'Do you want to see the courtyard?'

'Not without a warrant I don't.'

'But, Sheriff—'

'No warrant, no entry.' She looked at me, her eyes unblinking. 'Let's go. I'l buy you a Dr Pepper.'

At that moment, a light rain began to fal. I listened to drops tick softly on the porch roof, frustration seething in me. She was right. It was nothing but a hunch. But every cel in my being was teling me that something important lay close at hand. Something evil.

'Could I run Boyd around the property, see if he has any thoughts?'

'Keep him outside the wals, I've got no objection. I'l check for vehicular access. If folks are coming here, they must be driving.'

For fifteen minutes Boyd and I crisscrossed the brush to the west of the house, much as I had on my first trip. The dog showed no reaction. Though I was beginning to suspect the squirrel hit had been a fluke, I decided to make one last sweep, skirting the edge of the forest up to its terminus at the second enclosure. This would be virgin territory.

We were twenty feet from the wal when Boyd's head snapped up. His body tensed, and the hair prickled along his back. He rotated his snout, testing the air, then growled in a way I'd heard only once, deep and feral and vicious. Then he lunged, choking and barking as though possessed.

I staggered, barely able to hold him.

'Boyd! Stop!'

Spreading my feet, I grabbed the leash with both hands. The dog continued to pul, muscles straining, forefeet scrabbling inches above the ground.

'What is it, boy?'

We both knew.

I hesitated, heart pounding. Then I unwrapped the leash and let it fal.

Boyd flew to the wal and exploded in a frenzy of barking, approximately six feet south of the back corner. I could see that the mortar was crumbling at that point, and that a dozen stones had tumbled free, leaving a gap between the ground and the wal's foundation.

I ran to the dog, crouched at his shoulder, and inspected the gap. The soil was moist and discolored. Overturning a falen stone, I saw a dozen tiny brown objects.

Instantly, I knew what Boyd had found.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I did not go to the Swain County courthouse on Monday. Instead, I recrossed the mountains west to Tennessee, and by midmorning was approximately thirty miles northwest of Knoxvile, approaching the entrance to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The day was wet and gloomy, and my wipers slapped a steady cadence back and forth, clearing two fans on the misty windshield.

Through the side window I could see an old woman and toddler feeding swans on the bank of a smal lagoon. At the age of ten I'd had a run-in with an ugly duckling that could have taken out a commando force. I questioned the wisdom of their outing.