A single shot exploded in the stilness.

'But we both know I don't need it now that that cur of yours is out of the way.'

His voice came to me as though under water.

'I'm going to make you pay for this. Realy pay.'

I heard him rise.

'I have a necklace I want to show you.'

I inhaled deeply, trying to clear my head. He was coming at me with the garrote.

Out of the corner of my eye, a glimmer. I turned. Three slivers of light were bobbing toward me. Or was I halucinating?

'Freeze!' A gravely female voice.

'Drop it!' Male.

'Stop!' A different male voice.

A muzzle flashed in the darkness in front of me. Two shots rang out.

Return fire from the direction of the voices. The ping of a bulet ricocheting off rock.

A thud, an expulsion of air. The sound of a body sliding down the rock wal.

Running feet.

Hands on my throat, my wrist.

'—pulse is strong.'

Faces above me, swimming like a mirage on a summer sidewalk. Ryan. Crowe. Deputy Nameless.

'—ambulance. It's O.K. We didn't hit her.'

Static.

I struggled to sit.

'Lie back.' Gentle pressure on my shoulders.

'I have to see him.'

One circle of light slid to the cliff where my assailant sat motionless, legs stretched in front, back against rock. Slowly, the light iluminated feet, legs, torso, face. I knew who he was.

Ralph Stover, the not-so-happy owner of the Riverbank Inn, the man who would not let me into Primrose's room. He stared sightlessly into the night, chin forward, brain slowly oozing onto a stain on the rock behind his head.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I left Charlotte at dawn on Friday and drove west through heavy fog. The shifting vapors lightened as I climbed toward the Eastern Continental Divide, vanished outside Ashevile.

Leaving Highway 74 at Bryson City, I drove up Veterans' Boulevard, past the cutoff to the Fryemont Inn, turned right on Main, and parked opposite the old courthouse, now a senior citizens' center. I sat a moment watching sunlight glisten on its little gold dome, and thought of those seniors whose bones I'd unearthed.

I pictured a tal, gangly man, blind and nearly deaf; a fragile old woman with a crooked face. I imagined them on these same streets al those years ago. I wanted to put my arms around them, to tel each of them that things were being put right.

And I thought about those who had perished on Air TransSouth 228. So many stories had only begun. Graduations not attended. Birthdays not celebrated. Voyages not taken. Lives obliterated because of one fatal voyage.

I took my time walking to the fire station. I'd spent a month in Bryson City, had come to know it wel. I was leaving now, my work completed, but a few questions remained.