"The cops, yes. The feds, yes. You? Well, you've been looking at maps and lists and autopsy reports and compiling profiles. You even climbed half a mountain today. But you weren't trying to find him, you were running behind him trying to find his victims. The way you've been doing for the past year and a half."

"Don't do this, Sam."

"Why not?" She refolded the handkerchief and dabbed at the last of the blood, looking away from him at last to watch what she was doing. "You're going to despise me by the time this is done anyway, so I might as well get everything I have to say said and out into the open."

"This is not the time or the place-"

"This is the only place we have, Luke, and time's running out. Or hadn't you noticed? You won one today, remember? You beat the bastard. And we both know he is not going to be gracious in defeat. He'll be on to the next move, probably already. Selecting his next victim, if he or she wasn 't already chosen long before now. Getting one of his remaining killing machines all polished up and ready."

Lucas drew a breath and said steadily, "It's nearly ten. Why don't you get changed and take off the makeup, and we'll get out of here."

"You can find him, you know."

"Sam, please."

"He feeds on fear, Luke. If what I saw when I touched that pendant is true, he's been feeding on fear for a long, long time. It's all inside him. You can feel that. All you have to do is tap in."

"I'll wait for you outside." He left the booth.

Samantha gazed after him for a long moment, then got to her feet and went into the curtained-off area in back. She changed out of her Madam Zarina getup and creamed away all the makeup, thinking as she studied her face in the mirror that there was less and less difference, these days, between the aged face of Madam Zarina and her own.

Moving more slowly than was usual for her, she neatly put away her makeup and other supplies, finished clearing up the space, and then went outside the booth to join Luke.

Looking at the bright, noisy carnival all around them, she said absently, "I wonder if he's here? Watching us. I wonder what it is about this place that fascinates him."

"You," Lucas said.

Before she could respond to that, Leo appeared, to say worriedly, "Sam, Ellis told me about the nosebleed. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Just a little tired."

"I'm taking her back to the motel," Lucas said.

"Try to get her to sleep late, will you?" Leo asked. "And, Sam, no reading tomorrow night. In fact, no carnival. I've already posted the notice that we'll be closed tomorrow night."

"No need to on my account."

Leo shook his head. "On everybody's account. You haven't been around much, so you haven't realized that everybody is on edge and anxious. There's just too much going on around here. I've even been asked by a few to pull up stakes in Golden and move on."

Samantha didn't look at Lucas. "We're only supposed to stay here until next Monday."

"Yeah. And we will-unless you change your mind about that."

"We'll see," she said.

"Just let me know." Leo sighed. "In the meantime, it'll do everybody good to have a night off. Matter of fact, I think most of them want to go into town, stay at the motel. I can't make out whether it's nerves or just the usual occasional need to sleep somewhere other than the caravans."

Lucas took Samantha's hand, rather surprising her, and said to Leo, "Keep an eye on your people. I don't think this killer would target any of you, but I can't be sure. So watch your backs."

"We will, Luke. Thanks."

As he led her back toward the parking area and his rental car, Samantha said quietly, "Leo's still grateful that you stood behind the carnival three years ago. When that garbage about gypsies stealing children hit the papers, a lot of ugly things started happening. If you hadn't convinced the local police to provide some security for us and gone on the record as saying no one in the carnival was involved, God knows where it would have ended."

"I was doing my job."

"You did more than your job, and we both know it."

Lucas silently unlocked the rental car and opened the passenger door for her.

She got in, once again conscious of weariness. And she wondered, as he came around the car and slid behind the wheel, if her plan was going to work. She wasn't sure, not anymore. Yes, Luke had been able to find the sheriff today, in time and against all odds, but she had the sense now that his walls were even higher and thicker than they had been before.

She had gotten too close and he had shut down. Maybe for good.

As they left the fairgrounds, he said, "I need to stop by my room and pick up a few things."

"You don't have to stay with me tonight."

"I'm not going to argue about this, Sam. I'm staying. For the duration."

"If I have to have a watchdog, I'm sure Jaylene wouldn't mind a roommate."

"Stop pushing, Sam."

"I'm not pushing, I'm trying to give you an out."

"I don't want an out."

"Right, you just want to punish me with the silent treatment."

"I'm not trying to-" He shook his head. "Christ, you make me crazy."

"It doesn't show. Very little shows, really, most of the time. On your face. There's intensity inside, force, but you keep it damped down almost always, out of sight. Is that the way you were raised, to show no emotion, no feeling? Is that part of it?"

Lucas didn't answer. In fact, he didn't say a word for the remainder of the trip to his motel and then back to hers. Samantha remained silent as well, and once they were inside the room she left him locking the door and went to take her usual shower.

She didn't linger, this time, under the hot water; it failed to either relax her or even begin to warm the chill deep inside her. She got out and dried off, put on her nightgown and robe. She toweled her hair, then used the wall hair dryer to completely dry it because she felt so cold.

When she came out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, she found Lucas on his feet but frowning at the television, and when she followed his gaze she could see why.

The exterior of the sheriff's department-and their arrival with Wyatt Metcalf.

The anchorwoman was briskly introducing the reporter on the scene, and then he was on-screen with the sheriff's department behind him. His voice held that urgent if muted excitement that was so common in television journalism, as he quickly brought viewers up to speed on the investigation and then detailed today's search and rescue of the sheriff of Clayton County.

"… and a source close to the investigation claims that deputies and federal agents were aided in their search for the sheriff by an avowed psychic. The woman's name is Samantha Burke, though she uses the name Madam Zarina when she tells fortunes in a carnival currently set up here in Golden. My source claims that she has apparently involved herself before in police investigations."

Amazing, Samantha thought, how "involved herself" could sound so suspicious.

"Tom, have the police or federal agents confirmed that Miss Burke helped them to locate Sheriff Metcalf?"

"No, Darcell, officials refused to comment. However, my source is certain that she played a major role in recovering the sheriff alive, and locals are talking of little else. Earlier today, Miss Burke herself made a brief statement on the steps of the sheriff's department, claiming that the person who abducted and murdered Detective Lindsay Graham last week had left an object in the detective's apartment, which Miss Burke says triggered a vision. She did not share details of the supposed vision, but stated that she was certain the same person had abducted Sheriff Metcalf. She appeared willing to say more, but one of the federal agents involved in the investigation cut the statement short and pulled her into the building."