Ten feet from the kennel she stumbled to a stop and turned to face him; she extended both arms as if to make a shield. “You’ve got a problem,” she said.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“You didn’t come here just to kill my dogs—you have to kill me too.”

Riddick didn’t reply.

“But to kill me you’ll have to shoot me, and then my blood will be on the ground. There are thirty cadaver dogs here that all know my scent, and any one of them will be able to find my body wherever you try to hide it in these woods. You’ll have to kill all the dogs—every one of them. How many bullets will that take? How many have you fired already? Five? Six? How much ammunition did you bring?”

Riddick nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right, I do have a problem—but it’s only a small one. I can still kill you—I’ll just have to do it someplace else.”

Alena said nothing; she knew he was right. “Why are you doing this?”

“You’ve upset a very important person, lady—someone who doesn’t want your dog sniffing out any more graves.”

“Who?”

“That’s none of your business. I want you to walk over to the car and get in the trunk—right now.”

Alena’s mind raced. She knew she was out of options. If she got in the trunk she was dead; the man could shoot her and dump her body anywhere, and the authorities would have no idea where to look. But if she refused to get in the trunk she was dead too—the man preferred not to kill her here, but he would if he had no other choice. She was dead either way, and there was nothing she could do about it—but she had no intention of dying before she learned the truth.

“Who killed my father?” she demanded. “I won’t get in the trunk until you tell me—you’ll have to kill me here.”

Riddick shook his head. “You really want to know?”

Alena nodded.

“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “There’s a sweet little old librarian down in Endor. Her name is Agnes. She must be eighty years old—a real grandmotherly type, the kind you’d expect to find putting up preserves or knitting in front of a fire. That’s who killed your old man— she took a baseball bat and bashed his brains in, along with half a dozen other poor suckers over the years. Satisfied?”

“Why would she do that?”

“That’s a deep, dark secret,” Riddick said.

“But—why my father?”

“Because he had a cadaver dog, and people who can bring back the dead are dangerous to have around. Now—get in the trunk.”