It was different this time. Billie couldn’t have put into words why, exactly, but it just was. Sure, there wasn’t the newness, the first-time nervousness, the collision of conscience with need, but it was more than that. Of course, a lot had happened-was still happening-but it wasn’t that, either. Something was different inside her.

The shape and taste of his mouth, the prickle of his beard-rough face on the palms of her hands, his hard, long body and big, gentle hands-these things she hadn’t even known before yesterday. Yet, now she felt as if she’d always known them.

This morning I told him I wasn’t a forever kind of woman, yet now I keep hearing the word forever whispered over and over inside my head like a bit of song that won’t leave me alone.

But he hasn’t changed. He still is not a forever kind of man. So where does that leave me?

Vulnerable. I could get hurt.

“What?” he whispered, staring down at her face in the darkness, his chest gone tight with tenderness. His fingers were cradling her head, and his thumbs, caressing her cheeks, had felt wetness there. “Billie…what’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong…must’ve missed a spot with that towel,” she said, and her laughter was languid and sweet, so he thought he must have been mistaken.

Except that, when he bent his head to kiss away the moisture, he found it tasted faintly salty, like tears.

The ballroom at the Mirage was a zoo, a seething hive of humanity with a noise-level approaching damage limits. Where did all these people come from? Billie wondered as she stood in the entrance to the ballroom, searching the crowd for familiar faces. In the years since she’d last played in a major tournament, the popularity of no-limit hold ’em appeared to have exploded.

Yes, but it’s still the same game, she reminded herself. The most important thing to have in a tournament of this size was still self-discipline. That, and a lot of luck. Miley had taught her that much, at least. Right now, she knew, the field included a whole bunch of really terrible poker players, most of whom would be gone by the end of the night’s play. Later, when the players had been winnowed down to the top few, skill would make a difference. But on the first day of a tournament this size, it was mostly about luck. And discipline.

Billie knew she’d need both to make it through to tomorrow’s play.

Just buy us some time, Billie. Give us one more day.

“Hey-Billie Farrell, is that you?”

She turned to find the source of the voice, and it was a moment before she recognized one of the familiar faces on the tour. During play he’d be wearing a hooded sweatshirt and huge sunglasses. Without his disguise he looked deceptively young and harmless. “Hey,” she said. “Yeah…it’s me. Couldn’t stay away.”

“Well, welcome back-as long as you’re not at my table. What number are you at?”

She checked the card in her hand. “Uh…twenty-six.”

He flashed a grin. “Thank you, Lord. Well-see you later. If we’re both still around.” He touched her elbow and moved off into the crowd.

Well, here goes, Billie thought, and followed.

She found her table and took her place, nodding at the players already seated as she placed her backpack under her chair. In the backpack were a bottle of water, a can of high-energy drink, and several granola bars. She wouldn’t be drinking much; bathroom breaks could be few and far between. If she lasted that long. Also in the backpack were her sunglasses. She took them out and put them on, then arranged her allotment of chips on the table in front of her.

The last few players took their seats. So did the dealer, blank-faced and anonymous. A loud buzzer sounded, and the noise in the ballroom died to a suspenseful murmur. The tournament had begun.

She watched two cards come slithering across the blue-green table toward her. She put her hand over them and tipped up the corners. Ace-queen, suited. She laid the cards flat and sat back in her chair, her face an impassive mask.

Not a bad way to begin, she thought.

“O-kay,” Detective Vogel said, “this is the area we’re lookin’ at, right here.” He thumped the map on which he’d just drawn a large circle with a red marking pen, then turned to his audience. This consisted of Holt, Wade, Tierney and a couple of the LVPD detectives. The rest of the team were busy on the computers, and the FBI guys had been keeping a low profile, letting LVPD take the lead in the case. “Here’s I-15. The tower’s just off the interstate. He had to be somewhere in this range.”

“What the hell’s out there?” one of the detectives asked.

“Uh…Arizona?” somebody said, and got a few snorts of laughter in response.

Somebody else said, “A whole lotta desert.”

“Well, there’s Valley of Fire State Park.” This came from out in the middle of the squad room, where Sergeant Sanchez, the only woman on the team, had been staring intently at a computer monitor. She glanced up and added, “Google Maps,” by way of an explanation.

“Valley of Fire? Never heard of it,” Vogel said.

“Says here,” Sanchez went on, reading from the monitor screen, “it’s Nevada’s oldest state park.”

“Where are you gonna hide a kid in a state park? There’s nothing out there.” Vogel ran a hand over the gray stubble of his brush-cut hair, then aimed a question at the group at large. “How’re we coming on the credit card records? Anybody? Jeez Louise…”

One of the other squad members picked up a stack of papers and waved them as he wove his way around the desks. “We’re going over them now. So far the only thing we’ve got just verifies the general location. The guy got gas at a station off I-15, right around the time he made that call to Ms. Farrell.”

“Would you mind if I take a look?” Holt asked quietly.

“Have at it,” Vogel said, and the other detective handed over the printout with a shrug.

Holt scanned down the list, then went over it again, while the briefing went on, suggestions and questions and reports fading to background noise.

“Find something?” Wade asked in an undertone.

Holt looked up at him, frowning. “Maybe.” He tilted the sheet so Wade could see it and pointed. “Look how many times he stopped for gas. Here, here and here.”

He and Wade looked at each other, then at the rest of the group.

“Got something?” Vogel asked.

“I don’t know,” Holt replied. “Seems like he’s using an awful lot of gas. What kind of vehicle burns that much gas? And might be found in a state park?”

“An RV,” Vogel said, swearing under his breath.

There was a brief little silence, then everybody shifted into Drive at once. The room seemed to crackle and hum with activity, and Holt felt the excitement like a current of electricity under his skin.

Vogel was spouting orders in a rat-a-tat-tat voice, like an arcade popgun.

“Sanchez-find out if there’s camping in that park. Everybody-find out whether the suspect has an RV registered to him. If not, find out if he’s got any friends or relatives, neighbors who own an RV. Find out if there’ve been any reports of stolen RVs in the past forty-eight hours. Come on, people, let’s go! Clock’s ticking!”

It was late when Holt got back to Billie’s place, but even so, he beat her there. He parked on the street and looked at the dark house and empty driveway and told himself that was a good sign, that it meant she hadn’t gone out of the tournament yet. At least, he hoped that was what it meant.

He didn’t have a key to her house, so he turned off the engine and headlights and settled down to wait.

It wasn’t the first time he’d had to sit in his car and wait for someone to show up…for something to happen. He’d been doing stakeouts since his early years on the force. To pass the time back then, he’d think about the case in progress, go over every detail, much the same way he did now when he was battling imsomnia, only in his mind. This time, though, instead of cold facts and hard details, his mind kept filling up with images. Faces. Some of them were hazy and indistinct, some soft-edged, like old photographs. Some were painful, stark and vivid.

Brenna Fallon, fourteen years old, in a photograph with worn edges…

Gaunt faces, with empty eyes…the faces of homeless teenagers gathered under an overpass to keep out of the rain…

Billie sitting in the moonlight on the edge of an empty swimming pool, her face wistful as she talks about the Grand Canyon…

And not a face, but me, standing with my arms around her and my chin on her hair, looking in awe at the Grand Canyon…

My mother’s face, not from memory, but from a photograph Aunt Louise had sitting on the piano…

Wade and Tierney, the way they look at each other…

Tony and Brooke. And what is it about the faces of people in love? Do I imagine it, or is there something that seems to shine from inside them, like a house with all the windows lit up?

He wasn’t sure what woke him…hadn’t been aware of falling asleep. He sat up straight and stared at the dark windows of Billie’s house, and the cold seemed to seep into his bones. A cold that wasn’t only from the temperature outside, which was definitely dropping, but also the chill of what he understood was loneliness.

He was staring at those dark windows when headlights came sweeping across the white rail fence and the still, gray branches of the olive tree, and Billie’s car pulled into the driveway.

She got out of her car and waited while he climbed out of the Mustang and walked up the driveway to meet her. The chilly desert night reached into the collar of his jacket and coiled around his ears, but he didn’t feel it. She didn’t say anything, just reached for his hand, and he walked with her along the pathway between the flowerpots. His heart was beating hard and fast, and he tried to think of what he could say to her to make her feel better. To let her know whatever happened, it wasn’t her fault, and she hadn’t failed.