piece, using seven different metals, intended for the lobby of a school of engineering at a large midwestern university.
He always worked single-mindedly when he was in the shop, but now he was even more focused than usual. His housekeeper seldom saw him during her three-times-a-week visits.
On an early afternoon about two weeks after he returned home—a day when the housekeeper wasn’t scheduled—he was grinding the edges of a shaft of high-chromium steel, a job that required all of his concentration to get the precise bevel that he wanted.
Movement caught his eye: a man walking past a nearby window, wearing the brown jacket of a UPS deliveryman.
Stickney growled under his breath. He often received UPS shipments, and he had told the local delivery office that he wasn’t to be disturbed in the workshop. The experienced drivers knew this; he told himself that this must be a new one.
The bell rang at the front door of the workshop. Stickney’s focus was broken now, and he thought that he might as well answer it and clue in the new guy.
He stopped and took a deep breath.
Patience, he thought, and he went to open the door.
About twenty-four hours later, Arielle walked into Favor’s office, the corner room with the knockout view of the lake.
He was at his desk, intent at the monitor screen.
She said, “Hey, Ray. I’ll be at home if you need me.”
“Sure,” he said.
“I think I’ll grill tonight. I’m in the mood for some red meat. I picked up a couple pounds of some great-looking fillet tails. Thought I’d do that, grill some peppers. Get into a bottle of Montrachet. Hey, maybe two bottles of Montrachet.”
He said, “Did you see the files on that Missoula property?”
“I saw it.”
“Sweet stuff.”
She said, “Ray. An invitation just flew over your head.”
He looked at her, uncomprehending at first. Then he got it.
He said, “Right. Sorry.”
He made a vague gesture at the monitor screen, the files from the Missoula property.
He went back to the screen.
She went out, got halfway to the stairs, went back to his door.
Trying not to sound like a female spurned, she said, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you lost the key to my place.”
“No I didn’t,” he said. His voice was serious. ”It’s on my key ring.”
She said, “See you tomorrow, Ray.”
She had a house on the Kingsbury Grade. It was the original wagoneers’ route to the lake, winding upward from the Carson Valley to the town of South Lake Tahoe. The home was just a few minutes from the lake, and a few minutes more to her office at the lodge. It sat on thirty acres and lay between two rolling folds of land that cut off all view of any other buildings. Behind the house was a steep hillside. In front, on the other side of the road, was a sharp drop-off to the valley more than a thousand feet below.
When she got home, she changed into hiking clothes, stuck a liter of cold water into a fanny pack, and went out and up the hillside. A hiking trail ran almost to her home, through the rock garden at the back. If Favor were coming to dinner, she would have skipped the hike to marinate the meat and prepare the vegetables and open one of the bottles of wine.
But he isn’t, she thought, so screw it.
She hiked nearly back up to the top of the grade, then started down to be back before dark, covering a lot of ground in a hurry on the way down. Near the bottom of the trail, on one of the last switchbacks, she noticed a dark sedan rolling slowly down the road below. Two men in the front seat.
One was looking at her, she thought. Or maybe not. It was hard to be sure in the dusk.
Her house blocked the view of the road from there. The sedan disappeared behind the house, and she waited for it to appear at the other side, continuing down the grade.
But it didn’t.
She knew that it must have stopped at the house.
She slowed but kept walking. She reached the rock garden at the back of the property, and slowed even more.
She was approaching the back door now, watchful.
A stranger stepped out from the north side of the house. She was already dropping, rolling, as he raised the pistol and fired. She came up moving, running, with a handful of sand and gravel. He swung the pistol to follow her, and seemed shocked to find her running straight