Free Night Game by Kirk Russell Page A

who’d transported it and himself. Either way, the DNA would only serve to corroborate.
    “Someone hacked into Fish and Game personnel files more than a year ago,” he said.
    “That long ago?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What’s being done about it?”
    “We’re getting emergency funding for new firewalls.”
    “Things are that tight?”
    “They are.”
    She was quiet a moment, then said, “So they’re not going to catch him by tracing who hacked in.”
    “The two things might not even connect. Could be some hacker was in and out for a while just because it was a fun challenge.
    May have read something about the Special Operations Unit and hacked into that for cheap thrills.”
    “The CD scares me.”
    She was voicing her feelings but also asking him a question.
    He was the one who did this for a living: how worried was he? He hadn’t told her about this last buy, this shakedown, stripping his shirt on the empty creek road, or the call this afternoon propelling it all forward again.
    “The guy we’re dealing with is a little bit of a psycho, but he’s also very connected, which means he’s not too far out there. He can talk to people, and he’s built a network. One thing, though, it feels like his problem with law enforcement goes beyond business.
    Still, I’m betting business comes first.”
    “Could he have anything to do with the murder of that student? Has anything more come of that? What’s that detective’s name again?”
    “Kendall.”
    “Has he told you anything new?”
    “Not really, and I’ll probably go see Vandemere’s father. I called him today and introduced myself, told him we were working a bear operation and that I was very sorry and wanted to do anything I could to help find who killed his son.”
    “You’re kidding, you really called him?”
    “He calls Kendall once a week. He wants to know where things are at.”
    “But it must be very hard for him to talk about. What did you ask him?”
    “I introduced myself, told him what my Fish and Game team does, and then asked if Jed had ever mentioned anything in conversation or emails about bear poachers.”
    “Because you don’t trust Kendall?”
    “How do you get there from what I said?”
    “I know you.”
    “In a way you’re right. I asked to read the emails his son sent him this summer.”
    “Oh, my God—I could never ask someone to do that.”
    “I think he was glad to get the call, Kath. His twelve-year-old daughter is taking it very hard, and I get the feeling his wife is hurting too much to talk. He said over the years he did a lot of backpacking and fishing with Jed. He blames himself in some ways for Jed being up there in the Crystal Basin alone.”
    Marquez could understand feeling that way and thought briefly about Julie, his first wife. A terrible image came back to him as they returned to the sandy parking area and got in the truck. He and Julie had gone to Africa after the wedding, planning to travel and live on the cheap, camp wherever they could. She’d been abducted from their campsite, and for days he’d ridden around with a constable looking for her. They’d found her by watching the vultures, her body in brush not far from the campsite. A month later he’d thought he’d found the men who’d raped and killed her, andhe’d felt something akin to elation at the prospect of killing them, been so ready to do it. But among their belongings he couldn’t find her ring or any of the other things he needed as proof before pulling the trigger.
    Long ago, he’d told Katherine about searching for Julie’s kidnappers and what he’d felt when he found their camp, but you don’t tell your second wife about your continuing dreams of your first. And he didn’t have to tell Katherine about the empathy he felt with Jed Vandemere’s father. She knew.
    He’d brought Julie’s body home to her parents and buried her where she’d grown up at the base of the Bitterroot Mountains. It had been a long time later, almost