Bear Bait (9781101611548) (38 page)

She described the constant opposition—ranchers, miners, hunters—and from the country’s beginning to the current day, the rich who wanted to reserve spectacular sites for themselves. Moving into righteous anger mode now, she talked about what the West would be like today if conservationists had not succeeded in preserving federal lands. No Yellowstone, no Yosemite. A privately owned Grand Canyon? Slides appeared in succession on the screen behind her, showing mountains, deserts, rivers, and animals preserved because of the efforts of the courageous and dedicated few. She was proud that many of the slides featured were her own photos.

“Poachers. Toxic waste dumps. Smugglers. Meth labs.” She ticked off a litany of dangers faced by field personnel,
knowing her list was far from complete. She named the wildlife protection officers who had been murdered in the line of duty just in the last two years: a BLM ranger in Nevada; a fishing boat observer in Alaska; two NPS rangers in North Carolina and Arizona; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Officer Caitlin Knight in Washington State. The photo editors at
The Edge
had montaged photos for this part—shown along with photos of the victims were yellow-taped outdoor crime scenes, heaped flowers left at a makeshift memorial, a flag flying at half-staff before a federal building.

A buzz of appreciation rippled through the audience. Their empathy carried her along. The final three photos were her favorites. The two beautiful sweeping landscapes of Heritage National Monument in Utah and Rialto Beach on the coast of Olympic National Park flashed up behind her. “No matter how much opposition we may face, never let us forget: saving the environment is a noble cause. Clean air, clean water, wildlife, and wild places are always worth fighting for.”

The warm orange glow that reached into the first rows let her know that the final slide was up now. Against the backdrop of her famous photo of a cougar standing on a natural rock bridge against a flaming sunset, she concluded, “We are the good guys.”

The applause was loud. She was so grateful that it was finally all over. She’d done it. She’d survived both the speech and the assassination attempt. Her legs quivered with relief as she walked toward the wings.

The host brushed past her on the stage en route to the podium, and right behind him, a boy walked out of the wings toward her, a large bouquet of lilies in his hands. Stargazers—she could smell the strong scent two yards away. What a nice gesture. So unexpected. Or was it common to receive flowers after a speech? It wasn’t as if this was a routine experience for her.

The delivery boy was a handsome youth, with slicked-back
black hair, in white shirt and tie. “Flowers, Miss Westin.” He smiled at her as he held them out.

Was she supposed to take them and bow to the audience or something? Was there a protocol she had missed? Nobody had told her what to do after she had finished talking.

The delivery boy’s face seemed familiar. It took a second to place him—Rocky, Lili’s mentor. How odd to see him here. The overhead lights glanced off a metallic blade in his right hand.

All she managed to get out was the word “No!” before she felt a blow to her chest. She staggered backward.

Then her attacker crashed facedown on the stage with Chase on top of him. The audience collectively gasped. It sounded like the building was breathing. An absurd thought, she knew. But the whole world seemed a little absurd just then. Camera bulbs flashed, as bright as fireworks. She stood alone in the spotlight, clasping a perfumed bouquet and staring with disbelief at the knife that protruded from her chest just above her heart.

THE
host hustled Sam off-stage. Nicole removed and bagged the knife, and then unbuttoned Sam’s blouse and ripped off the Velcro tabs that held the Kevlar vest in place. To Sam’s surprise, there was blood above her left breast and now she felt a small stab of pain.

“Only a nick,” Nicole pronounced. “Sorry. I should have tightened it up more; the blade went through the strap just above the armor.” She took a bandage from the first aid kit someone produced and pressed it across the wound. “Still, you should see a doctor.”

Sam could hear the anxious roar of the audience outside and the coordinator begging them to please keep their seats and not panic. “I have to go out there.” She pushed away the helpful hands and rebuttoned her blouse.

When she appeared from behind the curtain, the audience hushed, then began to clap. She approached the podium and borrowed the microphone from the coordinator. “I’m okay, folks. I told you we were the good guys.”

“And the good guys always win!” Richard Best shouted from the second row. “Way to take it to
The Edge
, Summer Westin!”

Blushing furiously, she told the audience, “The bad guys are in custody. You are all safe. Enjoy the conference.” They clapped as she exited backstage and into Chase’s waiting arms.

*    *    *

THE
nick on her chest needed five stitches, but she was glad that it was no worse than that. Three government employees had not been so lucky—two had been killed and one was in critical condition from a gunshot wound.

“The attack was nationwide. We’re not flawless,” Chase said.

“Now you tell me,” she groaned.

“Nicole and I are heroes. We couldn’t have done it without you,
mi corazon
.”

After a quick kiss, he was gone, swept back into the maelstrom of meetings and investigations. The FBI’s discovery of Eminenten netted 132 antigovernment activists across the United States. More arrests would come later, Chase assured her. She tried not to think about how many had gotten away.

Sam wrote an article for
The Edge
about her experiences. It was picked up by the
Seattle Times
and thirty-two other newspapers across the country. Five conservation nonprofits called to ask about her availability for projects. While it was nice to have employment again, the offers seemed sort of anticlimactic after Eminenten.

JACK
Winner stared through prison bars at the dingy hallway. The lights were out in his cell. He’d chosen the lower bunk because it was darkest, but they never turned the lights out in the hallway—how was a man supposed to sleep?

Nothing made sense anymore. The feds told him that the park service trail worker who had died was Allie. But that had to be wrong—Allie wouldn’t be caught dead working for the feds. But if Lisa Glass was really Allie, then—oh, God—that fucker King had lied to him and Allie hadn’t been dead when they’d started that fire. They said she’d been in the hospital for three days after. But
she’d never called. No, that story had to be a trap. The feds were capable of anything; just look at Guantanamo, all those ragheads held for years without a trial—they probably fed them lies along with their beans and rice every day.

According to the papers, King had killed that game warden. That, he did believe. That sounded like King. What a waste. If there had to be killing, it should be advertised and it should be for a reason. What an incredible screwup King turned out to be. And Roddie or Rocky or whatever he called himself these days, well, he’d tried his best, but he was just a kid.

The gutless media had sidestepped the truth as usual, so now the feds looked like the good guys again, and
nothing
had changed. The government was still handing millions of dollars to thugs overseas every damn day, and every damn day hardworking Americans found it harder to put food on the table. No matter what his lawyer said, at his trial he was going to take the stand and shout the truth at the top of his lungs. Then the goddamned papers would have to print it. Maybe he’d even make the television news.

He bunched up his pillow under his head. The mattress was surprisingly comfortable, better than the one on his bed back home. The food, too, beat his own cooking. It was ironic that the feds were paying all his expenses right now.

FOR
a month after Sam and Chase parted, she received only brief e-mail messages and voice mails from him. She tried not to worry. He was overworked, constantly traveling in multiple time zones, perhaps even overseas; it was hard to connect. When Chase finally called from Maryland, their conversation was anything but romantic, although it started off well enough.

“I miss you,” he told her.

“Not as much as I miss you.” She instantly relived the feel of his arms around her. Simon was a welcome warmth in her bed each night, but a cat couldn’t take the place of her lover.

Then Chase went and ruined the mood.

“I found your name on a Homeland Security watch list,” he said.

“What?”

“You’ve made donations to Greenpeace and Environmental Defense.”

“Of course I have.” Were the feds spending their time tracking donations of average citizens? “Did they mention World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy, too? Defenders of Wildlife?”

“And what’s this about a protest at the Department of the Interior?”

She snorted. “We delivered a bunch of petitions to the National Park Service in downtown Seattle, Chase, and for once the press covered it. The administration is taking
comments on the management policies for the parks. Some groups are pushing for multiuse revisions, and my conservation group wanted to squelch those suggestions.”

“Didn’t your protest piss off your buddies in the national parks?”

“You think they became rangers to chase dirt bikers and guard oil rigs?”

“Guess not,” he sighed. “Well,
mi corazon
, you might want to cool it for a while.”

“Environmentalists can’t just stay in the shadows, Chase, because then the other side will win.”

That statement hung in the air between them for a tense minute. What was he thinking? Was he getting heat because of his association with her? Did he want to cool their relationship for a while?

“So,” she finally said, trying to lighten the tone, “will you come visit me in Guantanamo?”

“Of course,
querida
. I’ll bring you a hacksaw in a key lime pie.”

It was hardly the response she was hoping for.

She’d barely ended the call with Chase when the phone rang again. “Sam Westin,” she answered.

A sound halfway between a sniffle and a sob floated over the airwaves.

“Hello?” Sam raised her voice. “Lili?”

A sniff. Then a female voice said, “I love it.”

It wasn’t Lili. “Maya?” Sam guessed. “Are you all right?”

“I love this sewing picture thing you made for me. I don’t care what my foster mom says about nails, I’m hanging it on my wall.”

A few days ago Sam had sent her a simple cross-stitch picture of a red-haired girl swinging a pickaxe along a trail among tall evergreens, and added the date and Maya’s name. “It’s called a sampler. I’m not much of a seamstress, but I’m glad you like it. How are you doing?”

“I’m good. School seems better this year.” Maya paused. “Do you think maybe sometime you could teach me how to do this kind of sewing? Is it really hard?”

“If you can thread a needle and make an
X
, girl, you can do it. I’ll drive down to Tacoma and show you.”

“Could we do it at your place? I could come up on the train.”

Let a delinquent into her house? Ex-delinquent, she corrected herself. Sometimes you had to extend a hand, even if it might get bitten off. “You can stay overnight with me and Blake and practice. You’ll be a cross-stitch expert when you go back home.”

“Really? I could come tomorrow.”

Sam glanced at the calendar on the wall. “Maya, isn’t tomorrow Thursday?”

“Yeah. The train runs every day. I checked.”

“Isn’t Thursday a school day?”

“Oh. Yeah. That.”

“See you
Saturday
, Maya.”

“Saturday’s cool.”

A
week later, Sam explored the woods behind Marmot Lake. At the first of October, the park service had opened the area to visitors again, and she had trekked back to Olympic National Park, hoping to lay eyes on Raider. She found only a pile of bear scat, and that wasn’t even fresh. Which was probably a good thing, because it meant he’d adapted to the wild and was staying away from the campground. Still, she was disappointed.

She was due at Joe and Laura’s for dinner in an hour, and she needed to set up her tent first. She had just begun to snap together the frame when her cell phone howled. She pulled it from her pocket.
CHOI, JOSEPH.

“Hi, Joe. Need me to bring something for dinner?”

“Lili’s missing.”

Sam heard the anxiety in Joe’s voice. “How long has she been gone?”

“About four hours. We thought she went to Deborah’s after school, but it turns out Deborah told her mother that they were coming over here. And now it’s getting dark.”

Sam’s thoughts jumped to the worst-case scenario. The FBI had netted three members of the Patriot Order in the Forks area, but who knew how many more were out there? What if they wanted revenge? She knew Joe was thinking the same thing.

“Thanks to the mixed classes in summer school, she now knows kids who are old enough to drive,” Joe fretted. “If only we’d gotten her that cell phone. Any idea where she might be?”

“Best Burgers, maybe?” It was clearly a teen hangout.

“Oh, yeah. I’ll go there now.”

“I’ll check a few of the other places she and I went together.”

“Thanks, Sam. Call me back.”

Sam tried to think like a teenager in Forks. A small town famed for sexy vampires and werewolves vying for a young girl’s love. Mysterious dark woods, beautiful beaches. Sam chose the most romantic place she knew of. After dashing to her car, she headed for the beach.

As she drove, her imagination ran wild. She envisioned Lili as a hit-and-run victim, lying in the drainage ditch alongside Highway 101. Lili running away with a wild older boy like Rocky. Lili kidnapped by thugs and dragged off into the woods. By the time Sam arrived at Rialto Beach, her brain had cooked up a dozen horrible scenarios.

The gate to the parking lot was closed, but there were several cars parked on the shoulder nearby, and it was easy enough to sneak over the hill to the beach hidden to the west. Sam parked and carried her binoculars to the crest of the hill. She focused on a large beach fire to the north. Then she sat down on a giant driftwood log and called Joe. “Found her, Joe—Rialto Beach. I’ll wait here for you.”