"Tell me again," Jim repeated.

Dan sighed sharply and dropped his hands to the desk in front of him. In a flat, dry voice, he repeated his story as if by rote. Due to Washington politics, his job was in jeopardy. He had consulted with friends (he didn't look at Kate) and had decided to fight for it, which meant asking Park rats with influence to intercede on his behalf. Dina Willner and Ruthe Bauman were wired into the conservation movement, his relationship with them was good, and so they were naturals to ask for help. He drove to their cabin. He found them—he swallowed. "I found them like that," he said. "Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and I thought maybe this was who did it coming back." He rubbed his head, which still sported a knot on it, although reduced in size. "After that, it was like the Keystone Kops or something. I yanked the door open the same time somebody shoved it open from the outside, and bam! The next thing I know, I'm on the floor next to Dina, looking up at you coming through the door. I thought it was you who smacked me."

"It was Dandy, bringing the mail."

Dan nodded. "Yeah, he told me."

"What time was this?"

"Midafternoon. Say three, maybe? Three-thirty?"

"Did you see anything?"

"Other than stars? No."

"Hear anything?"

Dan sighed. "I wish. I didn't hear a damn thing."

Kate, watching, was alarmed to see that Jim's instincts had not deceived him. There was something that Dan wasn't saying. "Dan," she said.

"Goddamn it, Kate," he said, his voice rising. "Dina and Ruthe were and are friends of mine. Do you think if I knew something I wouldn't tell you? That I wouldn't want to help you find who did this horrible thing and kick the shit out of them myself?"

"No," Kate said, her voice by contrast calm, even soothing. "I don't think that."

And yet, as they walked down the path of hard-packed snow to where the snow machine sat waiting, she couldn't help thinking that Dan O'Brian had sounded as defensive as he had angry. He had wanted them out of his office, had seemed almost desperate to see them go. Here's your hat, what's your hurry. As if he had allowed them to stay, he might have said more than he wanted to.

Hearing Jim take a breath, she said, "Don't. Don't even go there."

She'd seen what he had, and that was all he'd been looking for. He exhaled without speaking. In grim silence, they mounted up, this time with Mutt, in response to a barked order, hopping between them.

Jim shifted on the couch in Bobby's living room, restless. It didn't help that he could hear the soft sound of Kate's regular breathing, and that his overactive imagination could put that sound much closer to him without any effort at all.