“Fine,” Gracie’s dad said quickly. He wanted to preempt either of his daughters. To say something now, Gracie thought, would seem silly. She collapsed on a log bench to watch the fire across from her dad and Danielle, who chose another log. Rachel sat next to Gracie, saying nothing but sitting close enough that Gracie felt the woman was sympathizing with her. That was nice.

“You folks might want to get your stuff all laid out in your tents,” Dakota said. “We’ll have dinner ready in about an hour and it’ll get dark fast. This way, you won’t have to try to unpack everything by flashlight.”

Her dad slapped his knees and stood up. “Makes sense.”

As Gracie rose she noticed Wilson had changed into moccasins. Maybe, she thought, so they wouldn’t see that his boots had been muddy.

15

Cody chain-smoked cigarettes in his room at the Gallatin Gateway Inn, breaking the filters off each stick and lighting the new one from the cherry stub of the old one. It had only taken him two minutes to dismantle the smoke detector on the ceiling by unscrewing the faceplate and disconnecting the white and red wires. He hoped he’d remember to put it all right before he checked out in the morning.

He paced and surveyed his new gear piled on the bed. Before the stores closed, he’d found Ariat cowboy boots that didn’t hurt his feet at Powder Horn Sportsman’s Supply on Main as well as a straw cowboy hat, chaps, jeans, two sets of nylon saddlebags, and denim jacket. He’d felt foolish buying Western wear, but Bull Mitchell had insisted. Everything else he needed-sleeping bag, pad, water filter, daypack, 40 caliber Smith amp; Wesson cartridges, 223 rounds for his scoped departmental AR-15, a saddle sheath for the rifle, Steiner binoculars-he found at Bob Ward Sporting Goods on Max Avenue. Rounding out his purchases was a plastic grocery bag packed with two cartons of cigarettes, a long sleeve of Stride gum packets, plastic bottles of tonic water, and instant coffee. He’d spent five agonizing minutes staring at a pint of Wild Turkey behind the clerk’s head-Just one pint, just one, what could it hurt? Hell, he thought, he’d save it until he had Justin with him and the killer in cuffs or in the ground. It would be his reward.

While he argued with himself he tried to conjure up the image of Hank Winters saying, “Once you start you cannot stop. That is our curse.” Instead, the image of Hank was of a roasted and bloated arm reaching up from the black muck in the rain. And when the eager young clerk behind the counter asked, “May I help you?” Cody snapped, “Go to hell,” and stomped out of the place.

He felt guilty for that now.

* * *

He was pleased to find out they had available rooms at the Gallatin Gateway Inn-a restored grand hotel from the early railroad days-because it was less than a half mile from the headquarters of Wilderness Adventures. The female receptionist wore a crisp white shirt and sniffed at him, saying, “Please keep in mind we have a strict no-smoking policy here.”

“I thought this was a railroad hotel,” Cody said. “Railroaders smoked.”

“At one time,” the clerk said. “Many many years ago. And there aren’t any railroaders around here anymore, if you noticed.”

“So this is a snooty place,” he said.

“Not at all,” she said crisply.

He winked at her and gave her his credit card. After she took the imprint, he hauled all his gear to his room to unwrap his purchases, clip off the price tags, and fill two new nylon saddlebags. To hell with Bull Mitchell’s twenty-pound limit, he thought.

* * *

It was dark by the time he had everything packed. He’d made several trips to and from his Ford. There were things in the tool box and investigations lockers he wanted to take with him, including his rain gear. He was pleased he remembered to bring the Motorola Iridium 9505A handheld satellite phone. He’d stashed it in his SUV a few months ago after he stole it from the evidence room. Drug runners had used the phone so they wouldn’t be tracked via their cell phone calls by law enforcement, and the case was a slam dunk because the bad guys turned on each other so the phone was never introduced in court. The phone was small for a sat phone, less than a pound, and cost sixteen hundred dollars retail. It had three and a half hours of talk time without recharging and thirty-eight hours of stand-by time. He stuffed it in a saddlebag.

Then he sat at the small desk in the room, turned on the ancient banker’s lamp, and placed his cell phone within reach, waiting for Larry to call. It had been way too long not to have heard from him since he faxed the material, he thought. His partner must know something by now-he’d had the sheets all afternoon. Cody vowed to himself that if Larry didn’t call him by midnight he’d break his pledge and track Larry down like a dog.

He poured a glass of tonic over ice and lit yet another cigarette, and opened the file he’d taken from Margaret Cooper. He looked at his list of suspects: