At the fork, Rory stopped for a second as if the decision of which way to go momentarily overcame him, then went on again, straight, toward headquarters and the main road. Tall trees lined either side of the lane, drawing curtains of impenetrable black alongside. Overhead the night was clear. Stars and a quarter moon gave enough light to see by. Anna was pleased to walk without flashlights. In true darkness they were invaluable. In anything less they only served to narrow vision down to where it was a distraction instead of a guide.

"So what happens now?" Rory said after a while.

"How so?" There'd been a lot of blood under the bridge in the past few days. He could be asking about any number of things. A natural reticence made her not want to spout forth unnecessary information.

"About the… you know… the death," Rory said.

Anna looked at him in the weak light from the moon. If he'd shed any tears for this stepmother he'd done it in private. His eyes were dry but she noticed he did not say Carolyn's name or call her "my stepmom." Regardless of where his emotions lay, it was natural that he would want to distance himself from the incident.

"There will be an investigation," she said carefully. "Chief Ranger Ruick will be heading that up. He'll try and find out who did it and bring them to justice." She realized she sounded prim and simplistic, but at the moment, she wasn't sure what else to say, wasn't sure what it was Rory wanted.

"You got suspects already?" Rory asked. They'd reached the road that led past the headquarters parking lot toward the maintenance yard. Rory turned down it. Anna hesitated. This way took them toward the machine sheds, garages, storage barns and, if they went far enough, the resource management building. They were moving away from the housing area where a shout would be heard and, because this was a national park, responded to.

In the end, she followed him. Time enough to turn around. She wanted to know where he was heading metaphorically if not geographically. "Nobody special, if that's what you mean," Anna hedged. "This wasn't exactly your smoking-gun sort of situation."

"On television they always suspect the husband," he said. "Do you guys suspect Les?"

Rory seemed oblivious to the fact that he, too, might be a suspect. Maybe he thought being incommunicado for a day and a half in his bedroom slippers was an ironclad alibi. Or maybe he was more cunning than Anna gave him credit for. Maybe he wanted them to suspect Les and that's what this little nocturne was playing up to.

"He's a suspect," Anna said because Rory already knew it was true. "Why? Do you think your dad killed your stepmom, that Les killed Carolyn?" She purposely used titles and names, wanting to bring it home, make it personal, to see what Rory would do.

A twitch? Too dark to tell. "Maybe I did it. Ever think of that?" he asked.

"Those were my very thoughts not more than a minute ago. Did you?"

"Dad didn't."

They'd reached the maintenance yard. Rory stopped by the gasoline pumps and turned toward her. "I don't think you ought to go poking around. Dad's not healthy. Can't you see that? He's old and his heart's not good. He's got high blood pressure. He can't handle this kind of stuff. Leave him alone."

This, then, was the crux of the matter. Anna looked around at the deserted maintenance yard, the rows of blank garage doors facing in on a paved rectangle, the hulks of machinery dead with the night, and rather wished she'd insisted they turn back earlier. Rory, several feet away, was studying her as intently as she studied her surroundings. His sandy hair gleamed in the soft light but the rough cascade of bangs, in need of trimming, threw his eyes into deep shadow.

"It's cold," Anna said. "Let's keep walking." And talking. Though emotionally taxing and often spiritually dangerous, talking was not a physically damaging sport. Anna wanted to keep him right on doing it until they got back into a more populated locale.

"Let's not," he said. She started off anyway as if she hadn't heard him, setting a casual pace that would take them around a sharp corner past derelict-looking buildings toward the resource management office and another residential area.

After a brief hesitation, he walked with her. Anna allowed herself a small inward sigh of relief. Determined though he might be, Rory was not yet ready to lay hands on her to get what he wanted.

"Why don't you want your dad investigated?" she asked mildly.

"I told you," Rory snapped. "His health isn't good."

His wife's health was considerably worse, Anna thought, but didn't say so. She just walked and waited to see if whatever was under the surface of Rory's filial concern would boil out into words. It didn't, and that concerned her. Kids, normal kids with fair-to-middling parents, might bluster in their adolescent years about not trusting anyone over thirty, but beneath that bluster dwelt the child whose long habit had been to turn to adults when in need. Rory'd had that habit broken for him.

Anna kept on at the same easy pace. They reached the corner where the maintenance yard bent into an L-shape. This was the farthest they'd get from windows and ears, a walled canyon of buildings, machinery and trees between them and the scattered houses. Realizing she'd tensed, Anna relaxed her neck to keep herself alert and ready. Consciously, she monitored the speed of her steps.

"I don't have any say in this investigation," she said easily. "I'm just visiting from another park. I've done a few chores for Harry but that's it. If you want your dad left out of things, the person you need to talk to is the chief ranger. I'd suggest you do it during regular business hours. Creeping around in people's shrubbery could get a fellow shot."

"It's you I want to leave Dad alone," Rory said and this time he did lay hands on her. Strong brown fingers curled around her upper arm forcing her to stop.

The touch triggered fear in Anna. If she were going to fight or run, now was the time. For small people without the skills or scriptwriters of Jackie Chan, exploding like a cherry bomb then running like hell was the best bet.

The spurt of fear was not enough. They were still talking.

"Like I said-" Anna began.

"No," Rory cut her off. "You. You leave him alone." The fingers tightened on her arm. "You're different. You pry and pry and wriggle into people's heads. You don't just ask what they've done. You watch and you wait like some fast little snake that looks asleep. Then there's that little tongue flicking out because you smell something. You pry into stuff that's none of your affair. That has nothing to do with anything. Nothing to do with this."

Rory was being his own pep squad, letting his own oratory whip him up like a speaker inflaming a mob of one.

Anna decided to break into it before he worked himself into trouble. "That's enough," she said quietly. With another boy she might have yelled, a verbal slap to get his attention, but she'd seen Rory with Harry Ruick. The boy definitely had a problem with authority. "Let go of my arm," she said just as softly. "I bruise easily and it is swimsuit season."

Either the tone or the absurdity got through and he let go. She began walking, glad to be leaving the spectral machines of the maintenance yard.

"Time we headed back," she said. "I don't know about you, but it's way past my bedtime." No longer curious as to what Rory wanted from her, Anna firmly dropped the subject.

After fifty feet of consideration, Rory picked it up again. The heat his speech had lent his words was gone. The icy edge that replaced it was far more alarming. "If you don't lay off Les and just do the bear thing or whatever, you'll be sorry. Real sorry."

The clichéd threat should have sounded childish, empty, but it didn't. No hollow undertone spoke of desperation or grasping at straws. Rory had something concrete in mind. Anna felt it with every chilled ounce of marrow in her bones.