The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 5 (11 page)

She started across the grass toward the trees where she’d once watched the cougar drag her kill. “My mother said there used to be bear, but they got hunted out, driven out. The cougar and the wolf stay, but you have to look to find them. The Hills are a mixing bowl, biologically speaking. We get species here that are common to areas in every direction.”

“Like a singles bar.”

She laughed at him. “I’ll take your word. Still, we lost the bear. If we could . . . There’s blood.”

“Where?”

“On that tree. On the ground, too. It looks dry.”

She swung her leg across the saddle.

“Wait. If this is a kill site, she could be close. If she’s got a litter she won’t be happy to see you.”

“Why is it on the tree? So high on the tree.” Drawing out her camera, Lil walked closer. “She could’ve taken out an elk or deer, I guess, and it fought, or it hit the tree. But it just doesn’t look like that.”

“And you know how that would look?”

“In my head I do.” She glanced back, saw he had the rifle. “I don’t want you to shoot her.”

“Neither do I.” He’d shot nothing but targets, and didn’t want to shoot the living, especially her cat.

Frowning, Lil turned back to the tree, studied it, the ground. “It looks like she dragged the kill off that way. See how the brush looks? And there’s more blood.” She crouched, poked at the ground. “There’s blood on the ground, on the brush. I thought she took the buffalo calf that way. More east. Maybe she had to move her den, or it’s another cat altogether. Keep talking and stay alert. As long as we don’t surprise her or threaten her or her young, she won’t be interested in us.”

She inched her way, trying to follow the signs. As she’d said, the trail was rough here, steep, rocky. It didn’t surprise her to see some signs of hikers, and she wondered if the cat had moved to avoid them.

“There’s more scat. Fresher.” She looked over and just beamed. “We’re tracking her.”

“Whoopee.”

“If I could get a shot of her and her young . . .” She stopped, sniffed. “Do you smell that?”

“Now I do. Something’s dead.” When she started forward, he took her arm. “I can follow it from here. You stay behind me.”

“But—”

“Behind me and the rifle, or we turn back. I’m stronger than you are, Lil, so believe me when I say we’ll turn back.”

“Well, if you’re going to get all macho.”

“I guess I am.” He walked forward, following the stench.

“West,” she directed, “a little more west. It’s off the trail.” She scanned brush, trees, rocks as they moved. “God, you wonder how she can stomach anything that smells like that. Maybe they abandoned the kill. Chowed down, moved on. Nothing picked clean is going to smell like that. It looks like a lot of blood around here, and then into the brush.”

She stepped over. She didn’t move in front of him, but beside him. It wasn’t her fault the signs were on her side. “I see something in there. Definitely something there.” She strained to see. “If she still considers it hers, and she’s around, she’ll let us know quick. I can’t see what it is, can you?”

“Dead is what it is.”

“Yes, but what was the prey? I like to know what . . . Oh, my God. Cooper. Oh, my God.”

He saw it as she did. The prey had been human.

 

 

 

LIL WASN’T PROUD of the way she’d handled herself, the way her legs had buckled, the way her head had gone light. She’d damn near fainted, and certainly would’ve gone down if Coop hadn’t gotten hold of her.

She managed to help him mark the spot, but only because he’d ordered her to keep back. She made herself look, forced herself to see and remember what had been done before she’d gone back to her mount for her canteen to drink deeply.

She’d been steadier, and able to think clearly enough to mark the trail for those who would have to come for the remains. Coop kept the rifle out as they rode back home.

There’d be no final tryst by the stream.

“You can put the rifle away. It wasn’t a cat that killed him.”

“Her, I think,” Coop said. “The size and the style of the boots, and what was left of the hair. I think it was a woman. You think wolves, then?”

“No, I didn’t see any signs of wolves near there. It’s the cougar’s habitat, and they’d leave her alone. It wasn’t an animal who killed her.”

“Lil, you saw what I saw.”

“Yeah.” It was etched in her mind. “That was after. They fed after. But the blood on the tree, it was high, and there weren’t any cat tracks there. No tracks until a good ten yards off. I think someone killed her, Coop. Killed her and left her there. Then the animals got at her.”

“Either way, she’s dead. We have to get back.”

When the trail opened enough, they spurred to a gallop.

HER FATHER GAVE them whiskey, just a swallow each. It burned straight down to the sickness in her belly. By the time the police arrived, the idea of being sick had passed.

“I marked the trail.” She sat with Coop and her parents and a county deputy named Bates. She used the map he’d brought, highlighting the route.

“Is that the way you went?”

“No, we took scenic.” She showed him. “We weren’t in a hurry. We came back this way. I saw the blood on the tree here.” She made a mark on the map. “Drag marks, more blood. A lot probably washed away in the rain, but there was enough cover so you can see there’s blood. Whoever killed her did it there, at the tree, because the blood’s a good five feet up—close to five and a half, I’d say. Then he dragged her off the trail to about here. That’s where the cougar found her. She must’ve dragged her from there, to better cover.”

He made notes, nodded. He had a weathered and quiet look about him, almost soothing.

“Any reason you think she was murdered, Miss Chance? What you’re describing sounds like a cougar attack.”

“When’s the last time we had a cougar attack a person around here?” Lil demanded.

“It happens.”

“Cats go for the throat.” Bates shifted his gaze to Coop. “Isn’t that right, Lil?”

“Yeah, their typical kill method is the neck bite. It takes the prey down, often breaking the neck. Quick and clean.”

“You rip out somebody’s throat, there’s going to be all kinds of blood. It’d gush, wouldn’t it? This was more like a smear. It wasn’t . . . spatter.”

Bates lifted his eyebrows. “So, we’ve got a cougar expert and a forensic specialist.” He smiled when he said it, kept the remark friendly. “I appreciate the input. We’ll be going up, and we’ll look into all that.”

“You’ll have to do an autopsy, determine cause of death.”

“That’s right,” Bates said to Coop. “If it was a cougar attack, we’ll handle it. If it wasn’t, we’ll handle that. Don’t worry.”

“Lil said it wasn’t a cougar that killed her. So it wasn’t.”

“Has a woman gone missing? In the last few days?” Lil asked.

“Might be.” Bates rose. “We’ll head on up now. I’m going to want to talk to you again.”

Lil sat silent until Bates went out to mount up with his two-man team. “He thinks we’re wrong. That we saw what was left of a mule deer or something and got spooked.”

“He’ll find out different soon.”

“You didn’t tell him you were leaving in the morning.”

“I can take another day. They should know who she is and what happened to her in another day. Maybe two.”

“Can you eat?” Jenna asked.

When Lil shook her head, Jenna wrapped an arm around her, stroking when Lil turned her face to her mother’s breast. “It was awful. So awful. To be left like that. To be nothing but meat.”

“Let’s go up for a while. I’m going to draw you a hot bath. Come on with me.”

Joe waited, then got up and poured two mugs of coffee. He sat, looked Coop in the eye. “You took care of my girl today. She can take care of herself, I know that’s true, most ways, most times. But I know you saw to her today. You got her back here. I won’t forget it.”

“I didn’t want her to see it. I’ve never seen anything like it, and hope I never do again. But I couldn’t stop her from seeing it.”

Joe nodded. “You did what you could, and that’s enough. I’m going to ask you for something, Cooper. I have to ask that you don’t make her any promises you’re not sure you can keep. She can take care of herself, my girl, but I don’t want her holding on to a promise that has to be broken.”

Coop stared into the coffee. “I don’t know what I could promise her. I’ve got enough to rent an apartment, as long as it’s cheap, for a few months. I’ve got to try to make the grade at the academy. Even if I do, a cop doesn’t make a lot. I come into some money when I’m twenty-one. A trust fund thing. I get more when I’m twenty-five, then thirty, and like that. My father can tie it up some, and he threatened to, until I’m forty.”

Joe smiled a little. “And that’s worlds away.”

“Well, I’ll be living pretty thin for a while, but I’m okay with that.” He looked up again, met Joe’s eyes. “I can’t ask her to come to New York. I thought about it, a lot. I can’t give her anything there, and I’d be taking away what she wants. I’ve got no promises to give her. It’s not because she doesn’t matter.”

“No, I’d say it’s because she does. That’s enough for me. You’ve had a hell of a day, haven’t you?”

“I feel like pieces of me are coming apart. I don’t know how they’re going to go together again. She wanted to see the cougar—for us to see it together. For luck. It doesn’t feel like we have any right now. And whoever that is up there, she had it a lot worse.”

 

 

 

HER NAME WAS Melinda Barrett. She’d been twenty when she’d set out to hike the Black Hills, a treat for herself for the summer. She was from Oregon. A student, a daughter, a sister. She’d wanted to be a ranger.

Her parents had reported her missing the same day she’d been found, because she’d been two days late checking in.

Before the cougar had gotten to her, someone had fractured her skull, then stabbed her violently enough to nick her ribs with the blade. Her pack, her watch, the compass her father had given her, the one his father had given him, weren’t found.

Because she’d asked, Coop drove his bike to the start of the Chance farm road at dawn. Melinda Barrett’s murder had delayed his start by two days, and he couldn’t delay it longer.

He saw her standing in the early light, the dogs milling around her, the hills at her back. He’d remember that, he thought. Remember Lil just like that until he saw her again.

When he stopped and got off the bike, the dogs raced and leaped. Lil simply went into his arms.

“Would you call, when you get to New York?”

“Yes. Are you all right?”

“It’s so much. I thought we’d have more time alone. Just alone to be. Then we found her. They don’t have any idea who did that to her, or if they do, they’re not saying. She just walked that trail, and someone killed her. For her pack? Her watch? For no reason? I can’t get it out of my mind, and we haven’t had our time.” She tipped her face up, met his lips with hers. “It’s just for a while.”

“For a while.”

“I know you have to go, but . . . did you eat? Do you need anything?” She tried to smile as tears drenched her throat. “Watch how I stall.”

“I had flapjacks. Grandma knows my weakness. They gave me five thousand dollars, Lil. They wouldn’t let me say no.”

“Good.” She kissed him again. “Good. Then I won’t worry about you starving to death in some gutter. I’ll miss you. God, I miss you already. Go. You need to go.”

“I’ll call. I’ll miss you.”

“Kick ass at the academy, Coop.”

He got on the bike, took one last long look. “I’ll come back.”

“To me,” she murmured when he gunned the engine. “Come back to me.”

She watched until he was out of sight, until she was sure he was gone. In the soft, early light, she sat on the ground, and gathering the dogs to her, wept her heart out.

6

SOUTH DAKOTA
February 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The little Cessna shuddered, then gave a couple of quick, annoyed bucks as it buzzed over the hills, the plains and valleys. Lil shifted in her seat. Not from nerves—she’d been through worse air than this and come out fine. She shifted for a better view. Her Black Hills were white with February, a snow globe of rises, ridges, and flats, rib-boned by frozen streams, laced by shivering pines.

She imagined the wind on the ground was nearly as raw and mean as it could be up here, so a good, strong inhale would be like gulping down broken glass.

She couldn’t have been happier.

She was nearly home.

The last six months had been incredible, an experience she’d never forget. She’d been drenched, had sweltered, been frozen, been bitten and stung—all while studying pumas in the Andes.