Toxtel was just as spooked. Granted, he’d been occupied with the two women, but his instincts were as well developed as Goss’s. He hadn’t heard the handyman moving up a flight of old creaky stairs, just turned around and found himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun. In a very un-Toxtel-like admission, he’d said, “You’re a cold bastard, Goss, but this guy… this guy makes you look like the Easter Bunny.”

Shotgun… the shooter being where he wasn’t supposed to be… What were the odds that Creed and the handyman would have those things in common? He’d been out there last night, closer than Goss liked to think. He wanted the guy close, because he owed him for that knock on the head, but he wanted to know he was close. Thinking of him sitting out there, somehow invisible to Teague’s precious thermal scopes, gave Goss an uneasy feeling. Teague had been fixated on Creed, like Creed was some sort of bogeymen, but this other guy was the wild card in the deck, someone Teague hadn’t factored into the equation.

All in all, though, Goss was pleased with the way things had kicked off. Some people over there were dead, enough that a huge furor was going to be raised over this. Sooner or later someone or several someones from the surrounding ranches would need something from the hardware store, and while they might buy the “bridge out” excuse for a little while, eventually they would say something to someone, and word would get. out, and next thing they knew the real state highway department would be stopping by. Then everything would go to hell. The only way that wouldn’t happen would be if the Nightingale woman gave up right away and gave them the flash drive.

Regardless of what happened, Yuell Faulkner was going down. The killings last night had guaranteed that. By losing his perspective and letting things go so far, Toxtel had set in motion a chain of events that couldn’t be halted or deflected. To give him credit, even though Toxtel’s plan was overkill, he had every expectation of winning and getting away clean, since their real names weren’t known and they would be long gone before the locals could go on foot to get help. The credit card Faulkner had used for the B and B was a dead end; Goss knew that much. Me also knew that he himself was the reason this would blow up in Faulkner’s face; a crucial piece of evidence “accidentally” left behind, an anonymous phone call to the authorities, would guarantee that. He didn’t see any way Toxtel wouldn’t go down, too, and while he had nothing against Hugh, he wasn’t sentimental about him, cither. Toxtel could be sacrificed. And Kennon Goss would disappear forever; it was time for another name, another identity.

The first thing Cal did when he woke was lace on his boots. “It’s almost daylight,” he said to Cate, who had sat up when he left their makeshift bed. Several other people in the basement were stirring, too.

Maureen moved to turn up the oil lamp so they could have more light.

“I’m going out to look around, see if I can find anyone else,” Cal said

Greed was awake, propping himself up on his elbows. Fie had dark circles under his eyes, but they were clear. “I’ve been thinking,” he said to Cal. “We’ll work on the plan when you get back.”

Cal nodded and slipped out the basement door. Outside he nodded to Perry Richardson, who was sitting in a corner of the retaining wall, a deer rifle cradled in his arms. “Seen anything?” he asked, though he knew damn well there hadn’t been any trouble.

Perry shook his head. “I was hoping some of the others would make their way here, but so far it’s been quiet.” His worried expression said that he was afraid no one had shown up because the rest of the inhabitants were dead.

“It’s bad enough,” Cal said grimly, “but it isn’t that bad. People will have gone to ground wherever they could rather than take the risk of getting out in the open.” His task this morning was to find those people, and safely get them here.

“How many—? Perry couldn’t complete the question, but Cal knew what he was asking.

“I saw five last night. I hope that’s all.” Five friends, lying where they’d fallen. He hadn’t been able to get to them last night, didn’t know who they were, but regardless of their identities, they had been friends. He’d be able to tell more in the daylight, though he might not be able to get to them until tonight.

“Five,” Perry murmured, shaking his head as grief entered his eyes. “What in God’s name is going on?”

“I don’t know, but my guess is it has something to do with those two sons of bitches who roughed up Cate and Neenah.” If it was them, they’d brought in help. Cal had counted four different firing positions, including the one beside Neenah’s house.

“But what do they want?”

Cal shook his head. Cate had given them Lay ton’s belongings, so the only thing left was revenge, which, as far as he was concerned, was a piss-poor reason for attacking an entire community. Come after him if they felt they had to prove their balls were bigger than his; he was the one who’d gotten the better of them, not those poor people lying on the ground. This whole thing was so over the top it didn’t make sense.

And if those two guys had nothing to do with this, then it really didn’t make sense and he was completely in the dark.

Cal worked his way under the Contrerases’ house, crawling on his belly through mud, debris, and spiderwebs. All sorts of bugs love the dark, damp protected spaces under a house, and this one was no different from most, in that it offered lots of darkness and dampness. Good thing he wasn’t bothered by bugs and spiders.

He paused at every ventilation grate, cautiously peering through with quick movements of his head, in case one of the shooters was scanning with a thermal scope and just happened to notice that one of the grates in the foundation was glowing brighter than the others. Catching him looking would be nothing more than luck—bad on his part, good on theirs. Scopes didn’t have a wide field of vision, so they couldn’t get a good overall view; the shooters would be scanning, constantly moving, which upped the odds in Cal’s favor. A fixed thermal-image camera would have been much more difficult to evade.

The shooters were still firing off the occasional shot to make the inhabitants keep their heads down, keep them from moving around. Head games. At some point, though, they would have to stop shooting and try to make contact, establish what it was they wanted, otherwise there was no point that he could see to this whole damn disaster.

Coming in from behind the house, he’d caught a glimpse of Mario Contreras lying half on, half off the front porch, on the left side. What he hadn’t been able to see was any sign of Gena and little Angelina, nor had they answered when he called their names. Now he was trying to see if they, too, were King on the porch, out of his previous field of vision.

He felt sick—sick and furious. Mario’s brought the number of bodies he’d visually identified up to seven. Norman Box was dead, and so was Lanora Corbett. Mouse Williams would never again rattle on and on in the squeaky voice that had given him his nickname. Jim Beasley had died with a rifle in his hand, trying to fight back. Same with Andy Chapman. Maery Last, a sweet little woman in her seventies, was lying in the road in front of her house. Slowed by arthritis, she hadn’t been able to move as fast as the others. Friends, all of them, and he was afraid he’d find more. Where were Gena and Angelina? God, if that cute little girl was dead—

He pushed the thought away, not wanting to anticipate the worst. Thank God the twins had gone home with Cate’s mom. If they’d been here, if anything had happened to those two little imps, he’d have gone nuts.