Five steps, stop and listen, another five. At the top, she stumbled and froze, afraid her clumsiness might have been heard.

A strange sound was coming from the front bedroom. A high keening sound like that of a wounded animal. Her blood turned to ice.

Was it the man? Who else? No one but he had gone into the house and she didn’t believe in ghosts, did she?

Dulcie found the wall in the dark and worked her way carefully along it. The keening had changed to something almost more frightening, a horrible choking sound.

She moved toward the dim light and the sound, determined to get a look at the man and then run like hell.

As she reached the doorway she saw the man on his knees beside the bed. His flashlight lay on the bed, the shaft of light splashed across the room.

He was hunched over, holding something in his right hand, his body convulsing with what she realized were sobs.

The sight gripped her. She watched him, his hands balling into fists, his body quivering, choking out sobs as if bringing them up from some deep, dark well inside him.

The muscles of his right hand flexed, the fingers opening. In the light from his flashlight lying on the bed, she saw what he held. A gold locket on a chain.

Her heart stopped. All breath rushed out of her. Time seemed to freeze as her muscles turned to mush.

The man spun around so fast she didn’t see the blow coming, couldn’t have moved even if she had. His fist caught her on the side of the head, knocking her back into the wall. She smacked her head and felt the light sparkle as she slid down the wall and hit the floor, the lights going out completely.

Russell jerked up out of a bad dream, confused for a moment where he was. It took a few seconds to realize what had awakened him. The phone.

He grabbed it up. “Hello?”

“It’s Shane. I didn’t want to wake Dad, but I thought you should know. I just arrested Finnegan Amherst.”

The rainmaker? Russell sat up and tried to clear away the cobwebs of the dream, the remnants of sleep. He’d been dreaming about Dulcie. She’d been in trouble. He shook it off. “Why would you arrest—”

“I think you might want to come down here. I had the other deputy on duty take Dulcie Hughes to the hospital for—”

“What?” Russell was on his feet now, fear sending his heart into overdrive.

“Just for observation. I wanted Doc to look her over to make sure she didn’t have a concussion.”

“What the hell?” Russell swore as he snapped on a light and looked around for some clothes.

“She’s all right, okay? She had a run-in with Finnegan Amherst.”

“I’ll kill that bastard.”