Bones
right there," Frank went on. "Watching him! And he still manages to injure his own lawyer." He paused, shook his head. "She shouldn't have gone up there."
    "You couldn't have stopped her."
    "She shouldn't have gone," he repeated, not listening, pacing now.
    "Frank," Travis said.
    But he was lost in unpleasant memories. He was thinking of the day they found Kara Lane's body, of what had been done to her. His pacing came to a halt when he thought--ever so briefly, but far, far too long--about the possibility of his wife being at Parrish's mercy, in as much pain, as much afraid, as much alone as Kara Lane had been in her last hours. He felt his stomach pitch.
    "Frank," Travis said again.
    He looked up.
    "She's still surrounded by lots of other people. You know they'd kill him before they let him harm her."
    He didn't answer. How could he explain this kind of foreboding? He knew it to be something more than simple fear for her welfare. It was the kind of uneasiness he sometimes got out on the job--instinct, gut feeling, the heebiejeebies--call it what you will. No cop worth a damn ignored it. Right now, it was irritating the hell out of him. He believed in it, trusted it, even though he couldn't have testified about it in a court of law . . .
    "You've got to find something to do with yourself," Travis was saying. "You can't just sit here, getting more and more freaked out about this. Find something to occupy your time."
    Lost in his thoughts about Parrish, for a moment Frank merely stared at Travis. The suggestion that he keep himself busy--which had at first seemed ridiculous--began to take hold, and now made perfect sense.
    He reached for his car keys.
    "Where are you going?" Travis asked.
    "To visit Mr. Newly in his sickbed."
    ** CHAPTER 10
    WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 17
    Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains
    J.C. caught up to us again when about half of the plastic had been uncovered. If he was weary from the additional hiking he had done or by difficulties in helping Phil Newly to the plane, he didn't show it.
    Bingle noticed J.C.'s presence at the other end of the meadow before I did. Because I had been watching the dog, I caught the change in the focus of his attention before the others did. During the last few hours, I had been spending much of my time ensuring that Bingle didn't sneak closer to the open grave--after he made one nearly successful attempt, David taught me how to say "VQuedate!"--which means "stay"--in a tone of voice that Bingle would obey.
    "You can also say, 'No te muevas,' " David said. "If you say it in a no-nonsense tone of voice--let him know you mean what you say--you'll get him to set aside his other impulses, even the ones that tell him he was on to something really great and now we're having all the fun. He'd like to join in, but his notions of amusement wouldn't be too helpful for our purposes."
    I shuddered.
    "I know, I know," David said. "But in order to do this kind of work, he has to be interested in that smell. He behaves himself for the most part, but the trouble is, Bingle tends to feel a little proprietary about his finds."
    Now, as J.C. approached, Bingle's ears were pitched forward and he watched the ranger closely. Dogs--natural hunters--see motion better than detail, and Bingle's body posture said that he was on guard against this approaching figure. Eventually he must have managed to catch J.C.'s familiar scent--although how he could do so over the increasingly intense smell of the grave, I'll never know--because suddenly he let out a happy bark of welcome.
    For a time, work stopped as we greeted J.C. and caught up with one another. He applied some smell compound as he listened to the story of Bingle's find, and praised the dog, who was happy to bask in his attention.
    He had seen the coyote tree, and his disgust over it was plain; he was all for bringing charges against Parrish for it. "Not a big deal to someone going down on a double murder rap, I suppose, but still--" He shook his head,

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