"You'll mess up your nice suit," Edgerton warned.

Without responding to that, Bishop merely picked his way down the steep slope and deep into the ravine. He passed a few crime-scene investigators but didn't pause until he joined Lucas Jordan in a boulder-strewn area in the shade of a twisted little tree.

Lucas appeared quite different from the man Bishop had last seen. He was decidedly scruffy, unshaven, thinner, his casual clothing rumpled as though he had slept in it. If he had slept, that is. He stood, hands in the pockets of his denim jacket, and stared down at the rocky ground.

What held his fixed gaze were bits and pieces only experts would have recognized as being human. Bits of bone and scraps of clothing. A tuft of chocolate-brown hair.

"They've already taken her backpack," Lucas said. "Her parents will get it, I guess."

"Yes," Bishop said.

"You knew. From the moment you got here, you knew she was dead."

"Not from the moment I got here."

"But from the day."

"Yes."

Lucas turned his head, staring at Bishop incredulously. "And said nothing?"

"I knew she was dead. I didn't know where she was. The police would never have believed me. Her family would never have believed me."

"I might have."

"You didn't want to. You had to find her yourself. So I waited for you to do that."

"Knowing all the time she was dead."

Bishop nodded.

"Jesus, you're a ruthless bastard."

"Sometimes."

"Don't say it's because you have to be."

"All right. I won't."

Lucas grimaced and returned his haunted gaze to the ground and the scattered remains of Meredith Gilbert.

"It ends this way more often than not." His voice was beyond exhausted. "With a body or what's left of one. Because I wasn't fast enough. Wasn't good enough."