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The grizzly sow dropped to all fours and began to gallop away, apparently unwounded.
Enough!thought Malia. She had all the evidence she needed to put a stop to this.
She radioed Gage to move in.
Then she switched on her flashlight, stepped out of concealment, and aimed the beam of light squarely at the truck as it turned to chase the grizzly sow further into the woods.
Doing this alone was highly dangerous. For the moment, she was outnumbered, and all three men in the truck were armed.
But she couldn’t afford to let them get away.
“Police!” she shouted. “Stop your vehicle!”
She caught a glimpse of three startled faces inside the truck, caught in her flashlight just like the bear had been captured by their spotlight moments ago.
To her relief, Bickham immediately slammed on the brakes.
“Get out of the vehicle. All of you,” she ordered, drawing her weapon. “Leave your guns in the truck and keep your hands in sight at all times.”
She waited, her heart pounding furiously as the truck’s doors opened. Bickham, Silvers, and Lucas emerged slowly, holding their hands in the air.
“Hey, what’s this all about?” demanded Bickham. Then he started lying. “We got permission from the property owner to hunt a bear that’s been going after his cows.”
“Travis Bickham, Arnold Silvers, and Lucas Winter, you’re under arrest for multiple violations, starting with trespassing, hunting a protected species, hunting at night, hunting near a road, shooting from inside a motor vehicle, carrying loaded weapons inside a motor vehicle,” she told them. “I could go on for quite a while. Most important of all is that we have good reason to suspect that while illegally bear-hunting in this very same location on Friday, August sixth, Mr. Bickham and Mr. Silvers shot and seriously wounded a hiker.”
“We didn’t shoot no one!” Silvers protested. “Just a nuisance bear!”
“Arnie, shut the fuck up!” ordered Bickham.
“Turn around,” Malia ordered. “Hands behind your back, lace your fingers together.”
All three men obeyed without protest.
In the distance, she heard her backup approaching.
She radioed in the arrests to Dispatch, then read the suspects their rights and began patting them down for weapons and contraband.
Bickham’s body language and scent spoke of barely-leashed rage. Silvers was docile with shock.
As for Lucas… She could barely stand to look at him. She wanted to scream at him in rage. At the same time, she longed to beg him to tell her why he’d done this. The place inside her chest that had been filled with the warm glow of his presence suddenly felt heavy and cold.
Her mate stood quietly next to Bickham’s truck, his shoulders slumped and his head down. His hair curtained his face, concealing his expression, but she sensed turmoil and anger and deep sadness through their mate bond. No guilt or shame, though.
Gage and Kymberlie had been right about him. Her mate wasn’t the person she though he was.
Her eyes began stinging and threatened to fill with tears as she patted him down. She ruthlessly pushed down her emotions.
She had a job to do. A duty to fulfill. She didn’t have the luxury right now of curling up and crying her eyes out.
Later, she told herself.
“I’m seizing your guns and impounding this vehicle as evidence in the commission of a crime,” she told them.
A new set of headlights illuminated the scene, highlighted with a flashing blue light. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Gage Tringstad had arrived.
She breathed out a sigh of relief, and turned her attention back to the suspects.
“You gonna strip-search me, Officer?” Bickham turned his head to leer at her as she began patting him down. “That might make this morning a whole lot better, if you know what I mean.”
