Dark Rivers of the Heart

Then I'll never be able to go back and finish this. We pass right by Vail on the way to Denver.
        It's off Interstate Seventy."
        "I know," she said shakily, remembering that moment in the helicopter, somewhere over Utah, when she had sensed that he might not live through the night to share the morning with her.
        He said, "If you don't want to go there with me, we can work that out too. But… even if I could be sure the agency would never learn about the place, I'd have to go back tonight. Ellie, if I don't go back now, when I have the guts to face it, I might never work up the courage later. It's taken sixteen years this time."
        She sat for a while, staring at her own hands. Then she got up and went to the laptop, which was still plugged in and connected to the modern.
        She switched it on.
        He followed her to the desk. "What're you doing?"
        "What's the address of the ranch?" she asked.
        It was a rural address, rather than a street number. He gave it to her, then again after she asked him to repeat it. "But why? What's this about?" :'What's the name of the offshore company?" 'Vanishment International."
        "No."
        "And that's the name on the deed now-Vanishment International' That's how it would show on the tax records?"
        "Yeah." Spencer pulled up another chair beside hers and sat on it as Rocky came sniffing around to see if they had more food. "Ellie, will you open up?"
        "I'm going to try to crack into public land records out there," she said.
        "I need to call up a parcel map if I can get one. I've got to figure out the exact geographic coordinates of the place."
        "Is all that supposed to mean something?"
        "By God, if we're going in there, if we're taking a risk like that, then we're going to be as heavily armed as possible." She was talking to herself more than to him. "We're going to be ready to defend ourselves against anything."
        "What're you talking about?"
        "Too complicated. Later. Now I need some silence."
        Her quick hands worked magic on the keyboard. Spencer watched the screen as Ellie moved from Grand junction to the courthouse computer in Vail. Then she peeled the county's data-system onion one layer at a time.
        Wearing a slightly large suit of clothes provided by the agency and a topcoat identical to those of his three companions, in shackles and handcuffs, the famous and infamous Steven Ackblom sat beside Roy in the back of the limousine.
        The artist was fifty-three but appeared to be only a few years older than when he had been on the front pages of newspapers, where the sensation mongers had variously dubbed him the Vampire of Vail, the Madman of the Mountains, and the Psycho Michelangelo. Although a trace of gray had appeared at his temples, his hair was otherwise black and glossy and not in the least receding. His handsome face was remarkably smooth and youthful, and his brow was unmarked. A soft smile line curved downward from the outer flare of each nostril, and fans of fine crinkles spread at the outer corners of his eyes: None of that aged him whatsoever; in fact, it gave the impression that he suffered few troubles but enjoyed many sources of amusement.
        As in the photograph that Roy had found in the Malibu cabin and as in all the pictures that had appeared in newspapers and magazines sixteen years ago, Steven Ackblom's eyes were his most commanding feature.
        Roy remained in the shadows. The publicity still was not there now, if it ever had been; in its place was a quiet self-confidence.
        Likewise, the menace that could be read into any photograph, when one knew the accomplishments of the man, was not in the least visible in person. His gaze was direct and clear, but not threatening.
        Roy had been surprised and not displeased to discover an uncommon gentleness in Ackblom's eyes, and a poignant empathy as well, from which it was easy to infer that he was a person of considerable wisdom, whose understanding of the human condition was deep, complete.
        Even in the limousine's odd and inadequate illumination, which came from the recessed lights under the heel-kicks of the car seats and from the low-wattage sconces in the doorposts, Ackblom was a presence to be reckoned with-although in no way that the press, in its sensation seeking, had begun to touch upon. He was quiet, but his taciturnity had no quality