"Pell, don't move!" a voice shouted. It was coming from outside, behind him. "Drop the weapon." The voice was Reynolds's. "I'm armed."

No! What had happened? Pell shivered with anger. He nearly vomited he was so shaken and upset.

"Listen to me, Pell. If you move one inch I will shoot you. Take the weapon in your left hand by the barrel and set it down. Now!"

"What? Sir, what are you talking about?"

No, no! He'd planned this so perfectly! He was breathless with rage. He gave a brief glance behind him. There was Reynolds, holding a large revolver in both hands. He knew what he was doing and didn't seem the least bit nervous.

"Wait, wait, Prosecutor Reynolds. My name's Hector Ramos. I'm the relief-"

He heard the click as the hammer on Reynolds's gun cocked.

"Okay! I don't know what this is about. But okay. Jesus." Pell took the barrel in his left hand and crouched, lowering it to the deck.

When, with a screech, the black Toyota skidded into the driveway and braked to a stop, the horn blaring.

Pell dropped flat to his belly, swept up the gun and began firing in Reynolds's direction. The prosecutor crouched and fired several shots himself but, panicked, missed. Pell then heard the distant keening of sirens. Torn between self-preservation and his raw lust to kill the man, he hesitated a second. But survival won out. He sprinted down the driveway, toward Jennie, who had opened the passenger door for him.

He tumbled inside and they sped away, Pell finding some bleak satisfaction in emptying his weapon toward the house, hoping for at least one mortal hit.

Dance, Kellogg and James Reynolds stood in his dewy front lawn, amid pristine landscaping, lit by the pulse of colored lights.

The prosecutor's first concern, he explained, was that no one had been hit by his, or Pell's, slugs. He'd fired in defensive panic-he was still shaken-and even before the car had skidded away he was troubled that a bullet might have injured a neighbor. He'd run to the street to look at the car's tags, but the vehicle was gone by then so he jogged to the houses nearby. No one had been injured by a stray shot, though. The deputy in the bushes outside the house would have some bad bruises, a concussion and very sore muscles, but nothing more serious than that, the medics reported.

When the doorbell rang and "Officer Ramos" announced his presence at the front door, Reynolds had actually been on the phone with Kathryn Dance, who was telling him urgently that Pell, possibly disguised as a Latino, knew where he lived and was planning to kill him. The prosecutor had drawn his weapon and sent his wife and son into the basement to call 911. Reynolds had slipped out a side door and come up behind the man.

He'd been seconds away from shooting to kill; only the girlfriend's intervention had saved Pell.

The prosecutor now stepped away to see how his wife was doing, then returned a moment later. "Pell took all this risk just for revenge? I sure called that one wrong."

"No, James, it wasn't revenge." Without mentioning her name-reporters were already starting to show up-Dance explained about Samantha McCoy's insights into Pell's psychology and told him about the incident in Seaside, where the biker had laughed at him. "You did the same thing in court. When he tried to control you, remember? That meant you were immune to him. And, even worse, you controlled him-you turned him into Manson, into somebody else, somebody he had no respect for. He was your puppet. Pell couldn't allow that. You were too much of a danger to him."

"That's not revenge?"

"No, it was about his future plans," Dance said. "He knew you wouldn't be intimidated, and that you had some insights and information about him-maybe even something in the case notes. And he knew that you were the sort who wouldn't rest until he was recaptured. Even if you were retired."

She remembered the prosecutor's determined visage in his house.

Whatever I can do…

"You wouldn't be afraid to help us track him down. That made you a threat. And, like he said, threats have to be eliminated."

"What do you mean by the 'future'? What's he got in mind?"

"That's the big question. We just don't know."

"But how the hell did you manage to call two minutes before he showed up?"

Dance shrugged. "Susan Pemberton."

"The woman killed yesterday."

"She worked for Eve Brock."

His eyes flashed in recognition. "The caterer, I mean, the event-planner who handled Julia's wedding. He found me through her. Brilliant."

"At first I thought Pell used Susan to get into the office and destroy some evidence. Or to get information about an upcoming event. I kept picturing her office, all the photos on the walls. Some were of local politicians, some were of weddings. Then I remembered seeing the pictures of your daughter's wedding in your living room. The connection clicked. I called Eve Brock and she told me that, yes, you'd been a client."

"How'd you know about the Latino disguise?"

She explained that Susan had been seen in the company of a slim Latino man not long before she'd been killed. Linda had told them about Pell's use of disguises. "Becoming Latino seemed a bit far-fetched…but apparently it wasn't." She nodded at a cluster of bullet holes in the prosecutor's front wall.

Finished with their canvassing, TJ and Rey Carraneo arrived to report that there'd been no sightings of the killer's new wheels.

Michael O'Neil too joined them. He'd been with the crime scene officers as they'd worked the street and the front yard.

O'Neil nodded politely toward Kellogg, as if the recent disagreements were long forgotten. Crime scene, O'Neil reported, hadn't discovered much at all. They'd found shell casings from a 9mm pistol, some useless tire prints (they were so worn the technicians couldn't ID the brand) and "about a million samples of trace that'll lead us nowhere." The latter information was delivered with the sour hyperbole O'Neil slung out when frustrated.

And, he added, the guard gave only a groggy and inarticulate description of his attacker and the girl with him, but he couldn't add anything to what they already knew.

Reynolds called his daughter, since Pell now knew her and her husband's names, and told her to leave town until the killer was recaptured. Reynolds's wife and other son would join them, but the prosecutor refused to leave. He was going to stay in the area-though at a separate hotel, under police guard-until he'd had a chance to review the Croyton murders files, which would arrive from the county court archives soon. He was more determined than ever to help them get Pell.

Most of the officers left-two stayed to guard Reynolds and his family, and two were keeping the reporters back-and soon Kellogg, O'Neil and Dance were alone, standing on the fragrant grass.

"I'm going back to Point Lobos," Dance said to both of the men. Then to Kellogg: "You want me to drop you off at HQ, for your car?"

"I'll go with you to the inn," Kellogg said. "If that's okay."

"Sure. What about you, Michael? Want to come with us?" She could see that Millar's death was still weighing heavily on him.

The chief deputy glanced at Kellogg and Dance, standing side by side, like a couple in front of their suburban house saying goodnight to guests after a dinner party. He said, "Think I'll pass. I'll make a statement to the press then stop by to see Juan's family." He exhaled, sending a stream of breath into the cool night. "Been a long day."

He was exhausted.

And his round belly contained pretty much an entire bottle of Vallejo Springs's smooth Merlot wine.

There was no way Morton Nagle was going to drive home tonight through a tangle of combat traffic in Contra Costa County, then the equally daunting roads around San Jose. He'd found a motel not far from the vineyards he'd moped around in all day and checked in. He washed his face and hands, ordered a club sandwich from room service and uncorked the wine.