Allison Brennan - The Hunt

Nick had his personal map at his side and began plotting ownership records. He pulled the history on every parcel himself because he didn’t trust the staff at the Recorder’s office to keep his interest in the property records secret.

And if nothing came from it, he certainly didn’t want to see another failure highlighted under Eli Banks’s byline.

Quinn wanted to know what Miranda was thinking.

They’d met up at search headquarters well after the dinner hour. Neither had eaten, and Quinn suggested they go out for a meal. She’d almost said yes. He could see it in her eyes.

Instead, she told him her father would have something waiting for her. Since they both planned on coming back to the University first thing in the morning, Quinn asked if she wanted to ride back to the Lodge with him. Surprisingly, she agreed and climbed into his passenger seat.

He tried to ring Nick, but he didn’t answer his cell phone or pager. Not a surprise; when Quinn talked to him earlier in the afternoon, Nick had sounded short and testy. The pressure from the news media was intense, but Quinn hoped Nick would ignore it. That was usually the best recourse in these situations.

The priority was finding Ashley van Auden.

Quinn had further narrowed the list of men from Penny’s time at MSU to forty-three. He still had the two deputies Booker and Janssen working on preliminary background checks for each and every one of them. In the morning he hoped to be able to whittle the list down even more, to under thirty; but either way, he’d split the list with Nick and his senior investigators to start the laborious process of interviewing each man.

It could lead nowhere. But at this juncture, unless Olivia found something in the evidence to point them in a different direction, he was out of ideas.

He couldn’t count on JoBeth Anderson regaining consciousness. Or, if she did, that she would be able to name or describe her attacker. He hoped it would happen, but witnesses popping out of a coma at just the right time to finger the killer only happened in B-movies.

Still, he prayed she would fully recover and have information leading them to a suspect. Before Ashley van Auden died.

He glanced over at Miranda as he turned down the long paved drive that led to the Lodge.

“You okay?”

“Twenty-four hours since he took Ashley. I feel like I’m counting down. Time is against us. We can’t possibly cover every grid on the map.”

He hated the defeat in her voice. “Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t start imagining the worst.”

“It’s hard not to, Quinn,” she whispered. “I keep up the front with the search team, with Nick-with you-but every time I close my eyes, I picture Ashley chained and cold.”

Quinn pulled into the employee parking behind the Lodge and cut the engine. A security light outside the kitchen entrance illuminated the immediate area, but they still had privacy.

He reached for her; her body was rigid. “Miranda, I wish I could take the images and feelings for you. I would do anything to erase the pain in your heart. You know that, don’t you?”

She looked at him. The artificial light reflected off her eyes, making them appear bottomless. He wanted to kiss her, to hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right, to take her to bed and keep her nightmares at bay.

He reached out and touched her cheek.

“I never stopped loving you.”

Miranda’s heart rate quickened as she stared into Quinn’s eyes. He looked sincere. She didn’t know what to believe. Her head told her to forgive him, that in many ways he was right to have done what he did. However, in her heart, she felt he’d never truly trusted her, that his faith in her was fragile.

“Quinn, I don’t know how we can ever go back.”

He blinked, a wave of hurt crossing his face. She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t know what to do.

Quinn tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. The gesture was so intimate she had to glance down. He used to do the exact same thing all the time when they were together before. One simple touch and memories of how much she had loved him flooded back, filling her first with warmth, then apprehension.

They couldn’t go back. She was a different person today than ten years ago when she was a naÏve wannabe FBI agent.

His light caress gave her an electric connection she hadn’t had in a long, long time. It was as if he could read her mind, as if he knew that she ached inside and couldn’t say the words. That she longed to be held by him again, to just be held without talking or explanations or awkwardness.

She stared at him, wanting so much to share her feelings, to be held, to make love. Slowly, tenderly, the way he’d made love to her the first time.

She turned her lips to his hand and kissed his palm. It was all she could do not to fall into his arms.

But she had to think about these feelings. Think about the repercussions. Could she trust him? Did he trust her?

It hurt that she didn’t have an answer to these questions.

“Good night,” she whispered, and jumped out of the car before she changed her mind.

She heard Quinn’s door open and close.

“I’ll walk you to your cabin,” he said.

She shook her head. “Dad waited up for me.” She nodded toward the lights in the Lodge.

She walked through the brisk evening air the few feet to the rear door. She felt Quinn’s gaze at her back and wondered what would happen if she turned back and asked him to come with her. She wanted to. God, she wanted to.

But what if he used her emotional vulnerability against her? Took her off the search, took her away from the case? Even as she thought it, she realized he’d been nothing but supportive after the first day. If he had any doubts about her, he was keeping them to himself.

But she had doubts. For ten years she’d been certain that Quinn had taken what she’d shared in confidence about her feelings, her fears, her damaged psyche, and used them against her to have her kicked out of Quantico. Yet it had as much to do with her own insecurities and fear as it did with anything Quinn may or may not have done.

It was better to put a little distance between herself and Quinn. Better to forget their past. Forget the kiss in the kitchen. Forget how he touched her with fingers that seared her skin and made her feel like a woman again.

She still felt his touch on her cheek, and she longed for so much more.

She closed the cabin door, shutting Quinn behind her. Her emotions were too raw, too close to the surface. She had to keep her distance. Because he could so easily break her heart all over again.

Quinn dialed Olivia as soon as he stepped into his room at the Lodge. Still, he couldn’t get his mind off Miranda.

She was driving him crazy. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, didn’t want to stop. He wanted to sit her down in a chair and talk it out. But Miranda wasn’t the type of woman to have a reasoned conversation. She acted on instinct, reacted on emotion.

He’d explained his actions at Quantico in painstaking detail in a letter she’d returned unopened. He’d tried to talk to her then; he had to find a way to make her listen now. If he could just find the right words, he knew she’d understand and forgive him. But both his decision and her subsequent actions had snowballed into a huge web of complex feelings he didn’t know how to untangle.

He was so proud of what she’d accomplished this last decade, both professionally and personally. But the Butcher still haunted her and she wouldn’t let anyone in to help.

He ran a hand through his hair as he paced the large bedroom.

Damn the woman. Didn’t he just tell her he’d never stopped loving her? Yet she still walked away.