“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 he knew you were coming back. If someone else had gone to check it out, he’d have disabled it again. Until he got you.”

“He assumed I’d come alone,” she continued. “I like to go into the hills and camp alone. I’d planned to. He’d have been able to start the game if I had done that, and he might have won it. So I owe you.”

“He probably thought he could take me out once he saw you had company. Eliminate me, take you. So I’d say we both owe countless nights on stakeouts and the ability to sleep light. Comes into camp here,” Coop continued with his attention back on the map. “Heads back to camera site here, and doubles back to camp. Then it’s to the main gate of the refuge to dump the wolf. Another pass at the refuge to let your tiger out.”

“And to some point on the Crow Peak trail where he intercepted Tyler, to here, at this point by the river where he left him. Hits the Good-win farm, which is about here. That’s a lot of ground. The majority of it’s in Spearfish, so he’s at home here. Well, me too.”

She glanced at her empty mug of coffee, wished more would magically appear. “Lots of caves,” she added. “He has to have shelter, and I don’t see him pitching a tent. He needs a den. Plenty of fish and game. His best cover, best ground would be in here.” Lil drew a circle on the map with her finger. “It would take weeks to search that many acres, that many caves and hidey-holes.”

“If you’re entertaining the idea of going up as bait to draw him out, you can forget it.”

“I entertained the idea for about two minutes. I think I could track him, or certainly have as good a chance as anyone they’ve got searching.” She rubbed the back of her neck, where the lion’s share of her stress had chosen to make camp. “And I’ve got a better chance of getting whoever’s with me killed. So no, I’m not going to be bait.”

“There should be a way to look at this and figure where he’ll go next, or where he goes when he’s done. There should be a pattern, but I don’t see it.”

She closed her eyes. “There has to be a way to goad him into coming out, to pull him into a trap instead of the other way around. But I can’t see that either.”