Canaan Camp, June 11

          Two days without sleep finally caught up with Paget as he crossed the Hawthorn County line.  Neurochemicals from his fatigued brain finally overcame the caffeine and adrenaline that had kept him going.  He awoke to an blaring horn and the feel of loose gravel tearing at his tires.  Fighting to regain control of the slewing car, he applied steady brake pressure and tried not to oversteer as he entered the shallow ditch.  Fortunately, the stretch of road was one of the few relatively straight ones in the county.  When his speed dropped to thirty, he released the brakes and eased back onto the pavement.

That he had been lucky never entered his mind.  Instead, he cursed the highway department for being too cheap to pave the shoulders.

165.

          "I could have been killed!" he said aloud to the only audience that mattered to him.

          Momentarily he worried that the jostling about might have damaged the canisters, but he had barely been able to wedge them into the trunk.  They couldn't have moved much, and heavy metal collars protected the gate valves from getting knocked open.  So there was nothing to worry about.  Still, the near wreck shot adrenaline into his veins, and almost immediately his brain responded with a different set of neurotransmitters.  By the time he pulled to the camp entrance, he was wide-awake, the residual fatigue only making him surly.

          An old geezer from the sawmill made his way slowly to the gate and struggled with arthritis knobbed fingers at the lock while Paget fidgeted impatiently.

           "Someone ought to put the old bastard out of his misery," he muttered before sliding down the window to hurry the old man along.

          The gate finally swung open, and the old man turned to motion him through.

           "Welcome home, Brother Caleb.  I'll bet you're glad to be back."

           "I'll say.  There's not much out there for us, is there?" he responded as he imagined a church member would normally do.

           A weary smile revealed age-lengthened teeth that made Paget sick

           "Home," said the old man.  "At least for a while.  Reckon I'll go on down the road shortly."

           "You're leaving?" asked Paget in surprise.  None of the fools ever left the camp.

           "To my long home.  Since my wife passed I'm ready to go on.  Why I'm still here, only the Lord knows."

           "Then I hope the Lord calls you home right quick," said Paget, enjoying the startled look on the old man's face as he peeled gravel.

          As he topped the hill the gleaming white assembly hall came into view.  The location was chosen to impress, but the theater had been wasted on Paget until now.  It's alabaster columns stood framed in his windshield.  He stopped, cocked his head, picturing its stage and rising tiers of pews strewn with sprawled figures.  He imagined a curious visitor opening the doors days or even weeks afterward.  To pull that off would be a monumental task because some of them would lay out and he'd have to hunt them down.  Shooting the stragglers seemed like an inelegant solution.  They all needed to be gassed.  Besides that he'd need a way to release the gas without danger to himself.

          Too tired to work out the details, he said to himself as he started up the road again.

 

          Shane met him on the porch.  "Am I ever glad you're back.  Father Joshua's been asking for you for days," he said.

166.

           "Is he better?" asked Paget, fearing the kid had messed up the doping.

           "He acts more like himself and seems more alert, but he's got stomach cramps and he's real fidgety---shakes like he has a chill, but he doesn't have a fever."

          Paget frowned.  The withdrawal symptoms from the PCP didn't worry him, but he didn't like the idea of the old man acting more like himself.

           "Have you been giving him his medicine on time?"

           Shane looked hurt.  "I gave him the sedative twice a day, just like you said."

           "Sorry.  I knew I could count on you.  Has anyone been here to see him?"

           "John came up twice.  The last time, when I told him Joshua was sleeping, he asked where you were.  I told him that you had taken a trip."

           "But you didn't let him talk to the---to Joshua?"

           "No."

           "You did good, Shane," said Paget, clapping him on the shoulder.  "You really came through when Joshua and I needed you.  You look tired.  Haven't gotten much sleep yourself, have you?"

           "Enough."

           "Yeah, well, you go on back to the barracks and rest, soldier.  I think you've earned a day or two off."

 

          After the kid was gone, Paget went to peek into the bedroom.  On the way back it had occurred to him that the old man might have build up a tolerance and somehow playing him.  Unaware of his presence, the old man plucked nervously at his blanket with trembling fingers.  Joshua sat huddled in the darkness with a blanket over his shoulders.  A sheen of sweat covered his face and his lank hair was matted with stale perspiration.  The contrast with the way the old man was when he first met him made him smile.  It was time for another roofie, but not just yet.  Closing the door softly Paget went to the kitchen to concoct a dose.

          As he watched the rohypnol dissolve into the wine, he wondered what it was like to crave something that you didn't even know you craved.

           "How you feel, Joshua?" he asked as he entered the bedroom.

           "Caleb?" said the old man in a quavering, almost desperate voice.  "Is that you?  Where have you been?"

167.

           "I just got back from my mission, Father Joshua.  Shane tells me that you haven't been feeling well."

           "I think I got the flu."

          Paget watched with amusement as the old man's feverish eyes darted toward him, failed to hold contact, and quickly shifted to focus momentarily on first one object in the room and then another.

           "This will make you feel better."

          Joshua took the glass with trembling hands and drained it.  When he looked back up, a thin trickle of the wine ran down his chin to stain his pajama top.

           "You're David and I'm Saul," he said soberly.

          A twinge of apprehension shot through Paget.  Before the drugs had silenced him, Joshua had subjected him to nightly lectures.  He remembered Saul as the old king who tried to knock off David to keep from being replaced.

           "What do you mean?" he asked.

           "Only David's music could drive away the evil spirit.  Some evil spirit is on me, Brother Caleb, but it goes away when you're here."

           "Oh.  Yeah," he said as he took the empty glass from the old man's quivering hand.  "Well I'm right here where I belong and that old evil spirit will be gone in no time."

 

Willamette Freemen Compound, June 12

          Grossette wrinkled his brow in concentration as he reread the note:

          GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH.

           "Give me a break," he muttered.  "Patrick Henry, no less!  Why does every clown who hates the speed limit and paying taxes have to start spouting off like he's some kind of super patriot?"

           "I suppose the psychological justification would be that---"

           "It was rhetorical question, Ford.  Spare me the psychobabble."

          He was sorry as soon as he said it, but agent Ford was one of those theoretical book junkies Grossette called "street dumb."  When frustrated, he didn't tolerate them gladly, and the siege was pure frustration.  Over twenty-four hours and the extent of their communication was something a junior high student might think of.

168.

           "Is this good news or bad news, Ford?" he asked, handing the young agent the note as a token apology.

           "Both, I think.  It probably means that the stuff is still in the compound, which is good, but if we push them they intend to use it."

           "And if that's not the bad news, I don't think I want to hear it," said Grossette sourly.  "So we are not going to provoke them.  If that idiot, Treece goes out in a blaze of glory, we're not handing him the match.  My God!  How do people get so screwed up?"

           "Too much refined sugar?"

          Grossette laughed despite the situation.  "There may be hope for you yet, Ford."

           "Does that mean I get to do something besides fetch the coffee?"

           "You could scare up some donuts."

          As bad as it was, Gossette needed the humor.  He felt like he had as a teenager on the "search and destroy" missions some idiots had decided was the correct way to fight the Viet Cong.  That "long ago" now belonged to the history books.  Maybe he did too.

           "Too old, Ford," he muttered.

 

Canaan Camp, late afternoon

          The magic dust had Joshua flying high.  He paced rapidly, careening through the cluttered living room, and rambling incessantly in barely comprehensible sentence fragments.  The verbal garbage tumbled from his mind and filled the air.  The tremors had gone the way of the old man's dismal expression.  Bits of grandiose plans for Canaan Camp and the Wilderness Church spewed forth, alternating with calls for divine wrath to be visited upon his enemies.  Joshua was ready to take on all Hell.

           "You should hear what John Campbell has been saying about you," said Paget.

Joshua stopped in mid rant and whirled around.

           "John!  He's a Judas!  All the time---like a dog in the manger---a mangy dog that bites the hand that feeds him---betraying me for thirty pieces---Salome!  She danced for the head of John and---but John is---the name---he took that name---in vain, because he has the name of a number and it is six-six-six."

           "Right.  And he's trying to take the church from you."

           "Take the church from me---because he is---he wishes to destroy---a lamb in wolf's clothing---to scatter the flock."

169.

           "And kill the shepherd?" suggested Paget.

           "And kill the shepherd," confirmed Joshua, solemnly.

          Joshua immediately launched into his word salad jag again.  Paget worried, wondering if anything he had just said would stick in the old man's cracked brain. 

 

Blue Creek, June 13, 9:30 PM

          It had been a long day.  Dropping her bags on the kitchen table, Jill made straight for the shower.  When she emerged from the bathroom, she heard a chair creak in the kitchen, and realized that Richard must have come home right after she did.  When she went to see Richard looked up, a folder in his hand as it always seemed to be now.

"How was your day, Babe?" he asked, barely making eye contact before returning his attention to the file.

        "Long.  After class I had dinner with Cynthia Milner and her husband.  Then I went back to college to catch up on grading.  The Milners are having a party this weekend.  I'd really like to go."

"I may have to work."

"You're off Saturday.  Or did Mr. Shively change your schedule?"

"No.  At least not yet."

        "I'd really like to go," she repeated.  "They've got a wonderful place to swim down on the river, a natural beach, what they call a swimmin' hole," she said.  "I bought a swimsuit.  Would you like to see it?"

"Yeah," he said, laying the folder aside.

Jill took a plastic bag from the table.  "Wait here.  I'll put it on for you."

       She went to the bathroom.  After stripping, she examined herself in profile, as she did every day now, and noted with ambivalence that she still wasn't showing.  She put on the two-piece, threw on a robe, and went back outside where Richard was engrossed in the file.

When he looked up from his work, she opened the robe to show him.

"What do you think?"

"You look great," he said with patently contrived enthusiasm that made her eyes well with tears. 

        You didn't even look at me, she thought, If I ask later what color it is, you will not remember---but you will remember every sickening detail about your murder cases, she thought.

170.

        Resentment boiled inside her.

Why can you not look at me the way that stranger at the gas station did?

She wrapped the robe about her, mechanically cinched the belt, and sat down feeling suddenly weary.

"Please try to arrange your work so that we can go to the party," she said.  "It's important to me."

"Ummm," he murmured absently without looking up.

        Most maddening was that his disinterest wasn't deliberate.  His one-track mind simply filtered out unimportant noises such as her voice.

"The man who helped me with the tire was really nice," she said, trying to capture his attention.

"Umm huh."

It was juvenile, but she persisted.

"He was disappointed that I was married.  I think he really liked me."

        As if he had used up his stock of grunts, he failed to respond except with a slight nod.  He was tolerating her presence the way some adults tolerated an annoying child.

"I'm going to bed," she said.

"Be in later," he murmured.

        Jill held her emotions in check until she was alone in the bedroom.  Then she took off the swimsuit and hurled each piece in the general direction of the closet.  She got dressed for bed, snatched the covers up to her chin.

        Is what I expected only a silly dream?  she asked herself.  Is this what marriage really is?  If Richard is good to me, and faithful to me, and loves our child, do I have a right to expect more?  Maybe all the romantic daydreaming nonsense one reads of and sees in movies is just for people new to each other.  Maybe it has to fade away once people get used to each other.

        Her logic was cold comfort.  Jill ached at the thought of giving up on the "daydreaming nonsense."  She longed for it.  She needed it, especially now.

       She was still awake when Richard finally slipped into bed and fell asleep immediately.  It was the final slap in her face.  Simmering resentment kept her awake, and she knew that she would be tired in the morning.  Letting herself get run down wasn't good for the baby.

        Suddenly she felt terribly alone.  Since her Aunt Mirabelle's death, she had only Richard.  Now, perhaps she had lost him too.  Self-pity washed over her.

        171.

         It is not fair!  Why can you not look at me the way you did?  Why can you not be more like that nice man at the station?

Jill tried to unsuccessfully to stifle the tears filling her eyes.

        Richard had drifted away into a world that did not include her, a world that she instinctively avoided even thinking about.  Why he wanted to think about such horribleness was incomprehensible to her.  The horrid fascination of that world was seducing him. 

I will not allow this! she told herself, gritting her teeth until her jaw ached.

 

        Richard rolled over, reaching out to Jill's side of the bed.  Finding only cool sheets, he sat up quickly, thinking that he had overslept.  Groggily, he blinked at the clock.

Four thirteen?  The baby!  A miscarriage!

        Flicking on the light, he hurriedly slipped on his pants, snatched up his shirt, and went out bare-chested.  He found her sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and studying.

"Are you okay?"

"I am fine," she said without looking up.

Relieved, Richard released his breath.  Then he saw that she was holding Jacqueline Benson's photograph.

"What are you doing with that?" he asked.

        "What you always do," she said, peering intently at the portrait of a young woman with short blonde hair.  "She looks intelligent.  I have been trying to understand how such a monster could have deceived her."

        He noticed the stacks of material she had taken from his brief case.  She had sorted it neatly, reports here, profiles there, crime scene and postmortem photocopies arranged by incident.

"You shouldn't be doing this.  There are things there that are you shouldn't see.  It's not good for you."

"No one should have to see them.  Yet someone has to if this man is to be stopped, no?"

"Not you," he said as he reached for Benson's photo.  "I don't want you to---"

She pulled it away from his grasp.

"I must do this," she said.  "It is part of your life, a life I promised to share when we married.  Where you go, I go."

"A cop shouldn't bring his work home," he said.

172.

        "But you do."

"It has to be part of my life, but not ours."

        "I do not understand how I forgot the lesson I learned.  I have made the same mistake I made when you were trying to find Molly's daughter," she softly insisted.  "This is the way you are, and there is no point in trying to deny it.  The only way to keep me separate from this is for me to no longer to be a part of you.  That is not an option.  You will not change so I must."

He looked at her uncertainly.

"Besides, you need me."

"Of course I do."

"I mean with this."

"No."

"Yes.  There are things here you could not possibly understand."

"But you do?"

"Yes.  I'm a woman."

"I've noticed," he quipped.

"Not lately," she replied.  "But let us not discuss conjugal neglect."

"Jill, I---"

"I am joking."

She wasn't, but it was not something to be fixed with words, reasoning, or persuasion.

        "You must understand this man in order to find him.  You must place yourself into his mind to see things the way he does.  Is this not so?"

"Yes."

        "But he does not function alone.  You also must understand his victims to understand how they made him do the things he did."

"They didn't make him do anything."

        "In a sense they did.  It is a dynamic.  He does something, his victim reacts, and then he reacts to that reaction.  It is basic psychology.  To understand what happened you must know about the women.  For that you need me."

173.

         Despite his aversion to the idea, he saw that what she said made sense.

Jill stared intently at the photo.

"Her boyfriend left at a service station in Fayetteville after they argued."

        "Yeah.  We think Paget hooked up with her there.  He spent the previous night in the apartment with the pimp and prostitute he had killed the day before."

        "Let's role play," she suggested.  "I am upset because I just had a fight with my boyfriend.  I told him to leave, and he did."

"Paget saw---"

"Step into the role, Richard.  It makes it clearer if we do away with the third person."

        "Okay.  I see you fighting with your boyfriend.  I notice that you're good looking, but what really stands out is that you're standing up to him.  I think you need to be taught a lesson."

"He would think that so quickly?" asked Jill stepping out of the role.

"I think this guy categorizes women quickly.  Beauty plus standing up to a man equals bitch."

"And since he is a sexual sadist that would turn him on," she said.  "It makes sense."

"Okay.  I am angry with my boyfriend."

"So you notice that I'm a good looking guy and approach me?"

"Of course not.  I would not approach a stranger, but still we make contact somehow.  Let me see the picture of him."

He took the five-year-old picture from the folder and passed it to her.

"Imagine him without the facial hair and bulked up.  That's what the pictures from Oregon show."

Jill studied the picture.  Something about it tickled a memory, but she couldn't place it.

"He is handsome in an uncouth sort of way."

"Like a biker," he suggested.

She remembered that the profile characterized Benson as a low risk victim.

        "We talk, but you are a stranger and I not accept a ride from a strange man.  Unless something extraordinary happens I will not reveal to you what has happened.  You should not even know where I was going or that I need a ride."

"I overheard the argument?"

174.

        "Perhaps."

"That has to be it.  I overheard and come off like I'm trying to help out a lady in distress."

       "The traditional masculine role," she said with a nod.  "Protective and solicitous, but that is not enough to overcome my natural caution."

"And good sense?"

        "And good sense.  You might say or do something that makes me want to talk to you, but I don't think I would trust you enough to go with you---at least not at first."

        "I know you need a ride back to campus so I offer to take you there.  It's too far to walk, but it's not like you would be hitching on the highway or going with me on a long trip.  It would be just for a short time, in town, and in broad daylight."

Jill thought for a moment.

"I might be confident enough to go with you if you appear safe and respectable."

        "I'm getting close," he said, trying to imagine how the abductor might play it.  "But I know that if I don't play you right I'll lose the chance to hook you."

Jill shuddered at the expression.

"Maybe we should stop this," said Richard.  "It's making you uncomfortable."

She shook off the suggestion.

        "No.  Let's go on.  I am upset because my boyfriend promised to go with me to see my mother.  Wait.  Is that what he did---offer to take her?"

"Maybe, but you said it would be out of character to agree to a long trip with a stranger."

        "Let me think, Richard," said Jill, staring intently at the picture of Jacqueline Benson.  "You offer but---wait!  Why did I tell you about going to my see my mother?  We have to have an extended conversation.  Why would I do that?"

Richard shrugged.

        "Because I am angry with my boyfriend and hurt.  Maybe I find your interest flattering.  Under the circumstances---I feel rejected and undesireable---your interest in me is . . . perhaps comforting.  So I talk to you and eventually tell you where I was going."

"So I offer to take you and you accept?'

175.

        "No.  I would turn you down."

"But something changes your mind.  What?"

Jill shrugged.

        "Perhaps you are nice to me in some unexpected way . . . or you do something that makes me feel obligated to accept your offer.  But to do that you would have to appear safe and respectable."

"Maybe we're overestimating her," said Richard.

"Maybe.  Psychology is fuzziest of fuzzy studies"

"I think we got somewhere anyway," he said.  "We at least know that the guy is probably a pretty good actor."

 

        By daylight they had finished off two pots of coffee.  Richard had folded the top edge of the Arkansas map down and taped it to the kitchen table, then folded a Missouri map along the southern border and overlaid it so that the highways aligned.  He marked Paget's most likely route from Marked Tree through Elsinore to Mountain View, and then started another route from Fayetteville to Springfield and east through Norwood to the logging trail where Benson's body had been found.  The two routes overlapped from east of Blue Creek to Mountain View.

Jill pursed her lips.  "It seems probable that it was him.  Why does no one believe that?"

        "Until they identified the coed there was no reason to," he said.  "What made him bring her back if he is in hiding here?  Tanner says he's controlled by his fantasy, but it just seems he would have more sense than that."

"Why did she go with him, Richard?  I think she had to have more sense as you say."

"They found drugs at the scene in Fayetteville, so he had access.  Maybe he gave her something to knock her out." 

"She went with him of her own volition," she said.

"You mean she decided to get in a stranger's car and go with him?"

        "I think.  He could not carry an unconscious woman, or even guide an unsteady one to his car without someone noticing."  She frowned, trying to imagine the scene.  "He must be very good at making women trust him."

"Why are you so sure?"

        "She was beautiful and intelligent.  A girl like that learns something about men quite early.  She must.  Yet he overcame her natural wariness in a very short time."

        Richard wasn't entirely convinced that Jill's empathy wasn't coloring her perceptions of the girl.  He yawned and stretched, looking at his watch.

176.

        "Glad I've got today off."

"Can we go talk to the other woman," Jill said suddenly.  "The one who got away from him."

"Cathy Howard?  Why?"

        "You obviously need to know more about him.  So let's stop guessing and do our research.  She spent more time with him than anyone you know.  Perhaps she can tell you something that will help."

"We've got a party to go to.  Remember?"

"I do not wish to go."

"I do.  I was looking forward to seeing you in skimpy new bikini."

        "It is not skimpy," she said, blinking at the tears that had suddenly ambushed her at his words.  "Besides, I already put it on for you.  You just do not remember."

        He looked intently at her.  With tousled hair, sans makeup, lack of sleep, and bathed in the harsh fluorescent light that purpled an ordinary person's every blemish, she looked absolutely beautiful.

"I remember, but my eyes weren't opened.  I notice a lot when they are, Jill."

"Yes, well it is nice when they are," she replied.

 

Canaan Camp, June 14

        Brushing back a loose strand of hair, Raven pushed the pedal again.  When the heddles lifted the warp, she pulled the shuttle back to the left, undoing her latest mistake.  The six-step pattern wasn't intricate, but she still occasionally got it wrong.  She examined the foot and a half of finished cloth, and smiled in satisfaction at her creation.  She poured herself into the here and now of the complex task.  Although she was still learning, she was becoming adept and the complex movements, leaving time to think.  Just now it was good that she could concern herself with nothing more distressing than ripping out misplaced yarn.  She began again, thrusting through the shuttle and beating down the weft.

What can I do about Shane? she asked herself as she added her clatter to that of the more experienced weavers.

        She liked him, and the natural thing to do, if she were a normal woman instead of what she was, would be to let the relationship develop with the aim of marriage and children like the bible taught.  Raven tried to picture herself in Shane's arms.  The thought of being held close made her grimace.

        How can I want to be in his company when I can't stand the thought of him touching me? she asked in frustration as she slammed the beater bar back more forcibly than necessary.  The necklace moved at the hollow of her breasts.

177.

         Why did you take it?       

 "Fudge," she said softly as she saw another mistake in the pattern.

        The minced oaths had become second nature to her since joining the Church.  Now everything was "foot", "shoot", "heck" and "darn", instead of the more descriptive expletives that came naturally to her.

Raven began pulling out everything down to her mistake.

        If only I could undo the past so easily, she thought ruefully, unaware of Paget who watched her from the doorway not fifteen feet away.

        His attention fixed on the movements beneath her sleeveless blouse and on the way her loose fitting shorts rode up as she worked the pedals.  It was a shame that her hair was the wrong color, but she had the kind of fragility that excited him.

        Won't let the kid touch you, huh?  Saving it up, are you?  Still a virgin at your age!  He suppressed a laugh.  Bliss!  What a name!

        Paget liked dwelling on the minute details of his fantasy.  He savored each step, but now he cut straight to the climax.  Planning could come later.

        Begging.  Promising.  Asking why I'm doing it.  I won't tell you because then you'll just start that idiotic screaming and thrashing around or else turn into wood on me.  I want you to hope and to keep trying so that I can take my time.  You're going to do things you can't even imagine before you finally get what you deserve.

He throbbed as he thought about it.

You're not going to just fade out like the rest of them.  You're not going to get away that easy.

He lingered, imagining her being what he would make her be.  He could almost smell her from across the room.

You're going to be special, Miss Dusky.  Real special.

 

Highway 60 West of Elsinore, June 15

Jill hit him with it twenty miles east of Blue Creek just as the sun cleared the trees.

 "If you're sure that's what you want," he said uneasily, already queasy at the thought.

"You do not wish to see the birth of your child?"

        "Well the traditional place for the father is in the waiting room.  You know, he paces, smokes, and worries until the doc walks in and says ‘Congratulations.  You have a fine baby boy'---or girl."

178.

        "You do not wish to be a part of it?"

        "I wouldn't be much of a part of it if I passed out," he replied, trying to joke his way out of the commitment.  "Call me when it's over, and I'll come right in."

"You're serious!"

"I don't have the guts for it."

"I am the one who must endure the discomfort."

"That's what I don't have the guts for."

"I want you with me."

        Taking his eyes from the road just long enough to make eye contact, he sought her hand and gave it a quick squeeze.  "I'll be there."

"Good.  It will save you from your vice.  They do not allow smoking in the delivery room."

        He smiled despite his misgivings.  Sharing confidences made them lovers, but the banter made them friends.  The two together they made them what their wedding vows had declared, "one flesh."  Putting a firewall between the work that had become his obsession and the woman who was his life had been a well intentioned, but huge, mistake.  He should have known she could handle it.  She had always been the stronger one.  He smiled wryly, thinking that Jill could handle the horror of his investigation better than he could handle the horror of the delivery room.

"You find something humorous?" she asked.

"Me, Babe.  I always underestimate you, but you know me pretty well, don't you?"

She inclined her head, allowing herself a small smile.

        "I detect a Gallic shrug," he asked, decelerating as he came to the Birch Tree exit.  "What say we grab some breakfast?  We've got time."

"What did I prepare for you before we left?"

"I've got to build up my strength for the ordeal of birth," he said as he pulled into the lot of a café.

"No more for me," she said.  "I am on a strict regimen.  I know to the fraction of a kilo how much I should gain and when."

179.

        "Sounds like women's work.  I won't interfere."

        Tempted by a packet of boysenberry jam, Jill relented and ordered toast and tea.  Richard read the menu and surprised her by ordering only coffee.

"You were not really hungry," she said.  "Why did we stop?"

"I thought you could use a break."

"I am pregnant, not ill."

        It was early in her pregnancy.  Later Jill would learn that there was not that much difference between the two conditions.

"What will Mrs. Howard think when we show up unannounced?" she asked.

        Cathy Howard's number was unlisted, and Richard had decided not to involve the Carter County authorities since he was acting in an unofficial capacity.

"She may not talk to us," he replied.

"Then we will have made the trip for nothing."

"Not exactly.  We'll have spent the day together.  I wouldn't call that a waste."