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mask?”
    â€œUh-uh…” He closed his eyes. “It was brown. And sh-sh-sheer. Like he’d pulled a nylon stocking over his face.” He sucked in another breath. “Oh, God, it hurts,” he moaned.
    â€œYou’re doing great, Senator,” the paramedic advised. “Just try to stay calm. Everything’s going to be all right.”
    â€œI heard the g-g-gunmen run out the door. I t-t-tried to get to Laura after I called 911. I was crawling across the floor. Then I guess I passed out….”
    Tears welled up in his light blue eyes and ran down his cheeks in long wet ribbons. “Oh, C-C-Christ. How could this happen?”
    No one in the room answered. While the paramedics continued to work on the senator, Trace left the den, gesturing for his deputy to follow.
    â€œTurn on my overhead lights,” he said, handing J.D. the keys to the Suburban the Mogollon County supervisors had included in his deal as an enticement to sign.
    It wasn’t every day a big-city crime buster was willing to come to work in the boondocks and they’d wanted to ensure he wouldn’t change his mind once he learned that jaywalking and the occasional drunk and disorderly was about as bad as it got in Whiskey River.
    What they hadn’t realized was that Trace would have taken the job without the new truck.
    â€œCheck around the outside. See if you can find a point of entry. Also, with all the rain, there should be footprints.”
    â€œYessir.” J.D. snatched the keys with an enthusiasm that reminded Trace of himself in what seemed another lifetime.
    Taking his .38 Detective Special from its hip holster, Trace climbed the stairs, all his senses on alert. The odds of the shooter still being in the house were slim to none. But Trace had the scars to prove that a cop couldn’t be too careful.
    He studied the crime scene from the doorway of the master bedroom, his gaze sweeping over the warm pine flooring, the white walls adorned with expensively framed western art. The bed had been handcrafted from cedarlogs. The headboard, along with the wall behind it, was marred by a sweeping, red-pink arc.
    A quilt had slid halfway off the mattress. In the center of the bed a woman lay faceup, her arms outstretched, as if reaching for something, or someone, no longer there. Her palms were open, her fingers slightly curled. Her green eyes were fixed in an expression of vague surprise Trace had seen before. The drawers of the two nightstands on either side of the bed were open. As were those of the bureau. The contents of the drawers had been tossed haphazardly onto the floor.
    Atop the dresser were various perfume bottles, a silver-backed mirror and a crystal-framed wedding picture. The smiling faces of Laura and Alan Fletcher looked out of the frame at the grisly scene. The glittering contents of a mahogany jewelry box had been dumped out, scattered across the gleaming pine planks.
    Stepping over the damp towel lying on the floor by the dresser, Trace approached the bed.
    Even as he noted absently that Laura Fletcher was still beautiful, even in death, he began to emotionally distance himself. It was not a deliberate decision. Rather, it was as if a self-protective switch had clicked on inside his brain. He’d developed the ability to detach himself early in his career.
    In his sixteen years on the Dallas police force, he had been witness to the most basic of human evil—the taking of another life. When faced with the nude body of a female, who only hours earlier had, perhaps, been laughing and loving, a cop could not waste time pondering theological questions about man’s inhumanity to man.
    What he had to concentrate on was whether that bloody hole in her breast was an entrance wound or an exit wound. He had to judge the distance and caliber of theweapon that had made that circular wound in her left temple.
    And, as he lifted her wrist, clasping the flesh that was already growing icy