If he didn’t return to Theron, who would look out for them? Some bureaucrat from the state who identified the birds by their radio frequencies? Never. Theron had a distinct personality. Unique. He’d never allow him to be relegated to a mere number, one of many, nothing. Now that the peregrines were no longer considered an endangered species, no one cared about them like he did.
If he left, what would happen to them? Who would watch them? Track them? Protect them?
No. He wasn’t leaving. And she couldn’t make him.
Besides, he hadn’t finished with the blonde he had hidden away. He couldn’t leave until he was done with her.
He raised his hand to his cheek, the heat from her assault spreading from his head to the rest of his body. He stared at her-he’d almost forgotten she was standing in front of him, talking.
“You haven’t listened to a word I said! I swear, you’re nothing more than a fool. Get your stuff together.
“No.”
He sounded calm. In fact, he felt free. He savored his defiance.
“What?” She sounded shocked. Good.
“I’m not leaving. Not yet.” He took a step toward her. He was seven inches taller than The Bitch, but he’d never felt bigger until now. He straightened his spine and stared her down.
She glanced away first, taking a step back. Was that fear on her face? Yes, it was. He knew that look well. He just never had thought he’d see it on her.
For years she’d coddled and neglected him; loved and hated him; protected and hurt him.
She no longer had any power over him. The years washed away.
Her eyes darted right and left, but she smiled. A shaky smile.
She knew.
“Sweetheart,” she said in that cooing voice of hers. “Be reasonable.”
“I’m not leaving until the eggs are hatched.”
“But-”
His hand came down across her face and she staggered backward.
He didn’t know who was more startled-her or him. He’d never raised a hand to her. Never seriously considered it.
But she’d never attacked his birds before.
He grew under the power of her fear. The tables had turned.
“You can do whatever you damn well please,” he told her. “I’m not leaving.”
CHAPTER 23
Nick remembered the first time he got drunk. Not simple intoxication. Mind-numbing, porcelain-god-bowing, ground-worshipping drunk.
He would gladly trade the pain in his head now for a three-day hangover.
A moan escaped his parched lips, the faint sound making his headache worse. His eyelids felt crusted with sand and shut tight by weights. Just the thought of moving intensified the pain.
But he was alive. That, he knew. Surely there wasn’t pain when you were dead? Unless hell existed and he’d done something bad enough to merit eternal damnation. The way he felt now, he might prefer hell.
Cold seeped through the pain in his head. He shivered, then moaned from the pain of moving. Though deeply chilled, he wasn’t outside. He was lying on his side, something harder than the ground beneath him. A wood floor. The smells. Mold. Urine. Dead animals. The musty stench of layer upon layer of damp dirt.
He tried to move his arm. His hands were numb, but not from the cold. They were bound behind him. He breathed deeply, riding the tide of pain as he exhaled. His breath came right back at him; his face was up against a wall.
What had happened? He’d been driving… where? That’s right, to the small A-frame on the far southern boundary of Judge Parker’s vast land holdings.
He hadn’t seen anything suspicious and was about to head home. A complete waste of time, and he remembered thinking he was glad he hadn’t bothered Quinn. He’d turned, seen a pair of boots, and thought it odd that they sat by the side door of an unused cabin.
He’d reached for his gun, but someone hit him from behind. He hadn’t heard a thing, only felt a sharp pain… then nothing.
Until now.
Had his attacker been sitting in the dark in Parker’s cabin the entire time Nick had been walking the perimeter? Why? Had someone broken in? Were people using it illegally? Or did Parker know them?
Was his far-reaching theory true about the Butcher using it as home base?
Nick knew with certainty that he wasn’t in Parker’s cabin. The foul odors and deep cold suggested a makeshift cabin or small shack.
Deep cold. Miranda hated the cold because of what the Butcher had done. Now, Nick was in the same position. Bound, on a cold wood floor.
Could Richard Parker be the Butcher?
Nick couldn’t imagine the judge he’d known his entire adult life torturing women. But he partly fit the profile, didn’t he? Maybe a little older. And he was married and certainly not a loner. But Parker was physically fit and had been raised hunting and fishing in southwest Montana. Of course, the most damning evidence was that Nick had been attacked at Parker’s cabin.
FBI profiles could be wrong. The thought that Parker could be the Butcher sickened Nick. He remembered all the times he’d gone to the judge for help getting additional resources. The strings Parker had pulled to get the county to allocate more resources for searches that always ended with bad news. Could Parker have been laughing from the sidelines, knowing how wrong the police were in their analysis? Did he get some sort of sick pleasure watching Miranda search for women he held captive?
There was no concrete proof the Butcher was Parker. The killer could have staked out the cabin, seen that it was rarely used, and stayed there without incident. Or Parker could have rented it or loaned it to a friend.
Shit. He should have left the damn message on Quinn’s voice mail. They could have surveilled Parker, put an undercover team on the house, dug deeper into Parker’s past.
He’d spent so much time second-guessing himself this week that he hadn’t listened to his instincts. Now he was paying the price.
A slight noise, a rustling, made him jump. Rodents? A bear?
No. The sound hadn’t come from outside.
He wasn’t alone.
Nick didn’t know how he knew it, but all at once he sensed someone else breathing the same air he was. Then he heard it. A faint whisper.
The pounding beneath his skull was so loud it took him a minute to understand the words.
“Who’s there? Who’s there?”
He tried to speak, but it came out a moan.
“Who’s there?” Whispered. Hoarse. Female.
He licked his dry lips. “Sheriff.” The effort to speak hurt.
“Who?”
Dammit, he could barely think, let alone talk.
He forced himself to swallow. “Sheriff. Thomas.” He spoke each word carefully.
“Sheriff?”
Nick realized then that the person wasn’t whispering. The voice was hoarse. Like when his brother Steve had laryngitis back in high school.
Or a throat raw from repeated screaming.
