Serena slowed the Bronco to a crawl. On a stretch of straightaway, she saw a stake jutting at an angle out of the snow on the right shoulder. A white piece of cloth was tied around the stake and hung limply in the still air. She steered off the road and killed the engine, then got out and closed the door with a quiet snick. She stopped and listened. The night was silent, except for the rumble of a train far down in the port area below her. The clouds had passed away. Overhead, she saw a jumble of constellations and a slim moon. She took stock of the park around her. On her left was a steep hillside, and she could make out graves scattered among the trees. On her right was a tattered mesh fence mostly buried in snow. The cemetery continued beyond the fence, and she could see a plowed-out section of road where mourners could drive out to the plots.

She was dressed entirely in black: black jeans, a black turtleneck that nestled against her chin, and Stride's beat-up black leather jacket that was warm and roomy. The jacket hid the holster for the Glock secured near her left shoulder. She wasn't taking any chances. Not with a blackmailer. Not in an empty cemetery at midnight. And not with an envelope bulging with ten thousand dollars in cash inside the jacket pocket.

The snow was matted down. She climbed the shoulder of the road and then stepped over the crooked section of fence. On the other side, her feet landed in wetter, deeper snow, and some of it got into her boots. She felt cold dampness soaking through her socks. She slogged through the snow and broke free onto the plowed road, where she stopped again. The trees loomed around her like sentinels. Most were evergreens, but there were a few stripped oaks, barren of leaves. She took careful steps, trying to hush her footfalls. She slipped a flashlight out of her pocket and cast the beam around, lighting up several headstones. She read the names: Boe, Beckmann, Anderson.

Serena wasn't superstitious by nature, but a sixth sense made her jump. She wasn't alone.

"Turn off the flashlight."

Something about the voice made her body melt with fear, as if she were a frightened teenager. She thought about reaching for her gun, but she soothed herself and swallowed hard. Her mouth was dry. She switched off the light, and her eyes, accustomed to the beam, went blind again.

"Come closer."

She waited until she could see. He quickly became impatient.

"Now."

Serena saw a silhouette near one of the skeletal oak trees. She drew near him, feeling the weight of the gun on her left side comfort her. Somewhere not far away, a dog bayed like a banshee. Its howl was plaintive and scared, and the sound reminded her that the rest of the world wasn't so far away. But no one was close enough to make a difference if things went bad.

She tried to make him out and narrowed her eyes, squinting. He was standing where the ground rose above her. He had a bulky coat with a fur hood pulled up over his head. His face was invisible. His arms hung down at his side, long, like ape limbs. She realized that he held things in both hands that made his arms look as if they dropped all the way to his knees. His left hand held a heavy flashlight. His right hand held a gun.

"Seen enough?" he asked.

Meaning: had she seen the gun?

He switched on the flashlight and directed the intense beam at her face. She felt a sharp pain as the light hit her pupils, and she covered her face and backed away.

"Turn that off, you son of a bitch," she snapped.

He laughed in a low, deep rumble and switched the light off.

"Let's get this over with," Serena said. "Neither one of us wants to be out here long."

"You mean you want to get back into bed with your cop lover?"

Serena let a few seconds of cold silence pass. "So you know who I am. Am I supposed to be scared?"

"I think you are."

"Big words from a blackmailer. Blackmailers are cowards. You can't let me see your face. You steal someone's secrets and pretend it makes you a big man. Stealing secrets is what little girls do."

He didn't answer right away, and then he said, "I could tell you what I do to little girls."

"What, do you dress up like them?"

"Watch your mouth," he said.

"I'm not afraid of a pissant blackmailer. Do you want the money or not?"

"Did you count it?"

"Yes."

"Ten thousand?"

"Yes."

"I hope you didn't do something stupid like mark the bills or write down the serial numbers. Or tell your cop lover about this."

"I guess you'll have to take your chances," Serena said.

"So will you. Don't forget that."

"You're taking a big risk, blackmailing someone like Dan," she told him.

"Yeah? People like Dan pay me because they keep one face for the world and one face for all the fucking games they play when no one's watching. You don't know the shit that goes down in this town. You and your cop lover, you're blind."

"So it's not just Dan," Serena concluded. "Who else are you doing this to?"

"Like I said, some people around here have dirty secrets."

Serena reached inside her jacket pocket.

"Stop," he snapped, instantly raising his gun, pointing it at her head.

"I'm getting your money."

He blinded her with the flashlight again. "Slowly. Use two fingers. Don't be stupid."

She extracted the envelope and held it up. "See?"

"Put it on the headstone and back away."

She saw a stone encrusted with dead moss near her feet. It slanted backward toward the ground. The name, partly eroded by time, read BURNS. She lay the envelope on the arched summit of the marker and backed up slowly.

"That's far enough," he called when she was another fifteen feet away. "Turn around. Get on your knees."

"No way."

"Get on your knees."

"I'm not turning my back on you."

"Just do it."

She sank to her knees in the snow. The wetness soaked through her jeans. "Make it fast."

He kept the flashlight in her face. She couldn't see a thing and had to close her eyes. She heard him slide down the low slope. The snow crunched under his boots as he came closer. Her bare hands stiffened in the cold, and she fluttered her fingers to limber them up, in case she needed to dive into her coat for her gun. He was at the headstone. She heard him ruffling through the cash in the envelope.

She waited for what he would do next. She listened carefully for any footstep that meant he was walking toward her.

"See you soon," he said.

The white light disappeared behind her eyelids. She opened her eyes, blinking, seeing nothing but aftershocks of light. She heard footsteps heading away from her. He was jogging as he retreated up the hillside. When she could finally see again, she caught only a fleeting glimpse of a moving silhouette, and then it blended into darkness with the rest of the trees.

She was alone.

Serena pushed herself to her feet and brushed the snow away. She climbed back up to the fence by the road and stepped over it again. Her breathing was loud and fast. Her pulse was galloping like a Thoroughbred. Stride's Bronco had never looked so good.

Closer by, the dog howled again. It was loose. Or maybe it was a prowling wolf, not a dog at all. She didn't want to stick around and find out.