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The shadow of something passed over her face and she picked up her steaming cup, taking a sip. “We were.”

I waited.

“If you’re asking whether we were more than friends, then I suppose I could tell you it’s not really any of your business.” She smirked. “But sure. Yeah—sometimes more.”

“Sometimes?”

She shrugged. “This job doesn’t really lend itself to steady relationships, and Johnny wasn’t really a steady guy, anyway.”

“When were you guys together, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I don’t mind. There’s not much to know. I wouldn’t say it was ever really serious. When he came onto the project, we connected. He had a lot of talent and passion, and that’s not always easy to find. He inspired me, I guess. Made me remember why I started doing this in the first place.” Her gaze drifted past me, as if she was watching a particular memory play out. “He had a very unique point of view.”

“How do you mean?”

“It was remarkable, really. He had a gift. He could get socloseto them—the owls. And it felt like he viewed them, I don’t know, like…”

“As human.” I cut her off unintentionally. “Sorry.”

She gave me a peculiar look. “You don’t need to apologize. But I don’t know if I’d put it that way, exactly.”

It struck me suddenly that there was something about her thatremindedme of Johnny. The way she held herself and carried the frame of her body was so like him. She took up the space around her and she didn’t even look like she meant to.

“How would you put it, then?” I asked.

She thought about it, mouth screwing up on one side. “I was thinking the opposite, actually. That Johnny seemed to understand that we’re not so different. That in the end, we—us, the owls, the fish down there”—she pointed at the window that looked out over the water—“we’re all just…animals.”

That, too, felt like it had more than one meaning.

“When’s the last time you talked to Johnny before he died?” I asked.

Her lips pressed together in a hesitant way. “We hadn’t really talked in a while.”

“I’m asking because—” I set the cup down on the saucer, trying to decide exactly how I wanted to ask the question. “I know it’s probably awkward to mention, but I was going through his things and saw an email from you.”

Josie met my eyes, her expression unreadable. “Yes?”

“In it, you were threatening to report Johnny to the board at CAS. I was wondering if you could tell me what it was about.”

Her gaze didn’t break from mine. “It doesn’t matter much now, does it?” she said, matter-of-fact.

“It does to me.”

She considered for a long time, letting the silence drag out before she finally answered. “I found out that Johnny was poaching.”

I couldn’t hide my stunned reaction. That wasn’t at all what I’d expected her to say. “Poaching?” I repeated, my tone unmistakably disbelieving.

She nodded. “In our line of work, there are controversial tactics thatsomeemploy to skew the results of a study or to impact a specific problem occurring in the ecosystem.”

“What does that mean?”

She lifted her hands in front of her, like she was weighing her answer. “I don’t know how much you know about the project, but the most direct threats to the northern spotted owl are deforestation and another species called the barred owl.”

I remembered reading about them in Johnny’s field notes. He’d written pretty extensively about them, and when I’d run across it, it had summoned a vague memory I had of him bringing it up in conversation early on in the project. According to his notebooks, their growing population had impacted the survival of the subjects he was studying.

“As an invasive species, they compete with our highly endangeredsubjects for food, shelter, and everything else,” Josie continued. “And in situations like these, there are those in our community who think that extermination is an acceptable solution.”

Immediately, my mind went to the gun I’d found in the closet.