Allison Brennan - The Hunt

“I’m sorry.”

She jumped at the voice. “Quinn.”

He’d come down the path from the Lodge, but she’d been so focused on the newspaper she hadn’t heard him.

“I would have spared you if I could.”

She shook her head, tilted her chin up. “I’m fine,” she insisted, though seeing the photograph had unnerved her.

“You give Elijah Banks power when you get upset at his theatrics.”

“I’m not upset.” She was lying. By the look on Quinn’s face, he knew it.

“All right, I am upset, but I’ll get over it.” She paused, looked at him closely. “Why are you here?”

“I talked to Olivia this morning.”

“And?”

“She’ll be in Helena tonight.”

“Really? Maybe she can come down here. It’s not a long drive. I’d love to see her.”

“You have her cell number, call her.”

“I will.” She made a mental note to call Olivia tomorrow morning.

“I’m heading to the University,” Quinn said, “but I wanted to tell you about Olivia. If there’s anything in the evidence…”

“She’ll find it,” Miranda finished his thought.

“Right.” He walked up the steps to the edge of the porch where Miranda stood. Her heart skipped a beat as he stood as close to her as possible without touching.

“Miranda, we need to talk. About last night, about Quantico.”

She swallowed, wanting so much to forgive and forget, but unable to put aside the lump of betrayal in her soul. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

He stared into her eyes so long she glanced down.

“Miranda,” he whispered. Then he kissed her.

Long, hard, and fast, then he stepped back. The kiss left her breathless. She couldn’t speak.

“We will talk,” he said firmly. “Be careful today.”

He didn’t wait for her answer, but left the same way he’d come.

Having a federal badge opened some doors and closed others. The new Privacy Act required that Quinn get a warrant before the University would give him the information he wanted. It took him all morning to have one drawn up.

By the time he got back to the college, it was after lunch. Fortunately, MSU’s dean had already asked his secretary to pull the necessary records. They were boxed up and ready for him to take.

Four boxes. One hundred eighty-nine men.

By the time he arrived back at the Sheriff’s Department, he had some ideas how to narrow the list. He just needed people.

Nick gave him deputies Booker and Janssen. The selected files reflected students who’d listed Montana or nearby Idaho or Wyoming as their residence prior to attending the University. The killer had an intimate knowledge of the area, so it reasoned that he would have lived in or near Gallatin County.

Quinn assigned the deputies the task of going through the names and removing anyone who was married, had moved out of the country, or was deceased.

He stared at the murder board in Nick’s office and tried to think like the killer.

Why did he rape? Control. Anger.

Why did he need control? Because he didn’t have control over his own life, especially as a juvenile. Had he been in foster care? Orphaned? Sexually abused? Were both parents in the picture? Had one of them physically abused him as a child?

Overwhelmingly, serial killers were sexually and physically abused as prepubescent children. That common trait had been used by defense attorneys to thwart the death penalty or cast blame on someone other than the killer for their horrible crimes.

The sad truth was that many children were abused-sexually, physically, emotionally. But most didn’t grow up to become serial killers. While Quinn felt compassion for the abused children the killers had been, he held no such feelings for them as adults.

The Butcher took sick pleasure in torturing his victims before killing them. But there were two distinct trademarks that made him different from most other sadistic killers. If only Quinn could understand the Butcher’s reasoning, he could get deeper into his mind and maybe closer to a suspect. It was a difficult task: serial killers were logical in their own calculation, but understanding that logic was virtually impossible if you didn’t have all the pieces.

Several crucial pieces were still missing.

The Butcher’s first distinctive trademark was his victims’ imprisonment. That was about control. He both hurt them and cared for them-if you could call feeding them bread and water “caring.” He said only a few words to them, and those were delivered with disinterest. The women were possessions, objects to do with whatever he pleased. Their screams neither excited him nor bothered him; they were irrelevant. Just holding them captive excited him.

The second-and perhaps unique-trademark was releasing the women for the hunt. There was always the chance they would escape. He seemed to revel in the game, giving them time to run before pursuing them. Not a lot of time, though. And the women were injured and demoralized in the process.

Not only did Quinn wonder why the Butcher hadn’t gone after Miranda, he was surprised the Butcher continued to release and hunt his other victims after her escape.

Maybe he didn’t give them as much time before starting the hunt. Maybe he kept them weaker. Or maybe he thought Miranda was an anomaly, and he had to repeatedly prove to himself he could still hunt successfully, that he was capable of complete dominance and control. Maybe he kept Miranda alive as a reminder of his one failure.

Quinn shook his head. He was starting to think in circles. He had no idea why the killer hadn’t gone after Miranda. If he were a sadistic rapist who got off on hunting women for sport, he sure wouldn’t let one get away. It seemed out of character somehow, and that bothered Quinn.

At five he headed out to meet with Olivia at the airport, leaving the two deputies to weed out suspects from the University list. By the time he returned in the morning, he expected to have a short list.

His instincts told him the Butcher would be on it.

Miranda found herself looking for Quinn that evening as she sat in the Lodge dining hall picking at a late supper her dad had prepared for her. She didn’t want him to worry, but she wasn’t hungry.

However, she had a strange craving for pecan pie.

She told her dad to go ahead and relax in his rooms, she’d take care of her dishes and close down the kitchen. She needed something to do to keep her mind off the Butcher.

Even if staying up was simply an excuse to see Quinn when he came in.

As she finished wiping down the counters, she heard voices in the lobby. Quinn. She rushed out, surprised to see Nick talking to Gray.

“Nick. Is something wrong?”

“No,” he said. “I was in the area and decided to stop by.”

“I’ll make some coffee,” she said.

“You don’t have to. Frankly, I’ve had enough caffeine. Share a drink with me?”

Drinking with Nick was the last thing she wanted to do. Not because she didn’t like his company-she did-but because it felt strange to sit alone with one ex-boyfriend while the other-Quinn-could walk in at any moment. She hadn’t really thought about her intimate relationships with the two men until now, and it unnerved her.

But Nick was a friend first, so she smiled. “Sure. Gray? You want to join us?”

He shook his head. “I’m beat. I need to be up early to greet some seniors coming in from Los Angeles. They’ll be here a few days.”

Gray bid them good night and left.

Miranda led Nick into the bar, motioning toward a bar stool while she used the pass-through to grab his favorite beer. She opened one for herself.

“Thanks.”

“Cheers.” She tipped her bottle at him, then took a long swallow.