"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. It's just that he's concerned that they suspect him now for some reason...You know, just 'cause he was out there."

"Well, was he being suspicious? I mean, more suspicious than usual?"

"Now, Grant..."

"That was a dumb thing for him to do, Mike, but if he hasn't done anything wrong then tell him he's got nothing to worry about. It's that simple."

"Could you just call that FBI agent up for me, Grant? Just ask him story, you know...ask him if my brother's a suspect."

Oh, great. He thought about that. He didn't like the gist of the phone call. What if Evan really was guilty of something? Would Mike be compelled to cover it up? "I'll make the call, but no promises, okay?"

"Fine, Grant, no problem."

I don't like this, he thought. I don't like this one bit.

Mike changed the subject. "How's Cherrie?"

"She hasn't come home yet."

"And Amanda...?"

"Same as usual. I'll talk to you later, Mike. I'll make some inquiries."

"Thanks for that, Grant."

He returned to the bedroom and Amanda was there, waiting for him. To him she was the most beautiful woman in the world, even now. Even like this. She had suffered limb paralysis, and it was increasingly difficult for her to speak or swallow. They had to suction the moisture out of the back of her throat so she wouldn't die from inhaling the amount of saliva that healthy people routinely swallow.

Lou Gehrig's Disease was more common in older men, but here she was, not yet fifty, and already the disease was destroying her motor neurons at an alarming pace. Her muscles were deteriorating rapidly, and through it all that wonderful mind of hers was just as it had always been. She had been diagnosed just over a year earlier, and the doctors said she had a few months left in her at the most.

"Sorry, honey, I just need to make a call, and I'll be back with you in a moment," he told her.

She didn't reply, but he knew she understood.

He grabbed his wallet off the table and walked back into the hallway, carefully closing the bedroom door. He had Dr Harris's card with the number for his room at the Renaissance Hotel scrawled on the back. Mike had already programmed the number into the mobile phone for him, but he didn't have the slightest idea how to retrieve it.

Dr Harris picked up almost immediately.

"Bob speaking."

"Dr Harris, it's Sergeant Wilson."

"Grant. How are you?"

"Fine, Bob. Except...Well, to tell you the truth I'm calling because...umm. Is Evan Rose on a list of possible suspects in the Nahatlatch Murders Case?"

"Ahhhh...He's your colleague's brother, am I right?"

"Yeah, that's right. Look, don't get me wrong, I know he's trouble, but he's not that kind of trouble."

"What exactly do you mean?"

Grant did his best to backtrack, realising what he'd said. "I don't mean anything by that. I just mean that-"

"This is a little awkward," Dr Harris said. "Perhaps we should get together and talk about this? And I don't think it's a good idea to discuss this with your partner, if you haven't already."

"Why does Evan interest you?" Grant asked.

"He was lurking around the dump sites. He holds a current hunting licence," Bob said. "And he's a UBC dropout."

"I know, but...why is that relevant?"

"This is just routine," he a.s.sured him. "He was out snooping around the area and we need to eliminate him as a suspect. I'm sure you'll agree. We'll discuss it tomorrow. In the meantime, if you could throw some cold water on the situation with your partner that would be great."

Dr Harris hung up the phone. "This could get complicated."

Andy shook his head. "You're not going to be very popular with the Mounties."

Bob didn't look too worried. "It isn't a popularity contest. If this guy fits the profile, which he does, then we have to look into it. Thank G.o.d he's just family and not actual RCMP. I don't care so much about Corporal Rose, but I want to keep this Wilson onside if I can. He's a good cop. I could use his help."

Andy closed the file he was looking at. The crime scene photos were ugly. They had spent some time roaming around the dump sites and discussing the case with Wilson and Rose, who seemed more relaxed about his presence now. Andy had not worked a lot of serials apart from the Stiletto Killer Case, but his training told him that they were dealing with a very different personality this time around. This guy wasn't messing with the bodies as much. No apparent mutilation. Shooting was much less intimate than what the Stiletto Killer had done.

He and Dr Harris had decided to work on the case together. It would act as some good apprentice work, and would look great on Andy's CV. But even more than that, he was genuinely interested in a.s.sessing the possible danger to Makedde while the killer was loose. He suspected that Bob knew about his ulterior motive, but was playing along anyway.

"What have you got on this guy?" he asked.

"There's no hard evidence of course, but he fits the profile well, and we need to look into it." Bob walked over to the window and crossed his arms. The pose reminded Andy of Detective Inspector Kelley back home-another man he respected a lot.

"Evan Rose, twenty-eight years old, no steady job, lives alone. Known for his antisocial behaviour. He's been picked up during bar fights, that sort of thing. Never actually convicted of any a.s.sault, though. He's a UBC dropout who may hold a grudge against academics or successful students. The victims were bright and attractive. Maybe his student sweetheart jilted him? Remind me to check into that."

"Doesn't look good, does it?"

The victims were bright and attractive... "It looks good for us if he's the guy. I don't care who his brother is. Evan Rose has just emerged as one of the prime suspects."

CHAPTER 25.

Debbie was exhausted. As much as she tried to concentrate on her dilemma and how she could get out of it, she couldn't ignore the hollow ache in her belly. She was starving. She had been restrained in that same spot for almost three days now, and her whole body cried out for release. She needed to move. She needed to rotate her wrists, to walk, to stretch, but she was trapped.

For the moment she let her head hang to one side. She had struggled and screamed and begged and fought, and now she was simply still. She no longer believed she could sway the man who had captured her. She had exhausted all of her strategies, and found a sad, pitiful place within herself that was calm and obedient.

Just do what you want and then let me go.

The man had done many strange and confusing things. Sometimes he seemed to enjoy watching her struggle, but even so, Debbie had heard about the sorts of atrocities that people can commit, and she knew that men in his position could do far worse things. Perhaps he was working his way up to something?

She looked aimlessly around the room, over the wooden floors and into the darkened corners, and saw a pair of strange, lifeless eyes. It was a stuffed rabbit. The small creature stared at her-fearfully, she thought-from its spot on a table to her right.

A great crashing sound ripped into her train of thought, and her captor burst in unexpectedly. She jumped in her chair, sending a rush of pain through her ankles and up her legs. The chair screeched as it hopped back. She screamed and tucked her chin down, locking her eyes tightly shut.

"Stop that!" he yelled. "Stop that!"

I didn't do anything! she wanted to scream, but she was too afraid to speak.

Debbie cringed at his ferocious temper. But he was crying too, actually crying like a child, and through her bleary eyes she saw his fist come towards her, sailing through the air in slow motion, and she tried to duck, but there was nowhere to go.

Her body hit the floor with a thud, the pain in her jaw excruciating. A great black void beckoned her into unconsciousness.

She went willingly.

CHAPTER 26.

By the third day of the conference Makedde had a lot of things on her mind, not least of which involved two men and the relentless worsening of her insomnia. She was seriously considering calling Ann.

Things had certainly gone well with Roy Blake the night before, but that hadn't helped her sleep. She stopped drinking after the chocolate martini so there was no hangover to worry about, but she wasn't nearly drunk enough to enjoy an alcohol-aided slumber. She'd had the usual nightmare-her father's uniform, her mother dead.

Roy Blake.

She had half expected an email from him in the morning and she felt a little disappointed when she didn't find one. This feeling vanished though when she almost fell over a large bundle of pristine, cellophane-wrapped, long-stemmed red roses that had been left on the front steps of her flat.

Thanks for the lovely company, the card said-Roy.

That felt pretty good-flattering, definitely, and a great distraction from the other male who had recently flown back into her life. She had to do her best not to start thinking about him again, just because he was in town. He wasn't there to see her, after all. It was business. And there was no way they could be together.

The schedule on the third day of the psychopathy conference had been interesting, but it wasn't a patch on the presentations given by Dr Hare or the Profiler, Dr Harris, on the first two days. Andy wasn't there, or if he was, he was being elusive. Mak tried to convince herself that she was glad of it, but she wasn't. What was he up to in Vancouver? She felt sure he wasn't just sightseeing.

Stop it. Stop thinking about him.

Her answering machine was flashing when she got home, and she hoped it was Roy.

It was.

"Hi, Mak. Thanks for a lovely evening. Perhaps we can do it again sometime? Soon?"

She breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, that would be nice. Next message.

"Hi, Mak." It was her father's familiar voice. "You've had a couple of calls over here..."

That could only mean one thing. The only people that would be calling for her at her father's home on the island were the Tax Department and Andy Flynn. It was not tax time.

"...from Andy. He called for you twice today. He seems quite eager to get hold of you. He left his number at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Vancouver..."

Oh, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. Don't give me his number!

Her father carefully said the phone number twice and finished off by saying, "If you want my advice, you should probably just call him and get it over with. Otherwise I'll end up becoming your social secretary."

Cheeky, Dad. Cheeky.

Now her own father was encouraging her to call him. She had a decision to make.

Makedde had to play the message again to get the hotel phone number right. Despite her father's slow and careful recitation, she had tried to block the digits out of her mind the first two times. She jotted the number down on a piece of sc.r.a.p paper. Should I? She dialled.

One ring. "Flynn," was his greeting.

She was caught off guard. Somehow she hadn't expected him to be there. "Ahh, Andy. Hi. It's Makedde."

"Makedde! h.e.l.lo. Thanks for calling." The tone of his voice seemed so grateful for her call that she found herself feeling guilty for ever having considered doing otherwise.

"How's it going?" Mak asked. She didn't know what else to say.

"Oh, pretty good."

"You weren't at the conference today," she said.

"No." Pause. "Makedde, I'd like the chance to talk with you at some point. As soon as possible, actually."

"Um..." How do I respond to that? "Sure." It was the polite thing to do, probably also the right thing to do, but Makedde wasn't ready to spend time alone with Andy just yet. "Yeah, that'd be nice," she went on. "It'd be good to catch up."

"Okay. Well...what are you doing tonight?"

Tonight!

"Um, I don't think-" she began.

He jumped straight in with an apology. "Sorry. I'm sure you're really busy-"

"That's alright. You don't have to apologise or anything. It's just late notice, that's all."

"Of course it is. It's just that..." He paused. "There is something I need to talk with you about...in person."

His voice gave her a chill, or maybe it was the words themselves that reminded her of a time when she had begun to suspect him of the most heinous crime. Then suddenly he was at her door, unannounced, pleading to talk with her..."There's something I need to talk with you about...in person."

"Forgive me," she said. "But that sounds a little cryptic." She let out a short, nervous laugh, and when her laugh was not returned she fell silent.