Northern Lights

and have it on stilts, and the ladder you use to get up to them comes down every time you do."
    She pulled on her pants, scooped a hand through her hair. "Bears get a scent of something to eat, they mosey on over to snack, and they can climb a ladder. You'd be surprised what can climb a ladder. They'll even wander into town, a populated area, to get into garbage cans, bird feeders, and so on. You might have one try to get in the house, just to see if there's something more interesting to eat inside. Mostly you can scare them off. Sometimes you can't."
    She buttoned up her shirt, edged closer to the fire. "There's meat on the ground out there, and I bet we'll find some shreds of the plastic it was in. Somebody put it there, hoping to bring a bear in toward the house, and you can be pretty confident that kind of baiting will work this time of year. Bears are just waking up. They're hungry."
    "Someone laid the bait, hoping you'd step into the trap."
    "No, not me. You." And that had her stomach churning. "Think about it. Had to be baited sometime today, before I got back. If someone'd tried that while we were here, we'd have heard the dogs carrying on. Say you were out here alone tonight, like you were last night, what would you have done if you'd heard the dogs start up like we did?"
    "I'd've gone out to see why, but I'd have gone out armed."
    "With your handgun," she said with a nod. "Maybe you can take down a bear with a handgun, or scare it off with one—if you're lucky enough and get off enough shots before it takes it out of your hand and eats it. Mostly, you're just going to make it mad. And a bear who's busy chowing down or fighting a couple of angry huskies? He'd have gotten through my dogs, Nate. Odds are they'd have done some damage before it ripped them to pieces. And if you'd been out there alone with that 9mm, you might have been ripped to pieces, too. Odds are. Wounded bear, enraged bear, he'd come right through the door after you, too. That's what someone was counting on."
    "If so, I must be making someone very nervous."
    "That's what cops do, don't they?" She rubbed a hand over his knee when he sat beside her. "Whoever it was wanted you dead or in a world of hurt. And didn't mind sacrificing my dogs to do it."
    "Or you, if things had gone differently."
    "Or me. Well, he's got me pissed off now." She patted his knee before she rose to pace. "Killing my father, that hurt me. But he'd been gone a long time, and I could deal. Tracking him down, tossing him in a cell, that'd be enough. But nobody comes after my dogs."
    She turned and saw that half smile was back. "Or after the guy I'm going to marry, especially before he's bought me a really expensive ring. You still mad at me?"
    "Not so much. I will always have that image of you standing out there in your red panties with that red shirt open and blowing back in the wind while you held a rifle. But after a while, it's going to be erotic instead of terrifying."
    "I really do love you. It's the damnedest thing. Okay." She scrubbed her hands hard over her face. "We can't leave that carcass out there. It'll bring all kinds of other interested visitors, and the dogs will be rolling over it in the morning. I'm going to call Jacob, have him help me deal with it, and he can see if he can find any signs from whoever left the bait."
    She saw his face, stepped forward.
    "I can see your brain working. Jacob was here today and with bear meat. He wouldn't have done this, Nate. I can give you several specific reasons why, over and above the fact that he's a good man who loves me. First, he'd never put my dogs in jeopardy. He loves them and respects them too much. Second, he knew I was coming home tonight. I touched base with him after I did the engine work. Third, if he wanted you dead, he'd just jam a knife in your heart and bury you somewhere you'd never be found. Simple, clean, straightforward. This? This was sneaky and cowardly and not a little desperate."
    "I agree with you. Call him."
     
     
    IN HIS OFFICE THE NEXT MORNING, Nate studied his most recently collected evidence. Some scraps of white plastic, which looked like the same material used at The Corner Store to bag produce, some scraps of meat he'd sealed in an evidence bag.
    And a silver earring.
    Had he seen it before? That earring? There was something on the fringes of his memory, a finger tap on the brain, trying to wake it up.
    A single silver earring. Men wore them more now than they once had. Fashions