The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3

by Nora Roberts

  They went at it, short, testing lunges, snapping, snarling. He saw blood splattered over the ground, a pool of it soaking into the thawing ground. The raw smell of it, and the pungent odor of wild animal, stung the air.

  “Rock, Bull! Here! Come here, now!”

  Too far gone, was Nate’s only thought as Meg called out. Too far gone to listen even to her. They’d already made their choice between fight or flight, and the blood lust was on them.

  The bear dropped onto all fours, its back hunched, and the sound it made was nothing like the growls Hollywood assigned to its breed. It was more. More savage, more chilling. More real.

  It swiped out, razor claws sweeping, and sent one of the dogs tumbling off into the snow on a high-pitched yelp. Then it rose up on its hind legs. Taller than a man, wide as the moon. Blood on its fangs and its eyes mad with battle.

  He fired as it charged, fired again as it got down on all fours to rush them. He heard the explosion of Meg’s rifle, once, twice, booming through his own fire. It screamed, it seemed like a scream to him, as blood flew, as it matted its fur.

  It fell less than three feet from where they stood, and it shook the ground under Nate’s feet.

  Meg shoved the rifle at Nate and jumped down to run to the dog who limped toward her. “You’re all right, you’re okay. Let me see. Just grazed you, didn’t he? You stupid, stupid dog. Didn’t I tell you to come?”

  Nate stayed where he was a moment, making certain the bear was down for good while Rock sniffed around the body, nosed into the blood.

  Then he walked down to where Meg knelt in nothing but a pair of panties and an open shirt. “Get inside, Meg.”

  “It’s not too bad.” She was crooning to Bull. “I can fix it. Baited. Baited the house, do you see? Bloody meat.” Her eyes were hard stones as she gestured to the chunks of half-eaten meat near the back of the house. “Hung meat, fresh meat at the house, probably at the edge of the woods. Lure the bear in. Bastard. That’s what the bastard did.”

  “Get inside, Meg. You’re cold.” He pulled her to her feet, felt her trembling. “Take these. I’ll get the dog.”

  She took the guns, whistled for Rock. Inside, she laid the guns on the counter and dashed for a blanket and first-aid supplies. “Lay him on that,” she called out when Nate carried the dog in. “Get down with him, keep him quiet. He’s not going to like this.”

  He did as she asked, held the dog’s head and said nothing while she cleaned the cuts.

  “Not deep, not too deep. Probably scar. War wounds, that’s okay. Rock, sit!” she snapped out when he tried to wiggle under her arm to sniff at his companion.

  “I’m going to give him a couple of shots here.” She took out a hypo, tapped it with a steady hand, squirted out a small stream. “Hold him still.”

  “We can take him in to Ken.”

  “It’s not that bad. He wouldn’t do any more than I can do here. Going to give him this, make him groggy so I can stitch up the deeper cuts. We’ll give him an antibiotic after, wrap him up, let him sleep it off.”

  She pinched a hunk of fur, then slid the needle in. Bull whimpered and rolled his eyes pitifully up at Nate. “Just relax, big guy, you’re going to feel better in a minute.”

  He stroked the dog while Meg started to suture. “You keep all that stuff around the house?”

  “Out here, you never know. Maybe you slice your leg or whatever cutting wood, power’s out, roads are blocked, what are you going to do?”

  Her brows were knitted as she worked, her voice calm and matter-of-fact. “Can’t depend on getting to a doctor for every damn thing. There now, baby doll, nearly done. We’re going to keep you nice and warm. I’ve got this salve here. It’ll help it heal and keep him from gnawing at it ’cause it tastes foul. Gonna bandage him up. Take him in tomorrow, have him looked at, but it’s not too bad.”

  When the dog was sleeping under a blanket with Rock curled beside him, she picked up the wine bottle and drank from it. Now her hands shook violently. “Jesus Christ.”

  Nate took the bottle from her, set it carefully aside. Then he gripped her elbows and jerked her an inch off the floor. “Don’t you ever, ever do anything like that again.”

  “Hey!”

  “Look at me. Listen to me.”

  She hardly had a choice as his voice was booming, and his face, rigid with fury, engulfed her vision.

  “Don’t you ever take a risk like that again.”

  “I had to—”

  “No, you didn’t. I was here. You didn’t have to go running out of the house, half naked, to take on a grizzly.”

  “It wasn’t a grizzly,” she shouted back at him. “It was a black bear.”

  He dropped her back on her feet. “Damn it, Meg.”

  “I can take care of myself and what’s mine.”

  He spun back around, his face so full of rage, she backed up a step. This wasn’t the patient lover; it wasn’t the cold-eyed cop. This was a furious man with enough heat blasting out to boil her alive.

  “You’re mine now, so get used to it.”

  “I’m not going to stand around and act helpless because—”

  “Helpless, my ass. Who wants you to act helpless? There’s a big fucking difference between acting helpless and running out of the house in your underwear when you don’t know the situation. There’s a big damn difference, Meg, when you try to shove me aside by ramming the butt of a rifle in my gut.”

  “I didn’t . . . did I?” Oddly enough it was his full-blown temper that cut hers down to manageable, that allowed her to think again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That was wrong.”

  She pressed her hands to her face, took several deep breaths until the fear, the anger, the shaky aftermath of both eased.

  “Some of the other stuff was probably wrong, but I just reacted. I . . .” She held out a hand, palm out for peace, then picked up her wine again. She sipped slowly to soothe her raw throat.

  “My dogs are my partners. You understand you don’t hesitate when your partner’s in trouble. And I did know the situation. There wasn’t time to explain it. And I haven’t taken time to tell you it felt . . . all kinds of good and different things to know you were beside me out there. Even if I didn’t act like it, I knew you were there, and it mattered.”

  Her voice thickened so she pressed the fingers of her free hand to her eyes until she had it under control. “You want to be mad, I won’t hold it against you. But maybe you could wait to finish yelling at me until I get some clothes on. I’m cold.”

  “I guess I’m finished.” He stepped toward her, pulled her into his arms and held on like fury.

  “Look at that. I’m shaking.” She burrowed into him. “I wouldn’t be if you weren’t here to hang on to.”

  “Let’s get you dressed.” He kept an arm around her until they were in the living room, then he walked over to put another log on the fire.

  “I’ve got a need to take care of you,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to drown you in it.”

  “I know. I’ve got a need to take care of myself, but I’ll try not to shove you away with it.”

  “Okay. Now, explain about the baiting.”

  “Bears like to eat. That’s why you bury or seal your scraps when you’re camping, why you carry any food supplies in sealed containers and hang them up, away from camp. That’s why you build a cache for supplies and have it on stilts, and the ladder you use to get up to them comes down every time you do.”

  She pulled on her pants, scooped a hand through her hair. “Bears get a scent of something to eat, they mosey on over to snack, and they can climb a ladder. You’d be surprised what can climb a ladder. They’ll even wander into town, a populated area, to get into garbage cans, bird feeders, and so on. You might have one try to get in the house, just to see if there’s something more interesting to eat inside. Mostly you can scare them off. Sometimes you can’t.”

  She buttoned up her shirt, edged closer to the fire. “There’s meat on the ground out
there, and I bet we’ll find some shreds of the plastic it was in. Somebody put it there, hoping to bring a bear in toward the house, and you can be pretty confident that kind of baiting will work this time of year. Bears are just waking up. They’re hungry.”

  “Someone laid the bait, hoping you’d step into the trap.”

  “No, not me. You.” And that had her stomach churning. “Think about it. Had to be baited sometime today, before I got back. If someone’d tried that while we were here, we’d have heard the dogs carrying on. Say you were out here alone tonight, like you were last night, what would you have done if you’d heard the dogs start up like we did?”

  “I’d’ve gone out to see why, but I’d have gone out armed.”

  “With your handgun,” she said with a nod. “Maybe you can take down a bear with a handgun, or scare it off with one—if you’re lucky enough and get off enough shots before it takes it out of your hand and eats it. Mostly, you’re just going to make it mad. And a bear who’s busy chowing down or fighting a couple of angry huskies? He’d have gotten through my dogs, Nate. Odds are they’d have done some damage before it ripped them to pieces. And if you’d been out there alone with that 9mm, you might have been ripped to pieces, too. Odds are. Wounded bear, enraged bear, he’d come right through the door after you, too. That’s what someone was counting on.”

  “If so, I must be making someone very nervous.”

  “That’s what cops do, don’t they?” She rubbed a hand over his knee when he sat beside her. “Whoever it was wanted you dead or in a world of hurt. And didn’t mind sacrificing my dogs to do it.”

  “Or you, if things had gone differently.”

  “Or me. Well, he’s got me pissed off now.” She patted his knee before she rose to pace. “Killing my father, that hurt me. But he’d been gone a long time, and I could deal. Tracking him down, tossing him in a cell, that’d be enough. But nobody comes after my dogs.”

  She turned and saw that half smile was back. “Or after the guy I’m going to marry, especially before he’s bought me a really expensive ring. You still mad at me?”

  “Not so much. I will always have that image of you standing out there in your red panties with that red shirt open and blowing back in the wind while you held a rifle. But after a while, it’s going to be erotic instead of terrifying.”

  “I really do love you. It’s the damnedest thing. Okay.” She scrubbed her hands hard over her face. “We can’t leave that carcass out there. It’ll bring all kinds of other interested visitors, and the dogs will be rolling over it in the morning. I’m going to call Jacob, have him help me deal with it, and he can see if he can find any signs from whoever left the bait.”

  She saw his face, stepped forward.

  “I can see your brain working. Jacob was here today and with bear meat. He wouldn’t have done this, Nate. I can give you several specific reasons why, over and above the fact that he’s a good man who loves me. First, he’d never put my dogs in jeopardy. He loves them and respects them too much. Second, he knew I was coming home tonight. I touched base with him after I did the engine work. Third, if he wanted you dead, he’d just jam a knife in your heart and bury you somewhere you’d never be found. Simple, clean, straightforward. This? This was sneaky and cowardly and not a little desperate.”

  “I agree with you. Call him.”

  IN HIS OFFICE THE NEXT MORNING, Nate studied his most recently collected evidence. Some scraps of white plastic, which looked like the same material used at The Corner Store to bag produce, some scraps of meat he’d sealed in an evidence bag.

  And a silver earring.

  Had he seen it before? That earring? There was something on the fringes of his memory, a finger tap on the brain, trying to wake it up.

  A single silver earring. Men wore them more now than they once had. Fashions changed and evolved, and even a suit wouldn’t be smirked at for sporting an earring these days.

  But sixteen years ago? Not as mainstream, not as common for a man. More a hippy sort of thing or a musician, an artist, a biker, a rebel. And this wasn’t a discreet little stud or a tiny sporty hoop, not with that cross dangling.

  It made more of a statement.

  It wasn’t Galloway’s. He’d checked the photographs, and Galloway had died with a hoop in his ear. Best he could tell, using a magnifying glass, Galloway’s other ear had been unpierced.

  He’d check with the ME to be sure.

  But he knew what he was looking at belonged to the murderer.

  The little back piece—what the hell did they call that—was missing. He could see, in his mind’s eye, that faceless figure, rearing back with the ax, and the little earring falling off, unnoticed. Bringing the ax down, bringing it home.

  Had he stood there, watching Galloway’s shocked face as his friend had slid bonelessly down that icy wall? Had he stood there, staring, studying? Shocked himself or pleased? Thrilled or appalled? Hardly mattered, Nate thought. The job was done.

  Take the pack, check it? No point in leaving supplies or the money, if the money was in there. Have to be practical. Have to survive.

  How long before he’d noticed the loss of the earring? Too late to go back and check, too insignificant a detail to worry about.

  But it was always the details that built the case—and the cage.

  “Nate?”

  Still holding the earring, he reached for his intercom. “Yeah?”

  “Jacob’s here to see you,” Peach told him.

  “Send him back.”

  He didn’t get up but instead leaned back in his chair as Jacob came in and closed the door behind him. “Expected you to come by this morning.”

  “There are things I want to say I didn’t want to say last night in front of Meg.”

  Jacob wore a buckskin shirt over faded jeans, and the thin string of beads around his neck held a polished, brown stone. His silvered hair was drawn back in a long tail. His exposed lobes sported no jewelry.

  “Have a seat,” Nate invited, “and say them.”

  “I’ll stand and say them. You’ll use me to finish this, or I’ll do what I have to do on my own. But this will end.” He stepped forward, and for the first time in their acquaintance, Nate saw undisguised rage on Jacob’s face.

  “She is my child. She’s been mine more years than she was Pat’s. This is my daughter. Whatever you think about me, whatever you wonder, you will know that. I’ll be a part of finding who put her in danger last night, one way or the other.”

  Nate rocked forward in his chair, rocked back again. “You want a badge?”

  He saw Jacob’s hands ball into fists, then open again, slowly, just as slowly as the rage went under some enigmatic mask. “No. I don’t think I’d like a badge. Too heavy for me.”

  “Okay, we’ll keep my . . . use of you unofficial. That suit you better?”

  “It does.”

  “These people you were asking questions of, ones who told you about the money? Is it possible wind of that blew back here to Lunacy?”

  “More than possible. People talk, especially white people.”

  “And if that wind blew, it wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude, due to your connection to Galloway and to Meg, that you’d pass the information to me.”

  Jacob shrugged.

  “Why not just shut you down before you got it to me?”

  And now Jacob smiled. “I’ve lived a very long time and am very hard to kill. You haven’t and aren’t. This business last night was sloppy and stupid. Why not just shoot you in the head when you’re alone by the lake? Weigh you down with stones and sink you. I would.”

  “I appreciate that. He doesn’t use the direct approach. No, not even with Galloway,” Nate said as Jacob looked at the board. “That was a moment of madness, of greed, of opportunity. Maybe all three. It wasn’t planned.”

  “No.” Considering now, Jacob nodded. “There are easier ways to kill a man than climbing a mountain.”

  “One stroke of the ax,” Nate continued.
“One. Afterward, he’s too . . . delicate to yank it out again, to dispose of the body. That would be too direct, too involved. Same with Max. Stage a suicide. Max was responsible as he is—he can look at it that way. The dog? Just a dog, a cover, a distraction—and an indirect slap at Steven Wise. He won’t come at me face-to-face.”

  He pushed the earring across the desk. “Recognize that?”

  Jacob frowned over it. “A bauble, a symbol. Not a Native one. We have our own.”

  “I think the killer lost it sixteen years ago. Long forgotten. But he’ll remember it if he sees it again. I’ve seen it before. Somewhere.” Nate picked it up, let the cross twirl. “Somewhere.”

  HE CARRIED IT WITH HIM. It wasn’t strictly procedure, but Nate kept the earring in his pocket as he went about town business.

  He said nothing to anyone about the incident at Meg’s, and he asked her and Jacob to do the same. A little game with a killer, he thought.

  In that burgeoning spring while the days lengthened and the green overtook the white, he went about his duties, talked with the people of his town, listened to their troubles and complaints.

  And checked the earlobes of all the men he came in contact with.

  “They can close up,” Meg told him one night.

  “What?”

  “The holes in your ear—or wherever you decide to skewer yourself.” She danced her fingers lightly over his penis.

  “Please.” He couldn’t quite submerge the shudder and made her laugh. Wickedly.

  “I’ve heard it can really add something to the . . . thrust.”

  “Don’t even think. What do you mean, close up?”

  “They can heal up. If you haven’t had it for long, and you quit wearing anything in it, they”—she made a slurping sound—“close up again.”

  “Son of a bitch. Are you sure?”

  “I used to have four in this one.” She tugged her left ear. “Got an urge and jabbed a third and fourth hole in.”

  “Yourself? You did it yourself?”