Black Hills

land back.”
    “It’s accrued interest since then, and now stands at more than seven hundred million. I did my research.”
    “They won’t take the money. It’s a matter of honor. My great-grandfather was Sioux. My great-grandmother was white. I’m a product of that blending, and the generations since have certainly diluted the Sioux in me.”
    “But you understand honor, you understand refusing a hundred million dollars.”
    “Money isn’t land, and land was taken.” She narrowed her eyes. “If you think Ethan is into this because it’s some sort of revenge for broken treaties, for the theft of sacred ground, I don’t. It’s not that deep. It’s an excuse, and one that might make him think of himself as a warrior or a rebel. I doubt he knows the entire history. Bits and pieces maybe, and probably bastardized ones at that.”
    “No, he kills because he likes it. But he’s chosen you, and this place, because it fits his idea of payback. That makes it more exciting, more satisfying. And his definition of honor’s warped, but he has his own version. He won’t pick you off when you’re crossing the compound. It’s not the game, it’s not satisfying, and it doesn’t complete the purpose.”
    “That’s comforting.”
    “If I didn’t believe that, you’d be locked up a thousand miles from here. Trying to be honest,” he added when she frowned at him. “I’ve got a picture of him, a kind of profile, and it assures me he wants you to understand him, to face him, then to give him real competition. He’ll wait for an opportunity, but he’s getting impatient. The e-mail pushes it forward.”
    “It’s a dare.”
    “Of sorts, and a declaration. I need your word, Lil, you won’t let him goad you into that opportunity.”
    “You’ve got it.”
    “No argument? No qualifications?”
    “No. I don’t like hunting, and I know I wouldn’t like being hunted. I don’t need to prove anything to him, certainly not to myself by going out and doing a one-on-one with a homicidal maniac.”
    She went deeper into the files. “Maps. Okay, okay, we can work with this.”
    She rose, cleared everything else off the coffee table. “You’ve been busy,” she said, noting he’d marked the map with incidents ascribed to Ethan Howe. “You’re trying to triangulate locations where he might have his den.”
    “The sectors that seemed most likely have been searched.”
    “Next to impossible to cover every square foot, especially when you’re looking for someone who knows how to move, and cover his trail. Here. We found Melinda Barrett. Nearly twelve years ago. In that case, there was no indication he’d hunted her. No signs she’d run or been chased. The signs pointed to him following her up the trail. Stalking her, maybe. Or as likely just running into her. What set him off, made him kill her?”
    “If the kill wasn’t the goal, he might’ve wanted money or sex. They found some bruising on her biceps, the kind you’d get if someone gripped you hard and you tried to pull away. He knocks her back into the tree, with enough force to bash her head, open a wound. Bleeding.”
    “Blood. Maybe blood was enough. The wild scents blood, it spurs them.” Lil nodded because she could see it, see how it might have been. “She fights, maybe screams, maybe insults him or his manhood in some way. He kills her—the knife, close-in, personal. If it was his first, it would have been a tremendous rush—and he was so young. A rush and a panic. Drag her off, leave her for the animals. He might have thought, probably thought, her death would be blamed on a cougar or a wolf attack.”
    “The next time we can confirm he came back, it was here. The refuge.” Coop laid a finger on the map. “He made contact with you, tried to play on a shared heritage.”
    “And he met Carolyn.”
    “She finds him attractive, interesting, feeds his ego. And could probably tell him more about you, about the refuge. She meets a need, sex and pride, so he goes into her world. But it’s not a good fit, and she begins to see him for what he is when he’s out of his element. He follows her to Alaska, to close that door, to fulfill that need—stronger than sex—then winds his way back to you.”
    “And I’m in Peru. He has to wait.”
    “While he’s waiting, he comes down at night, pays at least one visit.”
    “When Matt was here alone. Yes. And he disabled the camera, here. Only a few days before I was due back.”
    “Because