I hadn't seen any more signs of the bobcat. Probably with the warming weather he'd taken off into the mountains. But I didn't look too hard for him; my taste for wandering around my place had fallen off. As little time as Renee had spent there, it seemed I'd always see something that brought back one of those moments.
She was still in Seattle, living in her apartment and back at her job. At first we'd talked on the phone fairly often; she had asked if I'd come visit her and I'd said sure. But she never extended any actual invitation, and the intervals between calls had gotten longer. It had been a couple of weeks now.
She never mentioned her fiance, Ian, which made me guess that she was seeing him. Probably that sensible life she'd been skittish about looked a lot better now, after what she'd been through.
And I couldn't help wondering if there was another element, along the lines of Darcy with Madbird when he'd sparked her breakup with Seth Fraker-if Renee had to blame somebody, however irrationally, for the emotional shock of what she'd learned about her father. Although I had nothing to do with it, it wouldn't have happened except for me.
As near as I could tell, nothing had changed at her house-no work being done, no FOR SALE sign. But I'd stopped driving by there.
There was one more footnote to the whole business, the kind of irony that inclined me to believe there really were forces of fate at work behind the scenes, and that sometimes they had a sense of humor that was hard to appreciate.
The Dead Silver Mine appeared to be coming back. I'd started noticing news articles to the effect that the market in precious metals was strong enough to spark renewed interest, and industry lobbyists were garnering support for allowing the Dodd Company to proceed on the good-faith promise of safe operation and cleanup, rather than a cash bond. There was opposition, but no firebrand like Astrid to spearhead it.
To be perfectly truthful, I didn't give a pack rat's ass.
