The Hunt

by Allison Brennan

  It had been a year since the attack. Her life had been on hold. She’d gone back to the University, but it wasn’t the same. She found no interest in her major, business administration, or even in her minor, English lit.

  She was tired of treading water. She wanted, needed, to move forward.

  And she wanted Quinn with her every step of the way.

  “Do you want to kiss me?”

  She felt his body tense. Had she overstepped her bounds?

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered and looked away.

  He lifted her chin with his finger and turned her to face him again. His brown eyes seemed black, his expression serious, and her breath almost stopped at the sheer beauty of his face. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since last September when I came back to see you. I’ve wanted to kiss you every day we’ve spent together, and every day we’ve been apart.”

  Warmth, deep, satisfying affection, spread through her body as the sincerity of his words stroked her soul. She leaned forward a bit and whispered, “Kiss me.”

  The light touch of his lips on hers made her shiver. Slowly, she put her arms around his neck. He kissed her with more urgency and she leaned into him. His arms wrapped around her and he pulled her close, his hands fisting in her hair at the base of her head, holding her tight but not too tight. To every shift she made, he yielded, every tentative touch on his face, his arms, his chest, he accepted.

  She wanted more than a kiss.

  “Stay with me tonight,” she whispered in his ear.

  He moved so she could see his eyes. “Miranda, I want to. I want to make love to you. But not tonight. Don’t rush it.”

  She blinked, coldness washing over her.

  For two minutes, she’d forgotten about the Butcher. For two glorious minutes he’d been erased from her mind.

  “It’s been a year,” she said, her voice flat. She turned away from him. “I haven’t rushed into anything.”

  “I know. Honey, don’t be angry. I want to make sure you want the same thing I do.”

  She bit her lip to stop herself from crying. Not because of Quinn, but because her life was so different from what she’d planned. She’d wanted to open her own business, something outdoorsy and recreational. She’d wanted to give river rafting tours in the summer and teach kids how to ski in the winter and help her dad run the Lodge.

  “Nothing’s ever going to be the same,” she whispered.

  He caressed her cheek until she faced him. The emotion in his eyes mimicked her internal turmoil. “No, nothing is going to be the same. But you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. Your will to survive, not just what happened a year ago, but also reclaiming your life, humbles me.”

  She shook her head. “I’m nothing special.”

  He almost laughed. “Miranda, you’re incredible.” He lightly kissed her.

  “I know that having Sharon’s killer still out there is like a festering sore. It just doesn’t go away. I wish I could have done more.” He ran a hand through his hair, his voice rough with frustration.

  “You did everything you could.” She’d been impressed with the FBI and the police during the investigation. But now her case was cold. Unless the Butcher attacked another woman, he’d never be caught. It wasn’t fair that another woman would have to be hurt—and possibly die—to find Sharon’s killer.

  She wished there was something more she could do. Not only to stop the Butcher, but to help find other killers. Men who preyed on women, who hurt them for their own sick, twisted reasons.

  Why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she be proactive? She’d been sitting around the Lodge for a year—doing what? Going to college? Helping her dad with the guests? But really, what she was doing was feeling sorry for herself and doing nothing productive with her life.

  That had to change if she were truly going to learn to live with what had happened to her.

  “What would you think if I wanted to go into law enforcement? I could join the Sheriff’s Department.” She continued on before Quinn said anything, becoming more excited as the ideas came to her. “Or maybe I could become an FBI agent! I’m smart, I’m almost done with my degree, I’m back in shape, and don’t mind working hard. I can finally do something proactive for a change, not just sitting around here doing nothing. I’m tired of being a victim.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” She wanted his approval. She needed his support.

  “Miranda, I want you to do what you want to do. But I had no idea you were interested in law enforcement. You never said anything.”

  “It was always just a thought in the back of my mind, but it developed fully as I sat here realizing that nothing is going to be the same and I need to take charge of my life.”

  “You have to be twenty-three to be accepted into the Academy,” Quinn said.

  “That’s only a year.”

  “You have to finish your degree. A lot of agents get a master’s in another field, like criminology or psychology.”

  “I’m a good student. I don’t mind another year of school.”

  “The Academy isn’t easy. It’s physically and mentally grueling.”

  “I can handle it. Don’t you agree?”

  He paused. “Yes, I think you’d do well under pressure.”

  “Quinn, I feel like I have to help people. I can’t explain it any better.” She frowned. She could barely explain it to herself, all these new ideas and thoughts swimming around. But one thing was clear: she now had a direction and she wasn’t going to lose her focus. Having a goal strengthened her resolve.

  The Butcher was getting away with murder. She had to do something to stop another madman from doing the same.

  “I’ll help you if I can,” Quinn said. “If it’s what you want.”

  “It is,” she said, more confident now that she had his support.

  He wrapped his arms around her and they stayed like that for some time. As the sun finished settling on the other side of the mountains, as the night turned cool, as the nocturnal creatures began to scurry, she and Quinn rocked on the swing, content in each other’s arms.

  On that night, Miranda never would have believed Quinn could betray her.

  An hour of hot water and jet action relieved most of the tension in her muscles, and when she stepped out her skin tingled, red and overheated and a little painful.

  Rebecca was dead. Sharon was dead. But she was alive.

  Guilt and confusion ate at her and she almost wished she believed in God like her father. Somehow, faith comforted her dad as it never had her. When she cursed whatever god had created the monster who had hunted her, who tortured women, she couldn’t imagine he was the kind and benevolent God her father praised. It was the kind God who had led her home, Daddy said. Who gave her the strength to survive, the will to live, the river to dive into.

  But, Miranda countered, by that reasoning, He was the same God who’d created a man who took sick pleasure in killing women for sport. Of tormenting and raping and hurting them. Miranda couldn’t reconcile the two gods. It was much easier to believe in the devil.

  Yes, evil was real. Alive. Burning.

  She lay awake, body exhausted, mind too active to shut down. She pictured Rebecca running through the clearing, the rain beating down on her naked body, a madman chasing her. The loud report of his rifle firing, her body tensing, expecting to be hit. But the shot went wide and she was whole.

  And she ran.

  Ran down the path, stumbling, her feet aching. Trying not to cry out when a sharp rock pierced her foot. Getting up fast every time she fell, knowing he was coming. Knowing he would kill her. With deep pleasure, without remorse.

  Running, running—and then she tripped and landed wrong, breaking her leg.

  She crawled, tried to hide, but already it was too late.

  He came upon her. Instead of shooting the wounded animal, he s
lit her throat.

  And her blood drained into the earth.

  Miranda’s hand flitted to her throat. She could feel the cold steel of the blade piercing the sensitive skin under her chin. Swallowing hard, she imagined Rebecca’s terrifying last moments of life.

  She’d been so close. Now she was dead.

  Miranda closed her eyes and rolled over, burying her head in soft down pillows. The tension she’d so recently purged in the hot water now flooded back into her body.

  Would he ever stop? Would they ever catch him and make the bastard pay for the lives he stole?

  It just wasn’t fair that this unknown, murderous predator was walking free while Rebecca Douglas lay in a cold box in the morgue.

  It just wasn’t fair.

  CHAPTER

  8

  The birds stopped singing.

  A sudden stillness settled in the crevices and trees of the canyon, the silence heightening his instincts. He counted. One. Two. Three.

  There, southwest of his camp, the peregrine falcon soared into view like a fighter jet, sleek and elegant, a solitary trace of life across the vivid blue sky.

  He drew in a silent breath, and with it the tangible, pungent aroma of pinion and junipers. Home. He wished he could remain here forever, in this canyon, with his raptors.

  Theron rode the air current, deep wing beats interspersed with glides. He curved around and landed on the ledge of the sheer cliff where his nest was hidden in a natural recess of the red sedimentary rock.

  Seeing Theron three weeks ago had been a welcome homecoming, and he stayed longer than he should have to watch his bird.

  Male peregrines defend their territory and engage in breathtaking aerial acrobatics to entice a female to mate. Lay a trap, so to speak. Once a male convinced the female that he was the finest peregrine she’d ever meet, she would remain on the cliff ledge, day in, day out, leaving only once a day to hunt for food.

  Theron had a mate. They would be together until she died. A beautiful specimen, he had named her Aglaia. Splendor. There was nothing as magnificent as a female falcon sitting high on the cliff, chest out. She wanted to be there, embraced her prison. Theron defended the cliff; Aglaia came willingly, to be protected.

  Peregrines were the fastest birds in the world. He never tired of watching them soar, had sat from dawn to dusk waiting to observe one of the majestic birds hunting. Head straight, the raptor watched its prey with one eye, then folded in its wings and dove. Just before he reached his prey, the peregrine would pull out of the dive and hit it with sharp claws. Wham! Dead on impact.

  They could also pluck a bird from the sky, on a level flight path. All birds were fair game. No one could outmaneuver the raptor.

  Kaaaaaak-kak-kak. Kaaaaaak-kak-kak.

  Theron was truly free. Something he, himself, would never be. Trapped and alone, his need to possess the unattainable, to hunt the imposters, was far greater than his quest for liberty.

  Still, he had a lot in common with the peregrine falcon. When he first began studying the peregrine sixteen years ago, they were all but extinct. Defeated, but not destroyed. Then they came back in their glory, and he was there every step of the way to chronicle their victory.

  It always bothered him that few of his colleagues wanted to document the falcons’ lives. They put in their time, one required semester, so they could run off and work for some big corporation, or nonprofit environmental organization, or government agency. So they could say they tracked falcons, that they cared, but they really didn’t.

  Words were cheap.

  He shook his head, his anger building. Focus.

  He trained his binoculars on the ledge where Theron and Aglaia had made their home. When he’d left them ten days ago, they had finished the mating game, but he didn’t know if there were eggs.

  So he watched. For hours. The sun spread its rays across the landscape, turning the dark morning woods into a glorious array of color. It became warm, and he removed his coat and ate his tasteless sandwich out of habit more than hunger.

  As the sun dipped on the other side of noon, Aglaia peeked her head out. Theron followed and they stood on the edge of the cliff, the king and his queen, surveying their kingdom.

  Kaaaaak-kak-kak. Caw caw.

  Kaaaaak-kak-kak. Kaaaaaa-kak-kak.

  His heart swelled as he listened to the raptors communicating. If Aglaia left, there were eggs. He waited and watched, patient, perfectly still among the trees and brush.

  With her mighty wings, Aglaia burst from the ledge and swooped down, down into the river rock canyon below, before curving up and around and over the cliff. Silence fell again. The hunt was on.

  Theron watched his mate disappear, then went back into the crevice. Incubation exchange. Theron was protecting the eggs while his bride hunted.

  Nothing could have pleased him more. He longed to scale the cliff and see Theron up close. He’d done it many times before—the physically demanding job of tracking, documenting, and logging peregrines culminated when he took their eggs for captive breeding.

  But he hadn’t spent all night trekking through the cold river bottom, fighting overgrowth, stomping through the red clay that coated northwest Colorado, in order to bring eggs back to the University for incubation. He’d come back to watch and log and resist the urge to hunt again.

  Fifteen years ago he had only wanted to find his own mate, find the perfect woman for him.

  But there were no perfect women.

  They all lied, they all manipulated. Even sweet, sweet Penny . . . Why had she told him she wasn’t seeing the jock? Why had she told him she didn’t even like the guy?

  He knew. When he saw her lip-locked with him . . .

  Penny was a liar like all the other women in the world. They said one thing and did something completely different. They told you they loved you, promised they wouldn’t hurt you, but they didn’t love anyone and always hurt.

  Like his mother.

  His mother, with words of honey that stung like a wasp. The way she touched him, made him do things to her.

  Touch me there. No, no, no, there. Yes. Don’t stop.

  If he didn’t do what she wanted, the punishment was far worse.

  Sweetheart, it’s for your own good. You have to learn.

  She’d clamp his penis until he cried. He’d beg to be let free; he would do anything she wanted, just to stop the hurt.

  Then his sister, constantly riding him, telling him she would help. And she did, for a while. She helped him until he trusted her, then the hurting started all over again . . .

  It started when he was six. When his father left without a word. He used to think his mother had killed him, but the truth was even worse.

  His own father hadn’t wanted him.

  Didn’t his father know how his mother hurt him? Didn’t he see the truth? Didn’t he care?

  His fists clenched around his falcon journal, a sob of bitter anger escaped his throat. What did it matter?

  He leaned against the pinion closest to his post and closed his eyes, breathing in the rich pine fragrance, the sticky bittersweet sap, the undercurrent of moist earth, rotting leaves, decaying plants.

  He relived the hunt.

  His prey was good, but he was better. She ran, but he never lost sight of her.

  He watched her fall, heard the snap of her leg through the pounding rain, and decided at the last minute to use the knife.

  It was no fun to shoot fallen prey. What was the sport in that?

  It had been dark, near midnight, but her blue-white skin stood out against the blackness.

  He pulled back her wet hair with his left hand and brought the knife down without hesitation across her white throat. The warmth of her blood surprised him; he tasted it on his lips.

  He dropped her where she’d fallen and stood.

  The hunt was over, but the urge to find other prey clawed at him. His heart pounded in his chest, blood rushing throughout his body, as he remembered. The intoxicating pow
er when he had her to himself. The feeling of victory that unfortunately diminished with each passing day until there was no choice but to hunt again. The thrill of the hunt was a brief high, and already he missed it. Longed for the power in his hands.

  But he had an important job to do. Here, with Theron and Aglaia and their eggs. Watching, waiting, writing.

  His birds needed him.

  Resist the urge.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Long before the sun rose over the mountains, Quinn woke, restless, his thoughts still trapped in dreams of Miranda.

  The pundits repeat the mantra: Time heals all wounds.

  It was a lie. Some wounds could never be fixed, especially when the wounded continued to peel the scabs.

  Miranda lived and breathed for the Butcher. For justice. She’d spent the last ten years in limbo, between heaven and hell, waiting. Waiting for the Butcher to make a mistake. Searching the woods for remains of his victims. As penance or punishment for surviving.

  Quinn had seen too many of his colleagues become so absorbed in a particularly difficult, agonizing case that everything else in their life suffered: their marriages often ended in divorce; they often neglected and lost friends. Seeking justice for the living and the dead could consume even the most emotionally stable professionals; with Miranda being a victim as well as an advocate, no one could be closer to the Butcher investigation.

  She was a time bomb ready to implode. How she’d survived this long without a nervous breakdown, he didn’t know.

  That wasn’t completely true, he thought as he dragged himself from bed. Miranda was indisputably the strongest woman he’d ever met. She’d withstood torture that would break most anyone, man or woman. She’d watched her best friend fall dead, shot in the back, and had the wherewithal to continue running. She’d taken investigators back to the body, led them to the shack where it all began.

  Quinn loved and admired Miranda for her inner core, a spine that was hard as steel.

  But what about Miranda’s needs? Who was watching out for her, making sure she didn’t push herself too far? Taking the time to pull her away from the depressing environment so she could regroup and regain her focus? He feared that unchecked, Miranda had become all-consumed by the investigation, sacrificing her personal happiness and inner peace for justice.