"Do you know there is?"

"Yes."

"Heaven and hell?"

"That would be all nice and simple, wouldn't it? Be good and go to heaven; be bad and go to hell. Black and white. Rules to live by, to keep everybody civilized. But life isn't simple, so I don't know why we expect death to be. What there is… is continued existence. Complex, multilayered, and unique to every individual. Just like life is. That much I am sure of."

Perhaps not surprisingly, Caitlin found that more comforting than all the sermons preached at her since childhood Sunday school.

"It's cold and wet out here," Samantha said. "And those guys over there need to finish their work. I don't think we need to be here for that. Why don't we go get a cup of coffee or something?"

Caitlin returned her gaze to her sister's casket for a moment, then walked around the grave and joined Samantha. "Coffee sounds good," she said as they headed toward the road.

She didn't look back.

Leo Tedesco stood well back from the cemetery, but he had a clear view nevertheless. He watched the short graveside service, too far away to hear what was said and not particularly sorry about that; death depressed him. Violent death upset him.

Lindsay Graham's murder made him sick to his stomach.

Samantha hadn 't wanted company, so he had followed at a distance without her knowledge and watched. Watched her keep herself apart from the service as she stood back among the graves yards away from where Lindsay was being laid to rest. Watched as she had deliberately kept herself out of Wyatt Metcalf's line of sight.

The two federal agents, Leo realized, were perfectly aware of her presence, but neither approached her either during the service or afterward, and they left without speaking to her.

He found it hard to forgive them for that.

He watched her talking to Lindsay's sister and watched them leave together.

It wasn't like Samantha, Leo thought, to meddle. Inside her booth, Madam Zarina offered advice and answers to troubled questions, but outside it Samantha minded her own business and scrupulously avoided the business of others. It had been a hard lesson learned, but she had learned it well. So what was she up to now?

The Carnival After Dark was scheduled to leave Golden in exactly one week-always assuming, of course, that Sheriff Metcalf didn't run them out of town sooner. Their schedule was set, with stops planned for several towns in the Southeast as they worked their way back down to Florida and their winter home.

So far, Samantha hadn't asked Leo to alter those plans, but he was uneasily afraid she might. He didn't have to be psychic himself to know she was bothered by this serial kidnapper, that she felt somehow compelled to involve herself in the situation. He even thought he knew why.

Luke.

In the fifteen years he had known her, Leo had only once seen Samantha lose her native hardheaded practicality, and the pain of that experience had changed her forever. Something in her had been destroyed, he thought. Not wantonly or even deliberately, but destroyed nevertheless.

That saddened Leo. It also made him angry. "Stand out here much longer and you're going to be real conspicuous. Not exactly the best thing to be in Golden right now."

Leo started and turned his head to stare at the man who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "How long have you been here?" he demanded.

"Since before the service."

"Why?" Leo answered his own question. "You're watching Sam, aren't you?"

"Don't you think I should be?"

Leo chewed on his bottom lip. "I don't know. She won't like it, I know that."

"I don't give a shit what she likes." "Then why aren't you following her now?" "I don't have to follow her. She's with Caitlin Graham, having coffee at that little dive just down the road. What passes for a dive in this town, anyway. The coffee might poison her, but nothing else is going to happen in there."

Leo shook his head, worried. "She's out in the open, exposed. Used to, she could go anywhere off carnival grounds and not be recognized. But the newspapers have been running pictures of her without the Zarina getup. Everybody knows what Samantha Burke looks like now. I mean, she might as well have a giant bull's-eye painted on her back. Have you seen the newspapers? Seen what they're reporting on TV?"

"Yeah."

"The town of Golden may not have made up its collective mind about Sam, but the media sure as hell has. They just love the idea of a genuine psychic. And it's only a matter of time before the state and regional attention goes national. One slow news day, and I'll be fielding calls from CNN."

"They have no proof she's genuine; the sheriff's department refused to confirm that she was ever under suspicion, much less that she predicted Detective Graham's kidnapping-or any kidnapping-and was under voluntary observation to clear her name when it occurred."

"Have you been watching the same thing as I have on TV?" Leo demanded. "Reading the same newspapers? They don't need any proof or confirmation to speculate, and they're speculating like crazy."

"It's good for the carnival."

"In the short run, you bet it is. Plenty of publicity, and droves of the curious buying tickets. I'm not so sure about the long run, though. Or about the effect this is going to have on Sam. She's already working too many long hours and hardly sleeping. You know as well as I do she can't keep that up for long, living on caffeine, her nerves, and the late show."

"You are from a different generation."

Leo frowned. "What? Oh-the late-show reference?"

"Well, it does date you a bit. In this age of twenty-four-seven entertainment, there's no such thing as late, let alone a late show. No national anthem and snowy TV screen to lull us to sleep in the wee small hours."

"You obviously remember what it was like."

"Hearsay. An older cousin used to tell us scary stories. He got them from something called Shock Theater-his local version of:he late show, I believe. Ghosties and ghoulies and things that went bump in the night."

Leo was aware of a little chill he couldn't really explain. His frown deepened. "Do we really need to discuss popular culture right now?"

"One of us does."

"Would you please be serious?"

"I," the visitor said calmly, "am as serious as a heart attack."

Despite his question, Leo hadn't needed the reminder. "Then tell me what you're going to do about this," he demanded.

"I'll do what I get paid to do."

"Which is?"

"For now, wait."

"Wait? What the hell for?"

"Believe it or not, for a sign."

Leo blinked. "A sign?"

"Yeah. I'm told I'll know it when I see it. And I shouldn't allow it to distract me. Nothing so far has looked like a sign, at least not to me. So… I wait."

"People are dying, or hadn't you noticed?" Leo met the other man's gaze and had to fight the impulse to take a step back. There were, he decided, men you just didn't want to push. And this was one of them. He really needed to remember that. "I'm just saying," he added hastily.

"Yeah, well, tell somebody who doesn't know. I do."

"Right. Sure." Leo hesitated, then said tentatively, "Any idea when this sign is going to show itself?"

"Not really, no."

"You sound a little…"

"Wouldn't you?"

Leo thought about it, and nodded. "Yeah. Guess I would. Frustrated and feeling sort of… useless."

"Thank you so much for putting it into words."

Deciding to quit while he was still in one piece, Leo cleared his throat and asked, "Are you coming back to the carnival?"

"Not just yet."

Venturing one last comment, Leo said, "I thought you said you didn't have to follow Sam."

"Didn't say I wouldn't keep an eye on her.

"She was afraid."

Without looking up from the autopsy report he was studying, Lucas said evenly, "Of course she was afraid."