“You started to tell me on the phone about your contact with Max Clinter, that you found him strange. I think that was the word you used.”

“Very intense. Actually, beyond intense.”

“How far beyond?”

“Pretty far. He sounded paranoid.”

“What made you think that?”

“The look in his eyes. That I-know-terrible-secrets look. He kept saying that I didn’t know what I was getting into, that I was risking my life, that the Good Shepherd was pure evil.”

“He seems to have gotten under your skin.”

“He did. ‘Pure evil’ sounds like such a cliché. But he made it sound real.”

After another few miles, Kim’s GPS directed them off Route 28 at the Boiceville exit. They drove alongside a cascading white-water stream, swollen from snowmelt, until they came to Mountainside Drive, an ascending switchback road through a steep evergreen forest. That brought them to Falcon’s Nest Lane. The addresses on the lane were posted next to driveways that led back to homes shielded from view by thick evergreens or high stone walls. Each driveway occurred at an interval Gurney estimated to be no less than a quarter mile from its nearest neighbor. The final address on the lane was Twelve—etched in cursive script on a brass plaque affixed to one of the two fieldstone pillars that bracketed the entrance to the driveway. Atop each of the pillars was a round stone the size of a basketball, and atop each of these was perched a sculpted stone eagle with wings spread aggressively and talons extended.

Kim turned in to the elegant Belgian-block driveway and drove slowly ahead through a virtual tunnel of massive rhododendrons. Then the tunnel opened, the driveway widened, and they were in front of Rudy Getz’s home—an angular glass-and-concrete affair, hardly homey.

“This is it,” said Kim with nervous excitement as she came to a stop in front of cantilevered concrete steps leading up to a metal door.

They got out of the car, climbed the steps, and were about to knock when the door opened. The man who greeted them was short and stocky, with pale skin, thinning gray hair, and hooded eyes. He was dressed in black jeans, black T-shirt, and an off-white linen sport jacket. He held a colorless drink in a short, fat glass. He reminded Gurney of a porno-film producer.

“Hey, nice to see you,” he said to Kim with the cordiality of a drowsy Gila monster. He eyed Gurney, his mouth stretching into an emotionless grin. “You must be her famous detective adviser. Pleasure. Come in.” He stepped back, gesturing them into the house with his glass. He squinted at the gray sky. “Fucking inclement weather, you know?”

The interior of the house was as aggressively modern and angular as the outside—mostly leather, metal, glass, cold colors, white oak floors.

“What are you drinking, Detective?”

“Nothing.”