Black Hills

by Nora Roberts

  that about?”

  “I figure I owe you about a decade’s worth of flowers. For fights, birthdays, whatever.”

  She studied his face, then went with impulse. “Give me your wallet.”

  “Why?”

  She held out a hand. “You want to get back in my good graces? Hand it over.”

  Caught between amusement and puzzlement, he reached back to pull it out of his pocket. And she saw the gun at his hip.

  “You’re carrying a gun.”

  “I’m licensed.” He passed her his wallet.

  “You had clips in my drawer. They’re not there anymore.”

  “Because I have a drawer all of my own now. Nice underwear, Lil. How come you never wear it?”

  “Another man bought it for me.” She smiled humorlessly when annoyance flickered over his face. “Or some of it. It didn’t seem quite appropriate to use it on you.”

  “I’m here. He’s not.”

  “And now, if I slipped that little red number on, for instance, it wouldn’t pass through your mind as you’re slipping it off me again, how he’d done the same?”

  “Throw it out.”

  For very small, smug reasons, his clipped suggestion made her smile and mean it. “If I do, you’ll know I’m ready to take you back—all the way back. What will you toss out for me, Coop?”

  “Name it.”

  She shook her head and opened the wallet. For a time, for her own satisfaction, she studied his driver’s license, the PI license. “You always took a good picture. Those Viking eyes, and the hints of trouble in them. Do you miss New York?”

  “Yankee Stadium. I’ll take you back for a game sometime. Then you’ll see some real baseball.”

  With a shrug, she flipped through, and found the picture. She remembered when he’d taken it, the summer they’d become lovers. God, how young, she thought. How open and wildly happy. She sat by the stream, wildflowers spreading around her, the verdant green hills behind her. Her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around them, and her hair free and tumbled over her shoulders.

  “It’s a favorite of mine. A memory of a perfect day, a perfect spot, the perfect girl. I loved you, Lil, with everything I had. I just didn’t have enough.”

  “It was enough for her,” she said quietly.

  And the phone rang.

  24

  Willy followed up the phone call with a personal visit. Lil opened the gate for him by remote, and had a moment to think, At least, this is safer and easier. She’d switched from tea to coffee, and poured Willy a cup even as Coop went to the door to let him in.

  She carried it to the living room, offered it to him.

  “Thanks, Lil. I figured you’d want to hear the details in person. He used Mac Goodwin’s account. You know the Goodwins, Lil, have the farm on 34.”

  “Yes, I went to school with Lisa.” Lisa Greenwald then, she thought, a cheerleader, whom she’d disliked intensely because of Lisa’s constant state of “perk.” It made Lil’s stomach twist just to think of how often she’d sneered at Lisa behind her back.

  “I got a call from Mac not five minutes after I got yours. Reporting a break-in.”

  “Are they—”

  “They’re all right,” he said, anticipating her. “They’d gone out for dinner and to their oldest boy’s spring band concert. They got back and found the back door broken in. Did the smart thing, went right back out again and called me from the cell phone. Anyway, it seemed like too much coincidence, so I asked him if they had an e-mail account that matched the one I got from you. Sure enough.”

  “They weren’t home. They weren’t hurt.” She sat then as her knees went shaky.

  “They’re fine. They’ve got a new pup since their old dog passed a few months back, and he was closed up in the laundry room. He’s fine, too. I went by to talk to them, take a look at things. Left a deputy there to help Mac board up that door. It looks like he busted in, found the computer. Mac didn’t shut it down before they left. Kids carrying on, he said, and just forgot. People do.”

  “Yes. People do. They went together all through high school. Mac and Lisa, Lisa and Mac. And got married the spring after graduation. They have two boys and a girl. The girl’s still a baby.”

  Wasn’t it funny, Lil thought, dazed, how much she knew about the once-detested Lisa.

  “That’s right, and they’re all fine. The best they could tell on first look was he took some food supplies. Bread, canned goods, Pop-Tarts of all things, some beer and juice boxes. Left the kitchen in a state. Got the two hundred in cash Mac kept in his desk, and the money the kids had in their banks, and the hundred Lisa kept in the freezer.”

  He watched Lil’s face, glanced at Coop, then just kept talking in that same easy way. “People don’t seem to realize those are the first places any thief worth his salt is going to check. They need to take a second look when they’re not so upset, to see if anything else is missing.”

  “Weapons?” Coop asked.

  “Mac keeps his guns in a gun safe. Locked up tight. So that’s a blessing. We got prints. We’ll eliminate the Goodwins’, and I’ll go out on what I think’s a damn sturdy limb and say we’ll match the others to Ethan Howe. I’m planning to call the FBI in the morning.”

  He cocked his head at the expression that ran over Coop’s face. “I don’t much relish the idea of working with the feds, or having them take this investigation over, either. But the fact is it looks like we’ve got evidence that points to serial murder, and Lil got an e-mail threat. That’s cybercrime. Added to it, it’s a given that this fucker’s—sorry, Lil—that his territory includes the national park. I’m going to fight for my stake in this, but I’m not going to worry about pecking order.”

  “When you match the prints, you need to plaster Howe’s photo all over the media,” Coop said. “Anybody coming into the area, using the trails, any of the locals, need to be able to ID him on sight.”

  “That’s on the list.”

  “If he’s using this aka, this Swift Cat, we might find something on it.”

  “Thirty-five miles per hour,” Lil mumbled, then shook her head when Coop turned to her. “That’s the peak for a cougar, and on a sprint. They can’t run at that speed for any real distance. There are swifter cats. Much faster cats than the cougar. What I mean is . . .” She paused, pressed her fingers to her eyes to help line up her thoughts. “He doesn’t really know the animal he claims is his spirit guide. And I think he gave me the name he’s chosen because he believes we share that guide. I doubt he’s used it before, or often.”

  “We’ll do a little checking on it anyway.” Willy set his coffee aside. “Lil, I know you’ve got your new alarms here, and the ex-New York City detective, but I can arrange for protection.”

  “Where? How? Willy, this guy covers ground fast, and he can and will go to ground and wait it out if I leave. He’s watching this place, and he knows what’s going on. The only chance you have of tracking him down is if he thinks I’m accessible.”

  “Lil gets volunteers and interns,” Coop began. “There’s no reason you couldn’t put a couple of officers in soft clothes and have them go to work around here.”

  “I could fix that.” Willy nodded. “Work with the state boys, with the park service. I think we could get a couple of men on-site.”

  “I’ll take them,” Lil agreed immediately. “I’m not being brave, Willy. I just don’t want to go hide out, then have to face this all over again in six months, a year. Ever. I want it over.”

  “There’ll be two men here in the morning. I’m going to start setting up what I can tonight. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

  Lil caught the glance that passed between the men.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Coop said.

  “No you won’t.” Lil took his arm, held on. “If the two of you have something else to say about this, I’m entitled to know. Keeping information from me isn’t protecting me. It’s just pissing me off.”

  “I’ve placed
Howe in Alaska at the time Carolyn Roderick went missing.” Coop glanced at Lil. “It’s just added weight. I tracked down a sporting goods store where the owner remembered him, and ID’d him through the picture I faxed him. He remembers him because Howe bought a Stryker crossbow, the full package with scope, carbon bolts, sling, and ammo for a thirty-two. He spent nearly two thousand, and paid cash. He talked about taking his girl hunting.”

  Lil made a little sound, thinking of Carolyn.

  “I expanded my like-crime search after Tyler,” Coop continued. “A body found in Montana four months later, male, mid-twenties, was left for the animals, and in bad shape. But the autopsy showed a leg wound—into the bone—the ME there concluded was from a bolt strike. If he still has the bow . . .”

  “We could tie him up on the Roderick disappearance and the Montana murder,” Willy concluded. “Odds are he does. That’s a lot of cash.”

  “He got over three hundred from tonight’s break-in, and what he took off of Tyler. It wouldn’t take long, the way he works, to build up a cash supply.”

  “I’ll add the bow and bolts to the APB. That’s nice work, Coop.”

  “If you make enough calls, you can get lucky.”

  When they were alone, Lil went over to poke at the fire until the flames kicked up. She saw he’d brought his baseball bat, the one Sam had made him a lifetime ago. It stood propped against the wall.

  Because this is home now, she thought. At least until we’re done with this, he’s home here.

  And she couldn’t think of that, not yet.

  “It’s harder to hide a crossbow than a handgun.” She stood there, watching the flames rise. “He’d be more likely to carry the bow when he’s specifically hunting. Maybe toward evening, or before dawn.”

  “Maybe.”

  “He didn’t use a bow on the cougar. If he had it, if he’d used it, it would’ve given him more time to get away, cover his tracks. But he didn’t use the bow.”

  “Because you wouldn’t have heard the shot,” Coop concluded. “Which is probably why he chose the gun.”

  “So I would hear it, and panic for the cat.” She turned now, put her back to the light and the heat. “How much more do you know you haven’t told me?”

  “It’s speculation.”

  “I want to see the files, the ones you put away whenever I come in.”

  “There’s no point.”

  “There’s every point.”

  “Damn it, Lil, what good is it going to do for you to look at photos of Tyler before and after they dragged him out of the river, after the fish had been at him? Or to read the details of an autopsy? What’s the point in having that in your head?”

  “Tyler was practice. I’m the main event,” she said, quoting the e-mail. “If you’re worried about my sensibilities, don’t. No, I’ve never seen pictures of a body. But have you seen a lion spring out of the bush and take down an antelope? Not human, but take my word, it’s not for the faint of heart. Stop protecting me, Coop.”

  “That’s never going to happen, but I’ll show you the files.”

  He unlocked a case, drew them out. “The photos won’t help you. The ME determined the time of death somewhere between fifteen and eighteen hundred.”

  Lil sat, opened the file, and stared at the stark black-and-white photograph of James Tyler. “I hope to God his wife didn’t see him like this.”

  “They’d have done what they could beforehand.”

  “Slitting his throat. That’s personal, isn’t it? From my vast police knowledge from CSI and so on.”

  “You have to get in close, make contact, get blood on your hands. A knife’s generally more intimate than a bullet. He took Tyler from behind, going left to right. The body had cuts and bruises incurred perimortem, most likely from stumbling and slipping. The knees, hands, elbows.”

  “You said he died between three and six. Daylight hours, or just going to dusk on the later side of that. To get from the trail Tyler was seen on to that point of the river has to take several hours. Probably more if we agree he’d have driven Tyler over the roughest ground, the least likely areas where he’d have found help or another hiker. Tyler had a day pack. If you’re running for your life, you’d shed weight, wouldn’t you?”

  “They didn’t find his pack.”

  “I bet Ethan did.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And when he maneuvers Tyler to the right position, he doesn’t shoot him. Not sporting. He comes in close for the personal kill.”

  She flipped through to the list of what the victim’s wife stated Tyler had on him when he’d started for the summit. “It’s a good haul,” she added. “Victory spoils. He won’t need the watch. He knows how to tell the time by the sky, by the feel of the air. Maybe he’ll keep it as a trophy, or pawn it later on, a few states away, when he wants more cash.”

  She looked over. “He took something, some things from every victim you think he’s responsible for, didn’t he?”

  “That’s the way it looks. Jewelry, cash, supplies, articles of clothing. He’s a scavenger. But not stupid enough to use any victim’s credit cards or IDs. None of the MPs have had any account activity on their credit cards since they disappeared.”

  “No paper trail. Plus maybe he considers credit cards a white man’s invention, a white man’s weakness. I wonder if his parents had any credit cards. I’d bet not.”

  “You’d bet right. You’re a smart one, Lil.”

  “We’re the smart girls,” she said absently. “But he buys a crossbow, not traditional Native American weaponry. He picks and chooses. He’s full of shit, basically. Sacred ground, but he defiles it by hunting an unarmed man. For sport. For practice. If he really has Sioux blood, he’s defiled that, too. He has no honor.”

  “The Sioux considered the Black Hills the sacred center of the world.”

  “Axis mundi,” Lil confirmed. “They considered—and still consider—the Black Hills the heart of all that is. Paha Sapa. Sacred ceremonies started in the spring. They’d follow the buffalo through the hills, forming a trail in the shape of a buffalo head. Sixty million acres of the hills were promised in treaty. But then they found gold. The treaty meant nothing, because the white man wanted the land, and the gold on it. The gold was worth more than honor, than the treaty, than the promise to respect what was sacred.”

  “But it’s still under dispute.”

  “Been boning up on your history?” she asked. “Yeah, the U.S. took the land in 1877, in violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, and the Teton Sioux, the Lakota, never accepted that. Fast-forward a hundred years, and the Supreme Court ruled the Black Hills had been taken illegally, and ordered the government to pay the initial promised price plus interest. Over a hundred million, and they refused the settlement. They wanted the land back.”

  “It’s accrued interest since then, and now stands at more than seven hundred million. I did my research.”

  “They won’t take the money. It’s a matter of honor. My great-grandfather was Sioux. My great-grandmother was white. I’m a product of that blending, and the generations since have certainly diluted the Sioux in me.”

  “But you understand honor, you understand refusing a hundred million dollars.”

  “Money isn’t land, and land was taken.” She narrowed her eyes. “If you think Ethan is into this because it’s some sort of revenge for broken treaties, for the theft of sacred ground, I don’t. It’s not that deep. It’s an excuse, and one that might make him think of himself as a warrior or a rebel. I doubt he knows the entire history. Bits and pieces maybe, and probably bastardized ones at that.”

  “No, he kills because he likes it. But he’s chosen you, and this place, because it fits his idea of payback. That makes it more exciting, more satisfying. And his definition of honor’s warped, but he has his own version. He won’t pick you off when you’re crossing the compound. It’s not the game, it’s not satisfying, and it doesn’t complete the purpose.”

  “That’s comfor
ting.”

  “If I didn’t believe that, you’d be locked up a thousand miles from here. Trying to be honest,” he added when she frowned at him. “I’ve got a picture of him, a kind of profile, and it assures me he wants you to understand him, to face him, then to give him real competition. He’ll wait for an opportunity, but he’s getting impatient. The e-mail pushes it forward.”

  “It’s a dare.”

  “Of sorts, and a declaration. I need your word, Lil, you won’t let him goad you into that opportunity.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “No argument? No qualifications?”

  “No. I don’t like hunting, and I know I wouldn’t like being