Black Hills by Nora Roberts

right, Lil?”
    “Yeah, their typical kill method is the neck bite. It takes the prey down, often breaking the neck. Quick and clean.”
    “You rip out somebody’s throat, there’s going to be all kinds of blood. It’d gush, wouldn’t it? This was more like a smear. It wasn’t . . . spatter.”
    Bates lifted his eyebrows. “So, we’ve got a cougar expert and a forensic specialist.” He smiled when he said it, kept the remark friendly. “I appreciate the input. We’ll be going up, and we’ll look into all that.”
    “You’ll have to do an autopsy, determine cause of death.”
    “That’s right,” Bates said to Coop. “If it was a cougar attack, we’ll handle it. If it wasn’t, we’ll handle that. Don’t worry.”
    “Lil said it wasn’t a cougar that killed her. So it wasn’t.”
    “Has a woman gone missing? In the last few days?” Lil asked.
    “Might be.” Bates rose. “We’ll head on up now. I’m going to want to talk to you again.”
    Lil sat silent until Bates went out to mount up with his two-man team. “He thinks we’re wrong. That we saw what was left of a mule deer or something and got spooked.”
    “He’ll find out different soon.”
    “You didn’t tell him you were leaving in the morning.”
    “I can take another day. They should know who she is and what happened to her in another day. Maybe two.”
    “Can you eat?” Jenna asked.
    When Lil shook her head, Jenna wrapped an arm around her, stroking when Lil turned her face to her mother’s breast. “It was awful. So awful. To be left like that. To be nothing but meat.”
    “Let’s go up for a while. I’m going to draw you a hot bath. Come on with me.”
    Joe waited, then got up and poured two mugs of coffee. He sat, looked Coop in the eye. “You took care of my girl today. She can take care of herself, I know that’s true, most ways, most times. But I know you saw to her today. You got her back here. I won’t forget it.”
    “I didn’t want her to see it. I’ve never seen anything like it, and hope I never do again. But I couldn’t stop her from seeing it.”
    Joe nodded. “You did what you could, and that’s enough. I’m going to ask you for something, Cooper. I have to ask that you don’t make her any promises you’re not sure you can keep. She can take care of herself, my girl, but I don’t want her holding on to a promise that has to be broken.”
    Coop stared into the coffee. “I don’t know what I could promise her. I’ve got enough to rent an apartment, as long as it’s cheap, for a few months. I’ve got to try to make the grade at the academy. Even if I do, a cop doesn’t make a lot. I come into some money when I’m twenty-one. A trust fund thing. I get more when I’m twenty-five, then thirty, and like that. My father can tie it up some, and he threatened to, until I’m forty.”
    Joe smiled a little. “And that’s worlds away.”
    “Well, I’ll be living pretty thin for a while, but I’m okay with that.” He looked up again, met Joe’s eyes. “I can’t ask her to come to New York. I thought about it, a lot. I can’t give her anything there, and I’d be taking away what she wants. I’ve got no promises to give her. It’s not because she doesn’t matter.”
    “No, I’d say it’s because she does. That’s enough for me. You’ve had a hell of a day, haven’t you?”
    “I feel like pieces of me are coming apart. I don’t know how they’re going to go together again. She wanted to see the cougar—for us to see it together. For luck. It doesn’t feel like we have any right now. And whoever that is up there, she had it a lot worse.”
     
     
     
    HER NAME WAS Melinda Barrett. She’d been twenty when she’d set out to hike the Black Hills, a treat for herself for the summer. She was from Oregon. A student, a daughter, a sister. She’d wanted to be a ranger.
    Her parents had reported her missing the same day she’d been found, because she’d been two days late checking