The Hunt

by Allison Brennan

  “Take care of her,” Nick said to Quinn with a look that meant business.

  “I will.” Quinn wrapped his left arm around Miranda and squeezed while extending his right to Nick. They shook hands and Nick left.

  “I’m worried about him,” Miranda said, pulling her eyes from Nick’s retreating back and looking into Quinn’s chocolate-brown depths.

  “I know. He’ll be okay. He just needs to do a little soul-searching.” Quinn kissed his wife. “You know I love you.”

  She smiled and nodded. “I love you too.”

  “Do you think we can sneak back to your place?” He whispered in her ear. Shivers ran through her body as he lightly kissed her neck.

  “Ummm. Don’t tempt me.”

  “Why not?” He kissed her ear.

  “Your mother is watching.”

  “So?”

  “Quinn!”

  He laughed and hugged her. “One hour, max. Then I’m taking you to bed.”

  “I don’t know if I can wait an hour.” There was nothing more she wanted to do than take Quinn to bed. Now.

  He smiled. “I think we can sneak off in ten minutes.”

  “I’m holding you to that.”

  And she did.

  Also by Allison Brennan

  THE PREY

  The shot echoed in the forest. The flutter of wings and the squawking of startled birds broke the silence. As Miranda watched, deep red spread across her friend’s white shirt. In the moment between life and death, Miranda watched Sharon’s stunned expression turn to bliss. Relief.

  Death was better than suffering.

  “Run.” That voice. She trembled even before she recognized his silhouette. In camouflage pants and a thick black coat, he stood among the trees, his face obscured by a cap and the darkening sky. Three hundred feet away? Two hundred? Closer. She would never make it. She was going to die.

  “Run!”

  His shout echoed through the mountainside. He took one step forward, cradling a rifle.

  Miranda ran.

  PROLOGUE

  Livie tilted her head to the late afternoon sky and frowned, wrapping her arms around her stomach. “Missy, pul-eeze. I wanna go home. It’s gonna rain.”

  “You want to go home because it’s going to rain,” Missy said without looking up from her book.

  Just because she was in fourth grade and had straight A’s and was on the honor roll, Missy always corrected her words. Livie hated it, but her sister was going to be a teacher, after all, and needed to practice.

  The wind came down in a gust before tapering off to a tickling breeze. “Missy, I’m cold.”

  Her sister rolled her eyes and breathed that loud sigh she had when Livie was annoying her. It meant Livie was being a pest.

  “Ten minutes, okay? I want to finish this chapter.”

  “Fine.” Livie pouted.

  She picked up her shovel again and absently played in the sand, digging and watching as the grains of sand slowly fell to the ground. She loved the park, but not when they were the only kids there.

  The swings were her favorite. Livie always pumped her legs faster and harder to see if she could go all the way around the top, but she hadn’t made it yet. Her daddy called her fearless. Missy said she was stupid. And her mother told her she’d break a leg one day and learn her lesson.

  Tomorrow was Halloween. Livie was no scaredy cat, but last week she’d watched a movie about ghosts and she didn’t want to be outside after dark. The rule was they had to be in the house five minutes after the streetlights came on, but Livie wanted to go home now. The sun had already dipped below the Patterson’s two-story house with its pretty pink trim.

  “Missy,” Livie begged.

  Her sister ignored her and Livie threw down her shovel. She stood and walked over to the swings at the far side of the playground. She didn’t feel like flying today, so she swung back and forth without effort, her arms pimpled with goosebumps as the wind gusted in bursts of anger. Red, orange and brown leaves skittered across the ground as the wind drove them away.

  Livie liked spring better, when everything was green and bright and sunny. When the fog didn’t dampen every morning, sometimes not going away until lunchtime. But spring was a whole six months from now. Livie would be six next spring. She counted the months in her head. May, June, July, August, September, October . . . she was five and a half! Yesterday she turned five and a half!

  She jumped off the swing and turned to run back to Missy to tell her what she just figured out. She stopped.

  Missy wasn’t alone.

  A man was talking to her. He was really tall, although not as tall as Daddy, and not as old as daddy either. He wore no coat. Didn’t he know you could catch a death of a cold in this weather if you went outside without your jacket? And he’d colored on his arm with blue marker.

  Livie started toward them, a tickle in her stomach that didn’t feel quite right. Missy didn’t seem scared, but then she hadn’t watched the ghost movie last week. Livie bit her lip. She didn’t want to be a crybaby, but she wanted to go home. Right now. And if she had to cry to get her way, then she’d do it. Missy gave in when she cried.

  “Missy?” she called.

  The man turned and looked at her and his eyes did something funny, squinty like. He grabbed Missy’s arm. “Come on.”

  “No!” Missy shouted and tried to pull away.

  Livie ran toward them. “Let my sister go! Let go!”

  The man picked Missy up just as Livie reached them. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she knew strangers weren’t always nice and this man with the blue bird on his arm was holding Missy over his shoulder.

  Before Livie could grab Missy, the man hit her. Livie fell to the ground and couldn’t catch her breath. Her mouth tasted funny, like when she’d lost her first tooth that summer. She tried to scream, but gagged on her spit.

  She stumbled as she got up, tears blurring her eyes. The man had Missy and he was running across the grass to the street. “Daddy!” she yelled through her sobs. “Help! Help!”

  The bad man pulled open the door of a black truck and threw Missy in. When she tried to get out, he hit her with something, then ran to the driver’s side and drove off.

  Missy didn’t try to get out again.

  Livie cried as she ran all the way home. “Daddy! Daddy!”

  Her father yanked open the door, his face full of worry. “Olivia! What’s wrong? Where’s Melissa?”

  “A m-man took her!”

  Mommy screamed and Daddy grabbed Livie’s arm and pulled her into the house. He pushed her at her mommy and started running out the door. “Call the police!” he shouted as Livie sank into her mommy’s safe arms.

  The brief hug ended.

  It was the last hug she ever received from her mother.

  CHAPTER

  1

  The day Olivia St. Martin’s life turned upside-down for the second time began like any other.

  She inserted two slides onto the glass plate of the microscope and bent over the lens, adjusting the magnification until the minute carpet threads became clear. She recognized a match immediately, but went through all the points of commonality for her report and indicated them on the lab sheet. When she was done, she used the microscope’s built-in camera to photograph the matched fibers, removed the evidence with latex-covered hands and preserved them in a sealed case to prevent contamination.

  She signed the report, then reviewed the file to make sure her team had finished processing all evidence in the Camero murder. Everything appeared in order, though DNA hadn’t reported in yet. A foreign pubic hair had been retrieved from the victim and sent to the CODIS unit to be analyzed and run through the database. Contrary to popular television, DNA matching was a slow, laborious process largely dependent on staff and resources.

  Olivia loved her job and had been rewarded as well: last year, she’d been promoted to Director of Trace Evidence and Materials Analysis at the FBI’s Virginia-based laborat
ory.

  The door opened and Olivia glanced up as Dr. Greg van Buren walked in. Her ex-husband’s grim expression surprised her: Greg was generally either amused or thoughtful, rarely depressed.

  She arched her eyebrow as she closed the file folder.

  “Olivia.” Greg cleared his throat. Beneath his wire-rimmed glasses, his clear blue eyes narrowed with concern. He shifted uneasily and glanced down. Something was wrong.

  Her chest tightened. “What is it?”

  “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Tell me.”

  “C’mon, Olivia.”

  Her legs weren’t completely steady when she stood, but she kept her head up as she walked down the hall with Greg. They were on the top floor of the three-story building, but took the stairs rather than the elevator to the main level.

  Outside, a wave of hot, humid air washed over Olivia. She scrunched her nose. The cotton lining of her skirt instantly stuck to her legs and she resisted the urge to adjust it. She’d never get used to sticky East Coast summers. She’d thought once Labor Day had passed, the weather would cool; no such luck. She never thought she’d miss the San Francisco peninsula’s gray mornings, but she’d trade humidity for fog any day.

  She studied Greg’s demeanor and posture—something was very wrong. Her stomach flipped uneasily. She was impatient for him to tell her, yet she sensed it may well be something she didn’t want to know.

  They walked past the stone plaque in front of the FBI laboratory, erected when the new facility opened in 2003.

  Behind every case is a victim—man, woman, or child—and the people who care for them. We dedicate our efforts and the new FBI Laboratory building to those victims.

  Olivia rarely allowed her emotions to surface, in public or private, but the sign never failed to move her, reminding her there was always more than one victim in every crime. That the dead left behind people who loved them. Family, friends, and often whole communities mourned, sometimes so deeply they resembled an empty shell, gutted. All the survivors had left was their hope that the guilty would be punished for their crimes.

  “Liv, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  Greg stopped walking and they stood in the shade of the building. Two smokers loitered in the designated smoking area a couple dozen feet away. A faint trail of stale cigarettes hung in the still air.

  “I don’t understand why they don’t move the smoking area further away,” Olivia said, delaying the conversation.

  Greg frowned. “Olivia, this is important.”

  His tone set Olivia’s entire body on edge. She turned and stared at his aristocratic profile. His long face, chiseled nose, deep-set eyes. Greg van Buren—yes, a distant relative of the former President—was attractive in a quiet, preppy way. He was familiar, soothing.

  “Alright, so tell me.” She tried to disguise her tension under an air of disinterest.

  Facing her, she saw pain in his eyes. And worry. “Hamilton Craig called me today.”

  “Why in the world would Hamilton call you?” She had seen the district attorney just a few months before, when her sister’s killer was up for parole, which had rightfully been denied.

  Craig was growing old and had announced his retirement at the end of his current term. Olivia now asked, “Is something wrong? Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine,” Greg said. “It’s about Hall.”

  Olivia closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about Brian Harrison Hall without conflicting emotions. Pain. Sorrow. Victory. Emptiness. Satisfaction that he was in prison where he belonged. Rage that he hadn’t been put to death. Her sister was dead because of him; he should have had the same fate. But the California Supreme Court tossed out the death penalty shortly after his conviction, so every three-to-five years he went up for parole.

  She hadn’t missed even one of Hall’s six parole hearings. She would do anything to keep Hall behind bars.

  “What?” Outwardly, she was calm. Composed. Professional. Inside, her nerves vibrated with an uncomfortable pitch.

  “His attorney petitioned for a DNA test. The police had preserved evidence including pubic hair samples. So there was something to compare Hall’s DNA with. The court granted the request last month. The California state lab issued their report this morning.” He paused, running a hand through his short-cropped hair. “I don’t know how to say this except flat out. No match.”

  Olivia was certain she hadn’t heard Greg accurately. “I don’t understand,” she said slowly. “No match to what?”

  “Hall’s DNA does not match the pubic hair found on your sister’s body.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Her voice was reasonable. Her words were not, but she didn’t care. There had to have been a mistake.

  Evidence doesn’t lie.

  “Hall’s being released tomorrow.”

  “No. No,” she said, shaking her head. “It can’t be. He killed Missy. He killed her. I saw him.”

  She spoke matter-of-factly. She had seen him. She remembered the black truck. The blue eagle tattoo. The tattoo still on his arm. His blond hair. The truck was his—the evidence had proved it.

  She hadn’t known anything about the investigation when it happened thirty-four years ago. But she’d read the reports multiple times since. Memorized them. Olivia knew every grisly detail of what Brian Harrison Hall had done to her sister. Fibers from the floor mats of his truck were found on Missy’s body. Her blood was found on his front seat.

  The murdering bastard.

  “Hamilton faxed me the report. I read it carefully. I called the California state crime lab and talked to the technician who ran the comparison. There’s no mistake, Liv.”

  “No. NO!”

  Her shout startled her. She never shouted. She never raised her voice. Greg reached to touch her arm.

  “Olivia, let me help—”

  She jerked away. “I want to see the report.”

  Before Greg could dissuade her, she stormed off toward the side doors, using her ID card on the keypad to re-gain access to the building. She heard his footfalls behind her as she yanked open the door to the stairwell and raced up to the third floor.

  There had to be a mistake. Hall’s new attorney switched the evidence. It was corrupted. Not enough to match. The sample degenerated over time. There was a reason for this lie. There was always a reason. Hall was guilty. He killed Missy. He killed her, dammit!

  With every step up, Olivia’s fear and rage grew. Rage that justice had not been served. That Hall would be getting out on a technicality instead of rotting in prison. That he was playing the system, his miserable defense lawyer trying to make a name for himself as an advocate for murderers.

  Then came fear. Deep, bone numbing fear jolted something deep inside Olivia, that he was innocent. That Missy’s killer was still at large. That he was still killing young girls. Destroying families. Breaking hearts.

  And it was all her fault.

  She faltered in her brisk stride and reached out for support, her hand shaking as it touched the wall.

  Greg caught up with her in the corridor outside the DNA laboratory. “Olivia, stop.”

  She couldn’t look at him, fearful that her eyes would expose her raw soul.

  “I’m. Okay.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “I just need to see the evidence.” She spoke each word carefully, clearly, her jaw clenched.

  “You’re shaking.”

  “Show me the damn report!”

  She took a deep breath and bit the inside of her cheek to control her emotions. With every ounce of willpower, she composed herself and turned a blank face to her ex-husband.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was uncalled for. I shouldn’t take out my frustration on you.”

  She would not break down in front of Greg. Olivia St. Martin would not break down in front of anyone.

  Even herself.

  He opened his mouth to say something and Olivia steeled herself to debate her pos
ition professionally. She was a professional after all, able to objectively look at evidence. To see the truth in the facts, and present those facts clearly, concisely to her peers or the court.

  She could do it now.

  He closed his mouth and used his passkey to unlock the lab door.

  “The report is on my desk.”

  The Hunt is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original

  Copyright © 2006 by Allison Brennan

  Excerpt from The Kill copyright © 2006 by Allison Brennan

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming mass market edition of The Kill by Allison Brennan. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  eISBN-13: 978-0-345-49074-2

  eISBN-10: 0-345-49074-6

  www.ballantinebooks.com

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