O’Brien whistled.

“Tell me I’m crazy,” Walt said.

“Wish I could,” O’Brien said, lighting another cigarette.

It felt as if several minutes passed. O’Brien with the cigarette. The sound of the creek.

O’Brien exhaled a pale cloud. “I can’t take this to Cutter as further proof of the hit. If that’s what you’re asking-”

“The hell you can’t.”

“Do you trust some guy who let his protesters cause two million dollars’ worth of damage in downtown Seattle? Patrick Cutter won’t.”

“She should cancel that speech.”

“He’s going to need more.”

“That’s bullshit,” Walt said.

“Patrick will see this as a negotiating stance, nothing more. He eats guys like Bartholomew for lunch. This kid has zero credibility.”

O’Brien’s words stayed with Walt as he entered the air terminal. He’d received a message that Pete-the former volunteer fireman who now ran airport security-had to see him immediately. He’d called but reached voice mail. Heading to Hailey anyway, he swung by the airport.

“Hey, Walt,” Pete said, greeting him at the automatic doors. He’d been waiting for him. Pete wore extra-extra-large and had hands like an NBA player. He sounded as if he’d smoked from birth.

“What have you got?” Walt asked, releasing the handshake before it became a contest.

“Yesterday. You and Brandon,” Pete said. “The dog thing.”

“Yes.”

“Flight seventeen-forty-six.”

“If you say so,” Walt said. He followed down a wide corridor to the two small and unattended airline counters, pushed through a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The back room was crowded with unclaimed luggage.

“Pete, it’s been a long day.”

“The way it works anymore,” Pete said, “is we gotta send back lost items to Salt Lake. They got the full-size X-ray machines down there. But we can’t scan ’em because of their size, so we open them up. In this case we could scan it, and we also did a hand search.”

“Pete,” Walt said again.

“Yesterday you were looking for some guy on flight seventeen-forty-six. Today we got ourselves an unclaimed bag from seventeen-forty-six.” He mugged for Walt, letting him stew. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, Walt, except for its contents.”

“Its contents,” Walt repeated.

Pete hoisted the bag onto a table and dumped it upside down. The contents scattered. Pete said, “Suture, bandages. Hypodermic needles. Fuckin’ traveling emergency room. Only thing missing is a scalpel, and you got yourself a regular surgical suite.”

Walt moved the contents around, using his pen. “You touch any of this?”

“No, sir,” Pete said.

“It’s good work, Pete,” Walt said. “Syringes got through security?”

“Diabetics are allowed syringes. See ’em all the time. More than one or two, you’re usually asked to put it in with the checked luggage. Not always.”

Walt inventoried the contents. A navy blue sweater. A paperback novel by Leslie Silbert. Three boxes of bandage wrap. A box of butterfly bandages. A pair of forceps. Two pairs of needle holders. Two containers of suture marked Ethicon #3 and Ethicon #0. A box of latex gloves. “Shit,” Walt said. “No ID?”

“No. None.”

He studied the sweater. “Some hairs, looks like. Maybe some prints on these boxes, or the forceps.”

“Who leaves something like this behind? You know? Wouldn’t you come back to get it? I would.”

Walt returned the contents to the bag. He noted a white loop of stretch string at the bottom of one of the back straps. “This coulda been an ID,” he said.

“Could have been tore off years ago.”

Walt glanced around the disorganized room and its filthy floor. “Do me a favor and ask these guys to sweep up. Let’s run any loose ID tags they find.”

“Against passenger manifest,” Pete stated. “Done.”

Walt wrote down the contents of the bag.

“Listen, Pete…could you buy me the weekend, before sending it down there?” Walt asked. He knew TSA regulations were strict. “I’d like to get some of these items to the Nampa lab. The lab will do weekend work for the right price.”

“Prints…” Pete said. “You think?”

“It’s possible.”

“I got ya covered. It’ll miss the morning flight. Shit happens.” Pete sniggered. He zipped the bag shut and handed it to Walt. “Monday morning, I need it back by seven.”

Walt thanked him. Right or wrong, he connected the bag to the shooter. The medical contents suggested the preparation for injury. If the man was prepared to doctor himself, he meant business.

And if such a man was so prepared to treat himself, then what exactly did he have planned for Liz Shaler?

A t a few minutes before 1 A.M., as the bars were closing, the quiet streets briefly came alive again. Vehicles filled Main Street. The sidewalks were crowded with late night revelers. A young woman bent over and emptied her stomach into the gutter.

This was also the hour that city police and deputy sheriffs set speed traps and watched for erratic driving. Trevalian had a thirty-minute window. By 1:30 A.M. the town would be dead and the cops would respond more quickly to a break-in.

It took him seven minutes to pick the lock on the back door of Suds Tub. He entered to the alarm system’s steady beeping-a thirty-second grace period to enter a pass code. He had options open to him if he failed to disarm it in time, but he kept a running count as he located the alarm box. Five seconds. Flipped open the panel and keyed in the last four digits of the laundry’s phone number. Ten seconds…the warning beep continued.

He crossed the room to the cash register. Fifteen seconds…Ran his gloved hand around the shelving and came up with a small key that opened the cash register.

Twenty seconds…

Opened the cash register. Removed the empty tray. Cleared away some receipts. There! On the bottom of the drawer was a handwritten number on a small piece of paper covered in layers of Scotch tape: 4376.

Twenty-five…twenty-six…

He raced back to the alarm box on the back wall.

Twenty-eight…twenty-nine…

He quickly keyed in 4376.

The beeping stopped. The red flashing LED on the device disappeared. He locked the door from the inside. He carried a Maglite with red tape over the lens, cutting back its brightness. He ran a quick inspection: no motion sensors. He rearmed the alarm, working under the assumption that leaving a commercial building without its alarm engaged might raise suspicions. The box beeped for another thirty seconds and then went silent-the system active.

He had fifty or sixty identical blue bags to search. One of them was Shaler’s. He checked the tags and rolled bags out of his way.

Vehicles sped past, out on the street. A group of noisy kids left their shadows on the front window. Trevalian had pulled a balaclava over his head, but he lifted it to get better vision. He worked methodically through the piled sacks.

Ten minutes into it, he located Shaler’s. He opened it and, with the Maglite clenched between his teeth, searched the contents. He took out a bra, two pairs of panties, and finally touched the Holy Grail: a Capilene, pull-on, sports top. He sniffed just to make sure: sour. He tucked these items into a pouch on the back of his shirt, pulled the drawstring on the sack, and was in the midst of tying it shut when the back door was kicked in. Simultaneously, the alarm box began its countdown.

Trevalian pulled the balaclava over his face. Police? Two people came through the door. But with them backlit by a streetlamp, he saw they were too small to be adults. They were just kids. He decided to intimidate.

“Who’s there?” he shouted, stepping forward.

The kids panicked. One turned, stumbled over a drum of chemicals, rose to his feet, and sprinted to the nearest window, which he promptly dove through. Or tried to. A crash of glass, but he didn’t make it all the way. Thrashing and bleeding, he fell back inside the building.