The Hunt (7 page)

“You said no unauthorized personnel could use the old road,” Quinn said. “I would—”

“Quinn, she
is
authorized. She’s the director of Search and Rescue, a division of the Sheriff’s Department.” Nick paused. “Miranda doesn’t want to be protected, so give it up.”

“It has nothing to do with protection, and everything to do with jeopardizing this case.”

“Miranda knows these woods better than anyone, including me. I’d be surprised if she didn’t have every hill and crevice memorized. She has a frickin’ map on her bedroom wall! She sleeps and rises to six red pins staring at her, reminding her that she survived.” Nick took a deep breath. “Seven. Seven pins now.”

Quinn glanced at Nick’s hard profile, but couldn’t miss the emotion tightening his expression. He didn’t know whether it was his naked emotions or the rawness in his voice, but Quinn knew with certainty that Nick was still in love with Miranda. He pictured Nick in Miranda’s bedroom staring at the map that had become such a focal point in her life. Nick would be wanting to help Miranda find peace, but unable to tear her away from her nightmares. Quinn shifted uncomfortably.

He’d heard about their relationship from his partner, Colleen Thorne, when she returned from investigating the Croft sisters’ murder. Years after Miranda stopped speaking to him, refused to see him, it still hurt to think about her with another man. Even one he liked and respected.

Damn, he’d loved her! Few women could compare to Miranda. Her intensity, her laugh, her strength, her strong sense of right and wrong. Everything about Miranda was passionate, from how she lived her life to her quest for justice.

That she’d turned to Nick when she was ready for another relationship irritated and hurt him. She’d forced him to give her space, and against his better judgment he did. But she never came back to Quantico, never returned his calls, never accepted that he’d made the only decision possible. Then, she started seeing Nick.

He didn’t want to know about their relationship, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “What happened?”

“What?”

“Why’d you two break up?”

Nick shrugged. “Lots of things. Mostly, I couldn’t stand not being able to protect her.”

“Hmm.” Miranda didn’t need protection, except from herself. What she needed was to get over the guilt. But she never recognized her obsession, let alone did anything to fix it.

“I think what did it was I wanted to take her away from
Montana
,” Nick said. “I could be a cop anywhere. I’d always thought
Texas
would be a good place to live. A helluva lot warmer than the
Gallatin
Valley
.”

“I can just picture you with a white ten-gallon hat,” Quinn said with a half-smile.

“Miranda wouldn’t leave. She’s determined to do what she can to protect the women of Bozeman. She teaches a self-defense class every week at the University. She heads up the search and rescue—not just when another co-ed turns up missing, but when hikers are lost, skiers disappear in an avalanche, anything. Last year two little girls wandered off from their campsite just this side of the
Wyoming
border, in Yellowstone. Miranda tracked them, found them, and brought them to safety.”

Quinn said nothing. What could he say? He had no claim to Miranda, no right to know anything about her. But dammit, he wanted to. He wanted to know everything that had happened in her life during the ten years since he’d last seen her.

“Thanks for coming, Quinn,” Nick said several moments later. “I know it’s not easy on you to work with her.”

As Nick stopped the truck behind Miranda’s red Jeep, Quinn said, “I have no problem working with Miranda, but if she crosses the line she has to be pulled.”

“Agreed.”

They got out of the SUV and the first thing Quinn noticed was Miranda standing up on a ledge, hands on her hips.

“Where have you been?” She bounded down the embankment and stood in front of them, jaw set. “You said two hours, it’s been nearly three!”

Though pale and thin, her deep blue eyes rimmed with fatigue, Miranda was a beautiful woman. A bundle of barely contained energy and strength Quinn had always admired.

“We went to interview the boys who found the body,” Nick said.

Quinn wanted to ask Miranda what business it was of hers, but bit his tongue. She was part of the investigation, at least for the time being. Nick had already established her role and Quinn wasn’t going to step on his toes.

Not yet, anyway.

So the sheriff had brought in the Feds again.

It was easy to spot the city boy, all done up in new blue jeans, stiff boots, unused down jacket. All the times the hotshot government types came to town looking for clues, they’d found nothing.

Because he was smarter than all of them.

He recognized Agent Peterson. He’d been around before, a long time ago. He’d proven to be an able opponent then—he’d been so close, but couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

He almost laughed at his pun. Fools. All of them.

Except
her.
The one who got away.

His entire body tensed and the horse beneath him shifted uneasily on the mountain path, high up from where the cops milled about. He forced himself to relax, patted the gelding gently until the horse calmed. Soothing the animal also helped him contain his anger.

He wanted to kill Miranda Moore so badly he could feel her body beneath his. He pictured himself inches from her face. Grabbing her hair and jerking her head back. Exposing that white throat. Feeling her entire body tremble as he unsheathed his knife and held it to her neck.

One swift slice and her warm blood would coat him and the earth.

But she’d got away. He’d lost. His failure ate at him, a reminder that he was flawed. He should never have gone after a local. It wasn’t her he’d wanted, anyway. It was the blonde she had been with. He didn’t have a choice; if he wanted the blonde, he had to take her friend.

He still wanted to kill her, but he couldn’t.

She’d won, after all.

Twelve years ago his greatest fear of being caught lay with Miranda Moore. Had she seen or heard anything that would lead the police to him? He’d been so careful, but he hadn’t thought she’d live. He’d felt cheated watching her fall off the cliff into the Gallatin River, certain she wouldn’t survive.

He’d been surprised and worried when he saw the news reports the next day that she was alive.

But as time passed, he relaxed. She didn’t know anything, either didn’t remember or never saw him.

No, he couldn’t kill her now. But if she got too close, that would change.

He glanced at his watch and frowned. He hadn’t planned on being here this late. Gently urging the gelding along the narrow mountain path, he headed South.

CHAPTER

6

“Do you all understand what you’re supposed to do?” Nick asked after detailing the responsibilities of the search team. One sworn
Gallatin
County
sheriff’s deputy or Bozeman police officer was paired with one volunteer. Three out of four on-duty cops stood there, some worried, some excited, most sipping the hot coffee Miranda’s father had had the foresight to send with her.

Miranda looked around at the men and women who made up the search team. They’d be searching for evidence. Bullet casings, footprints, torn clothing. Anything that might lead them to the killer.

She caught Assistant Sheriff Sam Harris staring at her and turned her head. She didn’t like the man who’d lost the election to Nick when he ran for sheriff a little over three years ago, six months before the Croft sisters were killed. When Nick made the fifty-year-old deputy the undersheriff, Miranda told him he was making a mistake. Harris would undermine him every chance he got. Nick disagreed, and Miranda tried to keep her feelings to herself.

It was one-thirty
P.M.
They had less than five hours of daylight left.

Miranda intended to pair off with Cliff Sanderson, a Bozeman cop she respected who helped her teach the self-defense class at the University. She waved at him as she crossed the clearing and he smiled back, his boyish dimples taking ten years off his thirty.

“Nick,” she said as she approached him for her assignment. “I want grid C-1 through 10. Sanderson and I can cover it, and I think—”

“You should stay here,” Quinn told her, arms crossed.

She glared at him, his dark, intense eyes trying to command her to do his bidding. She couldn’t help but remember the many times she’d appreciated his intensity, the way a mere gaze melted her like butter on a hot griddle.

She ignored him.

“C-1 through 10,” she repeated as she hoisted her backpack over her shoulders and cinched the belt around her waist. She adjusted her .45 in her waistband for comfort.

“You have a gun,” Quinn said through clenched teeth.

“So do you,” she snapped back, instantly regretting showing that he’d gotten to her. “Do you have a problem?” Damn, she was being sarcastic, a sure sign of insecurity.

She glanced around. The cops and volunteers had grown quiet, showing interest in the brewing argument. However, she certainly didn’t want to be the center of attention.

“Nick,” she said quietly.

“You’re with Peterson,” he said just as quietly, refusing to look at her.

“What?” she exclaimed, forgetting the audience.

“You’re with Peterson or you’re not going. You can have the ‘C’ grid.”

She got the area she wanted, just not the partner. She almost said she wasn’t going.

But that was exactly what Quinn Peterson wanted. “Fine,” she said through clenched teeth.

She turned on her boot heel and spotted
him.
Elijah Banks. Long dirty-blond hair tied in a leather band, wire-rim glasses, narrow face on a skinny frame. She’d never forget the so-called journalist who’d made her life a living hell after she thought she’d put hell behind her.

Jaw tight, she strode over to the edge of the clearing where Eli stood, camera around his neck, rapidly writing God-knew-what garbage on one of his ubiquitous notepads.

“Banks!” He looked up and grinned. Stopping right in front of him, her feet almost touching his, she grabbed the notepad from his hand. Without looking at what he’d written, she ripped the pages out and threw the pad on the muddy ground, then tore his notes into tiny pieces.

She saw red every time Banks crossed her mind. Every time she saw his pathetic name in the newspaper. Every time she remembered the secrets—her secrets—he’d written about for everyone to read and pity her.

Eli held his hands up and took a step back. “That’s my property you just destroyed.” The damn half-smirk never left his face.

“What fool let you into a secure crime scene?” She glanced around, hating the commotion she was making but unable to stop herself. “You just waltzed right in, didn’t you?”

Nick tapped her elbow and urged her to step back, standing between her and the reporter. “Eli,” he warned, “you need to leave.”

“Sheriff,” Eli said in that condescending mocking tone Miranda despised, “can you confirm that the body of Rebecca Douglas was found this morning by Judge Parker’s son?”

“You know I can’t confirm anything until the body has been identified.” Nick tensed at Miranda’s side. Damn, how did the press find out so quickly?

“So there was a body found?”

Miranda wanted to scream at Eli Banks, to tell him that Rebecca wasn’t a
body
but a
person,
but that’s what he wanted. A reaction. She swallowed her anger and spun around, walking right into Quinn. He put his hands on her elbows to steady her.

She glanced up at him, startled.

“He’s not worth it,” Quinn whispered.

She didn’t, couldn’t, say anything. Being this close to Quinn unnerved Miranda. When he looked at her, stared at her with the familiarity of a lover, she couldn’t help but remember she had loved him once, and he’d loved her.