Black Hills

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.”
    “The fact is the cage door opened a few minutes after they left, and almost two hours before any of your people were scheduled to get here. Now, maybe that was just luck, or maybe somebody’s keeping track.”
    She’d thought of that, of exactly that. “He’d have to know we have alarm signals on the cages we keep activated unless we’re working in them. Otherwise, it would be getting the tiger out, baiting him out that was the goal here. It could’ve been another two hours, easily, before anyone noticed the door was open, and by that time, Boris might have roamed off, or just as easily gone back inside, to his den. His home. If I can’t be sure, and this is an animal I’ve worked with—this is what I know— whoever’s doing this couldn’t know.”
    “You’ve been here for about five years now,” Willy said. “I’ve never had a report from you on anyone trying to get one of your animals out.”
    “No. It’s never happened before. I’m not saying it’s a coincidence, just that the purpose might have been to get one of the big cats out and cause havoc.”
    Willy nodded, assured she understood him. “I’m going to coordinate a manhunt with the park service. I can’t tell you what to do, as sheriff, Lil, but I’m telling you as your friend I don’t want you here alone. Not even for an hour.”
    “She won’t be,” Coop put in.
    “I won’t argue that. I don’t intend for anyone, including me, to be alone here until this man’s found and put away. I’m going to contact a security company this morning and arrange for the best system I can manage. Willy, my parents live less than a mile from here. Believe me when I say I’m not taking any chances, any, on this ever happening again.”
    “I do believe you. But you’re a lot closer than a mile to those enclosures, and I’ve got a fondness for you. I had a painful crush on her when I was sixteen,” he said to Coop. “If you tell my wife I said that I’ll say you’re a dirty liar.”
    He pushed to his feet. “I went around, took a good look. All your enclosures are secure. I’m not going to shut you down. I could,” he added when Lil made a strangled sound in her throat. “And you could try to get that overturned, and we’d end up on opposite sides here. I want you to make that call about the new security, and I want you to keep me updated on it. I got a fondness for you, Lil, but I’ve also got people to protect.”
    “Understood. We haven’t violated a single ordinance or safety measure since we brought in the first cat.”
    “I know that, honey. I do. And I bring my kids here two or three times a year. I want to keep bringing them.” The gesture both casual and affectionate, he reached out to pat her head. “I’m going to go. I want you to remember I’m the first call you make from here on out.”
    She sat where she was, stewing. “I suppose you have plenty to say now,” she suggested when she and Coop were alone.
    “You should’ve stayed inside and waited for help. Two people with drug guns are better than one. And you’re going to say there wasn’t time for that.”
    “There wasn’t. How much do you know about tigers as a species, and Siberians as a subspecies?”
    “They’re big, have stripes, and I’d have to assume come from Siberia.”
    “Actually, the correct name for the subspecies is Amur—Siberian’s the name commonly used, and it’s misleading, as they live in the far east of Russia.”
    “Well, now that we’ve cleared that up.”
    “I’m just trying to make you see it. It’s fiercely territorial. It stalks and ambushes, and can reach a speed of thirty-five miles an hour, maybe forty.”
    She took a breath, easy in and out as the idea still made her belly quake. “Even an old guy like