The Hunt

He needed to appeal to that side of her.

Not the side that watched her brother rape nearly two dozen women.

“Delilah? Can you come out so we can talk?”

“No! He’s doing it wrong!”

Delilah was angry and Miranda glanced from her to Qui

Delilah had been hiding behind a hollowed-out, rotting tree. Her goal was to shoot Qui

But Qui

Qui

“No!” Delilah jumped up and strode over to Miranda, the tip of the gun touching her head. Miranda couldn’t stop shaking. She’d seen Dick Walters’s body. Delilah would kill her, too.

And she would kill Qui

“Put the gun down so we can talk,” Qui

“No, no, no!” Delilah kicked the ground. “Don’t you see?” she shouted. “Don’t you get it? She has to die. But it doesn’t mean anything unless she sees you die, too. She killed Davy. She needs to suffer for taking him. Don’t you see that?”

“Delilah, I understand what you’re going through,” Qui

“You know nothing about grief.”

“Try me.”

“No. You’re buying time. What are you doing? Getting a SWAT team to run in here and shoot me? Well, I’ll tell you, your girlfriend’ll die too.”

Delilah’s hand was steady, but she sweated profusely. Her eyes kept darting back and forth, like a rodent’s. Miranda waited for an opportunity to do something, but she had no idea what. She watched Qui

He moved closer.

“Delilah, you don’t mean that. You made some wrong choices, but you didn’t kill any of those girls, right?”

“Who cares? No one cared when I told them what my mother did to Davy. They didn’t believe me.”

“I believe you, Delilah.”

“I’m not stupid, Special Agent Peterson,” she shouted. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get me to break down in remorse and say I’m sorry. Well I’m not sorry. The only thing I’m sorry about is I didn’t let Davy kill this bitch-” she kicked Miranda in the side “-when she got away.”

Miranda started to close her eyes, ready for the pain of a bullet, when she saw Qui

Get low.

From the opposite side of the field, a voice shouted, “Mom! Don’t!”

Delilah turned and the gun moved away from Miranda’s head. Miranda leaned down as far as she could.

“Ryan? You would betray me too?” Delilah turned the gun toward her son.

Then the noise.

Whap! Whap whap whap whap whap!

Delilah’s body was thrown backward into the tree as the bullets hit her. She fell into Miranda’s lap, her eyes looking right into Miranda’s.

“Peace,” she gurgled.

Her body jerked and she died. Miranda stared at Delilah Parker’s dead body.

Qui

Qui

He kissed her, held her close. “I’m sorry we had to bring in Ryan, but-I only did it as a last resort.”

“I know.”

“Now, Miranda, it’s really over.”