Allison Brennan - The Hunt

But his dad was too busy now for long excursions to the lake.

Sometimes it took all day to catch a decent-sized trout or bass. Sometimes you didn’t catch anything, but that was okay. Because it was the fishing, the waiting, the freedom that made all the difference in the world. Not the catching.

But Sean and Timmy didn’t understand that.

Neither did his father, though he tried.

Ryan watched the people below, so small they looked like ants. He squinted and held up his fingers. So big. Less than a quarter-inch.

They didn’t even know he was here.

He just wanted to see what they found. For some reason, he thought if they found the guy who killed that girl, he could sleep easier. It was as if the girl were a doe, her neck sliced, her eyes wide and unfocused and staring.

Ryan didn’t like that. People were people and animals were animals, but someone had treated that girl like an animal. It wasn’t right.

When most of the sheriff’s people started down the old logging path, Ryan stood and brushed the dirt from his worn jeans. He had to be getting back, anyway. Because he’d left Ranger in the stable, it’d take him an hour to get home and he didn’t want his mom to worry. She didn’t ask a lot of questions, but she always knew if he was lying.

Ryan didn’t lie, really. But sometimes, he didn’t want to tell the truth. Avoiding conversations was the best way to handle his mom.

He followed the narrow springtime creek down the ridge, toward the wider path that led to the boundary of their ranch. He spotted hoofprints and frowned. They looked fresh, but he hadn’t noticed any of the searchers coming this high up the ridge. Whoever it was, though, needed to reshoe his poor horse. The right hind hoof had lost a couple of nails, and the loose rocks and dirt would be getting under the shoe and embedding in the horse’s hooves.

Lost in thought, he almost missed it.

The sun reflected off something in his path and he stopped to bend down and examine it.

At first he thought two snake eyes were glaring at him, ready to strike, and he teetered back onto his heels. He regained his balance and looked more carefully at the object.

It wasn’t a snake, of course. The two eyes were small, dark gems. Deep green, like the pine trees at dusk. The gems were embedded in a simple silver belt buckle carved to look like a bird. Like an eagle. The gems were its eyes.

He reached out and picked it up, surprised when a piece of leather came with it, still attached to the buckle. Examining the end, it was obviously frayed and probably broke off when a hunter or hiker stopped on this high ledge to take a pee.

Ryan hesitated as he stared at the buckle. Should he take it to that FBI agent? Maybe it would be important to the investigation. His heart beat with excitement. The Untouchables was his favorite movie, and he never missed Without a Trace , the show about finding missing people.

But his excitement turned to worry. His father had told him specifically not to bother the sheriff. And he’d lied to his mother about where he was going. She would flip. She wouldn’t yell or spank him or anything, but she had this look , and the look was scarier than any punishment.

He shivered and pulled his jacket closer, though the day was warming nicely. Stuffing the buckle into his pocket, he continued down the narrow trail toward home. If he saw Sheriff Thomas again, he’d show him the buckle.

It was probably nothing, anyway. Just some guy pissing in the woods.

Every muscle in her body tense, Miranda followed Quinn, Nick, and the others down the path to the clearing they’d discovered the day before.

Nick had called in Pete Knudson, a ranger she’d often worked with on searches. If they found a bullet lodged in a tree, he would either cut out a segment or fell the whole tree in order to collect the bullet for evidence.

The tension gave her a mind-numbing headache she attempted to tame by swallowing three aspirin with a swig of water from her canteen. She could easily blame her pain on lack of sleep, a sparse appetite, or the stress of the Butcher claiming another victim. But she held Quinn responsible for the bulk of her discomfort. His presence unnerved her in ways she hadn’t imagined.

For years, she’d lied to herself that his betrayal at the Academy hadn’t mattered. Though hurt at the time, she reasoned, she’d come back to Bozeman and made a good life for herself. After four years on the Search and Rescue team, she accepted the lead position when her boss, Manny Rodriguez, took a job down in Colorado. Her team, the two paid staff members and the more than two dozen volunteers she could call upon, trusted her.

“Miranda?” Nick said, falling into step with her, his ruggedly handsome face tight with concern.

“I’m fine,” she answered the unspoken question.

“Yeah.” He glanced at Quinn, who led the group.

“What happened at the autopsy?” She tried to sound professional but was unable to keep her voice from cracking.

“I left before Doc Abrams was done, but it’s the same guy.”

“We knew that.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Quinn,” Nick said, his voice low so no one could overhear.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you yesterday. You didn’t deserve it after seeing Rebecca like that.”

Nick still tried to shield her from reliving her seven days in hell. He didn’t understand that while she couldn’t escape the past, helping to find these girls gave her a measure of peace. She was doing everything she could to find the Butcher. And someday, he would be stopped.

She hoped to be there when he was captured. She had to be, as if helping to catch him would release her from daily remembrance and nightly terrors.

Nick let out a long breath. “Truce?”

“I can never stay mad at you for long.” She smiled at him. She loved Nick. Just not the way he wanted.

She had tried. For three years she struggled to give him her heart. She wanted to fully love him. But the more she tried, the harder it became. Friendship, loyalty, strength-these were things she freely gave and received from her ex-lover. But her heart was still broken, and Nick couldn’t put together the pieces.

She glanced up at the only man who could.

Quinn felt like he was being watched. He paused at the edge of the clearing to collect his bearings, looked behind him, and caught Miranda’s eye. For a split second, he thought he saw something other than anger on her long, narrow face. For a moment he saw a flicker of desire in her dark eyes, a physical need and emotional longing he vividly remembered from their past. A bolt of lightning would have jolted him less. He blinked.

Whatever he thought he saw was gone. Miranda’s lips were locked in a rigid line, her face blank, her eyes narrowed and filled with suspicion and caution.

He turned back to the crew, eased his backpack off his shoulders, and removed his jacket. He took a long swig of cold water from his canteen to quench the heat that had risen inside him at the thought that Miranda still had feelings for him.

While the temperature had been in the midforties this morning, the sun now spread a pleasant blanket of warmth on the new growth field. Under normal circumstances, the hike they’d just made would have been invigorating and enjoyable.

Nick’s deputies looked at him with a mixture of arrogance and wariness. Taking directions from a Fed was not in their rule book, but damn if he was going to let inter-agency hostility interfere with this investigation.

Quinn cleared his throat and said, “You’ll see the orange flags where Ms. Moore and I discovered evidence yesterday. I want to find the bullets fired, if possible.” He turned to address Deputy Booker. “Sheriff Thomas says you’re the best shot in the department.”