What I was doing was ilegal. I knew that. Breaking into Primrose's room was precisely the wrong move given my present situation. But I needed to assure myself that she was al right. Later, if it turned out that she wasn't, I needed to know that I had done what I could to help her.

And, to be honest, I needed to do this for myself. I had to find out what had happened to that foot. I had to track Primrose down and show that panel of men that they were wrong.

I spread my feet and pushed. The window opened another inch.

I heard the first patta-patta-pat as fat drops slapped the floorboards. Dime-sized blotches multiplied and merged around my boots.

I manipulated the window another two inches.

It was then that the storm broke. Lightning streaked, thunder cracked, and rain fel in torrents, turning the porch into a shimmering rink.

I abandoned the window and pressed my body to the wal, hoping for protection from the overhang. Within seconds water soaked my hair and dripped from my ears and nose. My clothes molded to me like papier-m�ch� on a wire frame.

Milions of drops cascaded off the roof and the porch. They bit into the lawn, met up, and coursed in channels between the blades of grass. They formed a river in the gutter above my head. Wind slapped leaves against the wal and my legs, sent others twirling across the ground. It carried the scent of wet earth and wood, of numberless creatures hunkered into burrows and nests.

Shivering, I waited it out, my back against the stucco, hands under armpits. I watched drops bead a spiderweb, build, then bow the fibers. Its maker watched too, a smal brown bundle on an outer filament.

Islands were born. Continental plates shifted. A score of species disappeared from the planet forever.

Suddenly my cel phone shriled, the sound so unexpected I almost jumped from the porch.

I clicked on.

'No comment!' I shrieked, expecting another reporter.

Lightning shot straight to the treetops. Thunder snapped.

'Where the hel are you?' said Lucy Crowe.

'The storm came up quickly.'

'You're outside?'

'Are you back in Bryson City?'

'I'm stil out at Fontana Lake. Do you want to ring me when you've gotten inside?'

'That could be a while.' I had no intention of teling her why.

Crowe spoke to someone else, came back on the line.

'Afraid I've got more bad news for you.'

I heard voices in the background, then the crackle of a police radio.

'Looks like we've found Primrose Hobbs.'

CHAPTER TWENTY

While I was meeting with our esteemed Lieutenant Governor and friends, the owners of a marina were finding a body.