“But there are claw marks,” Brandon protested.

“Check out the size of them,” Walt said. “A bear that big doesn’t tiptoe through a door. And he doesn’t go through all the food and get back out without leaving tracks.” Walt indicated the clean garage floor. “A flying bear, maybe?”

“Okay?” Brandon sounded unconvinced.

“Let’s work the evidence,” Walt said. “Chances are this was a two-legged bear.”

“A what?”

“And I’d like to know why he went to all this trouble.”

4

With his suit jacket waiting for him on the back of a chair inside the house, and a Seattle Seahawks apron protecting his shirt and tie, Walt pulled the barbecued pork loin off the grill, Beatrice drooling at his feet. It had been a long, poisonously quiet week. He expected to see Fiona later that night.

“I don’t want dead pig,” Emily said, her arms crossed, her eleven-year-old’s face locked in determination.

“Don’t do this,” Walt said, collecting his wares onto the cutting board. “This is your dinner. You like bacon, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Bacon is pork, same as this.”

“Then why can’t I have bacon?”

“It’s the same thing,” sister Nikki said.

“Because this is what I cooked for dinner,” Walt answered. “I thought you’d like it. It’s your favorite.”

“Is not.”

“I like it,” Nikki said.

“You don’t have to eat it, Em. But no ice cream with Lisa if you don’t eat your dinner.”

“That’s not fair.”

Nikki rolled her eyes. She didn’t understand her sister any more than Walt did.

“It is what it is: no dinner, no ice cream. I had planned for the three of you to bike over to Fifteen Flavors. If you’d rather not…?”

He managed to kick open the door while carrying the board. Beatrice, Emily, and Nikki followed, in that order.

Lisa charged through the front door, apologizing for being late. Walt conferred with her about the evening’s rules, including bedtime and the ice cream trip, all unnecessary since Lisa knew more about the girls’ routine than he did.

“You look fancy,” she said, as he got the apron off and the jacket on.

“My one and only suit.”

“It suits you.”

“Ha, ha. It’s the Advocates dinner. Very swishy.”

He hugged his daughters good night, getting barely anything out of Emily, and heaved a sigh as he closed the front door behind him. An early summer evening was a piece of heaven in Hailey, and this one was no exception. The sun tracked surprisingly high in the sky for seven p.m., skirting the tops of the valley’s western mountains, its golden light taking on a magical, ethereal quality. Neighborhood lawn mowers ticked, the smell of burning charcoal hung in the air. Some kids rode by in a pack of speeding bicycles.

As he drove north, Walt composed something to say to Fiona, something to try to break the ice. She’d sent him an e-mail with photographs of the bear damage-no message. He’d called twice on the pretense of a follow-up, but she’d failed to call back. It wasn’t the first time Fiona had gone off-grid-she occasionally disappeared for days at a time, unreachable, unpredictable-but this time it felt personal.

Sun Valley’s Limelight Room, located in the Sun Valley Inn, was a four-star convention hall that had recently undergone a multimilliondollar renovation. It was filled with lavishly appointed tables for three hundred dinner guests, a low stage, and a lectern. Two projection screens displayed PowerPoint slide shows of women at work, mixed with bullet lists of the accomplishments of the nonprofit established to support the battered and abused. Each table of ten had a sponsor. Walt was the guest of a retired general who, thankfully, had picked up the tab for the entire table. Fiona sat to Walt’s left, with Kira Tulivich next to Fiona. Twenty-one-year-old Kira, adorable and gorgeous in a summer dress, had been the victim of a savage assault two years earlier, and an important witness for Walt. Scheduled to give one of the evening’s two keynote addresses, Kira looked both nervous and out of sorts as she studied the cutlery and tried to decide which fork to use.

Walt elbowed Fiona in the ribs and gestured for her to rescue her charge. Fiona directed Kira to the outside fork and relief washed over the young woman’s face.

“Thank you,” Fiona whispered.

“Nice to hear your voice,” Walt said, between bites.

“We can discuss this later,” she said.

“But we won’t, will we? Because you won’t return my calls.”

“Later.”

“I fought hard for you. Not hard enough, I know-you told me that-but as hard as I dared. As sheriff… I explained my delicate relationship with the paper.” He ate some more salad and watched her move hers around the plate. “You never did tell me why it mattered so much. The way you’ve treated me, I assume it was more than just modesty or vanity. But for the life of me, I can’t figure it out.”

“For the life of you, no,” she said.

“But if it was so important-”

“What’s done is done,” she said, cutting him off.

“Doesn’t feel that way.”

“No, it doesn’t, does it?”

“Why so angry?”

“Am I? I don’t mean to be. Seriously. It’s not with you.”

“Of course it is.”

“Not meant to be.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said.

He looked up. Every face at the table was looking at them, listening to them. The others immediately returned to their food and they faked conversation, but Walt realized they’d all heard every word. Given the other guests at the table, it meant that most of the valley would know, word for word, everything said. It was the blessing and the curse of the Wood River Valley, and something that all residents willingly suffered as a trade-off to the lifestyle.

During the entrée, Fiona coached Kira on her talk, and finally the moment arrived when Kira was introduced.

“We are so grateful to have with us tonight,” the evening’s host began, “a young woman of extraordinary courage, poise, and intelligence. Kira Tulivich turned to Advocates following an ordeal that not only tested her own will to live, but resulted in the apprehension of domestic terrorists by our own Sheriff Walt Fleming, and put an end to a terrorist cell operating within our state. Hers is a story of strength, determination, and recovery, and we are honored to hear from her tonight. Won’t you please join me in welcoming…”

Her formal introduction was overpowered by the thunderous applause as the guests spontaneously rose to their feet. Kira’s story was already well known. This was her first public appearance since the incident, and the applause carried her from the table to the lectern, some of the women openly weeping. It took her three tries to quiet the crowd. Finally people sat. Kira cleared her throat with a sip of water and began her short and emotional speech.

Halfway through the speech, Walt felt fingernails scratching at his fist beneath the skirt of the tablecloth as Fiona’s hand found its way into his. He looked over at her, but she never took her watery eyes off the stage. He missed the rest of the talk, his mind racing and unable to light on any single thought except that life brought unexpected pleasures and made it worth getting up in the morning. For the first time at such an event, he hoped the keynote speech would go on for hours.

Fiona withdrew her hand from his and grabbed her mobile phone, vibrating from within her purse. As she went to stop it, he saw her eyes light upon the screen and consternation grip her face. She slipped the phone back into her purse but their connection was gone. She didn’t even seem to be hearing Kira’s speech.

“You okay?” he whispered.

She looked at him, attempting, but failing, to wipe the crease from her brow. She nodded.

Kira said from the lectern, “I think the main thing I want to say is thanks to the Advocates. The physical healing was the easy part, as it turned out, but the-”