“Fucking A,” Tom said, folding the paper in half and stuffing it in the shredder. But he narrowed his eyes at Mary. “Why don’t you look happy?”
She shrugged. “I’m pissed at you for interfering with my life again.”
“What the hell did I do?”
“You remember that little rebound relationship you assured me I was old enough to navigate?”
“I did not use the word old,” he clarified, “but yes.”
“Fine. I admit that you got me thinking about it. That alone pisses me off. You know I hate letting you in my head. But while I was out this morning, I drove by her place, thinking maybe I’d give her a heads-up about what was going on.”
Tom knew he shouldn’t smile, but he couldn’t help it. “Oh? You went to see Jill?”
“You can stop looking so pleased with yourself. Some young piece of ass was leaving her house when I pulled up.”
Tom shook his head, unable to pair Jill with a young piece of ass. “A woman? Must have been a niece or something.”
“Unless she gives her niece goodbye kisses on the mouth, I doubt it.”
“Oh,” Tom said. “I see.”
“Yeah, well. At least Jill looked embarrassed when she spotted me driving by.”
He cleared his throat. “So she went on a date. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask her out.”
“Tom. Be serious. You’d date someone who lives six hours away and sleeps with younger men? You’d compete with that?”
He thought of the painting above Isabelle’s couch. “Yes.”
She shook her head and left, muttering something about men under her breath that he couldn’t hear.
“I think I’m being reasonable!” he called, but she didn’t return to the doorway.
On any other day, he probably would have followed her and tried to talk sense, but not today. Today he had a good lead, and now he had the time to follow up on it. Tom pulled out a map of the entire Jackson Hole valley and marked an X on the National Forest campground.
The park rangers had followed the tracks to a dirt road that serviced an active logging area, so the tracks had been lost there. The ranger Tom had spoken to had guessed the guy was driving a large truck outfitted with studded tires, based on the tracks that had been left. There were plenty of forest roads and unnamed country roads around here, but only a few that would be passable in winter, even with a well-outfitted vehicle. And the thing was, there weren’t very many ways to approach Jackson itself at this time of year.
Saul had to come by the highway, and if he was coming from the north, he had to catch the highway somewhere above Moran. There weren’t any other options.
If it was Stevenson, he could be in Jackson already, but the ranger had said when he found the fire, it had been smothered by snow, but still warm at the bottom of the pit. It hadn’t been put out at 6:00 a.m. More like noon. Only a couple of hours ago.
Ten minutes later, Tom hung up on his contact at the sheriff’s office and grabbed his jacket. He stepped into the hallway just as Hannity and Mary were assembling their teams. “Hannity,” Tom called, “you’ve got transport under control?”
Hannity gave him a thumbs-up.
Tom spotted Agent Gates leaning against a wall and ignored him. “Mary, want to take a ride?” With another car from his team on their tail and the promise of more backup from the sheriff’s office, they were on their way.
“I decided to go with my hunch,” he said to Mary as they pulled onto the road out of town. “I don’t think he would have shown his face the first few days. We’d be too alert. He’s waiting for our guard to drop.”
“It’d be the smart thing to do,” she said stiffly.
“Yeah, this guy might not have gone to school past eighth grade, but he’s wily as hell.”
“Yeah,” Mary said.
Tom shot her a puzzled look as they drove past the elk refuge on the outskirts of town, but she didn’t look back. She stared out the window at the large herd of elk gathered around a pile of hay.
“Hey, I’m sorry about Jill,” he tried.