The Hunt

goes, I want you nearby.”

“Did something happen?”

“We have a suspect. David Larsen.”

“The wildlife biologist?”

“He’s missing, he had opportunity, and we’ve ruled out the other three men on the short list. My people are doing an in-depth background check on him right now. I’ll call you with more information as I get it. But if he feels pressured in any way, he might do something unpredictable. I don’t want Miranda in his sights.”

“I’ll stick to her like bees on honey.”

Not that close, Quinn thought.

“Booker, keep the info under your hat. Miranda knows-but I don’t want the press getting hold of it yet. Not until we have more information.”

“Got it.” Booker left.

Quinn entered Nick’s office and was only partly surprised to see Sam Harris had taken over the desk. He was on the phone and looking at a fax. Quinn recognized the masthead.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. Seattle. His office.

He pulled the paper out of the undersheriff’s hands. It was the background information on David Larsen.

Truck… recent model, four-wheel drive. Powerful. Graduated from MSU… doctorate at Colorado… wildlife biologist... very little detail. He knew most of this stuff.

Parents-deceased. Siblings-one sister. One sister? What about her name, residence, status?

Harris slammed down the phone. “What are you doing?”

“This fax was addressed to me.”

“It came in to my office.”

“It was addressed to me,” Quinn repeated, temper rising.

Harris stood, walked around the desk. “Agent Peterson, you didn’t tell me you had a suspect. What kind of respect does that show my department?”

Quinn ran a hand through his hair. “You knew we were narrowing down the list. I got the call this morning about David Larsen, not much more than an hour ago.”

“If the sheriff were still here, you would have called him first thing.”

That was true. Quinn hadn’t even thought to call Sam Harris-he was too busy contacting his own superiors for immediate access to resources and information.

“Point taken. I’m sorry.”

Harris’s jaw worked and his face grew red. “You Feds think you know everything. Fine. Solve this case without me. But you’ll be sorry.”

Quinn had to have heard wrong. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he snapped, and walked out.

Shit, the last thing Quinn needed was a pissed-off cop. “And you’re supposed to be the diplomat,” he muttered to himself.

Quinn crossed over to Nick’s desk and searched through all the papers to see if Harris had pulled anything else addressed to him off the fax. He didn’t see anything. He called the small Helena field office and requested a couple of agents for the next two days. He needed help, and he wasn’t afraid to ask for it.

Not when the life of a young woman was at stake.

His eyes rested on a small photo partially hidden under the blotter. He pulled it out.

It was actually a series of four photos, Miranda and Nick, taken in one of those two-dollar photo booths. Miranda smiled the same in each shot, a little self-conscious even though no one but she and Nick was likely to ever see these pictures.

Nick, on the other hand, was more animated. First smiling wide, then making a silly face, and in the third he was making rabbit ears with his fingers over Miranda’s head.

In the last picture, he was looking at her, and Quinn could see he had loved her.

All jealousy at Nick’s past relationship and friendship with Miranda flew out the window. Raw emotion climbed his throat thinking about his friend who was now probably dead.

One mistake, and Nick had paid with his life. It wasn’t fair, and Quinn vowed to make Larsen pay, not only for the women he’d killed and what he’d done to Miranda, but for Nick as well.

He put the pictures in his wallet, planning on giving them to Miranda. Then he went out to talk to the deputies and assign them tasks.

There was a lot of ground to cover and little time.

Miranda had six deputies assigned to Search and Rescue, and she sent one with two volunteers into the area south of Gallatin Gateway. Quinn had come in and briefed everyone about David Larsen, telling them to proceed with caution. Do not pursue. They were there to find Ashley and rescue her, not apprehend a suspect.

He stressed that Larsen was only wanted for questioning, but everyone knew what that meant.

They had their first real suspect in twelve years.

Miranda didn’t have a lot of hope that her team would find Ashley, but going through the motions helped her push to the back of her mind that she knew the identity of the Butcher. Once everyone was gone and she was alone, she sank into a chair and closed her eyes.

And pictured him.

She’d only seen that one photograph of Larsen, but it was too easy to animate it, to put his picture on the faceless man who’d tortured her and shot Sharon in the back.

Run. Run!

She’d never seen David Larsen. She would have remembered his face. But she knew his voice, the low monotone, cruel in its lack of emotion. His words and actions not matching the distant, almost bored tone.

She was certain she’d never seen him because surely his evil heart would be visible. His hatred for women etched on his face.

But in the photograph, David Larsen appeared neither evil nor hate-filled. His was the face of an ordinary man. Pleasant on the surface. Normal.

The Butcher was anything but normal.

She remembered a biblical lesson from her father. That evil could masquerade as beauty, that black hearts were sometimes clothed in compassion. Evil didn’t have a calling card alerting everyone to its pending visit. Evil came and went with a smile, laughing at the lives destroyed in its wake. The serpent who enticed Eve to sample the forbidden fruit couldn’t have been repulsive, or she would have run in terror. No, the serpent must have been a thing of beauty, a thing that called all to trust it. Don’t trust what you see with your eyes.

Evil lurks beneath the surface.

“Miranda?”

She jumped out of her seat and reached for her gun at the same time.

It was Deputy Booker.

“Shit, Lance.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared.” She’d been terrified. Sitting here alone, thinking about the Butcher and David Larsen and Sharon… “What can I do for you?”

“Agent Peterson asked me to stick by you today. You know, since they can’t find Larsen and all.”

Last week, she would have been furious at Quinn’s protectiveness. She would have sworn she was capable of defending not only herself, but everyone else, from the Butcher and any other evil that stepped foot in her state.

But while she had been trained in self-defense, taught it to the women at the University, and kept in shape, and knew she could find her way in any part of the county, the thought of facing David Larsen in person paralyzed her.

“Thanks, Lance,” she said.

She crossed over to the wall map and stared, gathering up courage to get through this day. If they found