Bear Bait (9781101611548) by Beason Pamela

Author:Beason, Pamela [Beason, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101611548
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2012-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

A wolf howl startled Sam awake the next morning. Her left foot got hung up in the sheet, and she practically fell out of the bunk, banging her injured knee on the bed frame. The invisible wolf howled three more times as she groped her way toward the little table that held her cell phone and charging unit.

“Westin,” she croaked.

“Hey, Summer! I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Who in the hell? She waited, rubbing her bandaged knee, blinking sleepily in the dim room. Her head ached and her mouth tasted like a possum had denned up there overnight. She licked at the stitches in her lip.

Maya’s bunk was made and her hiking boots were gone from the alcove that served as their closet. Sam felt a little uneasy; she hadn’t even cracked an eyelid as her roomie had dressed for the day. Maya and her burglar buddies could have stripped the room and she would not have known.

“Hello?” the male voice said uncertainly.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Richard Best, your old friend at The Edge.”

“Of course. The guy who told me to get lost.”

It took him only a second to recover. “I’m the one who hired you. And then I gave you a little rest break, but hey, that’s the business, you know? Now I’m hiring you again.”

“Where’d you get my cell phone number?” Hoyle wouldn’t give it out.

Her call waiting signal beeped and—speak of the devil—it was Peter Hoyle calling. She decided to let him go to voicemail and deal with it later.

“I’m hurt that you forgot to give me your cell number,” Best was saying. “Anyway, where’s that contract for the endangered species gig?”

“What do you care about this ‘endangered species gig’? What happened to spas and rich people?”

“It’s supposed to be a big conference, and the press will be there. Believe it or not, people still remember you from that cougar thing last year. And we took a poll. You’d be surprised how many of our target audience are environmental types.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

He ignored that. “Did you sign the contract? Is it in the mail?”

The chill of the old wooden floor was seeping through her thin pajamas. She stood up. “You really want to hire me just to write a paper and speak at a conference?”

The contract stipulated less than a week’s worth of work. With everything going on around the park, a speech seemed almost too inconsequential to bother with. But then again, her contract with the park service was up in a few weeks. And unless Blake had collected phone messages from clients that he hadn’t yet shared with her, there was no other work waiting for her in the wings.

“I suppose we could cover expenses, too,” Best said. “But it’s local, so really, there shouldn’t be anything more than maybe a meal or two.”

Her head ached, making her regret the bottle of wine she and Blackstock had downed in her truck last night before turning in. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, a natural accompaniment as they shared their feelings of guilt over Lisa’s death.

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