chest that he would not have been surprised to hear the echo of it bouncing off another 
ridge and coming back to him across the canyon.
  This was where he had paused to eat some Oreos. The rattlesnake, which earlier had been 
sunning on a large flat rock, was gone.
  The golden retriever had followed Travis. It stood beside him, panting, peering down 
the slope they had just ascended.
  Slightly dizzy, wanting to sit and rest but aware that he was still in danger of an 
unknown variety, Travis looked down the deer trail, too, and scanned what underbrush he 
could see. If the stalker remained in pursuit of them, it was being more circumspect, 
climbing the slopes without disturbing the weeds and bushes.
  The retriever whined and tugged once at Travis's pants leg. It scurried across the top 
of the narrow ridge to a declivity by which they could make their way down into the next 
canyon. Clearly, the dog believed they were not out of danger and ought to keep moving.
  Travis shared that conviction. His atavistic fear-and the reliance on instinct that it 
invoked-sent him hurrying after the dog, over the far side of the ridge, into another 
tree-filled canyon.
   
  2
  Vincent Nasco had been waiting in the dark garage for hours. He did not look as if he 
would be good at waiting. He was big-over two hundred pounds, six-three, muscular-and he 
always seemed to be so full of energy that he might burst at any moment. His broad face 
was placid, usually as expressionless as the face of a cow. But his green eyes flashed 
with vitality, with an edgy nervous watchfulness-and with a strange hunger that was like 
something you expected to see in the eyes of a wild animal, some jungle cat, but never in 
the eyes of a man. Like a cat, in spite of his tremendous energy, he was patient. He 
could crouch for hours, motionless and silent, waiting for prey.
  At nine-forty Tuesday morning, much later than Nasco expected, the dead-bolt lock on 
the door between the garage and the house was disengaged with a single hard clack. The 
door opened, and Dr. Davis Weatherby flicked on the garage lights, then reached for the 
button that would raise the big sectional door.
  "Stop right there," Nasco said, rising and stepping from in front of the doctor's 
pearl-gray Cadillac.
  Weatherby blinked at him, surprised. "Who the hell-"
  Nasco raised a silencer-equipped Walther P-38 and shot the doctor once in the face.
  Ssssnap.
  Cut off in midsentence, Weatherby fell backward into the cheery yellow and white 
laundry room. Going down, he struck his head on the clothes dryer and knocked a wheeled 
metal laundry cart into the wall.
  Vince Nasco was not worried about the noise because Weatherby was unmarried and lived 
alone. He stooped over the corpse, which had wedged the door open, and tenderly put one 
hand on the doctor's face.
  The bullet had hit Weatberby in the forehead, less than an inch above the bridge of his 
nose. There was little blood because death had been instantaneous, and the slug had not 
been quite powerful enough to smash through the back of the man's skull. Weatherby's 
brown eyes were open wide. He looked startled.
  With his fingers, Vince stroked Weatherby's warm cheek, the side of his neck. He closed 
the sightless left eye, then the right, although he knew that postmortem muscle reactions 
would pop them open again in a couple of minutes. With a profound gratefulness evident in 
his tremulous voice, Vince said, "Thank you. Thank you, Doctor." He kissed both of the 
dead man's closed eyes. "Thank you."
  Shivering pleasantly, Vince plucked the car keys off the floor where the dead man had 
dropped them, went into the garage, and opened the Cadillac's trunk, being careful not to 
touch any surface on which he might leave a clear fingerprint. The trunk was empty. Good. 
He carried Weatherby's corpse out of the laundry room, put it in the trunk, closed and 
locked the lid.
  Vince had been told that the doctor's body must not be discovered until tomorrow. He 
did not know why the timing was important, but he prided himself on doing flawless work. 
Therefore, he returned to the laundry room, put the metal cart where it belonged, and 
looked around for signs of violence. Satisfied, he closed the door on the yellow and 
white room, and locked it with Weatherby's keys.
  He turned out the garage lights, crossed the darkened space, and let himself out the 
side door, where he had entered during the night by quietly loiding the flimsy lock with 
a credit card. Using the doctor's keys, he relocked the door and walked away from the 
house.
  Davis Weatherby lived in Corona Del Mar, within sight of the Pacific Ocean. Vince had 
left his two-year-old Ford van three blocks from the doctor's house. The walk back to the 
van was very pleasant, invigorating. This was a fine neighborhood boasting a variety of 
architectural styles; expensive Spanish casas sat beside beautifully detailed Cape Cod 
homes with a harmony that had to be seen to be believed. The landscaping was lush and 
well tended. Palms and ficus and olive trees shaded the sidewalks. Red, coral, yellow, 
and Orange bougainviflaeas blazed with thousands of flowers. The bottlebrush
  trees were in bloom. The branches of jacarandas dripped lacy purple blossoms. The air 
was scented with star jasmine.
  Vincent Nasco felt wonderful. So strong, so powerful, so alive.
   
  3
  Sometimes the dog led, and sometimes Travis took the lead. They went a long way before 
Travis realized that he had been completely jolted out of the despair and desperate 
loneliness that had brought him to the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains in the first 
place.
  The big tattered dog stayed with him all the way to his pickup, which was parked along 
the dirt lane under the overhanging boughs of an enormous spruce. Stopping at the truck, 
the retriever looked back the way they had come.
  Behind them, black birds swooped through the cloudless sky, as if engaged in 
reconnaissance for some mountain sorcerer. A dark wall of trees loomed like the ramparts 
of a sinister castle.
  Though the woods were gloomy, the dirt road onto which Travis had stepped was fully 
exposed to the sun, baked to a pale brown, mantled in fine, soft dust that plumed around 
his boots with each step he took. He was surprised that such a bright day could have been 
abruptly filled with an overpowering, palpable sense of evil.
  Studying the forest out of which they had fled, the dog barked for the first time in 
half an hour.
  "Still coming, isn't it?" Travis said.
  The dog glanced at him and mewled unhappily.
  "Yeah," he said, "I feel it too. Crazy . . . yet I feel it, too. But what the hell's 
out there, boy? Huh? What the hell is it?"
  The dog shuddered violently.
  Travis's own fear was amplified every time he saw the dog's terror manifested.
  He put down the tailgate of the truck and said, "Come on. I'll give you a lift out of 
this place."