Authors: Allison Brennan
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Suspense, #Thrillers, #General
“Quinn feels certain this guy is still single and leads a solitary life.”
“By the way, where is Quinn?” She tried to sound disinterested, but didn’t think she pulled it off.
“Helena. Picking up your friend from the airport, the lab technician.”
“Olivia?” She’d almost forgotten Quinn had asked her to help.
Nick nodded and sipped his beer. “He’ll be back late tonight or in the morning.” He paused. “I wish you and Quinn the best of luck.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
Nick sighed, started peeling the label off his beer bottle. “You’re obviously still in love with him. You’ve always been in love with him.”
“That’s not true.” Was she protesting too much? She tried to explain. “You know how it was back then. But with everything that happened, I just—well, it’s over. It’s been over a very long time.”
“Love just doesn’t turn on and off like a faucet, Miranda.” He sounded angry.
“I didn’t say that, I—” She stopped. “Nick, I’m sorry.” What else could she say? She knew Nick had feelings for her, feelings she didn’t or couldn’t return. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt her best friend.
He waved off her apology and stood. “I just wanted to check in on you since I’m off duty, so to speak.” The sheriff was never really “off duty.” It had been a running joke with them when he’d first been elected.
“There’s nothing going on between me and Quinn,” she said, then bit her tongue. Why was it so important that she convince Nick of that?
Or were her protests more about convincing herself?
He gave her a wry smile. “Believe what you want, Miranda, but the truth is your heart has always been with Quinn. I never had a chance. But I only just realized it.”
“I care about you. You’re my best friend.”
He nodded, and she knew she’d said the wrong thing. Nick was in love with her and she’d called him a friend.
Why did she always put her foot in her mouth?
“I know you care, Randy. You’ve always been a good friend. But a lousy girlfriend. ‘Night.”
She stared after him, wondering why in the world he’d stopped by. To see if she and Quinn were together? To convince himself of something? She shook her head as she finished her beer and tossed the empty bottles in the bin under the counter.
She’d never understand men.
17
“You’re a fool.”
The Bitch was furious, but right now he didn’t care. She’d make him pay for breaking the rules later. After the hunt. But now, she couldn’t do anything.
He saw the gleam of excitement in her eyes.
He still hated her, but he hated her less on the nights they hunted together.
Her lack of patience irritated him, though.
“Why not that one?” she whined, gesturing at the brunette who had pulled into the gas station.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I want a blonde this time.”
“You just had a blonde.”
“I don’t care, I want another one.”
She sighed and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t want to be here all night.”
“It’s never taken more than a couple of hours. Dammit, have a little patience!” She never had patience. She thought he was a freak because he sat in the middle of the woods for days on end logging data about his birds.
He didn’t care what she thought about him. Right now, she was a help. Although most of the time he wanted to strangle her.
He didn’t dare touch her neck.
The brunette drove off after filling her tank. It was nearly eleven in the evening. They’d been here two hours. Traffic had slowed considerably after ten.
He placed his binoculars in his lap and waited for the next car to turn into the highway strip mall. They had a great vantage point, well concealed, up the road from the gas station, on a private drive. He knew the owner of the house at the end of the drive. An old woman, deaf as a post, who went to bed with the sun.
He’d selected this place because it was a regular stop for college students. Between the gas station, the pizza place, and the small bar, he knew he’d find someone that suited him.
He wasn’t picky. He just wanted a blonde again.
He’d hunted from this place once before. As a rule, he didn’t use the same place twice. Just in case. But enough time had passed. It was in this place that he’d found another blonde, twelve years ago.
If only she hadn’t had a friend with her.
The Bitch never let him go after Miranda Moore. It ate at him constantly. But The Bitch thought Moore deserved to live since she got away. Always, she taunted him. Always, she rubbed his nose in his failings. He hated her. Hated both of them.
Someday he’d make them pay. They were two peas in a pod, teasing him, ridiculing him.
But for now he couldn’t touch Miranda Moore. The Bitch said she’d turn him in. And he believed her.
“We’ll kill Miranda Moore if she becomes a threat, but she’s not,” The Bitch said over and over again. “She beat you, sweetheart. I want you to always remember that.”
As if he could forget with her constant reminders.
A Honda Civic pulled onto the frontage road. Bypassed the gas station and went straight to the pizza place. He raised his binoculars.
A blonde stepped out from the driver’s side. His heart swelled, pounded in his chest.
The One.
Instantly he knew, just like every other time he’d hunted for women. She was The One, and he would have her.
“I’m going,” he said.
“Wait.”
“What now?”
“Look.”
Grudgingly, he looked. The passenger door opened. A redhead emerged. Together the blonde and the redhead walked into the pizza parlor.
“Wait,” The Bitch told him.
“No.”
“I said no more pairs. It’s too risky.”
“All right.”
She relaxed, and he opened the passenger door.
“Where are you going?” she demanded, almost leaping across the seat to grab him.
He stepped back, pocketing the bottle of molasses in his windbreaker. “I’m taking care of the car.”
“You said you agreed!”
“No pairs. Trust me. I’ll only take care of one.”
She didn’t believe him, but he didn’t care. He had no use for the redhead. This time, he only wanted the blonde.
He’d have to kill the redhead first.
18
The lights of Nick’s truck illuminated the blue Honda Civic as he pulled up behind it, staying back thirty feet from the probable crime scene. He jumped out, leaving his lights on, and approached the responding officer, Brad Jessup.
“How’s the girl?”
“The EMT said critical. They’ve already taken her to the hospital.” Jessup checked his notes. “According to her driver’s license, she’s JoBeth Anderson. She had an MSU identification in her wallet and twenty-three dollars.”
“What happened? Hit and run?”
“Doesn’t appear to be any damage to the vehicle, sir.”
“Who called it in?”
“Red Tucker, sir.”
Everyone knew old Red. He owned the saloon fifteen minutes down the road at the 191/85 junction and was rumored to be the oldest man in
“Where’s he now?”
“I had him sit in my cruiser, sir.”
Red sat at an angle in the passenger seat of Jessup’s patrol car, feet outside the car. His thick shock of white hair was in need of a trim, and his weathered face had so many wrinkles it could pass for a map of Yellowstone trails.
“How’re you doing, Red?” Nick asked as he approached.
“Been better. How’s the girl?”
“Critical. If she makes it, it’s because of you.” Nick squatted next to him and took out his notepad. “Mind telling me what happened?”
“I leave the tavern at eleven or so nowadays. Need a bit more sleep than I used to. Saw the car by the side of the road and slowed, thinking someone might be in trouble, run out of gas or something. I didn’t see anyone and thought they’d broken down and hoofed it back to the Junction, or up the road a couple miles. So, I started to speed back up when my lights hit on something in front of the car. I thought it might have been an animal, maybe the driver hit a small bear or something. So I pulled over.”
Red shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it was a young lady. Just lying there, half in the road. It’s amazing that one of the big rigs didn’t run over her legs.”
“Did you see anything else? Anyone else?”
“No. It was dead quiet. I don’t have a cell phone, but I didn’t want to leave her there, so I waited for someone to drive by. Then I saw a phone near her, like she’d been holding it before she was hit. I used it. You think it was okay I did that?”
“You did the right thing. Did you touch anything in the car? The ignition? The hood? Anything?”
“Umm, maybe the roof when I leaned in. I was checking to see if someone else was in the car. You don’t think—it was an accident, right? Hit and run? You don’t think it’s that killer again?”
Nick’s stomach fell. Though he’d wanted to believe JoBeth Anderson’s injuries were the result of something less nefarious than a serial killer, as soon as his lights swept over the car he was transported back twelve years.
Sharon Lewis’s little Volkswagen Beetle had been found less than two miles from here. On this same road.
“I’ll find out.” Nick stood, knees cracking. “Can you hang out here a couple more minutes?”
Red nodded. “I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to.”
Nick pulled his jacket close as a wind picked up. Near midnight and the temperature had dropped considerably. It’d be below fifty tonight.
He prayed it wasn’t the Butcher. Rebecca had been found only three days ago—Nick couldn’t remember the killer attacking again so soon.
There was an easy way to find out.
His feet felt filled with lead, his heart twisted, as he approached the car. “Jessup!” he called.
“Yes, sir?”
“Did you run the tags and registration?”
“The car belongs to Ashley van Auden, twenty-one. Her residence is listed as San Diego,
Where was Ashley?
Nick walked around the back of the car to the gas tank. He took out his flashlight and trained it on the small door. The Honda Civic had a release lever on the floor next to the driver’s seat to unlock the gas tank. But most people in
And even if they did, the cars were easy to break into if you knew what you were doing.
He leaned closer, his Maglite illuminating a small trail of something thick next to the fuel door. He took in a breath, the sweetness of the molasses turning foul in the realization that the Butcher had struck again.
Nick wanted to kick something. “Jessup!” he shouted. “Call in the crime techs. I want everyone out here, full gear, no excuses.”
“Sir?”
Ignoring Jessup’s implied question, Nick pulled out his cell phone and pounded the key pad.
“Peterson here.”
“Quinn, the Butcher has another woman. When will you be back?”
“I’m already on my way. Where are you? I’ll be there in less than an hour.”
Ashley van Auden felt hungover, like the time she’d drunk way too much champagne at her aunt Sherry’s wedding. Her head thick, heavy, pounding.
She shivered and realized that it was the cold that had woken her. She’d never grown used to the cold weather in
But this cold was worse than cold. She was chilled to the bone; her skin felt raw and exposed. No blanket covered her, no heater blew warm air over her body. And the room stank. Rotten, moldy. It smelled like a dead animal, as if a family of rodents had holed up in the corner and died a week ago.
This wasn’t her dorm room.
Fear hit her as soon as she fully wakened. Not a steady increase of heart rate or growing worry, but an instant and deep terror. Panicked, she tried to sit up and realized she was restrained. Her wrists burned with the struggle of trying to get free. What had happened? Where was she? Where was JoBeth?
The last thing she remembered was the car stopped running. Just like that. It sputtered a couple of times and died. She was lucky to get it to the side of the road.