They drove a mile without speaking. With Mutt crowded on behind, Jim's legs were so long that they wrapped around Kate's on either side. His hands rode lightly at her waist, his body a solid wall of warmth at her back. She was thinking more kindly of the cramped quarters of the Cessna when he raised his voice over the noise of the engine. "What wasn't he telling us?"

So Jim had picked up on that, too. She did him the courtesy of not pretending not to know what he was talking about. "Everybody has secrets, Jim."

"And usually they get to keep them," he said. "But not when it comes to murder. I'll find out. I always do."

The man they had left alone in the elaborate lodge came to the same conclusion. An hour later, he sat at an old Royal manual typewriter and pecked out a letter. He signed it, and reached for the shotgun leaning against the desk.

10

And we're here, why again?" Kate said. She knocked her boots free of snow at the door of the Park Service headquarters on the Step, at the same time moving just outside Jim's reach. "It's late and I'm tired, and you know perfectly well Dan O'Brian had nothing to do with Dina's death."

"I found him standing over the body," Jim countered. "He might have seen something, heard something. I have to talk to him."

"You already have."

He was silent for a moment. "Yeah."

Her gaze sharpened. "What?"

"I don't know." He shook his head. "A feeling, like maybe he's not telling me everything."

"Crap. Dan O'Brian's not a guy to withhold knowledge of a crime."

"Maybe," he said in a level voice. "Maybe not." He looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "I told you I could have dropped you at Bobby's on the way."

Like she would have let him interrogate Dan O'Brian without her being in the room. She stamped up the stairs without deigning to reply and then slammed into the building, nearly catching his nose in the door.

Well, at least she wasn't indifferent to his presence. He followed her down the hall, long legs eating up the distance between them.

Dan was still in his office, head down in a stack of paperwork. He looked up when they came in. "Great," he said, tossing down his pen. "Cheese it, it's the fuzz." Mutt trotted around the desk and bounced up for her usual exchange of sugar. "Except you, babe. You I'm happy to see anytime." He directed an unfriendly gaze at Jim. "What?"

Kate took up a strategic position perched on the corner of Dan's desk. Jim sat opposite and cocked one heel on the other corner, a relaxed pose that deceived no one. "Tell me again. Everything you saw, everything you heard, every detail—I don't care how insignificant you think it is."

"Jesus." Dan pushed away from the desk and leaned back, rubbing his face hard with both hands. "I've told you everything I know."