Nora Roberts - Black Hills

“Two in Wyoming, one in Idaho. Solo female hikers. The second one two years after Melinda Barrett. Another thirteen months later. The last six months after that.”

“How do you know?”

“I was a cop.” He shrugged. “I looked into it. Ran like crimes, did some work on it. Blow to the head, stabbing, remote areas. He takes their pack, ID, jewelry. Leaves them for the animals. The others are open and unsolved. Then it stopped, after four killings, it stopped. Which means he’s moved on to other types of kill, or he got busted for something else and he’s inside. Or he’s dead.”

“Four,” she said. “Four women. There must’ve been suspects or leads.”

“Nothing that panned out, or stuck. I think he’s inside, or dead. It’s a long stretch without anything that matches his pattern.”

“And people don’t change that much. Not the basics,” she added when he looked at her. “That’s what killing is. It’s basic. If it’s the same killer, it’s not because he knows the victim, right? Not especially. It’s the type of victim-or prey. Female, alone, in a specific environment. His territory might range, but his prey didn’t. When a predator is successful in its hunting, it continues.”

She rode in silence for a moment, then went on when he didn’t respond. “I thought, or convinced myself, that Melinda Barrett was some sort of accident. Or at least a onetime thing. Someone she knew, or someone who knew her, targeted her.”

“You put a marker where we found her.”

“It seemed there should be one. There should be something. I tagged a young male up there four years ago. He’s moved on to Wyoming. That’s where the camera went down a couple days ago. It’s infrared, motion. We get a lot of hits. The animal cams, on the refuge and in the field, are popular on the website.”

She caught herself. She hadn’t meant to get into conversation with him. Not that it was, really. More of a monologue.

“You’ve sure gotten chatty over the years,” she commented.

“You said you didn’t want company.”

“I didn’t. Don’t. But you’re here.”

So he’d make an attempt. “Do the cameras go out often?”

“They require regular maintenance. Weather, wildlife, the occasional hiker play hell with them.” She stopped when they reached the stream. Snow lay in drifts and piles, crisscrossed with the tracks of animals who came to hunt or to drink.

“It’s not memory lane,” she repeated. “Just a good campsite. I’m going to unload before heading up.”

It was upriver from the spot where they’d often had picnics. From where they’d first become lovers. He didn’t mention it, as she knew it. Lillian Chance knew every foot of this territory as well as other women knew the contents of their closet.

Probably better than most. He unloaded as she did, making quick work of setting up his tent a good five yards from where she set hers.

The deliberate distance might have been the reason for the smirk on her face, but he didn’t comment on it.

“So how’s it going with the bunkhouse?” she asked when they were riding again. “Or does that fall into the area of none of my business?”

“It’s coming along. I should be able to move in there real soon.”

“Your valley condo?”

“Everybody gets their space, that’s all.”

“I know how that is. Before we built the cabin, anytime I’d come home for a stretch I’d start to feel like I was sixteen again. No matter how much room they give you, after a certain age, living with your parents-or grandparents-is just weird.”

“What’s weird is hearing the bed squeak and knowing your grandparents are having sex.”

She choked and snorted laughter. “Oh, jeez. Thanks for that.”

“Makeup sex,” he added and made her choke again.

“Okay, stop.” She looked over, and her quick, full-of-fun smile arrowed straight to his gut.

“You meant it that time.”

“What? To stop?”

“The smile. You’ve been holding back.”

“Maybe.” She looked away, keeping those dark, seductive eyes straight ahead. “I’d say we don’t know what to make of each other these days. It’s awkward. Visiting’s one thing, and we’ve hardly been in the same state at the same time since. Now we live in the same place, deal with some of the same people. I’m not used to living and working in close proximity with exes.”

“Had many?”

She flicked him the quickest and coolest of glances from under the brim of her hat. “That would come under the heading of mind your own.”

“Maybe we should make a list.”

“Maybe we should.”

They wound through the pines and birch as they had years before. But now the air was bright and bitter cold, and what they thought of was in the past, not in tomorrows.

“Cat’s been through.”

She pulled up her mount, as she had before. Coop had a flash of déjà vu-Lil in a red T-shirt and jeans, her hair loose under her hat. Her hand reaching out for his as they rode abreast.

This Lil with the long braid and the sheepskin jacket didn’t reach for him. Instead she leaned over, studying the ground. But he caught a whiff of her hair, of the wild forest scent of her. “Deer, too. She’s hunting.”

“You’re good, but you can’t tell what sex the cat is by the tracks.”

“Just playing the odds.” All business now, she straightened in the saddle, those eyes keen as they scanned. “Lots of scratches on the trees. It’s her area. We caught her on camera a few times before it went down. She’s young. I’d say she hasn’t had her mating season yet.”

“So we’re tracking a virgin cougar.”

“She’s probably about a year.” Lil continued on, slowly now. “Subadult, just beginning to venture out without her mother. She lacks experience. I could get lucky with her. She’s just what I’m looking for. She might be a descendant of the one I saw all those years ago. Maybe Baby’s cousin.”

“Baby.”

“The cougar at the refuge. I found him and his littermates in this sector. It’d be interesting if their mothers were littermates.”

“I’m sure there’s family resemblance.”

“DNA, Coop, the same as cops use. It’s an interest of mine. How they range, cross paths, come together to mate. How the females might be drawn back to their old lairs, birthplaces. It’s interesting.”

She stopped again, on the verge of the grassland. “Deer, elk, buffalo. It’s like a smorgasbord,” she said, gesturing at the tracks in the snow. “Which is why I might get lucky.”

She swung off the horse and approached a rough wood box. Coop heard her muttering and cursing as he tethered his own horse. “The camera’s not broken.” She picked a smashed padlock out of the snow. “And it wasn’t the weather or the fauna. Some joker.” She shoved the broken lock in her pocket and crouched to open the top of the box.

“Playing tricks. Smash the lock, open it up, and turn off the camera.”

Coop studied the box, the camera in it. “How much does one of those run?”

“This one? About six hundred. And yeah, I don’t know why he didn’t take it either. Just screwing around.”

Maybe, Coop thought. But it had gotten her up here, and would’ve gotten her up here alone if he hadn’t impulsively come along.

He wandered away as she reset the camera, then called her base on her radio phone.

He couldn’t track or read signs with her skill, no point in pretending otherwise. But he could see the boot prints, coming and going. Crossing the grassland, going into the trees on the other side.

From the size of the boot, the length of the stride, he’d estimate the vandal-if that’s what he was-at about six feet, with a boot size between ten and twelve. But he’d need more than eyeballing to be sure he was even in the ballpark.