"Seven-two-four Echo is ten-seven." The baby voice of the Carlsbad Caverns dispatcher startled Anna back from the clean peace of the sky. Carlsbad was going out of service late; leaving the cave with the bats.

Fortunately, there was still plenty of light to work her way down to the creekbed. She had no food for supper but something had spoiled her appetite anyway.

Down was worse than up. Gravity, eager to help, dragged at her every misstep. But she made it, stood solidly on the smooth limestone, water at her feet, a corpse in the saw grass. Anna tried to call the Dog Canyon Ranger to mind: Sheila Drury, 29?… 30?… 35?, female, Caucasian, park ranger, recently deceased.

The woman had entered on duty in December the year before. In the seven months since she had caused quite a stir. There'd been a lot of repercussions when she had proposed building recreational vehicle sites at Dog, and she'd raised a lot of fuss and furor over a plan to reintroduce prairie dogs into the area.

Politics and gossip were all that Anna knew of her. Dog Canyon District was two hours by car from the Frijole District. They'd never had an occasion to work together.

Too late to get to know her now, Anna thought dryly. Heaven and the vultures only knew what would be left come sunrise. Not for the first time, Anna wished she'd learned more natural history. Did vultures feed all night? Would she hear the grumbling, plucking sounds in the coming dark?

She dug her headlamp from her pack and pulled it tight across her brow. CLUES: that's what the law enforcement specialists at FLETC, the school in Georgia, had taught her to look for. CLUES: bloody fingerprints, cars parked in strange places, white powder trickling out of trunks. In the more populous parks like Glen Canyon and Yosemite, or those close to urban areas as were Joshua Tree or Smokey Mountains, crime was more prevalent. In fleeing Manhattan and her memories, Anna had kept to out-of-the-way places. So far all she'd had to deal with in the line of duty were dogs-off-leash and Boy Scouts camping out of bounds. Still and all, she was a Federally Commissioned Law Enforcement Officer. She would look for CLUES.