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A great way to get a confession for a witch hunt, but not a good way to get to the actual facts of a matter. For that, Callan needed to mix fear with persuasion. And blend in a dash of hope.
    He tossed down another ten Benjamins.  
    “What was the last thing?”  
    “A silver necklace. Looks like a dragon. He didn't seem to think you’d have it, though.”  
    Callan threw down another roll. That sounded like what Sara gave Alice Sangerman at the dam.  
    “How’d Thorn contact you?”  
    “That I don't know, man. I was a soldier. My commander made the deal.”  
    Time to end this. Callan made as if to get some more money out of his belt. He pulled the stone out of his pocket instead. He noted that the Argentine held the knife differently now.  
    Callan brought his arm up and, in one lightning move, threw the stone at the Argentine. At the same time, the Argentine hurled the knife. But Callan had practiced this sort of thing for a very long time. He knew a right-handed knife thrower usually hits on the right side of the target. Ian stepped to his own right just before the well-thrown knife flashed by his cheek.  
    The Argentine focused on the knife too long, watching it. He should have ducked as soon as he released. Callan’s stone caught him between his eyes, knocking him backward.  
    Callan followed the stone over the edge of the bridge, landing neatly in the bow of the Whaler, which dipped like a teeter-totter under his weight. He leapt upon the stunned Argentine and slammed his head into the deck of the boat. Twice. Callan put a piece of line around the Argentine’s neck and tightened it until the man's breath stopped.
    “Thanks for the info, man. Bet you were thinking you should’ve listened to your first instincts just before you died there.”  
    Callan pulled the anchor out of the bow pulpit. An average human body has twenty pounds of buoyancy. The boat’s anchor weighed ten pounds. Not enough .  
    He thought a minute and then went to the plastic gas tank of the Whaler. About four gallons were left. More than enough. He gathered up his money, cut the motor, and then poured the gas over the Argentine's body. He then stepped back out of the boat and pulled out his lighter. He wadded up five hundred or so dollars and went back up on the bridge. He picked up the knife and put it back in his belt. Then he lit the money on fire. One last time, he leaned over the bridge and dropped a wad of money.  
    He backed away as the boat went up.  
    The authorities would report a body found in a burned boat. With luck, Thorn might believe it to be Callan for a while.He would need to check it out. That would buy Callan more time.  
    Callan jogged down the road. He noted a line of smoke ahead in the distance outlined in red by the rising sun. Where there is smoke, there should be something to drive. He followed the direction of the beacon it formed.

Chapter 4, When an Owl Calls

    Alice

    “Is that the necklace Sara Moore’s father gave her?”  
    “I don't remember,” said Alice. She took a sip of the tea Jenny gave her. Jenny had made the tea from a kind of dogwood gathered in the surrounding hills.
    “You’ve lost the memory of much of your past, Alice,” Jenny said gently.  
    They were sitting on the deck of a yurt perched on the bank of the Darkertree River, leaning side by side against the curve of the outer wall, gazing down at the white water and the naked bathers at play a hundred or so feet down below the steep bank. They were deep in the forests of western Oregon. Alice had woken up in Jenny's spiritual retreat six weeks before, disheveled and with a very sore head. She had arrived without any memory of how she got there, wearing only a torn T-shirt and cut-off jeans. With a new dragon necklace around her neck.
    “Sara came here with you when she was almost eleven years old,” Jenny said. “You both looked as though you were running from something.” Jenny had retired from her medical