know."

"I know."

"She looks very sad these days. Not in an unhealthy way, but just ... lonely. I think she'd like to hear from you."

"I tried, Marty. She didn't call me back. There's only so much I can do."

Marty shrugged. "Well, be that as it may, I want to warn you about something. We have a prime suspect in the Bloom killing, and it's not that Stillwater guy."

"Really?"

Marty nodded. "There was a message in Bloom's voice mail left the night he died but before the time of death. It was ... I don't want to get into specifics, but there was a veiled but clear threat."

"Isn't *veiled but clear' a contradiction?"

"I believe the message said, *Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity, and I want that for us, and I'll do whatever it takes to make it happen.' "

Ethan laughed. "You don't recognize that line? It's from a song. *Don't Fear the Reaper.' "

"I know that. It's part of the *veiled but clear' bit. And if Bloom wasn't lying in a morgue, I probably wouldn't think anything about it. But he is, and before it happened someone said they wanted to die with him. That's a clue."

"Maybe. It's thin."

"It's what we've got. And the person who left the message has no alibi. Since it's such a public crime, I have to make an arrest based on it, no matter how thin it is. That way we'll at least look like we're making progress. Hopefully the suspect will get a good lawyer, because the charges really shouldn't stick." He shook his head, disgusted with his own words.

"Why warn me?" Ethan asked.

"Because of who it is."

RACHEL WENT UPSTAIRS to her apartment after balancing the cash register and opened the door as quietly as possible. Becky didn't wake up well on good days, and if she was still asleep, Rachel would just as soon she stayed that way.

She heard the shower, though, as soon as she closed the door behind her. She went into the bedroom and saw Becky's clothes neatly arranged on the bed. Her purse stood open as well, and the temptation to snoop through it was strong. But Rachel ignored it. She went into the kitchen instead and got a beer.

By the time she finished her drink, Becky emerged from the bathroom. She wore a towel tucked under her arms, and her hair hung straight, parted in the middle. Her eyes were swollen from crying. She saw Rachel through the bedroom door and said weakly, "Hi."

"Hi," Rachel said, and held up the empty bottle. "Want a beer?"

Becky shook her head. Her voice was subdued and lacked its usual defensiveness. "No, thanks. I hope you don't mind me using your shower."

"No problem." Rachel came into the bedroom and sat on the foot of the bed. "Feel like talking?"

Becky dropped the towel and began dressing. "No. I should probably go down to the office. It'll be a madhouse, and I may be the only person who knows where everything is."

"It's late."

She shrugged. "We never kept set hours. Garrett wanted to be available when people needed him."

Rachel nodded. "I'm sorry about him."

"Me too," Becky muttered.

Rachel idly watched her sister put on her clothes.

"Rachel," Becky said abruptly, "can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Do you remember how Daddy used to watch the news and say, *Some people just need killing'?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think that's true?"

"Yeah. The problem is, who gets to pick?"

Becky considered that as she buttoned her blouse. Finally Rachel said, "Do you want to stay here tonight? So you won't be alone?" It would mean Rachel could not slip away to the lakes, but for the first time in months she didn't mind.

But Becky shook her head. "No. If no one's at the office I'll go home. I want people to be able to reach me. I feel bad that I freaked out earlier."

She adjusted her clothes, smoothed down her hair, and managed a smile. Rachel stood and reached to hug her, but Becky put up her hands and stepped back. "Don't, Rachel. I'm barely holding it together as it is."

"Okay," Rachel said. She was silent as Becky gathered her belongings and went to the door.

Becky paused there but did not look back or say anything. Then she was gone, her footsteps fading as she descended the stairs. In the silence the back door opened, then closed with a loud click as the lock slid back in place.

Rachel picked up the discarded towel and went into the bathroom. As usual, Becky had left it a mess, and she spent several minutes cleaning and straightening. When she finished, she got another beer and sat on her couch.

Tainter emerged from under it. He'd known Becky his whole feline life and understood that it was best to be scarce when she was around. Rachel often wished she had that option as well.

She scratched the cat behind his ears while he stretched and raked his claws lightly over the couch's fabric. It was unlike her to have a second beer, but she felt so odd and off-kilter inside, she figured it wouldn't matter. By the third sip she was yawning, and she stretched out to sleep away the rest of the evening.

JAMES RED BIRD reclined on his bed in the Best Western across from the state capitol. He wore only boxers emblazoned with an American eagle, and his long hair was loose around his shoulders. He watched the local news, which was rife with coverage of Garrett Bloom's murder. They talked to everyone who ever met him, it seemed, including James Red Bird; he was watching to see if his comments would be used.

The bathroom door opened and a blond girl emerged. She wore a towel around her hair, and nothing else. She was intimately clean-shaven, and had a Native American design tattooed across the small of her back.

Red Bird glanced at her, then turned back to the TV. Her name was Stacy. She was one of those middle-class white girls with just enough enlightenment to feel culturally guilty for what her people had done to his, and he was happy to show her ways to make reparations. She'd spent the evening doing just that, convinced she was helping him through a difficult time.

That made Red Bird smile. Providing a way to get this beautiful girl on her back was the best thing Garrett Bloom had ever done for him. Too bad it was also the last.

"Are they still talking about your friend?" Stacy asked as she began to brush her hair.

"They took time out for the weather and the score from last night's Mallards game," Red Bird said. "Now they're doing a bio on him."

She stretched out beside him and fingered his hair. "Will this be coming off?"

Red Bird frowned. "What?"

"Don't your people cut their hair to express their grief?"

"Yes, when family dies. Garrett Bloom wasn't family."

"You said he was like a brother to you."

Red Bird shrugged. "It's hard to talk about."

She kissed his bare chest. "Okay."

As her kisses proceeded down his torso, his mind turned to what he would tell the police when he met with them tomorrow. It was important that most of what he told them be the truth; complex lies were too difficult to track.

By now Stacy had reached her destination, and her expert caresses were stirring him back to life. He laced his fingers behind his head and said pitifully, "Stacy, I don't know, I'm just so upset about Garrett...."

She renewed her efforts, and they had the expected result. He reached down and ruffled her blond hair, still wet from the shower, the way he might pet a dog. "You deserve this, Jim," she said huskily, and returned to her activity.

He smiled at the ceiling, and at the certainty that she was, in fact, dead right.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

RACHEL STOOD OUTSIDE the diner's back door in her running shorts and T-shirt. It was past midnight, and the air was hazy with humidity. Insects swarmed the security light, and she knew that if she didn't get moving, the ones drawn to blood would then swarm to her. But she couldn't quite make herself move yet.

She put her hands on her hips and closed her eyes. The old woman from her ... dream, vision, whatever, had said: "He has severed their connection to you." And the spirits had avoided her when she sought them after her tryst with Stillwater. But surely they were strong enough that they could still come to her if they wanted.

Her head still buzzed from the beer, and the off-kilter feeling had grown. What did she truly hope to find at the park? Her lake spirits, Ethan Walker, or Kyle Stillwater?

She knew what her body wanted to find. Despite everything, the thought of how Stillwater had felt beside her filled her with an unexpected longing. Not even Ethan inspired this. But there was no tenderness to it, no sense of love, only pure lust of the most degenerate kind. He'd been a millimeter away from possessing her intimately, and her body desperately wanted to close that gap.

And that's what held her in place. Shouldn't she be craving the comfort and tenderness of Ethan, the man who'd risked his own life to save hers? Shouldn't she fucking call him back? Why couldn't she?

She sighed and set out down the street. Maybe nonsexual physical exercise would help clear her head. A lone taxicab passed her, and the driver waved lazily. She recognized him but couldn't dredge up his name.

Her joints felt stiff and awkward, and she wished she'd stretched more beforehand. But she forced herself through the discomfort, and soon her muscles were sliding with their usual smoothness beneath her damp skin.

"Soon he will be able to trap and destroy the spirits," the woman had said.

Rachel felt a tingle of warning as she approached Hudson Park and stopped a block away. She drew deep breaths as she took in the familiar view: the streetlamps swarming with insects, the grass glittering with dew, and the shape of the lake-spirit effigy mound, the weeds and grass atop it uncut out of respect.

Bad things had happened to her here before, of course. Arlin Korbus had kidnapped her, for one thing. She could've chosen a different spot for her nightly swim after that, since the spirits waited for her wherever she entered the lake. But Hudson Park was her sacred space, and she refused to be chased away.

Still, she ducked into the shadow of a tree and peeked around it, studying the small park in more detail. Nothing moved. All was silent, except for the expected noises. You're paranoid, she scolded herself.

Then she heard something else. It was too soft to identify at first, and then it grew louder. Someone in the park was laughing. A woman.

Rachel clutched the tree trunk so hard that one of her fingernails bent.

Faint but clear, the chuckles came out of the humid night like the echoing call of a ghost. The contempt and triumph in the sound made Rachel grit her teeth.

At last a female silhouette came up the hill from the water's edge. At first Rachel couldn't say what was odd about it, and then she realized: The woman was wet from swimming, and nude. Her skin glistened the way Rachel's always did, sparkling as the droplets ran down. She clutched something like a small football in one hand.

The stranger picked up a robe from the ground, pulled it on, and cinched it tight. Rachel gasped. Now she recognized her silhouette. It was the woman who'd spied on her following her tryst with Stillwater.

The woman paused by the effigy mound's head. She paused at the circle of stones. "Thank you for holding them for me, Artemak," she said. "It made catching them so much easier."

Rachel recalled the strange word from the ceremony at the park. Was this the woman she'd also glimpsed that day?

Still chuckling to herself, the woman walked to a small car parked in the darkness beneath a tree. She drove two blocks before turning on her lights, then disappeared around a corner.

Rachel stayed in the shadows. Her stomach was knotted not with the usual sensual anticipation but with an uncertainty so strong it paralyzed her. She felt absolutely no tug toward the water. She watched the surface of the lake sparkle in the night, but nothing happened within her. Her clothes did not grow uncomfortable, and her body did not tingle with slow arousal. She took several deep breaths and tried to force the feeling that had sustained her for so many years, but nothing happened.

With a sigh of resignation she turned and started home. Every few steps she glanced back, hoping to see-or was it dreading to see?-Kyle Stillwater loom out of the night and beckon her into his embrace. She imagined running to him, crushing herself against his hard body, falling to her knees before him to worship him with her mouth. My God, she wanted that, and the realization filled her with self-loathing and loneliness. But he didn't appear, and eventually she turned the corner and lost sight of the park.

KYLE STILLWATER SAT in his bathtub as his shower rained weakly down on him. The water was no longer hot, but he did not move. Henry Hawes had told him he was possessed, and Henry knew about such things. There was something inside Kyle now that delighted in causing others to suffer.

Kyle looked at his hand. The tiny scar on one knuckle was still there. He'd gotten it as a child riding his bike, and his mother had bandaged it with a piece of paper towel and some duct tape, since they couldn't afford real Band-Aids. My sweet little boy, she'd said to him, and held him while he cried. Could a man with that memory of kindness really be possessed by something evil?

At last he stood up and turned off the water. He toweled off his hair and body, ignoring the body spray he usually wore. Then he stepped out of the tub and grabbed the edge of the sink as a wave of nausea hit him.