No reply.

Not that he expected them to jump when he spoke. His authority over hunters kicked in only after they shot one another. “There’s no trespassing here,” he added, remaining motionless. He didn’t think for a moment they’d take a potshot at him, but being in front of anyone who might be liquored up and have their weapons off safety made him very cautious.

He heard them laugh, then saw them turn and walk back toward the highway.

Mark exhaled, his breath white on the frost. Only then did he realize he’d been holding it. He quickly ran the rest of the way to the road, feeling a sense of relief once he emerged from the murk of the forest to the lighter shades of darkness.

“Assholes!” he muttered, starting toward home. After thirty yards he spotted where their tracks led back into the forest. He ran by, trying not to look in that direction, but he could feel their eyes on the back of his neck all the way to the next bend.

“I’ll go out there, but they’ll be long gone,” Dan said, sinking his fork into an extra wide wedge of apple pie.

Mark sipped his tea. “I figured you might find their truck or car at the side of the road somewhere and ticket the hell out of it.”

They were in Hampton Junction’s best eating establishment, its name, The Four Aces, scrawled in big purple neon letters across the front windows. Inside the lighting was as dim as in any New York City lounge. The room itself was long and narrow, a bar running the length of the back wall, the booths for eating lined across the front. It boasted the finest home cooking of any restaurant in the state, and most of the townspeople agreed, barring Nell, of course.

Dan and he were at their usual table in the corner, where they could talk privately and see anyone approaching in time to shut up before being overheard.

“I’ll try my best, Mark. Did you have a good run, otherwise? You don’t look as relaxed as usual.”

“Not really. By the way, there’s also a well on the property that needs a cover.”

“Really? Shit. I’ll have to contact old man Braden’s caretakers. What did you go in there for anyway?”

“Last night I found clippings about the place in an old file my father had on Kelly.”

Dan’s fork stopped midway between his plate and mouth. “Oh?”

For the next five minutes the man didn’t eat a bite as Mark summarized what he’d found, leaving out the specifics of the medical entries. “I’ll make you copies of the articles and the letter. As for Dad’s clinical notes, there’s nothing much there anyway.” They’d worked enough cases together to develop a routine. Medical records remained confidential and off-limits to the sheriff. But Mark had no hesitation signaling when they weren’t relevant anyway.

Dan went back to his eating. “Shit! You’ve been busy.”

“Except we’re not much further ahead. The letter just confirms that she had a lover. It isn’t enough to get Everett back on the case.”

Dan chased down the last few crumbs of crust on his plate. “Probably not.”

Mark sat staring out the window, saying nothing.

“Hey. Are you sure you’re all right?” Dan asked, after downing the remains of his coffee in one swallow.

“Of course. Why?”

“You got that look in your eye.”

“What look?”

“Like you’re about to take another trip.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’ve taken a lot of trips this year. Let’s see, there was London, San Moritz, Cancún, Hawaii, South Beach in Florida-”

“Those were conferences.”

Dan grinned. “Yeah, right. As if you suddenly forgot so much medicine you need twice as many refresher courses?”

“Have you got a point to make?”

“I do. This comes from one who has been there. Don’t let yourself get bushed. You remind me of myself after Marion left.”

On the drive home Mark turned the radio up loud, hoping a dose of music would blast his brain free of the day’s dregs. As if the Bradens and the McShanes weren’t enough, the last thing he needed was a little homespun advice. He knew Dan meant well, but the guy’s butting into his private life irritated him. The trouble was Dan had no one to care about, nothing coming of the attempts he’d made to start dating again. Being a forty-year-old cop in a town most people considered as exciting as Mayberry, he’d only been able to muster a few summer romances with women who’d come here to vacation. Predictably, they left in the fall.

Not much different from his own ladies, he had to admit, and cranked up the volume even more as the strains of a familiar song filled his Jeep.

Flashing along tendrils of mist, his high beams picked up a truck parked over on the shoulder of the road. Nearby a huddle of men, most of them still carrying their rifles, were lined up taking a piss. One of them toasted him with a silver hip flask as he passed.

He belted out the chorus as loud as he could.

Saturday, November 17, 2:30 P.M.

Metropolis Club, New York City

Feeling gloomy and foolish, Mark was back at the bar picking up his second glass of white wine. He was gloomy because of the event itself – a memorial service for a woman who’d died twenty-seven years ago. The tributes by high school, college, and medical school classmates had seemed thin and hollow to him. No one captured Kelly’s real warmth and sense of mischief. Rather, they’d remembered her as some kind of hardworking, self-sacrificing tin saint. And Samantha McShane. The woman made a complete ass of herself, droning endlessly how she suffered over the loss of her beloved daughter. Her lengthy, self-aggrandizing remarks made him sick. By contrast, Chaz’s tribute to his wife came across as surprisingly dignified and tender.

He sauntered to the far corner of the impressive mahogany-paneled room, took a healthy swig of wine, and looked over the small crowd. Oh, yeah, he felt foolish all right. How in heaven’s name had he convinced himself that he was going to find leads by talking to the people who came to this service?

A prick named Tommy Leannis, a plastic surgeon who’d been a resident with Kelly, had blown him off, seeming afraid that the Bradens wouldn’t approve of his talking with the coroner. Another med school friend of Kelly’s, Melanie Collins, made him feel uneasy with her not-so-subtle sexual come-on. She was at least fifteen, maybe twenty years older than he, and a good-looking old gal, but her assertiveness was a turnoff. She helped in one thing she told him, though. She’d said that “a person could hide everything but two conditions – being drunk and being in love” – and that Kelly definitely had been in love at the time she’d disappeared. In love… the man in the taxi. Damn, he had to find that guy.

Braden Senior had been smarmy as ever when they’d exchanged a few words, and Chaz seemed even more nervous than he had been in Dan’s office. Mark got nowhere fast with either of them. Time to toss back the rest of his wine and leave, he decided, when he spotted a tall, slim man with a very attractive blond woman on his arm, one of the few couples he hadn’t yet approached. He put down his glass, went over, and introduced himself.