In Harm's Way Part 4

"No. I don't. I didn't mean it to come out that way." She studied Fiona. "Is it the bear? You're worried about the bear? He attacks the garbage, not the house-sitter. You said so yourself."

"It might be better to just get out of here until they catch it."

"What is going on?"

"I just need to get out of here."

"Then go. Really! I'll be fine. You should go! You do nothing but work. You hold down three jobs. I don't know how you do it. Take the time off. I can handle things here. I promise I won't hide in the garbage cans at night."

"It would have to be both of us," Fiona said.

"But that's impossible. Really. I started, what, seven weeks ago? It's peak season. As if I'd get a two-week vacation. And no, you can't make a call for me. Everyone has been so nice to me. But I can't use it as an excuse forever. Right? Isn't that what I've been told over and over? That I have to get beyond it. Well, I think I am. I'm not going to accept special treatment. I want to be treated like everyone else. I'm sick of everyone treating me like I'm damaged goods. It happened. It's over. And I want to get over it."

"Good stuff," Fiona said, unable herself to lose the sordid images of Kira's abduction and s.e.xual abuse that had been captured on video. Indelible. Inexcusable. Even knowing the monster who'd done it was dead did little to help.

"Seriously. I mean it," Kira said.

"So we'll stay."

"I think you should go if you want to."

"I'm good."

"What's going on? I don't get you."

"What if it wasn't a bear?"

"Excuse me?"

"The sheriff has put together a pretty convincing case-circ.u.mstantial, but convincing-that the Berkholders' kitchen attacker was not a bear. My photography played into that. Bears are dirty creatures. They leave tracks. None were found. The sheriff thinks some guy made it look like a bear-even brought a bear claw along with him-but that it was just a guy trying to steal food."

"A guy."

"Maybe living in the woods around here."

"Now you're creeping me out." She stared at Fiona long and hard.

"That's why the pajama party, isn't it? That's why you want to bear-proof the place? Bear-proof, or creep-proof?"

"I think we'd both be smarter to stick together and just get away from here."

"Why would you lie to me?"

"I didn't lie. I just didn't want to get you all worked up about something that's probably nothing. And now you are."

"The woods?"

"That's what he thinks. This time of year-summer-people move into the national forest. Vagrants. Outlaws. People who can't afford to have, or don't want, an address. The sheriff's office puts the number into the hundreds."

"Hundreds?"

"Totally off the radar. Just out there camping somewhere."

"And stealing food from people's houses."

"Cheaper than buying."

"Every summer?"

Fiona nodded sadly.

"You don't scare that easily." Kira wore her suspicion openly. They were sisters now. Fiona wasn't supposed to hide anything.

Fiona averted her eyes. "Don't go there."

"Where?"

"Please."

"We'll bear-proof it," Kira said. "Maybe the handgun course comes in handy now."

"You know how I felt about that."

"Once my father gets a bug up his b.u.t.t . . ."

"So you said."

"The whole purpose of the course was to teach you to know what you're shooting at before you so much as finger the trigger."

"I still don't like it."

"I sleep better knowing it's there."

"But I don't. And think about it. It's not right," Fiona said. "A gun shouldn't have that kind of power."

"But it does, and if there's a prowler . . ."

"You . . . me . . . both of us . . . We don't need this. Not ever again. Why would we elect to stay here? Come with me. We kill some time while Walt-the sheriff-sweeps the woods. It's safe again, and we return."

"I won't give him that power. Some faceless dude who's stealing pancake batter? We talked about this. You You convinced me: 'Once a victim, never again a victim.' I'm not giving some phantom the power to make me leave." convinced me: 'Once a victim, never again a victim.' I'm not giving some phantom the power to make me leave."

"And if it's not a phantom?" Fiona asked.

The two exchanged looks. For a moment it appeared Kira was about to ask a question, but she censored herself.

"He hit a house a half mile from here," she said. "Who would be dumb enough to hit the next-door neighbor?"

"These guys are not rocket scientists."

"You're not telling me something. I can see it, and don't try to convince me otherwise."

"If you stay, I stay," Fiona said.

"That's bulls.h.i.t. I'll be fine."

"What about moving back in with your par-"

"No way. Not even for a week. I'm done there. You know how I feel about that."

"But one week?"

"I love them, but I'm not living with them. My father's look is . . . tragic. He can't help himself. It's like it happened to him. It's like secondhand smoke or something."

Fiona reached for the DVD's remote control. Kira leaned forward and placed her hand onto Fiona's.

"Thank you," she said. "I know you're trying to protect me. I know how awful you'd feel if anything happened. But nothing's going to happen. I'm in charge of my life now. I have have a life now. You made that happen. You, the Advocates, my parents, this whole valley. But I'm not running from some dude stealing soup cans. 'Once a victim, never again a victim,'" she repeated. a life now. You made that happen. You, the Advocates, my parents, this whole valley. But I'm not running from some dude stealing soup cans. 'Once a victim, never again a victim,'" she repeated.

"But there's also, BS is BS. 'Being smart is being safe.'"

"I'm staying," Kira said. "Unless you're kicking me out?"

"Yeah, right," Fiona said. She touched the remote and the movie continued.

Kira settled back into the couch and pulled the bowl of popcorn into her lap. "I love it when they go to Paris," she said.

But not Yellowstone, Fiona was about to say. She didn't.

6.

With Beatrice leading the way, Walt, Fiona, Tommy Brandon, and Guillermo Menquez followed a game path through a dark forest of fir, white pine, and aspen on a north-facing slope. Beatrice was not actually leading, but following a scent from a can of evaporated milk found by Fish and Game Deputy Ranger Menquez a hundred yards from the Berkholders' stucco home. That the can carried a scent, and that that scent led them deeper into the woods, encouraged Walt that they were onto something.

"No bear tracks that I've seen," Menquez said. He was a stocky man with a thick mustache and an oily face.

"No scat," Walt said, agreeing. "No fur caught in the shrubs or on the stumps of old branches-"

"Show-off," Fiona said.

Walt ignored it. "No evidence that any of the food in the kitchen had been consumed." He expected Beatrice to lead them to a camper, a squatter, and Menquez, a bear expert, was along in case they encountered one-or, if Walt's theory proved right, the "bear" required a translator. The Hispanic population had exploded in the valley over the past decade. Increasingly, his office and Fish and Game dealt with Mexicans squatting in the national forest while moving from one menial job to another. With the collapse of the economy had come whole settlements of twenty, forty, sixty day laborers in illegal campsites. Fiona was along to record whatever was found, and because for the past several days she'd come out of her coc.o.o.n to repeatedly badger Walt about finding and removing whatever-whoever-was living in the woods near the Engletons'.

Walt extended his arm, stopping the others, and dropped to one knee, focusing on the brown pine straw that covered the barely discernible trail.

"Brandon! A stick," he said, reaching back with an open palm.

Tommy Brandon found a fallen limb, cracked off a dry branch, and delivered it to Walt like a nurse to a surgeon. Walt reduced it further.

"Photo, please."

Fiona sneaked forward and made several pictures of the area in front of Walt. "It might help," she said, "if I knew what I was photographing."

"Right here," he said, using the tip of the stick to gently lift the edge of a fallen leaf. He pushed the leaf away, pinched it, and tossed it behind him. "Another photo," he said.

"What is that?" she asked. She zoomed in on the pine straw and for the first time saw through the lens that half a dozen of the brown needles were cracked and broken. "You couldn't have seen that," she mumbled.

"Here," he said, using the stick to point out a small frown of discoloration. "It's a toe impression," he said. "A boot or Vibram sole-something stiff and inflexible. Not a running shoe." He looked down at his own boot. "Size ten or eleven. We're lucky it hasn't rained in the past couple of weeks." He looked up the trail and whistled for Beatrice to stop. Once the dog was looking at him, Walt made a hand gesture and she sat on the side of the trail. "We don't want her disturbing things. It's a man." He looked behind him. Then he took hold of Fiona's hiking boot and lifted it up and moved it. "He's over a hundred and . . ." He sized up Fiona, "twenty pounds, and less than one-eighty."

"Jesus," she gasped, amazed he nailed her weight.

"Six feet or a little more."

Fiona glanced back at Brandon, who nodded as if to rea.s.sure her that the sheriff was for real.

"Beatrice," Fiona stated. "You saw a change in Beatrice as she pa.s.sed by here."

"Very good, Ms. Kenshaw," Walt said.

"Her nose? Her tail? What?"

"Both," Walt answered. "She's my Geiger counter. She's the one in charge at the moment, and she knows it. Look at her up there."

The dog sat proudly on the side of the trail, with an expression that seemed to ask what was keeping them.

"You ever seen anything cuter than that?" Walt said. "She's impatient with us!"

"Truthfully, I'm a little freaked out," Fiona said.

"It's what I do," Walt said. "What Bea and I do. No big deal."

"Unless you happen to see it in action," Fiona said. "The height? How do you get that?"

Brandon answered. "Shoe size combined with weight. Big feet, not very heavy. Tall and thin."

"Not Hispanic," Menquez said. "Not very likely if he's over six feet."

"No, Gilly," Walt said. "How do you feel about going off trail?"

"Point the way," Menquez said.

Brandon, reading a topo map, said, "There's a half-acre bench ahead, maybe two hundred yards."

"Water source?" Walt said.

"An intermittent stream, spring fed on the backside of the bench."