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TWO TIME ZONES away, in the moonlit desert, a coyote calling himself Pepito crouched in the underbrush and gave a low whistle. When he heard another whistle in reply, he turned and nodded to the dust-matted cluster of humans behind him, Mexican migrants braced for their crossing into the United States of America.

His clients—two women, two young boys, and three teenage girls—were crouched in a dry ravine, nervously eyeing a chain-link fence on top of the ridge on the other side. The final barrier.

It had been a perilous ninety-mile trek from Villa Ahumada to this sandy border west of El Paso, Texas, dotted with native grasses and prickly pear. For six days, Pepito and two bodyguards had acted as the group’s protectors and guides. One night, three drug runners had invaded their desert campsite and tried to kidnap the girls. Pepito had shot the intruders in the head and ordered his associates to leave the bodies in a dry gulch as a warning. For that alone, Pepito frequently reminded the women, he had more than earned his fee.

Now he watched with his clients as his two guards slid back down the sandy incline ahead, wire cutters in hand.

“Está abierta,” said the first as he reached the group.

“Todo despejado,” added the other.

The fence had been cut, and there were no further obstacles to freedom.

Pepito gave each of the youngsters a pat on the head, then hugged the two women. One of them planted a wet kiss on his sweaty forehead. He pushed her away. No time for that. He pointed toward the wall of the ravine to the right. He and the other two men crouched as the women and kids scrambled up the sloping dirt face, grabbing on to rocks and exposed roots as they climbed.

One of the teen girls made it first, squirming over the rim like a skinny lizard. The others followed, until all seven were on top, lying flat on the ground.

One by one, they squirmed through the narrow slice at the bottom of the fence. On the other side, the women stood up slowly, then the youngsters. Before they could take another step, a searchlight beam blasted them into hard silhouettes. A voice through a bullhorn crackled, “¡Pecho a tierra! On the ground!”

Pepito looked from side to side at his two associates. He heard the sound of boots on hard-packed sand. The women dropped to their knees, pulling the boys and girls close to their sides. Four thick-bodied US border patrol agents emerged out of the blinding light and patted them all down. One of the agents peeked over the side of the ravine, aiming a flashlight and a .45 into the darkness. But he saw nothing.

Because nobody was there.

Pepito and his two associates were already working their way east below the rim, out of sight. When they heard the heavy transport pull away in the distance, they stopped to open their backpacks, pulling out night-vision goggles and automatic weapons. Pepito smiled to himself. The diversion had worked. And he’d made a little extra money for his trouble.

His true mission was just getting started—and the payoff would make the pesos in his pocket look like chicken feed.

CHAPTER 14

BY THE NEXT morning, snow had settled in large drifts. Thick but passable. In the battered pickup, Brendan Holmes wound his way down the lodge’s long driveway to the main road. He was up early and eager to get to his appointment—an appointment he’d told nobody else in the house about. His little secret. Snowy roads be damned.

The normally icy drive went smoothly. The roads were mostly empty, except for a few other pickups and some big sanders. Holmes slowed to a crawl to cross a narrow metal bridge that led into the next township, then followed a back road for about a mile through the evergreens. He turned into a driveway that led to a modest split-level on a one-acre lot. A full cord of firewood was stacked by the garage next to a white Land Rover and a snowmobile.

Holmes parked the pickup, then walked up to a door on the lower level. A plaque beside the door read, DR. A. P. BELL.

Holmes knocked. A few seconds later, an attractive, professionally dressed woman in her early forties answered. “You’re early,” she said.

“I was being prudent,” said Holmes. “I was afraid I might get stuck.”

She motioned him inside. “You city people don’t know what snow is. Up here, we consider anything under a foot a dusting.”

Holmes walked into a tastefully decorated home office. A cushioned armchair faced a plush leather sofa. The chair and sofa were separated by a low glass table stacked with art books and decorated with a length of gray driftwood. The wall facing the sofa displayed an aerial photo of Cayuga Lake and a few nicely framed diplomas.

Holmes took his usual spot on the far end of the sofa. The woman sat down in the chair and crossed her legs. Holmes stared down at the coffee table.

Alicia Prynne Bell was a clinical psychiatrist with a master’s degree from Columbia University and an MD from Johns Hopkins. Her specialty was drug intervention and withdrawal. With the endorsement of one of her mentors, she had become the clinical supervisor at Lake View, an exclusive rehab center nearby where Brendan Holmes had spent time recently as a patient. She also supplemented her salary with a private practice, specializing in former residents who had a high risk of relapsing. Holmes definitely fit into that category.

“Still going to meetings in town?” Bell asked.

“Every week.”

“Are you opening up to the others when you’re there?”

“As little as possible.”

“That’s not quite the spirit of the program, Brendan.”

Holmes shrugged. “Like Dr. Watson, I have a grand gift for silence.”