The Hunt

CHAPTER 1

Twelve Years Later

Nick Thomas stared at the outline of the petite body under the blinding yellow tarp. He pinched the bridge of his nose, swallowing anger so bitter he could taste it. The foul stench of death surrounded him and he turned away.

He still pictured the dead, broken body of twenty-year-old Rebecca Douglas as he’d found her only an hour ago.

“Sheriff?”

Nick looked up as Deputy Lance Booker approached. He was clean-cut, a good cop, though a mite wet behind the ears. Much like Nick had been twelve years ago when he’d been called out to his first murder scene. “Deputy.”

“Jim said there’s a guy claiming to be an FBI agent at the road wanting to be let through. Quincy Peterson.”

Qui

Now there were seven dead girls. Seven that they knew about.

“Let him through.”

“Yes, sir.” Booker frowned, but relayed the orders through his walkie-talkie. In matters that would as a rule fall under their local jurisdiction, no law officer welcomed outside interference, and usually Nick was no different. He didn’t mention that it was his call to Qui

Nick turned and walked away from the deputy, away from the bright tarp, down the path to where Rebecca Douglas’s last steps were evident. He squatted next to an unusable footprint, a mess in wet, hardening mud. It might have been Rebecca’s last step. Or the killer’s. It had rained nearly three inches in the last two days, a deluge that saturated a ground recently recovered from a cold, wet Montana winter. The clouds had broken this morning, the sky such a vivid blue and the air so refreshing that Nick would have enjoyed it if he hadn’t been called to a crime scene.

He closed his eyes and breathed the clean, crisp air of his Gallatin Valley. He loved Montana, the vast beauty and sheer majesty of its mountains, its swift rivers, green valleys, big sky. The people were good, too, down-to-earth. They cared about their neighbors, took care of their own. When Rebecca Douglas was declared missing, hundreds of men and women-many from the university where she’d been a student-had scoured the wilderness between Bozeman and Yellowstone looking for her.

Nick’s jaw tightened in restrained fury. Good people, but for one. One who had killed Rebecca and at least six other women in the past fifteen years. And other women were still missing. Would they ever find their bodies? Had the harsh Montana weather or four-legged animals obliterated their remains? He’d never forget finding Pe

Nick surveyed the area. Tall pines grew primarily downslope; as the mountain rose the trees thi

They’d mark off the area in grids and search for anything that might possibly lead back to the killer. But if it was the same bastard, they’d find nothing. He was so damn perfect in his every crime that even their one surviving witness could tell them little. Defeat weighed heavily in Nick’s heart, but he would not give up.

Sometimes, he hated his job.

He turned when he heard an SUV roll into the clearing, rocks and muddy clumps of leaves shooting out from the backs of all four tires. Sun reflected off the windshield and Nick shielded his eyes to watch Qui

The SUV jerked to a stop behind Nick’s dark green police-issue truck. The driver’s door opened and Quincy Peterson jumped out, slamming the door behind him and striding toward Nick. Qui

“Rebecca Douglas?” Qui

“Yep. We’ll need a positive ID, but-” There was no doubt it was the missing woman. He glanced at Qui

Qui

“I wanted you to check it out first, but I have my men waiting up on the main highway.”

Nick didn’t know why the Fed made him feel so inferior. Maybe it had something to do with Qui

Or maybe it was because the woman Nick loved was in love with Qui

Despite all that, there was no one Nick trusted more than Special Agent Quincy Peterson.

Qui

Rebecca had been beautiful. Now, her long blonde hair was tangled, matted, and caked in mud. The happy face reproduced on thousands of flyers was gone. She was swollen, bruised, grotesque in death. The recent rains had cleaned some of the dirt from her naked body, leaving her pale and blue.

Her neck had been cut, slashed deep with a sharp knife, though there was very little blood to see. Most of it had been washed into the ground by the storm, along with any trace evidence. Her body showed signs of abuse. Torture. Bruises of all shapes and hues of purple covered her skin. Her breasts had been clamped into some sort of vise. The strange marks wouldn’t have indicated that to most eyes, but both Nick and Qui

Qui

She was thin, so pale, empty. Clinically, her gaunt skin told the cops that she’d bled out, her life drained from her. She’d died quickly; nobody could survive long with their carotid artery sliced open. Small consolation for the previous week of terror she’d lived through.

Qui

Nick nodded. “He’ll be out by noon. He was in the middle of an autopsy on that hiker we found up on the north ridge the other day.”

“So who found the body?”

“Three boys-the McClain brothers and Ryan Parker. The Parkers have a spread three, four miles west of here. The boys took a couple horses for the day, were going to shoot their.22s at rabbits and whatnot.” He shrugged and added, “It’s Saturday.”

“Where are they now?”

“A deputy took them home. Told them to sit tight at the Parkers’ until I came by.”

Qui

“It looks like she came up through that brush over there,” Nick gestured. “I checked it out, but didn’t go down the trail yet.”

“If you can call it a trail,” Qui

“I have a dozen of my own men right now, more later, and a crime scene specialist. I’ll need volunteers if we’re going to do this right.”

“Agreed. The more eyes the better, but no hotshots. We can’t have someone going off half-cocked.”

Qui

Nick agreed, but he still felt so damn helpless. The Butcher was the only bastard who had ever gotten away with murder under his watch. “It’s been three frickin’ years! Three years since he killed. And we had nothing then-no clues, no leads, no suspects.”

“And there are other girls missing.” Qui

“It’s been slow, but we’re gathering evidence,” Qui

He glanced down at the outline of Rebecca Douglas. At least she would have a proper burial. Closure for her family. But not for him.

He thought of Miranda.

He started toward his truck. He’d already put in the call for all available law enforcement to head to this location. Then he heard the unique but familiar sound of a Jeep bouncing over the rough trail. He didn’t need to see the vehicle to know who approached.

“Damn.”

The red Jeep jerked to a stop behind Peterson’s rental. Almost before the truck halted, Miranda Moore jumped out, the mud no match for her heavy boots and confident stride. Deputy Booker approached her, and she glared at him without stopping as she pulled a red down-filled vest over her black fla

Then she focused her sharp blue eyes on him.

His heart quickened and his stomach lurched. If only he’d had more time to prepare for her inevitable arrival. If he’d been warned she was on her way, he could have steeled himself for the confrontation.

“Miranda,” he said as she approached, “I-”

“Damn you, Nick!” She poked a finger at his chest. “Damn you!” Nothing intimidated Miranda. Though she was tall for a woman-at least five-foot-nine-he had six inches and a hundred pounds on her. You’d think he’d intimidate her, that any man would frighten her after what she’d gone through, but he guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. She was a survivor. She didn’t expose her fear.

“Miranda, I was going to call you. I didn’t know for certain it was Rebecca. I didn’t want you to have to go through it again.”