It was probably the most open look she'd given him since the other afternoon, and it encouraged him to say rashly, "Kate. We need to talk."

She stiffened. "No, we don't."

"Yeah. We do. And we will." He looked at the body in the back of the plane, up at the falling snow, and repressed an oath. "But not now. Soon, though."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. He thought she sighed. Goaded, he said, "I know you want me."

"I'm not a child with her face pressed up to the candy store window," she said. "I don't let myself have everything I want."

His smile flashed out. "I like it that you compare me to candy."

The smile, with its manifest, practiced charm, was enough by itself to make her angry all over again. She was relieved. For a moment, she'd been afraid that she could no longer be angry with him. It helped her say firmly, "Too much candy makes me sick to my stomach."

It sounded prissy even to her own ears. He laughed, a spontaneous baritone sound that rang out down the strip like someone was tolling a bell, and she wanted to kill him.

He took off, the Cessna disappearing into the low overcast almost immediately. The weather was purportedly better in Ahtna, but if the ceiling came down any lower, he'd be unable to return to Niniltna today. She stood there, watching him go, a scowl on her face, trying to make up her mind if that was a good thing or a bad thing. "Hell with it," she said, and kicked a chunk of ice out of her path on the way back to her snow machine. Mutt sensed her roommate's uncertain temper and maintained a discreet silence.

Kate killed the engine of the snow machine in front of John Letourneau's front steps, still scowling. She didn't know why she was back here, nor did she know what she was looking for that Jim wouldn't already have found. Mutt, sitting next to her, whined an inquiry. "Beats the hell out of me," she said.

They went inside. Kate found John's bedroom and a hamper containing dirty clothes. She held a sock out to Mutt, who sniffed it with interest and looked up, brows raised. "Anybody else been here?" Mutt sneezed once to clear her head and started nosing around the room.

They found nothing out of the ordinary in John's bedroom. The guest bedrooms, running along both sides of the lodge on the second floor, had been scrubbed clean after the last client had flown south for the winter. They proved equally uninteresting. The kitchen was spotless, and none of the three tables in the dining room looked like they had been used in the last few months. The living room didn't look as if it saw regular use, either. If you discounted the blood and bits of flesh, bone, and organ drying hard to floor, wall, and window, the office was neat, well organized, and up-to-date, nothing in the in basket, the files in the metal cabinet meticulously alphabetized in drawers marked CLIENTS, SUPPLIERS, EMPLOYEES, and TAXES.