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with a start. It was still night, and the darkness seemed to press down on her. She was suddenly certain that something was there with her, hidden in the shadows, that she was being watched.
    She leaped out of bed and dived for her light switch. The room jumped into view, and she blinked against the sudden harshness, tense, her body ready to spring.
    But there was no one there. The room was empty.
    She felt foolish, but she went into her bathroom, took the bloodied, discarded clothing and carried it into the kitchen, where she placed it in a larger trash bag, which she hauled out into the garage. She knew it was silly, but she wanted that reminder of the evening as far away as she could get it. Then she went back to bed, where she turned on her small bedroom TV and didn’t turn off the light.
    It occurred to her then that no one had asked her if the dying man had said anything.
    And so she was the only one who knew that he had spoken that single word.
    Indigo.
     
    Emil Landon was a man of an indeterminate age; he might have been a worn thirtysomething, or a fit man in his fifties. Because Adam Harrison—owner and director of Harrison Investigations, the rather unique private investigations firm that was Dillon’s actual employer—had contacts with access to just about any record on any human being living in the United States and beyond, he knew that Landon was forty-eight, had married and divorced three wives, had fathered one child who lived in Dublin with his mother, and had inherited millions from a grandfather who had been a Turkish oil baron. Sound real-estate investments had added to those millions. He liked to be a player. He liked the clothing and the cars, and the women who followed the call of big money. But he wasn’t a lucky gambler himself, so he’d discovered a way to profit from the propensity of most men to count on luck’s eventual appearance, gamble—and lose. He’d opened his own casino and was in the process of negotiations to create more gambling meccas, something of a sore point in the community. On his mother’s side, he could provide the proper court-required documents to prove that he was one thirty-second Paiute—in fact, he only needed to be one sixty-fourth—which gave him the right to build casinos on Indian land, where he would no doubt see to it that the proceeds of his venture stayed in his pockets and didn’t reach the Indian nation that should benefit from it.
    Dillon hadn’t followed much of the legal process; he had seen it far too often already. He didn’t think much ofEmil Landon, and he still wasn’t sure why a man as moral as Adam Harrison had wanted him to take the case.
    Dillon knew plenty of wealthy people who were also extremely responsible with their money and were courteous to those around them, no matter what their financial or social status.
    Emil Landon wasn’t one of them.
    Now Landon was convinced that someone was trying to kill him, and Dillon figured that the man had been a jerk to enough people during his life that there might easily be several who found the thought of killing him appealing. But that was the thing. Most people thought about killing someone but didn’t actually take steps to do it. Revenge was frequently savored sweetly in the mind. Most people had a conscience, and even if they didn’t, they didn’t have the means to commit the perfect murder, and they sure as hell didn’t want to get caught and spend the rest of their lives in prison. Of course, with enough money, murder for hire was always a possibility. And if a crack assassin couldn’t be found, there was usually some dope addict around, willing to take a life for a few thousand—or a few hits. But dope addicts weren’t playing with all their cards, and such an attempt usually ended with a dead dope addict.
    Tonight Dillon had been checking out the casinos, seeing who was in town and had the right money and connections to order a hit, along with a real bone to pick with Emil