Enough psychoanalyzing already. Just get out, go up the steps, and ring the goddamn bell.

Her stalling became moot when the door opened and a figure emerged, holding a huge bundle of loose clothes, and headed for the BMW. Right away she recognized him, and before he could look over and see her just sitting there, she opened the door, got out—awkwardly, as usual, given the sling on her arm—and approached. He looked the same—beat-up jeans, faded T-shirt—but there were no new tattoos, and a quick glance reassured her there were no fresh cuts on his arms.

He frowned as she came closer. She wasn’t dressed for work, and it was obvious that it took him a minute to recognize her. She used that moment to inspect his features more closely: no bruises or marks, hair combed, even freshly shaved. Well, relatively.

A knot of concern that had been tightening in her chest as she made the drive to Scottsdale now began to relax.

“You’re that FBI person,” he said. “Agent…”

She could tell the name was never going to come. “Swanson. But just call me Corrie.”

He nodded, then opened the door of the BMW and threw in the clothes. Corrie noticed that his stereo and record collection were already on the backseat, arranged with significantly more care than this fresh load of stuff.

“No real reason for my visit,” she went on before he could say anything. “Just thought I’d stop by, see if you have any outstanding questions, you know—just part of the job.”

It wasn’t, but he didn’t have to know.

“No questions. I’ve already heard more than I want to know.”

Rosalie Parkin’s body had been found, without its head, five days before, dumped in a storm drain on the outskirts of Gary, Indiana. Her kid brother had been cleared of any possible suspicion, and so had that married dick of a lawyer, Damon, who had been using Rosalie as his side piece. But Corrie wanted to check on the kid anyway. If all this had happened to her, she sure as hell would have wanted someone to do that. Of course, with her, no one ever did. Not until…

A shirt fell out onto the curb. The youth picked it up, threw it back into the car, closed the door. Then he turned to her.

“Got a minute?” she asked.

He thought a moment, shrugged. “Sure.”

They sat on the front steps. It seemed easiest: least formal, least threatening.

“Is that your sister’s car?”

He nodded.

“Looks like you’re headed somewhere.”

“Tucson.”

“Yeah? What’s there?”

“Got a couple friends with a place.”

This was a fair enough answer. But Corrie remained silent, giving him time to say more.

“They’re into vinyl, like me,” he added at last. “One of them works at the Southwestern Museum of Rock. Got me a job there as a researcher.”

Corrie looked at him. “No shit. That’s great.”

He shrugged again. “Part-time at first. We’ll see.” He nodded at the sling. “What happened to you?”

“Cut myself shaving.” Corrie turned her gaze away and they both looked past the BMW, toward the lawns—some with manicured grass, others with colored lava rock—that lay across the street.

“Ernest, I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry about your sister,” she said in a lower voice. “Really sorry. And I know it doesn’t mean much coming from me, but I’m told she didn’t suffer.”

“That cop, Porter, told me the same thing,” he said, still gazing straight ahead. There was a beat. “But thanks.”

Corrie took a breath. “Think you’re going to be okay?” Shit, she was winging this, big-time. Maybe it had been a bad idea, coming here. But it had seemed the right thing to do.

“I guess,” Ernest answered after a while. “Yeah, I think so.” Another pause. “You know, it sounds messed up, but—somehow, her death, the shock of it, was like a wake-up call. I was spiraling deeper and deeper into self-pity. Now…” He let the thought drift off. “It hurts like a motherfucker. All the time. But at least I have that pain to keep me going. Before, I didn’t even have that.”

Corrie nodded. It sounded like he’d been jump-started into the cycle of grief. Hopefully, he’d work through it in a healthy way.

There were no leads on his sister’s killers, and she wasn’t going to waste his time in speculation. In fact, she realized she’d done what her gut had told her to—show her face, make sure he was okay—and that she should leave.

“I brought you something,” she said.

“Hope it isn’t a subpoena.”

Corrie grinned as she dug into her pocket and pulled out a flash drive. “When I was in high school, a lot of kids made mixtapes. Not in the way it’s meant now, but, you know: compilations of favorite songs, to give to friends or make for yourself to fit a certain mood.” She handed him the USB stick. “I made one for you. Back in the day, we had to burn CDs. This is much more convenient.”

Ernest turned it over in his hand. “You made this for me?”

“Sure. Remember how I started to basically lecture you about ‘The Ocean’ in your room that night? Well, consider this the rest of that lecture. My hard rock golden oldies: Zep, Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, AC/DC. Enjoy. And when you graduate from that, let me know and maybe I’ll send you one covering my other weakness: dark ambient.”

For a moment, the youth didn’t say anything. Then he dropped the USB stick into his shirt pocket. “You clear the copyrights on all these songs, Agent Swanson?”

“It’s your word against mine.” Then she stood up with a grunt, rearranged the sling into a more comfortable position, and returned to her Camry. She started it up, spun the wheel one-handed, and did a one-eighty.

“Hey, Corrie!” she heard Ernest call. She glanced out the window.

He patted his shirt pocket. “Thanks.”

Corrie smiled, gave him a thumbs-up. Then she gunned the Camry’s wimpy motor, pointed the car toward Albuquerque, and took off.

Epilogue

One week later

IN THE HQ tent, Nora Kelly stepped back and examined the skeleton she had carefully reassembled. The bones and fragments were arranged on black velvet in a tray, every bone in place. After a maddening temporary shutdown of the site while the dust settled, everything was now back on track. All the other bones from the excavation of the Lost Camp had been packed away and were headed to the lab in Santa Fe, except for this: the skeleton of Samantha Carville.

For the first time in 175 years, Samantha Carville was whole again, the butchered, scorched, and gnawed bone of her leg restored to the rest of the body.

One task remained before Nora could pack up the work tent and the last of the equipment and leave the valley of the Lost Camp to the deer and the crows and the snow and rain. Using long rubber tweezers, she began transferring the bones of Samantha Carville from the tray to a small coffin she had constructed. It was made of rough, unfinished pine, with no adornment and no lining, as required by the religion of Samantha’s family—of which, as far as she could learn, no descendants remained.

“Knock, knock?”