Free Bear Bait (9781101611548) by Pamela Beason

blades, or at least Chase would have. She leaned forward. “That’s impossible. I was at the fire tower all afternoon and evening.”
    Hoyle sighed wearily, as if trying to reason with a three-year-old. “They used photos from that Zack Fischer story in Utah last year. You with the boy and you with the cougar.”
    No wonder Mack had called her a prima donna. “Why did they dredge that up?”
    “I was going to ask you that.” Hoyle selected a black government-issue pen from an Olympic National Park mug on the desk, and then squeezed it between his thumb and index finger as if measuring its thickness. “They flashed a photo of you in uniform, too. Your park service ID photo.”
    “My ID photo? How—”
    “I’m checking into that. You haven’t loaned your ID to anyone, have you?”
    “Of course not.” Sam fervently hoped it was in her daypack right now. “So this report was about the Zack Fischer story?”
    “No, it started with the Western Wildlife Conference. It’s in Seattle this year, with the focus on the Endangered Species Act. But you know that.”
    None of this made any sense. “Why would I know that?”
    “Well, you’re speaking there, aren’t you?”
    “What?” Sam raised her chin.
    “Cougars, the ESA, and the new addition to Olympic Park—all in the same damned report. The nutcases are crawling out of the woodwork. We had another death threat this morning.”
    “Excuse me, but did you say
I’m
speaking at the Wildlife Conference?”
    Hoyle jerked open his desk drawer, pulled out a facsimile page, and handed it over. The message was from Richard Best, marketer at
The Edge
.
    Wilderness Westin is invited to deliver a paper on Environmentalists as Endangered Species at the WesternWildlife Conference in Seattle (August 28–30). Usual rate, contract to follow. Congrats!! Great publicity for your future assignments!!
    Environmentalists as Endangered Species. A timely topic. She folded the fax, her brain battered by a flurry of conflicting emotions: she felt honored about the recognition of her expertise, pissed off about Best’s assumption that she’d accept the assignment, pleased that he had promised her future work at the e-zine. Well, sort of pleased. Because he’d only sort of promised. Only four months ago he’d told her they no longer required her services. Now he’d changed his tune? Was it real?
The Edge
was famous for dangling tidbits only to jerk them away at the last minute. What happened to luxury spas?
    She’d never done any sort of public speaking. As she tried to visualize standing in front of a huge audience, her current boss’s last statement registered. She looked up. “Did you say something about a death threat?”
    “The newscaster said that you were now a ranger at Olympic Park, so some anti-Endangered Species crackpot called headquarters. Said that for every man sacrificed for an animal, one of us—I presume he meant the park staff—would die.”
    Die?
Sam leaned back into her chair, crumpling the fax in her fist.
    “Don’t take it so seriously,” Hoyle told her. “The locals are upset that the government turned their personal playground into a wildlife sanctuary instead of a hunting refuge. We’ve received at least one threat a week ever since the annexation was announced.”
    “Really?” This was getting creepier by the second.
    Hoyle jabbed a finger at Sam. “Don’t get off the subject. Just because you’re on Channel 8 doesn’t mean you have special rights around here. You’re not a ranger. You’re just a tech, and a temporary one at that. Don’t meddle in dangerous situations.”
    Sam was tired of this refrain. She
was
responsible forone small area of the park, at least right now. “You hired me to do an environmental survey and write a management plan for the Marmot Lake area, correct?”
    “Yes.” A hint of wariness crept into Hoyle’s expression, but he quickly recovered. “That, and only that.”
    “Doesn’t that mean that you want me