Allison Brennan: The Hunt

Predator – #2

I don’t want to die.

Her breath came in shallow gasps, her mouth gaped open as she violently pulled air in and pushed it out. In. Out. Focus. Run, Miranda, run! But be quiet. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Wasn’t that a Dr. Seuss book? A hysterical giggle threatened to escape but she swallowed the sound. Quiet. Above all, breathe quietly.

Miranda grimaced at the thrashing behind her. A sob escaped from her friend. Sharon, shut up ! she wanted to scream. He’ll hear you! He’ll kill us !

She ran faster even though Sharon was falling farther and farther behind. Daylight was scarce. One, two hours left at the most.

If they didn’t make it to the river, he would find them.

I don’t want to die. I’m too young. Please God, I’m only twenty-one. I won’t die! Not here, not like this.

Miranda’s sight blurred as sweat dripped into her eyes. She didn’t dare wipe her face for fear of losing her balance on the rocky terrain. Her bare feet ached with each step, but they were so cold only the sharper rocks cut through the numbness. Watch where you’re going! One wrong step and you’ll break your leg and he’ll find you.. .

A faint, familiar echo reached her ears. She wanted to stop and listen but didn’t dare slow her pace. She scurried another hundred feet before putting a name to the sound.

Water! Running water.

It had to be the river. What she’d promised Sharon would lead to freedom. She silently thanked Professor Austin and his tedious geology class. Without it, she wouldn’t have known where to run, wouldn’t have recognized the signs indicating a river was close. After the miles she and Sharon had already covered, surely now they would make it.

From behind, a shriek.

Miranda stopped at Sharon’s startled cry, then whipped around, her heart gripped with dread. Sprawled on the hard ground, Sharon lay half obscured by undergrowth, sobbing in pain.

“Get up!” Miranda urged, panic clawing her.

“I can’t,” Sharon sobbed, her face buried in decaying leaves.

“Please,” Miranda begged, not wanting to backtrack. She glanced over her shoulder, toward freedom. The water so close.

She looked back at Sharon and bit her lip. He was still out there. If she stopped to help her friend, he’d kill them both.

She took a step toward the river. Guilt tickled Miranda’s spine. She knew she could make it alone.

“Go,” Sharon said.

Miranda almost missed the single word. Her eyes widened at the implication. “No, not without you. Get up!”

For a moment, Miranda thought Sharon hadn’t heard her, whether by choice or distance. Then, slowly, the blonde pushed herself up on all fours. Sharon’s terrified eyes locked with Miranda’s. Please, Sharon, please , Miranda willed. Time is running out .

Sharon grabbed a small sapling and braced herself. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

Miranda sighed in relief as Sharon took a shaky step forward. She began to turn toward the river, toward freedom.

Whap-whap!

The shot echoed in the forest. The flutter of wings and the squawking of startled birds broke the silence. As Miranda watched, Sharon’s chest opened. Deep red, darkened by shadows of dusk, spread across the filthy white shirt. In the moment between life and death, Miranda watched Sharon’s stunned expression turn to bliss. Relief.

Death was better than suffering.

“Sharon!” She covered her mouth with her hand, tasting and smelling rotting dirt. The coppery scent of blood hung in the air. Her chest heaved with mute sobs as she watched Sharon’s body fall to the ground.

“Run.”

That voice . Bloodcurdling in its dry, grave monotone. The same emotionless pulse he’d used when he fed them and whipped them; when he touched them or raped them.

She trembled even before she recognized his silhouette. In camouflage pants and a thick black coat, he stood among the trees, face obscured by a cap and the darkening sky. Three hundred feet away? Two hundred? Closer? She would never make it. She would die.

His shout echoed through the mountainside. He took one step forward, cradling a rifle. He brought the stock up to his shoulder.

Miranda ran.

Twelve Years Later

Nick Thomas stared at the outline of the petite body under the blinding yellow tarp. He pinched the bridge of his nose, swallowing anger so bitter he could taste it. The foul stench of death surrounded him and he turned away.

He still pictured the dead, broken body of twenty-year-old Rebecca Douglas as he’d found her only an hour ago.

“Sheriff?”

Nick looked up as Deputy Lance Booker approached. He was clean-cut, a good cop, though a mite wet behind the ears. Much like Nick had been twelve years ago when he’d been called out to his first murder scene. “Deputy.”

“Jim said there’s a guy claiming to be an FBI agent at the road wanting to be let through. Quincy Peterson.”

Quinn. Nick hadn’t seen him in years, ten to be exact, but they’d shared an e-mail relationship since he was elected sheriff more than three years ago. After the Croft sisters had been found.

Now there were seven dead girls. Seven that they knew about.

“Let him through.”

“Yes, sir.” Booker frowned, but relayed the orders through his walkie-talkie. In matters that would as a rule fall under their local jurisdiction, no law officer welcomed outside interference, and usually Nick was no different. He didn’t mention that it was his call to Quinn last week that precipitated this visit.

Nick turned and walked away from the deputy, away from the bright tarp, down the path to where Rebecca Douglas’s last steps were evident. He squatted next to an unusable footprint, a mess in wet, hardening mud. It might have been Rebecca’s last step. Or the killer’s. It had rained nearly three inches in the last two days, a deluge that saturated a ground recently recovered from a cold, wet Montana winter. The clouds had broken this morning, the sky such a vivid blue and the air so refreshing that Nick would have enjoyed it if he hadn’t been called to a crime scene.

He closed his eyes and breathed the clean, crisp air of his Gallatin Valley. He loved Montana, the vast beauty and sheer majesty of its mountains, its swift rivers, green valleys, big sky. The people were good, too, down-to-earth. They cared about their neighbors, took care of their own. When Rebecca Douglas was declared missing, hundreds of men and women-many from the university where she’d been a student-had scoured the wilderness between Bozeman and Yellowstone looking for her.

Nick’s jaw tightened in restrained fury. Good people, but for one. One who had killed Rebecca and at least six other women in the past fifteen years. And other women were still missing. Would they ever find their bodies? Had the harsh Montana weather or four-legged animals obliterated their remains? He’d never forget finding Penny Thompson’s remains-nothing but a skull and scattered bones. She was identified through her dental records.

Nick surveyed the area. Tall pines grew primarily downslope; as the mountain rose the trees thinned out. The ancient, heavily overgrown road he’d driven on was unmapped. Possibly an old logging trail, it appeared to end here, in this natural clearing roughly thirty feet square. On the edge of this clearing, Rebecca’s body lay.