2 - The Hunt

by Allison Brennan

  “How’re you doing, Red?” Nick asked as he approached.

  “Been better. How’s the girl?”

  “Critical. If she makes it, it’s because of you.” Nick squatted next to him and took out his notepad. “Mind telling me what happened?”

  “I leave the tavern at eleven or so nowadays. Need a bit more sleep than I used to. Saw the car by the side of the road and slowed, thinking someone might be in trouble, run out of gas or something. I didn’t see anyone and thought they’d broken down and hoofed it back to the Junction, or up the road a couple miles. So, I started to speed back up when my lights hit on something in front of the car. I thought it might have been an animal, maybe the driver hit a small bear or something. So I pulled over.”

  Red shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it was a young lady. Just lying there, half in the road. It’s amazing that one of the big rigs didn’t run over her legs.”

  “Did you see anything else? Anyone else?”

  “No. It was dead quiet. I don’t have a cell phone, but I didn’t want to leave her there, so I waited for someone to drive by. Then I saw a phone near her, like she’d been holding it before she was hit. I used it. You think it was okay I did that?”

  “You did the right thing. Did you touch anything in the car? The ignition? The hood? Anything?”

  “Umm, maybe the roof when I leaned in. I was checking to see if someone else was in the car. You don’t think—it was an accident, right? Hit and run? You don’t think it’s that killer again?”

  Nick’s stomach fell. Though he’d wanted to believe JoBeth Anderson’s injuries were the result of something less nefarious than a serial killer, as soon as his lights swept over the car he was transported back twelve years.

  Sharon Lewis’s little Volkswagen Beetle had been found less than two miles from here. On this same road.

  “I’ll find out.” Nick stood, knees cracking. “Can you hang out here a couple more minutes?”

  Red nodded. “I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to.”

  Nick pulled his jacket close as a wind picked up. Near midnight and the temperature had dropped considerably. It’d be below fifty tonight.

  He prayed it wasn’t the Butcher. Rebecca had been found only three days ago—Nick couldn’t remember the killer attacking again so soon.

  There was an easy way to find out.

  His feet felt filled with lead, his heart twisted, as he approached the car. “Jessup!” he called.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Did you run the tags and registration?”

  “The car belongs to Ashley van Auden, twenty-one. Her residence is listed as San Diego, California, and her mail goes to a dorm at the University.”

  Where was Ashley?

  Nick walked around the back of the car to the gas tank. He took out his flashlight and trained it on the small door. The Honda Civic had a release lever on the floor next to the driver’s seat to unlock the gas tank. But most people in Montana didn’t lock their cars when they stopped for gas or a meal, or even when they parked in front of their house.

  And even if they did, the cars were easy to break into if you knew what you were doing.

  He leaned closer, his Maglite illuminating a small trail of something thick next to the fuel door. He took in a breath, the sweetness of the molasses turning foul in the realization that the Butcher had struck again.

  Nick wanted to kick something. “Jessup!” he shouted. “Call in the crime techs. I want everyone out here, full gear, no excuses.”

  “Sir?”

  Ignoring Jessup’s implied question, Nick pulled out his cell phone and pounded the key pad.

  “Peterson here.”

  “Quinn, the Butcher has another woman. When will you be back?”

  “I’m already on my way. Where are you? I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

  Ashley van Auden felt hungover, like the time she’d drunk way too much champagne at her aunt Sherry’s wedding. Her head thick, heavy, pounding.

  She shivered and realized that it was the cold that had woken her. She’d never grown used to the cold weather in Montana. Coming from sunny San Diego, she was accustomed to fun and warmth and sandy beaches. She hated Montana, but MSU had a great wildlife biology program and she ultimately wanted to work with the endangered Bighorn Sheep in Southern California.

  But this cold was worse than cold. She was chilled to the bone; her skin felt raw and exposed. No blanket covered her, no heater blew warm air over her body. And the room stank. Rotten, moldy. It smelled like a dead animal, as if a family of rodents had holed up in the corner and died a week ago.

  This wasn’t her dorm room.

  Fear hit her as soon as she fully wakened. Not a steady increase of heart rate or growing worry, but an instant and deep terror. Panicked, she tried to sit up and realized she was restrained. Her wrists burned with the struggle of trying to get free. What had happened? Where was she? Where was JoBeth?

  The last thing she remembered was the car stopped running. Just like that. It sputtered a couple of times and died. She was lucky to get it to the side of the road.

  Jo said she’d call roadside service and got out of the car because her cell phone was all static. Another thing Ashley hated about the mountains. She never had trouble with her cell phone in San Diego.

  She leaned over to check the CD changer and see if there was enough juice in the car for music. When she looked up, Jo was gone.

  She stepped out of the car and saw the figure of a woman walking toward the trees on the other side of the road. Why had Jo crossed the road? “Jo? What are you doing over there?”

  Then nothing. She remembered nothing else. Why couldn’t she remember anything? What had happened?

  She was naked. Restrained. Something bound her eyes, tight. Too tight. She heard nothing except her panic pounding in her ears. Her lips quivered, a sob escaped. She swallowed, trying to force her fear back.

  Crack.

  What was that? Was someone coming? Dear God, what was he going to do to her?

  Rebecca Douglas.

  Total fear embraced her and squeezed tight, draining every ounce of hope from her soul. They’d found that girl from the University, Rebecca. The newspaper said it was the Bozeman Butcher. The man who tortured women in the woods and hunted them like animals. The Butcher.

  No. NO! NO! NO!

  Dear God, please! Don’t let him hurt me!

  Her throat constricted, her chest heaved as she fought her restraints. Kicking and pulling and pushing. She wasn’t going to die. She couldn’t die! She had a full life ahead of her. Her friends. Her family. Her daddy had told her to be careful. To watch. To be cautious. That she was too friendly, too naÏve.

  She thought she’d been careful. What had she done wrong?

  More than anything, she wanted to spare her father from the pain. She was his princess. What would he do when he found out she was missing? When she turned up dead? Tortured and—and—raped.

  No. No. NO! This wasn’t happening.

  Where was JoBeth?

  “Jo?” she whispered into the blackness. She listened, trying to force her racing heart to slow.

  Nothing.

  Then she heard it again. Something. Outside. Voices, whispering in the dark. She listened harder and began to make out words.

  “I told you it was too soon!” The voice was low, but sounded like a woman’s.

  “Go away. Come back next week.” A man. Gruff.

  Slap.

  “I have to get home. It’s late. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Mumble, something she couldn’t hear. Crack. Nothing.

  The silence heightened her fear, sounds as black as the blindfolded night. Then rustling. The call of an owl. Sounds of the night had been there all along, but until this moment she’d been too terrified to listen. A thrashing, a squeak, then quiet. A scurrying on the roof—tin. The sound of tin. She was in a shack of some sort and it was so damn cold.

  Ashley knew the door opened not
from a sound, but from an icy breeze.

  Then a quiet snap, two pieces of wood brushing against each other. Breathing. He was here. He was here and so was she, only she couldn’t do anything.

  “Please, please, please don’t hurt me,” she cried out, her voice raw and cracking.

  A loud crack resounded in the room, then a piercing pain on her inner thigh made her scream out. A whip.

  Then he was on top of her. Intense, sharp pain between her legs shattered what little composure she had left and she screamed until her throat burned.

  She thought she heard distant laughter. Then it was gone.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Miranda paced the waiting room for two hours before finally sitting in one of the green plastic chairs that lined the wall of the emergency room. She’d learned next to nothing about JoBeth Anderson’s condition. The hospital couldn’t reach her next of kin in Minnesota, so they’d contacted the University. An administrator was tracking down her parents, but because it was life or death, they took JoBeth in for surgery.

  When Miranda’s phone rang earlier at two in the morning, she’d been pulled from a nightmare, grateful for the interruption.

  It had been Nick. The Butcher had another victim.

  At the time, Miranda hadn’t questioned JoBeth being left behind by her attacker. Now, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Why hadn’t she been taken with Ashley?

  Why had the Butcher attempted to kill her, leaving her by the side of the road?

  And why had he acted so soon on the heels of Rebecca Douglas’s murder? His shortest interim period had been two weeks. Ashley had been abducted after just three days.

  She needed to talk to Quinn and figure out what this meant. Were they any closer to catching the Butcher? Had something in this investigation tipped his hand? Or might this be the work of a copycat criminal? But Quinn and Nick weren’t around to answer questions. They were interviewing possible witnesses at the Junction, where JoBeth and Ashley had stopped to eat.

  From the floor nurse, Miranda learned that JoBeth had a life-threatening contusion on the back of her head. She had been hit three times with enough force to crack her skull. The doctors were focusing on saving her life, but even then she could have a broken spinal cord. Her injuries were serious; the blows had been meant to kill.

  She is a survivor, Miranda thought. Just like me.

  JoBeth didn’t deserve this, lying in surgery as the doctors tried to stop her brain from bleeding.

  Trapped in her brain could be something to lead them to the killer: maybe she had seen the Butcher, maybe she knew him, something to help! They needed a break. They needed the killer to make a mistake.

  Miranda willed JoBeth to survive. To regain consciousness. To say, “Yes, I saw him, he is—”

  Please make it, JoBeth.

  Miranda sat in a hospital chair. As dawn peeked over the horizon, she closed her eyes. Just to rest for a minute.

  JoBeth was still in surgery when Quinn walked in an hour later.

  He wasn’t surprised Miranda was in the waiting room outside the surgery wing. But he was taken aback when he saw her lying on a couch, asleep, her backpack a pillow. A wool blanket covered her thin body; her arms were crossed over her chest, holding the blanket close. Like a child. Innocent.

  Her pale skin was relaxed in sleep, belying her body’s simmering tension. He quietly approached; the sight tugged at his heart. Beautiful, strong, vibrant. Smart.

  Passionate. Intelligent. Such a pain in the ass sometimes, she was so stubborn.

  He licked his lips. He’d never be able to eat pecan pie again without picturing Miranda. Tasting her sweet, sugary lips as they melted into his. Feeling her body mold against his, a perfect fit.

  He couldn’t resist bending over and tucking a loose curl behind her ear.

  Her eyes opened and she sat up abruptly, blanket dropping to the floor, a look of fear crossing her face before she recognized him. He felt bad that he’d startled her. He sat next to her and touched her cheek. Her skin was so soft.

  She didn’t pull back, but neither did she lean into his caress. He’d take what little he could get at this point. He certainly didn’t want to jeopardize the tentative progress he’d made in getting her to trust him again.

  As if he hadn’t already made a mistake by kissing her. Even though at the time it sure didn’t feel like a mistake.

  “I’m sorry, Miranda. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I felt someone watching me,” she said, her voice hoarse from sleep—or lack of it. She cleared her throat, the fear in her eyes now hidden behind her thick lashes. She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “What happened? JoBeth?” She jumped up and wobbled a bit. He took her elbow to steady her, and she didn’t push his hand away.

  Another small step.

  “I just got here,” he said.

  She glanced toward the nurses’ station. “They promised to wake me if there was a change.” She turned to the lone nurse behind the counter.

  “Any word?” she asked. “JoBeth Anderson, she was in—”

  The nurse nodded. “I know. She’s out of surgery and was moved to the ICU thirty minutes ago.”

  “How is she?”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Moore, I can’t tell you. You’re not her next of kin.”

  Miranda tensed next to Quinn and bit her lip. He empathized with her—she was already grieving for Ashley, and worried about JoBeth.

  Quinn pulled out his wallet and flashed his badge. “Special Agent Quincy Peterson, Federal Bureau of Investigation. If you would be so kind as to find Ms. Anderson’s doctor, I need to speak with him.”

  “Yes, sir.” The nurse picked up the phone and Quinn guided Miranda by the elbow back to the waiting room.

  She sighed and put a hand to her head, shielding her bloodshot eyes. “Dammit, Quinn,” she muttered. “Why?”

  He didn’t have to ask what she was talking about.

  “We’ve taken the car to the Sheriff’s Department and they’re going over it with a fine-toothed comb. Scouring for fingerprints, hair, anything. The crime techs are still at the scene taking a sample of every rock, piece of dirt, and leaf in the immediate area. If there’s trash by the side of the road, it’s being sent immediately to Helena.

  “If he made one small mistake, we’ll find him, Miranda.”

  He tipped her chin up, forcing her to look at him. His heart twisted seeing the pain in her large blue eyes.

  “I promise, I’m not leaving until we get answers.”

  She nodded, almost imperceptibly, then sank into a plastic chair and rested her head in her hands. He sat next to her, touched her shoulder. It felt so good to be able to touch Miranda again without her flinching. He rubbed her muscles.

  “Do we even have a chance of finding him before Ashley van Auden dies?”

  What could he say to that? “There’s always a chance.”

  She looked at him, tension radiating from her in unseen waves, the tendons in her neck taut. She must have a splitting headache, and knowing Miranda, she’d just suffer with it. She’d told him once that pain reminded her she was alive. He thought it was more personal punishment stemming from her guilt that she’d survived and Sharon hadn’t.

  “I can see her, Quinn,” Miranda whispered, her voice quivering. “Ashley. In the dark. Cold. Naked and scared. Terrified. Worse than I was.”

  “Miranda, don’t do this—”

  She shook her head, leaned into him as if imploring him to understand. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

  “No, no,” she said. “I have to focus on her. I have to remember. Don’t you see that it’s worse for her? She knows. She knows he’s the Butcher. Rebecca was killed only days ago; Ashley must be thinking she’s next.” Her voice caught, as if in a sob, but no tears came.

  He gently pulled her all the way into his arms and enveloped her. Her body shook as she tried to contain her emotions. That she let him console he
r was a huge step, one that gave him hope.

  And knowing there was hope opened his heart even more.

  She took a deep breath and said into his chest, “I called Charlie with my search team,” she continued. “We’re starting out at oh-eight-hundred.”

  “You need to sleep,” he murmured, rubbing her back.

  She pulled back and shook her head. “I can’t sleep. Not knowing Ashley is out there. But—dammit, I don’t know what to do! We search acres and acres and never find the women alive. But I don’t know what else to do. I can’t do anything.”

  Miranda had never been one to sit around and let other people do the job. She jumped in with both feet, from the beginning.

  Before he could speak, to try and offer her some inadequate platitude, a tall, skinny doctor with a full head of dark, graying hair approached. “Agent Peterson?” he said, hand extended, dark eyes glancing at Miranda, then back at him. “Doctor Sean O’Neal.”

  Quinn shook it. “Thanks for coming out. What’s the status of Ms. Anderson?”

  “Is she going to make it?” Miranda asked.

  Dr. O’Neal sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. He put his lenses back on and said, “I don’t know. The odds were against her going in, but she held strong. Fifty-fifty, now that she survived the surgery. Sheriff Thomas contacted her parents out of state and I just got off the phone with them. The blows to her head were severe. Fortunately, her spine wasn’t damaged. I feared the nerve had been severed, but it’s good. Unfortunately, even if she wakes up, I have no idea what short- or long-term brain damage there will be.

  “In short,” the doctor continued, “she’s in a coma.”

  Coma. Their best witness—their only witness—was in a coma. Fate sucked.

  Ryan Parker awoke with a start. His heart pounded in the grayness of his room. He felt damp, and for a moment thought he’d wet himself, then realized he’d sweat in his sleep, enough to chill him.

  But he was chilled even more from the nightmare.

  He glanced at his digital clock: 5:46 A.M.