CHAPTER ONE

      A SLIVER OF moon hung high in Montana’s immense night sky as Ely Cahill made his way out of the mountains. In the distance, he could see the ranch with its huge barn and, past it, the sprawling house where he’d once lived with his wife, Mary, which meant he didn’t have that much farther to go.

      He stopped at the edge of the dark pines to shift the heavy pack on his back. It had been easier making this trek when he was younger. Now at almost seventy his gold panning in the mountains took a lot more out of him. He couldn’t bear the thought of the day he might not be able to make this trip.

      Moving again, he licked his lips, anxious for that first drink he’d have once he reached town. He’d been prospecting in the mountains for over a month now and had found enough gold that it was weighing down his pocket, begging to be traded for cash.

      A cloud passed over the moon, pitching the Western landscape into shadow. As if a spider had raced along his bare skin, Ely shuddered and shifted the pack again. He stopped to sniff the wind, alert to danger. At first he thought it might be a bear ahead in the shadowed darkness. He’d cleared the pine trees that blanketed the mountain and now looked down on the pasture. Nothing moved that he could see.

      The moonlight glinted off the chain-link fence enclosure in the middle of the pasture. He felt his pulse bump up as his stomach did a slow, sickening roll. He had lived with the horror of what was buried inside that fence for years.

      Now he listened, his ears attuned to trouble. As if what was buried there wasn’t frightening enough, it was what the enclosure attracted that made his blood run cold. Goose bumps rippled over his skin, an eerie chill in the night air.

      After all these years, Ely knew every sound the night made in this part of Montana, from an owl hoot to a hawk’s cry to the snap of a twig under the weight of a predator’s paw. It was one reason he’d survived in the wilds all these years alone, which was the way he liked it.

      Over the next rise, the lights of town beckoned. He licked his lips again, needing that drink more than ever. Boots heavy, he pushed on through the tall grass as he searched the horizon for whatever had spooked him. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt his skin prickle at this particular spot. He suspected it wouldn’t be the last.

      His hand went to the back of his neck. He rubbed his nape under his long, curly graying hair and considered taking a detour around this particular spot. But it would take him a lot longer, and he was anxious now for noise and lights and food he hadn’t had to cook himself. Also, he could almost taste that first shot of hooch.

      He’d been in the mountains too long. His stomach rumbled at the thought of hot cooked food. Cloud cover blocked the silver moonlight, deepening the darkness over