“In this kind of terrain? God knows, especially since all of us searching went in different directions. But even if it does feel like we’ve hiked miles, we can’t be more than a few hundred yards from the original site. The others have probably gotten back there by now.”

Hollis checked her cell phone for a signal, even though they had previously discovered no joy in that. Still no joy. She sighed and replaced the cell in the special case worn on the opposite side of her hip from her weapon. “Well, even if some of the others heard the shots, we have no way of verifying that they did, so one of us is going to have to trek back there.”

“While the other stays here and makes sure the bear doesn’t come back and remove… evidence?”

“That would be the correct procedure, under the circumstances.”

“Great.”

Hollis noticed that neither of them had taken a step in the necessary direction to verify that the bear had indeed discovered what they thought it had. Reminding herself that she was a more experienced agent than Diana and therefore the de facto lead investigator between the two of them, she moved around the brush that had sheltered them and made her way carefully to the spot yards away.

Diana silently accompanied her, both of them wary, both keeping one hand on their weapon until they had to pull aside a tangle of brown vines in order to see what they suspected.

The bear had discovered human remains.

The women took a step back and looked at each other. Hollis had no idea whether her own face was as pale as Diana’s but thought it very likely. No matter how many times she’d been forced to view human remains after a violent end, it didn’t get any easier.

Probably a good thing, that.

And she didn’t know which was worse—finding fresh remains or those that had lain out in the elements long enough to have gone through several stages of decomposition, as this one had.