Chapter Four
Her body heat seeped past his jacket at this distance.
Lettie had always run hot. It was one of those quirks he’d gotten used to over the years.
One of the things he’d missed. To the point it was harder than ever to fall asleep without his own personal heater, but it was nothing compared to the hint of her favorite bodywash catching at the back of his throat.
Apples and vanilla. Dark and calming with a hint of brightness.
An entire lungful had assaulted him when she’d wrenched the van door open, revealing the cramped but organized space inside.
It’d taken weeks to get the scent out of his system, and just like that, she’d infiltrated his senses all over again.
Once upon a time he couldn’t get enough of that combination.
Craved it to the point he’d thread his fingers through her hair and bury his nose against her neck the minute she walked through the door after a long day at work.
Made it part of him. But there came a point when that sweetness had faded, leaving nothing but a gut-wrenching imbalance of power between them. One Rome wasn’t keen on revisiting.
Now, he held his breath as she maneuvered closer to the body, tried to breathe in the wilderness and the tang of copper over succumbing to the automatic release of tension he experienced with a single inhale of her scent.
It’d been six months since he’d left those papers on the kitchen table and packed his belongings.
Enough time for him to move on. So why couldn’t he stop himself from following after her as she studied the hiker’s remains?
Law enforcement rangers had collected the body from the tree as carefully as possible, laying the remains out in anatomical order across the bright blue tarp protecting the evidence from their surroundings.
It was impossible to collect them all. Blood and viscera clung to the tree’s bark, branches and leaves overhead with streaks of human tissue clinging to the forest floor, but it was enough to paint a picture of what the victim had been through. Pain. A lot of it.
“Any ID in his clothing?” His knees popped as he crouched beside the remains.
He’d already searched the hiker’s bag. Blond hair tufted in opposing directions with clumps stuck together by flaking blood long dried, which meant this wasn’t a fresh kill in any sense of the word.
Rome was betting somewhere between six to twelve hours based on the bitter odor burning his nostrils.
Whatever or whoever had killed the hiker didn’t miss a single inch of skin it seemed.
Jagged lacerations clawed diagonal across the man’s face and down his neck.
The chest itself had been pried open, revealing brackets of the ribcage and internal organs.
Arms splayed at unnatural angles with a portion of the right leg missing below the knee.
“Not that we could find, but the medical examiner may have better luck once we get him on the table.” The law enforcement officers snapped photos, laid out the hiker’s belongings and expanded the perimeter around the scene to pick up evidence of another party. Animal or man.
“Here.” Lettie dragged a gloved finger across the hiker’s throat.
Right across the thin laceration she’d spotted from the ground.
It was a miracle she’d seen it at all from that distance, but the woman had always been a bit too observant.
It was one of the reasons she’d excelled in her job.
If only those observations had translated to her personal life.
“This mark is thinner than the rest. Cleaner. It extends from the left ear down across the throat then curves upward toward the right ear. Almost like—”
“A taller attacker slit his throat from behind.” Hell.
She’d been right. Her bear hadn’t killed this hiker.
Something far more dangerous had, and Rome had been hunting the wrong target for two days.
His skin along his scalp felt too tight at the idea they were being watched at this very moment.
Surveying their surroundings, Rome tried to pick out anything unnatural.
Movement, clothing, a glint of gear, but he had no reason to believe whoever had done this returned to the scene.
He catalogued the damage done to the rest of the remains.
He’d seen his fair share of animal maulings over the years as a hunter.
Sometimes the best way to track a predator was studying the way it took down its prey, but this wasn’t a kill made for survival’s sake.
This was something brutal. Evil. “And these other marks?”
Her arm brushed against his as she adjusted her crouch, sending a direct line of electricity through his chest. Rome caught her sharp inhale despite the low howl of the wind whistling through the trees and the two other rangers conversing around the perimeter.
The shock brought back feeling in places Rome wasn’t eager to waken.
Not with her. Lettie cleared her throat, keeping her eyes on the remains.
“These other injuries are animal, but…not.”
“What do you mean?” Forcing his attention from the increased pulse at the base of her neck back to the body took more effort than necessary, but he’d mastered control since he was a kid. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do with enough discipline.
“The width and ferocity of the claw marks match bear claws, but the pattern gouged into the body is all wrong. See here?” She followed the length of lacerations carved down across the hiker’s lower belly.
“The spacing between claw marks isn’t natural.
Four lines, just like a bear would leave, but they’re not equally spaced.
I think someone used a single bear claw to make these injuries, one line after the other. ”
“A bear wouldn’t have left all this soft tissue and organs behind either.” Rome’s stomach curdled with a surge of acid. His gaze flickered to the victim’s face. “Was he alive during the attack?”
Her throat worked on a soft swallow as though she was having an equally hard time digesting the scene in front of them.
Rome honed on the movement, the urge to smooth his thumb along the side of her neck strong as he used to do to help her fall asleep.
Which would be inappropriate and stupid considering they weren’t together anymore.
It wasn’t his job to make her feel better.
Her shoulders rose on a strong inhale as she stood.
Lettie nodded, a few shades paler than she had been confronting him outside of her van.
She was a scientist. Her job kept her behind a screen most days, and the effect was obvious as he noted the pinch to her mouth and trembling in her hands.
She wouldn’t admit to being shaken though.
Weakness and vulnerability weren’t part of Lettie Fost’s—Larson’s—vocabulary.
Not even in the final days of their marriage.
No phone calls. No text messages demanding to meet.
No attempts to track him down for an explanation of why he’d blown up their lives.
She’d taken it all in stride. Never fighting back.
Never fighting for them. “That’s for the medical examiner to determine, but I hope not. ”
“All right.” Rome scrubbed a hand down his face as he straightened.
His pack worked to unbalance him as he shot to his feet, but the need to put some distance between him and Lettie took over.
He steered clear of the gruesome scene, but there was no denying he’d already gotten a little bit of the victim on his clothes.
It’d take more than a dip in the closest river to get it out of his jacket, too. He’d probably need to call a priest.
“You’re leaving? Just like that?” Her voice wavered on the last word, a slice of emotion he hadn’t heard from her before. Hell, it was more than he’d gotten in months, and it pulled him up short.
Rome turned back to face her, and the second he had eyes on her, he realized what a mistake it’d been.
Because, damn, she was still the most beautiful creature he’d ever set sights on.
They’d come a long way from her having to tutor him in science and math in college because numbers and formulas tended to get all mixed up in his head any time he tried solving them.
They weren’t the same people, but the way he lost his next breath anytime she stepped into a room?
That hadn’t changed in the ten years they’d been together.
She was exquisite from her bare, unmanicured fingernails to her natural blond hair.
Low maintenance and independent and yet feminine enough to jump on the bed and scream bloody murder whenever a spider had gotten too close in that run-down one bedroom they’d first moved into together.
Rome’s mouth dried as memory after memory broke through the wall he’d built before taking this assignment.
“I was hired to find your bear, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. ”
“You just agreed with me Sam isn’t responsible for this hiker’s death, and you’re still going to hunt him down?
” She shifted her weight between both feet, so out of place here in the middle of the wilderness.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. Wasn’t supposed to have this invisible hold that kept him from wanting to leave.
“He might not be responsible for this mess, but you said it yourself. There are three other hikers he’s been accused of mauling.
Not to mention the tracker you put on him is in your pocket.
” It’d taken every ounce of control he owned not to crush the damn thing in his hand.
That small device had been responsible for years of missed date nights, canceled trips to Montana, lonely dinners and a hoard of forgotten anniversaries.
Her entire career hinged on a piece of metal smaller than his palm, and he’d been ready to demolish it just to hurt her.
To show her what real pain looked like. To know what true loss felt like.
“Your bear was here whether you want to admit to it or not, Lettie, and it’s my job to find him. It’s not personal.”
She flinched back as though he’d physically struck her.
One second. Two. That intense gaze he’d wished would center on him so many times while she’d lost herself in work on the couch or at the kitchen table during those late nights leveled on him, and he felt…
a jolt. Enough of one to curl his knuckles until the skin along the back of his hand burned. “Fine.”
Lettie didn’t offer more of an answer as she spun on her heel and trekked back to her van in those ridiculous socks.
Red dirt clung to her clothing and ankles and would most likely stain whatever flooring and linens she had inside, but it wasn’t his job to micromanage her.
She was an adult who could make her own decisions, and he was no longer required to give a damn.
She disappeared inside, slamming the rolling door behind her.
“Nice to see you, Rome. You look great. Oh, yeah, you too, Lettie. Seeing you doesn’t feel like I’ve been stabbed a thousand times.
Catch your Christmas card in the mail.” Rome didn’t have the patience or the time to figure out her reaction, closing in on the location where he’d recovered the hiker’s backpack.
Wisps of metallic wrappers caught against the base of a tree off to his left, glinting in the sunlight arcing into the west. The bear he’d been sent to find—Sam—had done a number on the canvas and the food inside, but once the animal was finished with his find, it’d taken off east. The ground was harder this time of year due to dropping temperatures with less rain softening the dirt, but a clear impression of a bear paw was about a dozen feet from the scene of the attack—a back paw, if he had to guess based on the size and the information he’d collected about the bear before giving Randy his acceptance for the job.
Straightening, Rome headed in the direction of the tracks.
“You’re a bit far from home, my friend, but I’ll find you. ”
Hurried footsteps broke through his focus. Lettie was closing in on him. With a backpack, a thick coat and hiking boots. Oxygen crushed from his chest. She had to be kidding.
Rome intercepted her path before she could destroy the tracks he’d found. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“You’ve been brought in to put down a bear I’ve been studying for the past three years, and I’m not going to let you.” She gripped both straps of her pack, her chin parallel to the forest floor, which in Lettie language meant no debate. “So from now on, where you go, I go.”