There was what appeared to be a small farmhouse to the left and just inside the surprisingly pretty brick and wrought-iron fencing. Tessa had only a moment or two to wonder if the clearly very sturdy and certainly very expensive fence ran around the entire two-hundred-acre Compound, before she saw a tall man in jeans and a flannel shirt come out of the house and approach the other side of the gate.

The two sides of the gate opened inward as he neared them, giving Tessa an unsettling feeling that wasn't lessened a bit by his casual air or by the fact that he addressed her by name as soon as she put the car window downand she had never met him before in her life.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Gray. Come for a visit?"

Tessa managed to avoid even a glance at the plain gold band on her left hand, its weight still an unfamiliar, slightly uncomfortable sensation. "Yes. Ruth said" She broke off when he nodded.

"Of course. She'll be waiting for you at the Square. Just continue along the drive all the way to the end. And welcome."

"Thank you." Tessa hoped he couldn't see that her fingers were white-knuckled with tension on the steering wheel as she drove through the gates and followed the long asphalt drive that disappeared into a dense-looking forest.

She glanced into the rearview mirror in time to see the big gates slowly closing behind her, and her feeling of being trapped owed nothing to any sense except the very primitive one of self-preservation.

Sawyer Cavenaugh didn't think he'd ever get used to it. In the ten years since the Church of the Everlasting Sin had set up its main parish in Grace, and most especially in the past two years since he'd been chief of police, he had never seen any church member away from the others alone. They always traveled in pairs, or groups of three or four, but never alone.

Except for the guy at the gate, who was always seen alone.

Unless you were a cop, of course, and were perfectly aware of being closely observed from that innocuous little "farmhouse" a few yards away just inside the fence.

There might be video security. There was certainly someone watching from behind at least one of those mirrorlike windows. Maybe armedthough Sawyer had never once seen any evidence, any sign whatsoever, of guns anywhere in the Compound.

And he had looked. Hard.

"Good afternoon, Chief Cavenaugh. What can we do for you today?"

"Afternoon, Carl." Sawyer smiled a smile every bit as polite and false as the one being smiled at him. "I called ahead and spoke to DeMarco. We're expected." He knew damn well that Carl Fisk knew they were expected.

He always knew, and they always played this little game anyway.

"Ah, of course. Officer Keever."

"Mr. Fisk." Robin's voice was entirely formal and professional; she wasn't one to make the same mistake twice.

Fisk kept his meaningless smile in place as he stepped back and gestured. "I'm sure you know the way. Mr. DeMarco will meet you at the church, as usual."

Sawyer nodded and drove the Jeep through the open gate.

"I don't like that guy," Robin announced in a decided tone. "He smiles too much."

"You read Shakespeare?"

"That one may smile and be a villain? Yeah."

"Smart guy, that Shakespeare. And a gifted observer."

"You don't like Fisk either."

Sawyer smiled faintly. "Now, did I say that?"

"Yes." Robin followed up that defiant statement with a far more hesitant "Didn't you?"

"As a matter of fact, I did." He didn't wait for her response but slowed the Jeep slightly as it entered the forest and disappeared from the view of anyone near the front gate. Then he said, "I don't want to stop, because they time you from the gate, but take a look around and tell me if you notice anything out of the ordinary."

Robin obediently looked out the Jeep's window at the forest through which they passed. "They time you from the gate?"

"Always. See anything?"

"Well no. Just woods."

"They've planted a lot of holly bushes all through here," Sawyer told her. "Big ones. Good natural barriers if you don't want visitors. This time of year, plenty of birds count on the holly berries for food. See the bushes?"

"Yeah."

"See any birds?"

"No," she replied slowly.

"There were birds in town," he said. "I took special notice of them. But the farther out we came, the closer we got to the Compound, the fewer birds I saw."

Robin turned her head and stared at him. "What on earth does that mean?"

"I wish to hell I knew."

She was silent as the Jeep picked up a little speed, then said, "What Pel said. No wildlife on his morning walks. Why do I get the creepy feeling that when we get to the main part of the Compound, we aren't going to see any dogs or cats?"

Even though she had never formally been inside the Compound, Robin, like most residents of Grace, was undoubtedly familiar with the physical layout of the place.

It got discussed in town. A lot.

The church was sited pretty much dead-center on the two-hundred-acre parcel of land it owned. Around the large and impressive central building that was the church proper was a formal square, with neat little houses lining three sides of the square and set out with equal neatness along the four half-mile-long roads that stretched out from the corners of the square and ended in cul-de-sacs.

Sawyer could have drawn it out on a map. In fact, he had, bothered by the neatness and exactitude of the Compound. But if there was a pattern there, it meant nothing to him.

"They used to have animals," he told his officer. "Most every house had a dog in the backyard, a cat on the front porch. There were always a couple of dogs tagging along after the kids, and a cat or two in every barn to help control mice. Plus livestock in the pastures. Ponies for the kids, some trail horses, milk and beef cattle."

"But not now?"

"No. I wanted to warn you, in case you noticed, not to say anything."

"No pets at all? No livestock?"

"Not visible. I suppose there might be dogs or cats inside, but they used to be easy to spot."

"When did you notice they weren't?"

"Last week, when I came up here to talk about Ellen Hodges. Before then I hadn't been up here since, probably, back in the fall sometime. I remember dogs barking then and seeing cattle and horses in the pastures around the Compound. Last week, nothing but people."

Robin cleared her throat. "You know, the first thing that popped into my head when you said that was"

"Some kind of devil worship. Animal sacrifice. Yeah, I figured."

"You don't think?"

As the Jeep emerged from the woods and into a wide valley where the church and its score of small, neat houses lay just ahead, Sawyer answered, "I have a hunch the truth's a lot more complicated." He knew that Robin was looking around at the houses as they neared the Square, that she was looking for dogs or cats or signs of livestock, but Sawyer's gaze was fixed on the tall, wide-shouldered man waiting for them on the steps of the church.

The man who checked his watch as the Jeep entered the Square.

"A hell of a lot more complicated," Sawyer repeated.