Allison Brennan - The Kill

“He won’t be anywhere people might see or hear.”

“Agreed. He wants privacy, but he also wants accessibility. I’m thinking he’s already staked out a site.”

“He doesn’t need a lot to survive,” Olivia interjected. “His house was bare bones. Nothing extraneous. He won’t need a fire. He’ll plan ahead with a sleeping bag maybe, a space blanket. Water. Rations.”

“I agree,” Miranda said. “He was in the military; he knows how to live with minimal supplies. But he’s also going to want an escape route. He’s not going to isolate himself so much that he can be trapped.”

“But he’s been killing for years. He’s not going to think we’re on to him,” Olivia said. “We only learned his identity this morning.”

This morning? It had been a long day, Olivia realized. She rubbed her temples, suddenly weary. She was surprised when Zack reached over and massaged her neck with one hand.

She caught his eye.

“It’s almost over, Liv,” he said as if she were the only one in the copter. “We’re going to get him. Tonight.”

Miranda glanced from Olivia to Zack, then cleared her throat. “So, I’ve marked out grids on the map. The sheriff’s department is checking every trail off Road 56 to see if a truck has recently driven up it. They’re going in on horseback, vehicle, and foot. We have stations set up here-at the lodge where we can land-at this ranger’s station, and here, at the sheriff’s substation at the base of the mountain.”

“What if he sees the activity and kills her immediately?” Olivia asked.

“What else can we do?” Zack said. “If we do nothing, he’ll certainly kill her. But I assume, Miranda, you have a plan to minimize our activity.”

She nodded. “They’re radio silent. All conversation is via secure channels. If he’s monitoring commercial radio or television, then he’ll know we’ve identified him. We have his picture going up on all the networks throughout western Washington, and the Amber Alert is out, which puts his face and description on thousands of websites in the country. He’s not getting away. We just have to find him before he kills Nina.”

Zack studied the map. “Your husband said you were in search-and-rescue. Liv, I thought you said you two went to the FBI Academy together?”

“We did,” Miranda said. “I left before graduation. Long story.” She glanced at Olivia, and Olivia felt awful that her friend was covering for her. “I was the director of Search and Rescue in Montana before Quinn and I got married last June.”

“Oh.” Zack’s face darkened as he remembered. “ Oh . The Bozeman Butcher.”

“Yeah, well, that’s over.” A cloud fell over Miranda’s face and Olivia reached for her.

“I didn’t mean to bring it up,” Zack said.

“I’m fine. Now we have The Seattle Slayer on our hands. Don’t you just hate the crap the press comes up with?”

The pilot said, “I have a transmission coming in from Special Agent Quincy Peterson.”

“Put him through,” Zack said.

They all heard Quinn’s voice through the headphones.

“The sheriff’s department has found the truck 1.6 miles off of Road 56, well past the Boy Scout campground. They’ll meet you at the camp and take you there.”

“Nina?” Olivia asked, leaning forward.

“There’s no sign of Nina or Driscoll. The truck was in an accident-hit a deer. Air bags deployed, but there’s some blood in the cab. None in the back of the truck. What’s your ETA?”

“Four minutes to camp,” the pilot said.

“I’m about fifty minutes out. Doug Cohn and his assistant are with me. I have two agents following. And Travis, your partner Boyd found Driscoll’s car in the long-term parking lot at Sea-Tac. He’ll be in contact if there’s anything of use in the cab.”

“Thanks, Peterson. Out.”

Zack stared at the truck slammed against a redwood tree, one tire in a deep gully so the back tire didn’t even rest on the ground. In the middle of the road, a deer lay dead. It had barely been alive when the first sheriff deputies arrived on the scene; a park ranger had been summoned and he put the animal down just before Zack, Miranda, and Olivia arrived. Zack didn’t even have to look at the skid marks to surmise what had happened.

Deer crossed road, truck hit deer, and the impact forced the truck off the road, into a gully, and up against the tree.

“Why couldn’t the bastard be dead behind the wheel?” Zack muttered under his breath.

The deputy gave him a half-smile. “That’d be too easy.”

Zack didn’t want to disturb any evidence, but he needed as much information as he could get to figure out what had happened. Why Nina was not in the truck and where Driscoll had gone. Did he still have Nina? Was she alive? The sheriff’s department was bringing in additional lighting, but all they had now were a few heavy-duty flashlights.

The air bag had deployed and there was blood on it, as if Driscoll had hurt himself or perhaps got a bloody nose on impact. When Doug Cohn arrived, he would process the entire vehicle.

With gloved hands to avoid contaminating evidence, Zack went through the cab. He found maps, registration for Karl Burgess, some books on tape, a pair of movie ticket stubs. All appeared to be old, and likely left by the owners of the truck.

In the camper shell, Zack found ropes. Loops were still in them, and he held them, wondering what had happened.

Had Driscoll untied her? Had Nina freed herself? Had he heard the news reports and dumped her in the mountains-dead or alive-in order to escape?

Where had he gone?

Zack walked around to the front of the truck and put his hand on the hood. A hint of warmth. The accident probably happened an hour to ninety minutes ago.

He slowly circled the truck, sweeping his light back and forth. The third time around, something caught his eye.

He squatted, knees cracking, and picked up a shell casing. Was it new? There was no hunting allowed in this area of the Cascades, but that didn’t mean hunters hadn’t crossed the unmarked boundary.

He put it back where he’d found it, marking the spot with an evidence flag he’d taken from the deputy’s kit.

Standing, he looked around with his light. He saw it. Disturbed earth, footprints.

Driscoll’s flight path.

“Hey, Deputy.” Zack waited for the young cop to reach him. “This looks like a path of some sort. Where does it go?”

The deputy consulted a detailed map of the area. “Okay-the Boy Scouts use this area a lot, but primarily in the summer. The weather is too unpredictable in the fall. The main camp was where you landed… here. Two miles away. The Scouts mark off trails every year as part of their program. This path looks like one of theirs-it’s not on the map.”

“You don’t know where it goes?”

“Their program has the kids making paths with the goal to reach the main camp. There’re a lot of requirements; it’s been a long time since I was in the Scouts. But… less than half a mile from here is a fork of the Anchor River. He’d be able to follow the river all the way down the mountain. There’s enough foliage to hide. The spruce is pretty thick all through this region.”

“Okay, let’s assume he’s uninjured. On foot, it’s still going to take him hours to get down the mountain. We need a team of trackers to head to a lower part of the river and start working their way up; another set starting from here and trying to track him. We might be able to intercept him. He can only follow the river or come back up to this trail. From what I remember of the map, there are some sheer drop-offs west of the river.”

“Correct. How far down?”

Zack called, “Miranda? Miranda!” Quinn’s wife seemed to have an intuitive grasp of the terrain, though apparently she’d lived in Seattle only for a few months. She might have a good idea of how far Driscoll could get down the mountain with his lead time.