He said nothing while she drove the cart back to the shed. As he started toward the cabin with her, he lifted his chin toward the headlights far down her road. “You’re not going to get that chance to breathe.”

“I still want the coffee, which is smarter than the three fingers of whiskey I really want. Did you relock the gate?”

“No, it wasn’t at the top of my to-do list this morning.”

“I guess not. I think it’s the law.” She nearly managed a smile with it. “One more favor? Will you wait for him while I get that coffee? I’ll get you one, too.”

“Make it quick.”

Funny, she thought, as she paused inside her own kitchen, her hands were shaking again. She took a moment to splash cold water on her face in the kitchen sink before filling two insulated mugs with black coffee.

When she went back out Coop was standing with Willy and two deputies.

“You doing all right, Lil?” Willy asked her.

“Better now. But Jesus, Willy, this son of a bitch has to be crazy. If that cat had gotten away from here, away from me… God knows.”

“I need to take a look at things. What time did the alarm go off?”

“About a quarter after five. I’d just glanced at the clock before I left my cabin, and I’d only gotten as far as the porch when it sounded.” She walked with them, leading the way. “Tansy and Farley left pretty much on the dot of five, maybe a minute or two after. Tansy was anxious to get started.”

“You’re sure on that? It was about five-thirty when you called me, and that was after you’d put the tiger down.”

“I’m sure. I knew where to find him. I’d switched on the computer, the cameras when I went in for the drug gun. I saw the cage open, I saw the cat, so I knew where to go. It didn’t take long, only seemed like a year or two.”

“Did you maybe give a passing thought to calling me first?” Willy demanded.

“I had to move fast. I couldn’t wait, risk losing the cat. If he’d left the compound… They can move damn fast when they want, and by the time you’d have gotten here… He needed to be contained as quickly as possible.”

“All the same, Lil, any more trouble, I want you to call me before you do anything else. And I’d think you’d know better than to go walking all over a crime scene, Coop.”

“You’re right.”

Willy puffed out his cheeks. “It’d be more satisfying if you’d argue a little.” Willy paused before they hit the blood trail. “Get some pictures,” he told one of the deputies. “Of the broken lock over there, too.”

“I left it where I found it,” Lil said. “And kept out of the tracks as much as I could. We didn’t touch the bait. The tiger’d only had ten minutes or so on it when I got to him, but he’d torn in pretty good from what I could see. It was a small elk.”

“You’ll do me a favor and stay here.” He signaled to his men and moved into the brush in the tracks of the cart.

“He’s a little bit pissed.” Lil sighed. “I guess you are, too.”

“Good guess.”

“I did exactly what I thought had to be done, what I still think had to be done. Know had to be. But… The interns are coming,” she said as she heard the trucks. “I need to go deal with them. I appreciate you coming so fast, Coop. Appreciate everything you did.”

“Save it, and see how grateful you are once you and I are finished with this. I’ll wait for Willy here.”

“Okay.” She’d handled an escaped tiger, Lil thought, as she headed back. She could handle an angry man.

BY SEVEN-THIRTY in the morning, Lil felt as though she’d put in a full and brutal day. The emergency staff meeting left her with a headache and a clutch of uneasy interns. She had no doubt that if turnover hadn’t been only days away, some would have quit and walked away. Though she wanted to assist Matt with his exam of Boris, and the tests, she assigned interns. The work would keep them busy and focused. And reinforce the fact that everything was under control. Others she put to work on the temporary enclosure, and had no doubt there would be several pairs of eyes tracking warily over habitats throughout the day.

“A couple of them are going to be calling in sick tomorrow,” Lucius said when he and Lil were alone.

“Yeah. And the ones who do will never make it in the field. In research, labs, classrooms, but not fieldwork.”

With a sheepish smile, Lucius raised his hand.

“You’re planning to be sick tomorrow?”

“No, but I spend most of my time right in here. I can guarantee I wouldn’t have gone out armed with a drug gun to hunt me down a Siberian tiger. You had to be scared fully shitless, Lil. I know you relayed all this at the meeting as if it was almost routine, but this is me.”

“Fully shitless,” she acknowledged. “But more scared I wouldn’t get him tranquilized and contained. My God, Lucius, the damage he might have done if he’d gotten away from us. I’d never be able to live with it.”

“You weren’t the one who let him out, Lil.”

Didn’t matter, she thought as she went back outside. She’d learned a lesson, a vital one. Whatever the cost, she’d have the very best security available, and as quickly as it could be arranged.

She met Willy and Coop on their way back from what she supposed they considered a crime scene.

“We’ve got what’s left of that carcass bagged, and we’ll test it, in case it was doctored,” Willy said. “I’ve sent the men to follow the tracks. I’ll be calling in more.”

“Good.”

“I’m going to need a full statement from you, both of you,” he added to Coop. “Why don’t we talk in your place, Lil?”

“All right.”

At her kitchen table, over more mugs of coffee, she went over every detail.

“Who knew you were going to be here alone once Farley left this morning?”

“I don’t know, Will. I’d guess word got out that he was driving with Tansy to Montana this morning. I had arrangements to make, and I didn’t make them on the down low. But I don’t know if that’s relevant. If Farley had been here, everything would’ve gone about the same way it did. Except I wouldn’t have had to call Coop to help me get Boris back in his enclosure.”