remembered how she looked, how she tasted, how she smiled at him when he held her.
He didn’t know when he’d fallen in love with her. When he’d visited that first Saturday after the Butcher investigation fell apart for lack of evidence, he knew he’d be coming back to Montana every free moment. At least once a month he spent a weekend with her. He didn’t rush her, couldn’t rush her, but together they formed a bond he’d never thought he’d wanted to find.
Even now, ten years later, he realized he’d never severed what united them. He was still drawn to Miranda. Why had he recommended her to the Academy in the first place? If he’d only encouraged her to wait, to give her career choices more time to develop, to think about what she truly wanted, everything that came after would have been avoided. He wouldn’t have had to hurt her.
And maybe they would still be together.
He’d believed for the longest time that she would come back to him. Their love, he thought, was unbreakable.
He was wrong. She’d never sought him out, never tried to listen to his reasons, and instead she’d turned to Nick.
Quinn shook off his frustrations. No sense thinking about the if-onlys and what-might-have-beens. He made the most difficult decision in his life ten years ago; he now had to live with the consequences.
He allowed Miranda to lead, not admitting he felt a little out of sorts unable to see the sky. Shadows surrounded them, making it difficult to know in which direction they were headed. He was almost certain they were still moving northeast. But “almost” could get them lost.
He had to trust that Miranda knew how to get them out of here.
Forty minutes passed and Quinn was ready to turn back when suddenly they stepped into a clearing, the sun a welcome sight.
Ponderosa pines, thirty to forty feet tall, grew evenly spaced as far as he could see. Miranda’s excitement was palpable.
“Follow me,” she said, gesturing impatiently. “We’ll find the entrance to the path and backtrack.”
They skirted the edge of the clearing, and about two hundred feet away they found it.
Quinn bent to examine the deep impression in the soil. The long gouge in the earth testified that Rebecca had fallen to her knees. A small sapling was bent. Had she pulled herself up?
Now he knew the killer had come this way. The growth was too thick to effectively track his victim unless he had used the same path she did. He photographed the evidence, then glanced up.
Miranda was gone.
CHAPTER 7
The hair rose on the back of Quinn’s neck. Where was Miranda?
He called out her name. He stood, looking for her, pulling his Sig Sauer from his holster, braced for anything that might happen.
Had the killer returned? To watch the investigation? His heart beat double time. If that bastard touched her- He clamped down on his emotions, focused his energy on finding Miranda. He prepared to call in reinforcements.
“Miranda!” he called again, louder. A command to respond.
“Over here.” Her voice was faint. He spotted her nearly a football-field length away, down the slope, in the middle of the clearing.
He sighed, frustrated and relieved. Keeping her reined in seemed an impossible task. He hoped Nick knew what he was doing.
She waited for him to catch up to her. “Don’t wander off,” he snapped.
Without acknowledging him, she pointed. “Look.”
He stared at the ground. Buried in the mud, barely discernible from the storm-disturbed earth, was a long gold rifle casing.
He photographed the shell, bent down, and with his gloved hands placed it in an evidence bag.
The find was incredible. They’d only recovered two other casings they could for sure say belonged to the Butcher. Either he picked them up after firing or the search parties simply couldn’t locate them in the dense wilderness. The casings had been wiped clean of fingerprints-he’d likely worn gloves while loading his rifle, but there was always hope the killer would make a mistake.
The killer used a.270-caliber rifle. Unfortunately, it was a very common gun used to shoot virtually every game animal on earth, so it would only help once they had a suspect and could inspect his guns. A firearms expert would be able to determine from the recovered casings and bullets if a specific gun was used; finding that gun was the proverbial needle in a haystack. Virtually every male over the age of fourteen in rural Montana owned the same type of firearm.
Little good any of the evidence they had would do them until they brought in a suspect, but anything was better than nothing.
“She almost got away,” Miranda said, her voice cracking.
Quinn expected to see tears or hurt in Miranda’s eyes. Instead, he saw anger. Raw and on the surface, her deep midnight-blue eyes staring beyond him to where Rebecca had died.
He slowly rose and looked over to the narrow opening of the path that Rebecca had ultimately stumbled upon. “He shot at her from here,” he said, though it was unnecessary.
“Because she was going to disappear into the undergrowth,” Miranda nodded. “He knew the road was only a few miles away. He took the shot, though it wasn’t ideal.”
She looked around slowly, absorbing the scene.
Quinn said, “We need to call in a team. He shot at her before she had cover, but missed. The bullet is somewhere in there.” He gestured toward the area from which they’d just emerged. “We may never find it, but with the right equipment at least we have a chance.”
She finally looked at him, a strange combination of relief and fear on her face. She swallowed and it was gone, her control firmly back in place. “You’re right,” she said sharply.
He called Nick to fill him in on what they’d discovered.
“It’s nearly five, Quinn,” Nick said over the walkie-talkie. “By the time a team gets to your location, it’ll be near dark. We can’t get bright enough lights into that area. Mark it. First thing in the morning we’ll be back.”
“Dammit!” Miranda pulled on her ponytail in frustration.
“He’s right,” Quinn told her.
“I know that,” she snapped, leaning against a tree. She sighed and her voice softened. “It doesn’t make the delay any less frustrating.”
They had several bullets, all extracted from the bodies of the Butcher’s victims. Quinn didn’t expect any stray bullet here to tell them much of anything-except to tie Rebecca’s murderer to the other girls.
“We have an hour before we need to head back,” Quinn said. “Let’s look around.”
In silence, broken only by the call of birds and scurrying of small animals or the occasional scamper of deer disturbed from their feeding, they tracked the killer’s trail. The clearing went on for miles, and it was nearly five thirty when Quinn said, “We have to get back.”
“Ten more minutes,” Miranda said without stopping, her eyes scanning the ground.
“Miranda, tomorrow.”
“But-”
“No.” He reached out but stopped short of contact, remembering the quickly concealed fear in her eyes when he’d surprised her before.
Miranda obviously wanted no part of him. No use even trying to rekindle their flame.
She faced him, an inner battle over whether to argue or comply evident in her expression. Quinn concealed a smile. He appreciated the passion she brought to her work.
Before she could argue, he reached for her shoulder and squeezed. She didn’t back off. The connection felt good.
