Red Bird shook his head. "I don't know."

"Well, you better pray I come up with something. And in the meantime, find that idiot and keep him out of sight!"

Red Bird, clearly annoyed at being the target for Bloom's rage, said sarcastically, "I'll tie him up in my wigwam."

"Whatever. And don't speak to the press about it. I'll handle them today and get a prepared statement out tomorrow."

Red Bird walked away muttering to himself. Bloom shook his head, then turned and let out a startled yelp. Ethan Walker stood right behind him.

"Was that a friend of Jim's out there?" Ethan said.

"What? No, it's-" Bloom took a deep breath, pasted on his best smile, then put a hand on Ethan's shoulder. "Ethan, I'm really sorry. I guess we'll have to skip the whole ground-breaking thing."

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing, half the media's gone. They're all rushing back to file stories on that half-naked jackass."

Ethan nodded but made no effort to hide his skepticism. "Yeah, I guess they would be. Did you know anything about it ahead of time?"

"What? Of course not! Why would you say that?"

"Your whole spiel about getting around any Indian troublemakers. It seems like you might've suspected something was going to happen. Was that why you were reading Jim Red Bird the riot act just now?"

Bloom waved his hand. "It's completely unrelated. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to speak to what's left of the press and make sure they understand that this won't slow us down." A great shout rose from the remaining press corps as he ascended the steps to the stage.

THERE WAS SOMETHING off about this whole situation, but Ethan couldn't quite put his finger on it. It felt like theater, not like real life. Yet why would Bloom disrupt his own ceremony?

A woman engrossed in her iPhone walked past him, and he jumped a little, momentarily thinking it was Rachel. There was a definite resemblance in this woman's body shape and the way she moved. But when she paused in mid-step to listen to something on her Bluetooth, he realized who she was: Rebecca Matre. He'd seen her picture at Rachel's apartment.

For an instant, no more than a nanosecond, he pondered approaching her as a replacement for Rachel. Then he mentally kicked himself for even considering such a thing. Men were scum.

PATTY CAME DOWN the steps from the stage, pushed through the people milling there, and rushed up to Rachel. Her pale decolletage was flushed pink. "Wow, did you see that guy?"

"I think everybody saw him," Rachel said.

"Was he as gorgeous up close as he was from the stage?"

"He was easy on the eyes," Rachel agreed.

"The wives of all the big shots were looking at him the way a dog looks at a steak," Patty said. Then she noticed Rachel's distraction. "Are you all right?"

Rachel shook her head slightly. "Yeah, I'm sorry. It's just ..."

"What?"

Rachel looked around to make sure they weren't overheard, then leaned close to Patty. "Do you remember what I told you about the lake spirits?"

Patty nodded. "He mentioned them, didn't he?"

"Like he knows about them," Rachel said. Like he knows them, she wanted to add.

"Maybe he was just being poetic," Patty said. " *Spirits,' you know, like a nature religion, like paganism."

"Maybe," Rachel said. Then, gathering herself with an effort, she added, "Come on, let's get out of here."

"I'll get my guitar," Patty said, and scurried off.

Rachel wrapped her arms around herself. She felt different-wrong, somehow-as if the encounter with the strange man had upset her internal bearings. But she hadn't touched him or even spoken to him; all they had shared was a momentary glance.

In that moment, though, she felt as if she'd been laid bare for him. And perhaps the discomfort swirling in her now was because he had seen her for what she was.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

RACHEL AND PATTY parted at Duncan Street. Patty walked up the tree-lined avenue to her student apartment, blithely whistling "Indian Reservation," and Rachel headed back to the diner. By the time she got there, Helena and Roya had already cleaned up and prepared for the next day, and Jimmy was just locking up. There was too much competition for the dinner crowd, so the diner served only breakfast and lunch. Rachel took a cursory look at the register receipts, saw no problems, and went upstairs.

After carefully locking her door, checking her blinds, and feeding Tainter so he'd stay off her lap, she took the computer from her closet and got online. The Lady posted a quick recap of the events at the park, and she was careful to phrase it so that it sounded like it might have come from someone involved, not just a spectator.

When she finished, she reread what she'd written and yawned. Then she deleted most of the adjectives, leaving only "handsome" and "scantily clad" to describe Kyle Stillwater. Otherwise it read like the overheated writing in a romance novel.

Yet even as she did this, she felt her own body shimmer with attentiveness. Just the memory of the way he'd walked across the grass, his body gleaming, his white hair billowing behind him, got her blood racing. She wondered if all the other women and girls were experiencing the same thing. If so, there were going to be some awfully lucky husbands and boyfriends reaping the benefits.

But not for her. Not yet, at least. She glanced at the clock and sighed. It would be hours before she could do anything about the nagging desire coursing through her. Hours.

ETHAN BOUNCED THE basketball against the ground and made an easy jump shot from what would have been the top of the key on a real court. He'd gotten better at it since his tour in Iraq; in high school he'd set an unofficial record for missing the most open layups.

He turned as the gate on the privacy fence squeaked open. A dark-skinned Asian man, much shorter and slighter than Ethan, entered the enclosed yard behind Ethan's house. He wore jeans and a faded Milwaukee Brewers T-shirt.

"Hey, Marty," Ethan called to his brother.

"Got a beer?" Marty Walker asked.

"In the fridge."

Marty went inside and grabbed two bottles. He gave one to Ethan. "I hear you had some fun at the ground-breaking today."

"Yeah, you could say that. Some lunatic in a diaper tried to disrupt things."

"I also hear you ran into Rachel Matre."

Ethan frowned suspiciously. "And who told you that?"

"I'm a cop. I hear things."

"Yeah, well, I did, but that was all it was."

"So you didn't talk to her?"

"I was working, Marty."

Marty's face remained deadpan, but he clucked loudly like a chicken.

Ethan turned and shot the ball at the hoop, but it bounced impotently off the rim. "She said she'd call me when she was ready, Marty, and she hasn't called."

"Was she with anybody?"

Ethan caught the rebound, shot again, and this time missed entirely. "I don't want to talk about it, okay? I also saw Julie there, so why aren't you asking about her?"

"Because I thought you were smart enough to stay away from that." Marty set his beer on the patio table and caught the hard pass Ethan tossed at him. "I just can't believe you haven't at least called her. You're taking the whole keeping-my-word thing a bit too far, if you ask me." He jumped, shot, and hit nothing but net.

Ethan caught the ball on the first bounce. "Yeah, well, nobody asked you." But Marty's words only reinforced his own decision. It was time to stop waiting and take action. He dribbled to what would've been the three-point line on a real court, turned, and shot. This time, like his brother, he hit nothing but net.

PATTY PATILIA LAY on her bed in her underwear, the window open and an oscillating fan blowing across her sweaty skin. The afternoon had grown hot and still, and the scent of the lake drifted up from the shore. It reminded her of Dewey, and that in turn reminded her of their night together. It also brought back the vivid memory of the mysterious man who'd interrupted the ground-breaking ceremony. But even more, it recalled Rachel's story of the spirits living in the lake.

Patty had not been simply polite when she said she believed Rachel. As a child, Patty had regularly seen ghosts and faeries, and even as an adult she tried to stay open to the presence of the unseen. If someone as levelheaded and apparently normal as Rachel Matre believed there were spirits in the lake, then Patty had no problem accepting that.

And the kind of spirits Rachel described excited her.

She wondered, if she approached them and offered herself, if the spirits would come to her in the same way. The thought was alternately exhilarating and terrifying, but after her experience with Dewey, she wanted to have a regular lover. Her sexual experiences had been infrequent and seldom matched her expectations. Now she was ready to be shown again how a woman should feel under her lover's hands.

She rolled onto her side and retrieved her cellphone from the nightstand. She pulled up Rachel's number and was about to dial when she changed her mind. It seemed like the wrong subject for a mere phone call: Hi.... Whatcha doing? ... Oh, really? ... Say, do you think your supernatural lovers might have some available friends?

Instead she sat up, stripped, and went into the shower, turning up the water as cold as she could stand it. She was supposed to accompany another songwriter at a local coffeehouse near midnight, and at the moment she was too distracted to concentrate. As the icy water pattered against her skin, she took long, deep breaths and tried to think of nothing but music.

THE AFTERNOON GAVE way to an evening that, for Rachel, seemed to draw on forever. At this time of year, it stayed light until nearly ten o'clock, and people stayed on the streets-and in the parks-until even later. There was nothing to do but wait it out-which was more and more difficult as the darkness fell. She felt both tense and lethargic, and the desperation for contact with her spirit lovers was tempered by a sense of impending, inexorable doom.

Her cellphone rang at ten-thirty. She recognized the number and said, "Hi, Becky," as cheerily as she could.

"Hey," Becky said neutrally. "I hope it's not too late to call."

"I'm wide awake."

"Me too." She sighed-a sound that Rachel knew very well. "I've been going over the disaster in my head all day."

" *Disaster'?"

"At the park," Becky said impatiently. "In case you didn't know, that was a big deal for my boss, which makes it a big deal for me."

"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. Have they found that guy yet?"

"No, he hasn't popped back up. And he hasn't made any statements to the media."

"Maybe it was just a prank."

"No. Garrett has a lot of enemies, and I'm sure one of them is behind it. We just have to be ready for the next offensive."

"I'm sorry, sweetie."

There was a pause. When Becky spoke again, her words had their normal bitterness, but the tone was somber. "I have a problem of my own too. I don't know if you want to hear about it."

"Of course."

There was another pause. "I think I'm ..."

The connection hissed so long that Rachel was afraid they'd been cut off. "Becky?"

"Nothing." Becky sighed wearily. "It's my own problem. I'll deal with it. I'm sorry to bother you, Rachel."

"No bother," Rachel said, but Becky had already hung up.

She stared at the phone in her hand and considered calling her back. But their relationship didn't work that way. They spoke when Becky wanted, and only about Becky's problems.

And at the moment, Rachel had enough problems of her own.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

DETECTIVE LAYLA MORRISON sent the uniformed officer to the back of the apartment building to watch the patio doors. She'd seen too many suspects bolt out the back door when cops knocked on the front, and wanted to be certain this one wouldn't escape. Mayor Ciarimataro had personally told the chief to handle this quickly, and lucky Layla got the job.

She knocked firmly-the cop knock that everyone in these low-income apartments knew all too well. "Mr. Stillwater," she called, "it's the police. Open up."

It took a moment, but eventually the porch light came on and the door opened. A young man, clearly Native American, squinted out at Layla. "Yeah?" he said sleepily.

She held up her badge. "Detective Layla Morrison. Are you Kyle Stillwater?"

He looked puzzled. "Yes. Why?"

"May I come in?"

"Um ..."

"I come in, or you come downtown."

"Okay, okay. It's just ... I wasn't expecting company."