Dark Rivers of the Heart

and loaded all the luggage into the Explorer.
        In February, Vegas could be as warm as a late-spring day, but the high desert was also subject to an inconstant winter that had sharp teeth when it chose to bite. That Friday morning, the sky was gray, and the temperature was in the low forties. From the western mountains came a wind as cold as a pit boss's heart.
        After the luggage was loaded, they visited a suitably private corner of a brushy vacant lot behind the motel. Spencer stood guard, with his back turned and his shoulders hunched and his hands jammed in his jeans pockets, while Rocky attended to the call of nature.
        With that moment successfully negotiated, they returned to the Explorer, and Spencer drove from the south wing of the motel to the north wing, where the coffee shop was located. He parked at the curb, facing the big plate-glass windows.
        Inside the restaurant, he selected a booth by the windows, in a direct line with the Explorer, which was less than twenty feet away.
        Rocky sat as tall as he could in the passenger seat of the truck, watching his master through the windshield.
        Spencer ordered eggs, home fries, toast, coffee. While he ate, he glanced frequently at the Explorer, and Rocky was always watching.
        A few times, Spencer waved.
        The dog liked that. He wagged his tail every time that Spencer acknowledged him. Once, he put his paws on the dashboard and pressed his nose to the windshield, grinning.
        "What did they do to you, pal? What did they do to make you like this?"
        Spencer wondered aloud, over his coffee, as he watched the adorRoy Miro left Alfonse Johnson and the other men to search every inch of the cabin in Malibu while he returned to Los Angeles. With luck, they would find something in Grant's belongings that would shed light upon his psychology, reveal an unknown aspect of his past, or give them a lead on his whereabouts.
        Agents in the downtown office were already penetrating the phone company system to trace the call placed earlier by Grant's computer.
        Grant had probably covered his trail. They would be lucky if they discovered, even by this time tomorrow, at what number and location he had received those fifty images from the videocamera.
        Driving south on the Coast Highway, toward L.A Roy put his cellular unit on speakerphone mode and called Kleck in Orange County.
        Although he sounded weary, John Kleck was in fine, deep voice.
        "I'm getting to hate this tricky bitch," he said, referring to the woman who had been Valerie Keene until she abandoned her car at John Wayne airport on Wednesday and became, yet again, someone new.
        As he listened, Roy had difficulty picturing the thin, gangly young agent with the startled-trout face. Because of the reverberant bass voice, it was easier to believe that Kleck was a tall, broad-chested, black rock singer from the doo-wop era.
        Every report that Kleck delivered sounded vitally important-even when he had nothing to report. Like now. Kleck and his team still had no idea where the woman had gone.
        "We're widening the search to rental-car agencies countywide," Kleck intoned. "Also checking stolen-car reports. Any set of wheels heisted anytime Wednesday-we're putting it on our must-find sheet."
        "She never stole a car before," Roy noted.
        "Which is why she might this time-to keep us off balance. I'm just worried she hitchhiked. Can't track her on the thumb express."
        "If she hitchhiked, with all the crazies out there these days," Roy said, then we don't have to worry about her any more. She's already been raped, murdered, beheaded, gutted, and dismembered."
        "That's all right with me," Kleck said. "Just so I can get a piece of the body for a positive ID."
        After talking to Kleck, though the morning was still fresh, Roy was convinced that the day would feature nothing but bad news.
        Negative thinking usually wasn't his style. He loathed negative thinkers. If too many of them radiated pessimism at the same time, they could distort the fabric of reality, resulting in earthquakes, tornadoes, train wrecks, plane crashes, acid rain, cancer clusters, disruptions in microwave communications, and a dangerous surliness in the general population. Yet he couldn't shake his bad mood.
        Seeking to lift his spirits, he drove with only his left hand until he'd