“And I have to give you a job before you come out. Have you been around?”

“Yeah, your lady gave me the tour.”

Lil opened her mouth, then shut it. No point in breaking up the reunion by pointing out she wasn’t Coop’s “lady.”

“You’ll have to excuse me. It’s feeding time.”

“Seriously?” Brad asked.

He looked like a kid, she thought, who’d just been shown the biggest cookie in the jar. “Why don’t I get you both a beer, and you can watch the show?”

Brad rocked on his heels as Lil walked away. “She’s sexier than her picture.”

“It was an old picture.”

“Seeing her in the flesh, I’d say the chances of you coming back to New York are slim to none.”

“They started out slim to none, and she wasn’t why I moved here.”

“Maybe not, but I haven’t seen many better reasons to stay.” Brad looked over the habitats, up to the hills. “Hell of a long way from New York.”

“How long can you stay?”

“I’ve got to fly back tonight, so we’ll have to keep it to the one beer. I had to shuffle some things to get out here today. But I’ll draw up a couple of options in the next day or two. I’ll get them to you, and I’ll make sure I’m back when we do the install. We’ll lock it down for you, Coop.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Lil stayed busy, and out of Coop’s way. Old friends, to her way of thinking, needed time to catch up.

She and Coop had been friends once. Maybe they could be again. Maybe this pang she felt was just missing him, just missing her friend.

If they couldn’t go back, they could move forward. It seemed he was making the effort, so how could she do less?

She finished up in her office just as Coop walked in. “Brad had to go. He said to tell you goodbye, and he’d have plans for you to look over within the next few days.”

“Well. For a day that started out as bad as this one, it’s ending well. I just got off the phone with Tansy. Cleo is as advertised. Gorgeous, healthy, and she’ll be ready to travel tomorrow. Cooper, Brad said he’d be doing the security system at cost.”

“Yeah, that’s the deal.”

“We should all have such generous friends.”

“He likes to think he owes me. I like to let him.”

“My IOUs are piling up in your hat.”

“No they’re not. I don’t want an accounting.” Irritation darkened his face as he took another step toward her desk. “You were the best friend I ever had. For a good part of my life you were one of the few people I could trust or count on. It made a difference to me. In me. Don’t,” he said when her eyes welled.

“I won’t.” But she rose and walked to the window to look out until she had control. “You made a difference, too. I’ve missed you, missed having you for a friend. And here you are. I’m in trouble and I don’t know why, and here you are.”

“I have a possible line on that. On the trouble.”

She turned. “What? What line?”

“An intern named Carolyn Roderick. Do you remember her?”

“Ah, wait.” Lil closed her eyes, tried to think. “Yes, yes, I think… Two years ago. I think nearly two years ago. A summer session-after she’d graduated? Maybe after, I’m not sure. She was bright and motivated. I’d have to pull the records for more detail, but I remember she was a hard worker, serious conservationist disciple. Pretty.”

“She’s missing,” he said flatly. “She’s been missing for about eight months.”

“Missing? What happened? Where? Do you know?”

“Alaska. Denali National Park. She was doing fieldwork with a group of grad students. One morning, she just wasn’t in camp. Initially they thought she’d just wandered off a little to take some pictures. But she didn’t come back. They looked for her. They called in the rangers and Search and Rescue. They never found a trace of her.”

“I did fieldwork in Denali my senior year. It’s extraordinary, and it’s immense. A lot of places to get lost if you’re careless.”

“A lot of places to be taken.”

“Taken?”

“When they started to worry, her teammates looked in her tent more carefully. Her camera was there, her notebooks, her tape recorder, her GPS. None of them believed she’d wander off that way, with nothing but her jacket and boots and the clothes on her back.”

“You think she was abducted.”

“She had a boyfriend, someone she met while she was here, in South Dakota. According to the friends I’ve managed to track down so far, nobody really knew him. He kept to himself. But they shared a passion for the wilderness, for hiking, for camping. It went sour and she broke things off a couple months before the Alaska trip. Ugly breakup, reportedly. She called the cops; he skipped. His name is Ethan Howe, and he volunteered here. He also did a little time for an assault. I’m checking on that.”

It crowded in her mind, beat there until she rubbed her temple to quiet it. “Why do you think this connects to what’s happening here, now?”

“He used to brag about how he’d lived on the land for months at a time. He liked to claim he was a direct descendant of a Sioux chief, one who lived in the Black Hills. Sacred ground to his people.”

“If half the people who claimed to be a direct descendant of a Sioux chief or ‘princess’ actually were…” Lil rubbed her forehead now. She knew this, something about this. “I remember him, vaguely. I think. I just can’t get a clear picture.”

“He talked about this place, how he’d helped out here when Carolyn was an intern. She’s missing, and I can’t find anything on him. Nobody’s seen him since the breakup.”

She dropped her hand, and in one moment of weakness wished she didn’t understand him. “You think she’s dead. You think he abducted her, and killed her. And he’s come back here, because of the refuge. Or me.”

He didn’t soften it. Soft wouldn’t help her. “I think she’s dead, and he’s responsible. I think he’s here, living off the land. Your land. It’s the only solid connection I’ve been able to make. We’ll run him down, get a line on him. Then we’ll know who we’re dealing with.”