The Hunt

people.

But his excitement turned to worry. His father had told him specifically not to bother the sheriff. And he’d lied to his mother about where he was going. She would flip. She wouldn’t yell or spank him or anything, but she had this look, and the look was scarier than any punishment.

He shivered and pulled his jacket closer, though the day was warming nicely. Stuffing the buckle into his pocket, he continued down the narrow trail toward home. If he saw Sheriff Thomas again, he’d show him the buckle.

It was probably nothing, anyway. Just some guy pissing in the woods.

CHAPTER 10

Every muscle in her body tense, Miranda followed Quinn, Nick, and the others down the path to the clearing they’d discovered the day before.

Nick had called in Pete Knudson, a ranger she’d often worked with on searches. If they found a bullet lodged in a tree, he would either cut out a segment or fell the whole tree in order to collect the bullet for evidence.

The tension gave her a mind-numbing headache she attempted to tame by swallowing three aspirin with a swig of water from her canteen. She could easily blame her pain on lack of sleep, a sparse appetite, or the stress of the Butcher claiming another victim. But she held Quinn responsible for the bulk of her discomfort. His presence unnerved her in ways she hadn’t imagined.

For years, she’d lied to herself that his betrayal at the Academy hadn’t mattered. Though hurt at the time, she reasoned, she’d come back to Bozeman and made a good life for herself. After four years on the Search and Rescue team, she accepted the lead position when her boss, Manny Rodriguez, took a job down in Colorado. Her team, the two paid staff members and the more than two dozen volunteers she could call upon, trusted her.

“Miranda?” Nick said, falling into step with her, his ruggedly handsome face tight with concern.

“I’m fine,” she answered the unspoken question.

“Yeah.” He glanced at Quinn, who led the group.

“What happened at the autopsy?” She tried to sound professional but was unable to keep her voice from cracking.

“I left before Doc Abrams was done, but it’s the same guy.”

“We knew that.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Quinn,” Nick said, his voice low so no one could overhear.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you yesterday. You didn’t deserve it after seeing Rebecca like that.”

Nick still tried to shield her from reliving her seven days in hell. He didn’t understand that while she couldn’t escape the past, helping to find these girls gave her a measure of peace. She was doing everything she could to find the Butcher. And someday, he would be stopped.

She hoped to be there when he was captured. She had to be, as if helping to catch him would release her from daily remembrance and nightly terrors.

Nick let out a long breath. “Truce?”

“I can never stay mad at you for long.” She smiled at him. She loved Nick. Just not the way he wanted.

She had tried. For three years she struggled to give him her heart. She wanted to fully love him. But the more she tried, the harder it became. Friendship, loyalty, strength-these were things she freely gave and received from her ex-lover. But her heart was still broken, and Nick couldn’t put together the pieces.

She glanced up at the only man who could.

Quinn felt like he was being watched. He paused at the edge of the clearing to collect his bearings, looked behind him, and caught Miranda’s eye. For a split second, he thought he saw something other than anger on her long, narrow face. For a moment he saw a flicker of desire in her dark eyes, a physical need and emotional longing he vividly remembered from their past. A bolt of lightning would have jolted him less. He blinked.

Whatever he thought he saw was gone. Miranda’s lips were locked in a rigid line, her face blank, her eyes narrowed and filled with suspicion and caution.

He turned back to the crew, eased his backpack off his shoulders, and removed his jacket. He took a long swig of cold water from his canteen to quench the heat that had risen inside him at the thought that Miranda still had feelings for him.

While the temperature had been in the midforties this morning, the sun now spread a pleasant blanket of warmth on the new growth field. Under normal circumstances, the hike they’d just made would have been invigorating and enjoyable.

Nick’s deputies looked at him with a mixture of arrogance and wariness. Taking directions from a Fed was not in their rule book, but damn if he was going to let inter-agency hostility interfere with this investigation.

Quinn cleared his throat and said, “You’ll see the orange flags where Ms. Moore and I discovered evidence yesterday. I want to find the bullets fired, if possible.” He turned to address Deputy Booker. “Sheriff Thomas says you’re the best shot in the department.”

The deputy stood straighter. “I won the county competition, sir, but-”

Nick cut him off. “Deputy, go down to that flag over there,” he gestured to the spot a hundred feet down- slope, “and position yourself as if you were shooting a high-caliber rifle at a moving target the size of a five-foot- two-inch woman entering the path there.” He pointed to another flag about twenty feet away.

Booker swallowed, adjusted his hat, and glanced uneasily at Miranda. “Uh, yes, Sheriff,” he said.

“Then you tell Ranger Knudson the trajectory and find the damn bullets.” Nick turned to the rest of his men. “Fan out. You know what you’re looking for. And if you find anything at all, call out for Agent Peterson or myself. No chatter on the com, just be thorough. The rain really hurt our chances at preserving evidence, but we might get lucky.”

God knows we could use a little luck right now. Quinn glanced at the clear sky.

He walked to where Nick and Miranda stood at the opening of the path. “… the cabin,” Miranda was saying as he approached.

“What?”

She barely acknowledged him. “I’m going over there to find the cabin.” She gestured down the slope, past the flags where Deputy Booker worked with the ranger.

“Not without me,” Quinn said. What was she thinking?

“Nick and I can handle it just fine.”

“I’m staying here,” Nick said. “I need to be accessible.”

Quinn watched Miranda struggle with the prospect of being partnered with him again. Tough shit. She wasn’t going out there by herself. And if she was right about the cabin being near the clearing, he had to go with her. For safety, as well as to gather evidence.

“Fine.” Her voice was clipped and weary. She probably hadn’t gotten much more sleep last night than any other night since Rebecca went missing.

Quinn sure as hell hadn’t slept worth a damn, thinking about what Miranda had been doing for the past ten years. How her life had changed-and not changed. Wondering if he had done the right thing at the Academy. No, he had been right. But he’d done it all wrong.

He couldn’t figure out how to fix it then, and now the divide between them seemed so much deeper. He’d given her time and space; he’d attempted to contact her, tried to talk to her, to explain. Hoped she’d come to realize leaving the Academy was the right thing to do at that time. But she never returned his calls and marked his one letter return to sender, unopened.

That hurt.

He pushed the memories aside and pulled out his canteen again. He took a long drink, then said, “Let’s go.”

They walked in silence, searching the ground for evidence. The occasional freshly broken branch or unusually deep impression proved they were on the right path. At one spot Rebecca had obviously fallen; a clump of long blonde hair was snagged on a bush, torn from her scalp. Quinn silently placed a bright orange flag at the spot,