“Okay, I know that was childish. You don’t need to be dismissive.” I walked over to see what was more interesting than my temper tantrum and apology.

Ten feet below me, caught in the bushes, was the body of a woman.

Chapter 22

My eyes burned and a lump formed in my throat. This had to be Shadow Woman. Mae Haas. I had to know her fate.

I retrieved the rope on my saddle, tied one end to a nearby pine, then slipped the lariat around my waist. I didn’t want to get stuck down there. Sitting down, I slid carefully forward toward the body. The slope was steeper than it looked.

The clerk at Sam’s Mercantile said Mae had stopped coming to the store six months earlier. She must have fallen at that time, and the condition of her body testified to that. She’d been essentially mummified by the dry air. No sign that a cougar, wolf, coyote, or bear had found her.

I looked up at the dogs, both watching me intently. “That’s why it took you two months to make your way to Sam’s store. You were guarding her.” I thought about the healed scars on Maverick. The guarding had been intense.

Her outward appearance showed no sign of trauma that I could see. Her teeth were in poor shape with a number of them missing. If the brush hadn’t caught her clothing, she probably would have tumbled all the way to the bottom of the gorge.

What about the note? And check?

Someone had to know she was dead. Someone who didn’t want anyone to go looking. “So how did anyone know what happened to you? Did they find your body? Or . . .”

I moved closer, careful not to touch anything. She wore jeans, a red plaid jacket over a stained pink sweatshirt, and thick boots. Six months ago would have been March, when snow would still be present, so her clothing further confirmed the timeline. Her hair had sloughed from her skull and tangled in the branches. Her sightless eye sockets and mouth open in a silent scream made my stomach churn.

Now that I was closer, I noticed something strange about her skull.

Leaning forward, I studied her body. The skin had pulled from her cranium on one side and a tiny line on the bone tracked from the back of her head. That could be a radiating fracture.

I could touch the skull, turn the head, and confirm it.

An involuntary shiver went through me. I’d be touching the body with bare hands. The forensic in forensic linguist didn’t refer to dead bodies. It meant law enforcement or legal proceedings. Paper, ink, computers. Not blood, bones, or rotting flesh.

Wait. I did have gloves, albeit wool. I tugged out the gloves Cookie had given me and put them on. Hands shaking, I reached over and rotated her skull.

Some hair caught on the wool.