Had the men she had just seen killed been talking of Gregory of Chino when they had used the word crazy? How had she learned Chino’s name in the first place? They had been talking of Chino. And this nattering madman in front of her thought he was learning from Chino constantly. Almost involuntarily Amy drew a deep breath and climbed the three soft white marble steps to the entrance to the house.

The door opened from the inside, and a man wearing a perfectly tailored white mohair suit smiled and beckoned her inside. Thirty-five or so, his black hair conservatively cut, he looked so rich that, in her bathing suit and shirt thrown over it, she felt like a ragamuffin. He had almond-shaped blue eyes, and he was the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life.

“Welcome to my home, Amy.”

Chino?

Merrill waited until the last possible moment before he twisted O’Malley’s automatic into the mushy ribcage of Senor Ruiz. The big BMW was on the edge of town, approaching rising land. “Tell the driver to pull over and stop at the curb. Tell the passenger to keep his hands where I can see them or the muzzle blast from this thing will blow your heart open like a piece of rotted fruit.”

Ruiz spoke to the two men in Spanish. They did not look around, the car slowed, and the passenger eased his hands slowly onto the dashboard. Ruiz said, “I don’t know why you’re doing this, Senor Merrill —”

Merrill pushed the gun in harder. “Tell the driver to get out of the car, walk around the front of it where I can see him, and then head back down the hill. Just the driver.”

More Spanish. The driver put the car in park and did what Merrill wanted. Merrill waited until the man was beyond the glow of the taillights. “Tell the fellow in the passenger seat to hand his gun back to me carefully.”

Ruiz started in Spanish again. The man leaned forward, his hands down again.

“Careful!” Merrill shouted.

The man was turning in his seat, both hands still down. Ruiz screamed. Merrill pulled the trigger and threw himself against Ruiz and jammed the gun against the back of the front seat and began pulling the trigger again. The man in the front seat jumped up, the gun rising above him, going off one, two, three times deafeningly. The man slumped down again, motionless. Merrill sat up and looked around. Outside, the driver appeared in the glow of the taillights again. Merrill clambered out of the car. The driver started running back down the hill. Dogs were barking as Merrill’s ears rang.