by Nora Roberts
“At some point he asked if I thought I was reclaiming sacred land for my people and their spirit guides—the animals. I was busy. I’m not sure exactly what I said. Probably that I was more interested in protecting the actual animals, and educating people, than spirit guides.”
Coop nodded. “So you dismissed him again.”
“Damn it.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “Now I sound like a bitch. I wasn’t bitchy about it. He was helping out. I wouldn’t have been bitchy. And what I said isn’t even entirely true. The cougar’s mine. Spirit guide or talisman, or whatever you choose to call it. But it’s private, it’s personal. I don’t trade off it.”
“Do you remember anything else? What he said, or did? How he reacted?”
“We were busy. Chichi was sick—the leopard we lost that fall. She was old and sick, and I was distracted. I don’t know, honestly, whether it’s hindsight or I’m projecting now that I know all this, but I didn’t particularly like him. He’d just sort of pop up out of nowhere. Just be there. He spent a lot of time around the enclosures, watching the animals, and me.”
“You? Specifically?”
“It feels like that now. But people do—it’s my place. I’m in charge and the refuge carries my name. Except . . . Baby didn’t like him. I’d forgotten that. Baby likes attention, but he wouldn’t come to the fence when this guy was around. He wouldn’t purr. In fact, a couple of times he charged the enclosure fence when Ethan was around. And that’s not Baby’s normal behavior. He’s not aggressive, and he likes people.”
“But he didn’t like this one.”
“I guess not. Otherwise, Ethan wasn’t here that much or that long, and we didn’t interact much. He didn’t wear a bear-tooth necklace or anything like that. I would’ve noticed, and remembered.”
“It would’ve stood out in a place like this. Animal refuge. You’d have noted it, commented.” Coop studied her face. “You wouldn’t have liked it.”
“You’re right about that. Coop, do you seriously think this man has killed all these people? That he’s the one who killed Melinda Barrett?”
“No proof. All of this is circumstantial. It’s speculation.”
“That’s not what I asked. Is it what you really think?”
“Yeah. Why aren’t you afraid?”
“I am.” The shudder caught her unexpectedly as if to prove it. “But being afraid doesn’t help. I need to talk to my parents. They need to know.”
“My grandfather’s taking care of that. I thought they’d be here.”
“I asked them to stay home tonight. I used guilt,” she added with a tight smile. “You’re worried about me? How about me being worried about you? I’ll worry if you don’t get a decent night’s sleep, and so on. My father put in six hours on the search today. My mother rode fence, they brought Jerry Tobias in to ride with her, and he hasn’t ridden fence in five years. Now I wish I hadn’t said anything. If they were here, they’d be tired, but I’d know they were okay.”
“Call them. You’ll feel better.”
She nodded. “If you’re right, he’s been killing since he was basically a boy. I can’t understand what drives someone to that, to make death his life’s work.”
Coop sat back, scanning her face. “That’s exactly what it is. His life’s work. You may not understand what makes him, but you understand that. I got some background. He spent some time in the system as a kid. Bounced from his parents to foster homes and back again. His father did some time, small time. Knocked him and his mother around off and on. She never pressed charges. They moved around a lot. Then he’s off the grid for a while. It looks like they did itinerant work, around here, in Wyoming, Montana. His old man got busted for poaching right here in the national forest.”
“Here?”
“When Ethan would’ve been about fifteen. No record of the mother at that time.”
“I could have met him,” she murmured. “I don’t remember him, but it’s possible. Or passed him in town or on the trail when we went hiking.”
“Or he might’ve seen you. Your family. Maybe he and his father came by looking for work.”
“I don’t remember.” She sighed, irritated with herself, and got up to dig up some crackers. She pulled a hunk of cheddar out of the fridge while she talked. “My parents don’t hire drifters as a rule. I think that policy was mostly because of me. They’re generous, but they’re protective. They wouldn’t have hired strangers, especially not when I was about thirteen and we’re talking about a man and his mid-teenage boy.”
She paused, worked up a smile as she set the quick snack on the table. “And I’d remember a fifteen-year-old boy who worked around the farm when I was that age. I was just really starting to find boys interesting.”
“In any case, from what I’ve been able to put together Ethan took off right around that time, and that’s when I lose him for a couple years. I picked him up when he got work as a trail guide in Wyoming. He’d’ve been eighteen. He lasted six months. Took off with one of the horses, some gear and provisions.”
“A man doesn’t steal a horse when he’s going to hit the road. He steals it when he’s going to hit the trail.”
With a nod that might’ve been approval, Coop topped a cracker with cheese, then handed it to her. “You might’ve made a half-decent cop.”
“It’s just plain logic, but what about his parents? Maybe if we were able to talk to them we’d get a clearer picture.”
“His father died eight years ago in Oshoto. Complications from a lifetime of alcohol abuse. I can’t find anything on the mother. Nothing for the last seventeen years. The last I had, she cashed her paycheck in Cody, Wyoming, where she worked as kitchen help in a diner. Nobody remembers her. Seventeen years,” he said with a shrug. “But up until then she worked. A few weeks, a few months, some space between jobs. But she picked up jobs wherever they were. Then she didn’t.”
“You think she’s dead.”
“People who are motivated enough, afraid enough, figure out how to hide. She could’ve changed her name. Hell, she could’ve moved to Mexico and gotten remarried and is at this moment bouncing a fat, happy grandkid on her knee. But I figure, yeah, she’s dead. Had an accident, or maybe her husband tuned her up once too often.”
“He’d have been just a boy. This Ethan. If that happened, if he saw that happen . . .”
His face went hard, went cold. “That’s what his lawyer will say. The poor, abused boy, damaged, broken by an alcoholic father and a passive mother. Sure, he killed all those people, but he’s not responsible. Screw that.”
“Learned behavior isn’t just for animals. I’m not arguing the point, Coop. In my head, killing is a clear choice. But everything you’re telling me says he was predisposed, then he made choices that brought him his life’s work. If all this is true, a lot of people are dead, and those who loved them grieving because of those choices. I don’t feel sorry for him.”
“Good,” he said shortly. “Don’t.”
“I don’t feel sorry for him,” she repeated, “but I think I understand him better. Do you think he stalked the others, taunted them the way he is me?”
“Barrett looked like a killing of opportunity, of impulse. Molly Pickens, by her boss’s account, went off with him of her own volition. But Carolyn Roderick? I think there was some stalking, some taunting there. I’m going to say I think it depends on how well he knows his quarry. And how invested he is.”
“If Jim Tyler’s dead, at his hand, that would be another impulse killing.”
“Or a form of release. None of the women whose bodies were discovered had been raped. No sign of sexual assault, no torture or mutilation. It’s the kill that gets him off.”
“I can’t quite see that as the glass is half full. Anyway, what he’s been doing has put me, put everyone on alert. It’s made it close to impossible for him to get to me, or to mine. So . . .” She read Coop’s face perfectly. “Which makes it—me—more of a challenge?”
“
Maybe. If I’m right, this is at least his fourth time here, in this area. He may have been here other times. When he didn’t make contact with you, or when you were away. He could’ve picked up work around here, on one of the farms, one of the outfits. He knows the territory.”
“So do I.”
“He knows that, too. If he just wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”
The cool, flat way he said it brought on another shudder. “Now that boosts my confidence.”
“He could’ve picked you off the night he let the tiger out. Or any other time you were here alone, he could’ve kicked in the door, and taken you out. You ride over to your parents, he ambushes you. Lots of scenarios, but he doesn’t do any of that. Yet.”
She picked up her wine, took a slow sip. “You’re trying to scare me.”
“Damn right I am.”
“Unnecessary. I’m scared enough, and I intend to be careful.”
“You could take another trip. There has to be somewhere else you could work for a few weeks, a couple months.”
“Sure. I’m practically renowned. And he could find out where I am, follow me, go after me somewhere I’m not as familiar with my territory. Or he could just wait me out, wait until I start to relax. And you’ve already thought of all that, too.”
“Maybe a better than halfway decent cop,” he acknowledged. “Yeah, I’ve thought of it. But I’ve also thought of the odds of tracking him down while you’re somewhere else. I like the odds.”
“I’m not leaving, Coop.”
“What if I could arrange for your parents to be somewhere else for a few weeks, too.”
She set her wine down, tapped her fingers on the table. “That’s low, using them.”
“I’ll use whatever it takes to keep you safe.”
She rose then, walked over to start a pot of coffee. “I’m not leaving,” she repeated. “I won’t be run off my own place, one I built. I won’t leave my staff, my animals vulnerable while I hide out. You know that, or you don’t know me.”
“It was worth a try.”
“You put a lot of time and work into this.”
“You want a bill?”
She glanced back. “I’m not trying to make you mad. I was before, hoping you’d get pissed off and go, give me some space. I don’t know what to do about you, Coop, that’s a fact. I just don’t. I know we need to have all that out, but it’s not the time. Not enough time,” she corrected. “I need to call my parents, and take my shift outside.”
“There are enough people out there. You don’t need to take a shift. You’re worn out, Lil. It shows.”
“First you boost my confidence, now my ego.” She got out a thermos. “I guess that’s what friends are for.”
“Take the night off.”
“Would you? Could you, in my place? I’m not going to get any sleep anyway.”
“I could shoot you with the drug gun. That’d get you a few hours.”
“What are friends for?” he said when she laughed.
She filled the thermos, took it to him. “Here you go. I’ll be out after I call home.”
He got up, set the thermos on the table to take her arms. “Look at me. I’m never going to let anything happen to you.”
“Then we’ve got nothing to worry about.”
He laid his lips on hers, a brush, a rub. And her heart rolled over in her chest. “Or given that we’ve got other things to worry about. Take the coffee.”
He pulled on his rain gear first, then picked up the thermos. “I’m not sleeping on the couch.”
“No.”
She sighed when he went out. Choices, she thought again. It seemed she was making hers.
LIL STATIONED HERSELF and wandered along the fenceline of the small-cat area. Despite the rain, Baby and his companions played stalk-and-ambush with the big red ball. The bobcats raced each other up a tree, making a lot of mock growls and snarls. She suspected if it hadn’t been for the floodlights, the sounds, scents, sights of humans, the cats would have settled down out of the rain.
Across the habitat, the newest addition sent out the occasional barking roar, as if to say she didn’t know where the hell she was, as yet, but she was pretty damn important.
“It’s like they’re having a party.”
She smiled at Farley as he stepped up beside her to watch. “I guess they are. They appreciate an audience. I feel stupid out here tonight,” she told him. “Nobody’s going to troop down here in all this mess to bother me.”
“Seems to me that’s just when you have to be most careful. When you figure you’re safe.”
“Oh, well. Want some coffee?” She offered her thermos.
“I had some already, but I can’t say no.” He poured himself a little. “I’m figuring Tansy told you about things.”
“She did.” She waited until he’d glanced over. “I think she’s pretty lucky.”
His smile spread slowly. “Feels good you’d say so.”
“Two of my favorite people become each other’s favorite people? There’s no downside for me.”
“She thinks I’m going through a phase. Well, she wants to think that. Maybe she’ll keep thinking it until we have a couple of kids.”
She choked on a gulp of coffee. “Jesus, Farley, when you finally move, you move like a damn cheetah.”
“When you find what you want, what’s right, you might as well get going. I love her, Lil. She’s all flustered up about it, and how she feels about me. I don’t mind that so much. It’s kind of flattering, really.”
He drank coffee while the rain dripped from the brim of his hat. “Anyways, I’m hoping you’ll do me a favor.”
“I talked to her, Farley. Told her I thought you were perfect for her.”
“That’s nice to hear, too. But that’s not the favor. I was hoping you’d go with me and help me pick out a ring. I don’t know anything about that kind of thing. I don’t want to get the wrong kind.”
For a moment Lil could only stare. “Farley, I . . . Just like that? Seriously? You’re going to buy a ring and ask her to marry you? Just like that?”
“I already told her I love her and I’m going to marry her. I got her into bed.” Even in the dark she could see he flushed a little. “I don’t mean to talk out of school on that, but you said she told you. I want to get her what she’d like, and you’d have a good idea. Wouldn’t you?”
“I guess I would. I’ve never shopped for an engagement ring, but I think I know what she’d like if I saw it. Holy shit, Farley.”
“You think we could find the right one in Deadwood? Otherwise, I could drive us on into Rapid City.”
“Let’s try Deadwood. We should . . . I can’t get over it.” She studied him through the curtain of rain. “Farley.” With a laugh, she boosted up to her toes and gave him a smacking kiss. “Have you told Mom and Dad?”
“Jenna cried. The good kind of crying. She’s the one who said I should ask you to go with me for the ring. I made them promise not to say anything until it’s all done. You won’t say anything, Lil?”
“Lips. Sealed.”
“I wanted to talk to them first. Sort of—I don’t know . . . it sounds dumbass.”
“What?”
He shifted on his long, grasshopper legs. “Get their blessing, I guess.”
“It doesn’t sound dumbass. You’re a prize, Farley, I swear to God. How come you didn’t fall for me?”
He grinned, ducked his head a little. “Lil. You’re all but practically my sister.”
“Can I ask you something, Farley?”
“Sure.”
She began to walk with him, at a pace that would’ve been a stroll in the rain but for the guns both carried. “You had it rough as a kid.”
“Plenty do.”
“I know. I think I’m more aware of that because I didn’t. I had it pretty damn perfect. When you took off on your own, you were still a kid.”
“I can’t say I felt like one.”
“Why did you? Decide to
leave, I mean. It’s a big, scary step. Even when the familiar’s crap, it’s still the familiar.”
