"You didn't have to. I pick up on fear, remember?"

Bishop didn't say another word. He just stood there and looked after the other man until Lucas was gone.

"I almost didn't call you," Pete Edgerton said as Bishop joined him on the highway above the ravine. "To be honest, I'm surprised you're still around. It's been three weeks since we closed the investigation."

Without commenting on that, Bishop merely said, "Is he down there?"

"Yeah, with her. Not that there's a whole lot left." Edgerton eyed the federal agent. "I have no idea how he found her. Those special gifts of his, I guess."

"Cause of death?"

"That's for the ME to say. Like I said, there isn't a whole lot left. And what is left has been exposed to the elements and predators. I have no idea what killed her, or what she went through before she died."

"You're not even sure she was abducted, are you?"

Edgerton shook his head. "From the little we found down there, she could have been walking along the edge of the road here, slipped and fell, maybe hit her head or broke something, couldn't get back up. Lot of traffic here, but nobody stops; she could have been lying there all this time."

"You think the ME will be able to determine cause of death?"

"I'd be surprised. From bones, a few shreds of skin, and some hair? We wouldn't have been able to I.D. her so fast-if at all-if it hadn't been for the fact that her backpack was still mostly intact and there was plenty of stuff inside with Meredith Gilbert's name on it. Plus that odd pewter bracelet of hers was found among the bones. The DNA tests will confirm it's her remains, I'm sure of that."

"So she wasn't robbed and her killer didn't take a trophy."

"If there was a killer, doesn 't look like he took any of her belongings, no."

Bishop nodded, then headed toward the wide gap in the guardrail that should have been repaired long before.