He leaned back, cracking his spine, and spotted Clare. “Reverend Fergusson. Are you sure it won’t be an imposition for you to accommodate Lisa? I’m prepared to deliver her home myself.” His face twitched faintly to the right as he spoke.

“There’s no need,” Clare said. “John Huggins has relieved me of duty, so I’m leaving anyway. And you should stay here and wait for word of your sister, not be driving all over town.”

The undamaged corner of his mouth lifted, as if thanking her for that ego-saving excuse.

“I wanted to say good-bye before I left,” Clare went on. She held her hand out. Eugene took it in his. “There are a lot of fine people looking and praying for Millie’s return. I’m sure she’ll be home soon.” She squeezed his hand, then released him. “I’m hoping I get the chance to meet her at the dinner dance tonight.”

Eugene’s eyes warmed with interest. “You’re going to the dance tonight? With the conservancy and the GWP people?”

“Yep.” It suddenly struck her that that might not be a recommendation to a man who held a gun on the ACC’s project director an hour and a half ago. But van der Hoeven surprised her by smiling.

“Could I then ask you to do a favor for me?”

“What sort of favor?”

He indicated the two wine crate towers, each one tastefully stenciled with the van der Hoeven Vineyards mark. “These are promised for the dance tonight. I thought I had hired Randy Schoof to deliver them, but he, for reasons unknown, has failed to arrive.”

No wonder Lisa felt awkward about hanging around van der Hoeven’s house. Clare glanced toward the housekeeper. Her expressionless features contrasted painfully with the pink flush of her cheeks.

“I could take them myself… but as you say, I ought to stay here until I learn something about where Millie is.”

Now van der Hoeven was pinking up. It was the Saturday afternoon embarrassment club. Clare sighed. “I’ll take what I can, but I have a tiny car. I’m afraid I can’t fit in more than four crates.”

Both van der Hoeven and his housekeeper beamed at her. “That would be fine,” Eugene said. He turned to Lisa. “If you do see your husband, you can tell him to come here and pick up the rest. Otherwise,” he waved one hand in a careless arc, “I’m sure the fates will provide a substitute.”

It had better be the fates, Clare thought, leading Lisa and Eugene across the gravel drive, because it wasn’t going to be the Episcopal church. She and Lisa were each lugging one crate, with Eugene staggering beneath the weight of another two. Reaching the Shelby Cobra, she set her crate down and opened the trunk.

“We’re not going to be able to fit four crates into that,” Lisa said.

“I know. Two have to go in back.” She reached for Eugene’s top crate.

Lisa opened the passenger door. “This backseat? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Oof.” She braced the crate against her chest before lowering it into the trunk. Eugene wedged the other one he carried in and turned to the front of the car. Flipping the seats forward and sliding them as far toward the dash as they could go, he and Clare were able to shove the wine into the back, although, like Lisa, he made skeptical noises as he wrestled the crates into place. When they finished, Eugene and his housekeeper stood back and stared at the tiny sports car.

“I wouldn’t have believed it,” Lisa said.

“Nor I.” Eugene gave Clare one of the three-quarters looks she had noticed earlier, his eyes on hers, his face sidling away. “Thank you, Reverend.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’d like to let you in on a secret. At nine o’clock, when the deed is scheduled to be signed, I’m setting off fireworks from here.” He dragged his toe across the gravel. “It’s, ah, not exactly legal in New York State, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to anyone. But I’ve been assured that if you come out to the terrace next to the ballroom at the resort, you’ll be able to see the display.” He dragged his toe the other way, sifting the gravel. “Bring your friends.”

Clare wondered for a moment at his parents, who evidently had never brought their son in for the sort of postin-jury counseling that would have strengthened him and made him able to face the world from behind his skin. She wondered who that boy might have grown up to be, instead of a painfully shy recluse. She thought of him, all alone in the dark, sending up brilliant fountains of fire into the sky. Cries for help that would never be answered.

“I will,” she said. “I’ll look for your light.”

You sure you heard it this way?” Billy Ellis looked doubtfully at his hunting companion.

“As sure as I can be. Gimme a break, Bill. Sound travels funny in the mountains, you know that. But trying to find it’s the least we can do.”

Billy sighed as loudly as he could, signaling he’d play the part of responsible citizen, but he didn’t have to like it. Chuck high-stepped over a tangle of briars and held back a handful of whiplike forsythia so Billy could follow him. Normally, he liked hunting with Chuck. They both had the same attitude: namely, that deer season was an excuse to get away from the wife and kids for a few Saturdays in a row, to eat huge, heart-attack-inducing breakfasts in a greasy spoon, and to partake liberally from their flasks of coffee brandy.

This Saturday had been all set to pleasantly repeat their usual pattern, up to the moment when they heard a faint, faraway cry for help shivering through the empty branches. Billy argued it was probably some damn fool who sat in poison oak taking a dump and who now needed help wiping his ass. Chuck didn’t buy it. A born crusader, if ever there was one, he had been dragging them over brush and briar for the last half hour. At this point, a twelve-point buck could have jumped up and offered Chuck a drink and he wouldn’t have noticed.

“Chuck,” Billy said, trying again.

“Dammit, Billy. That was a call for help. What if somebody’s seriously hurt? Maybe got himself shot?”

“Then it’s like to be some idiot flatlander on his first trip into the woods who saw a doe and shot his foot off in the excitement. If you help ’em, you know, you’re only encouraging ’em to come back.”

Chuck looked back and glared at him.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Billy said. It was hard going. This part of the forest must have been logged or burned over sometime in the past decade; the trees were slim and close-set, still competing with each other for the space and light that only a few mature trees would eventually share. Brambles were everywhere, and Billy kept his gloves cinched tight around his cuffs for protection. They broke through a final screen of bittersweet and sumac and stumbled onto a wide dirt road.

“Where the hell are we?” Billy asked.

Chuck unbuttoned his coat pocket and pulled out his map and compass. He folded the map and held both it and the compass in front of him, squinting in the strong sunshine after the fitful shade of the woods. He turned himself right, then left, then completely around.

“What are you doing?” Billy was losing his patience. “Are we anywhere near the car? Because there’s no way I’m going through that piece of woods again.”

“I think we’re on one of these lumbering roads.” Chuck pointed out a dotted red line on the map. “If we go downhill”-he pointed right-“we’ll come to Route 117. Could be whoever yelled for help is along here someplace. I don’t think we woulda heard it so well if it was on the next access road marked.” He pointed to another dotted red line farther west.

“If whoever yelled is still here-and that’s a big if-he better be downhill. ’Cause I’m damned if I’m hiking uphill for some flatlander.” Billy took off without waiting to see if Chuck followed him. He didn’t have to. He had their car keys.