Loreth White - Manhunter

Her mouth flattened, and her eyes narrowed. “Don’t presume to know anything about me, Sergeant,” she said very quietly as she got to her own feet, meeting his aggressive posture toe to toe, her pulse accelerating. “Do you even know where the word ‘game’ comes from?”

Uncertainty flickered briefly in his eyes. She held his gaze, well aware of what her blue-eyed stare could do to a man. “Some say,” she continued, “that it was derived from the ancient Greek word gamos, meaning a ‘marriage,’ or ‘joining,’ as in a special kindred relationship between hunter and prey. And yes, when I hunt, Detective, that’s my game. A relationship, an emotional connection with my quarry. It’s the way things are done out here. We are all connected. And it’s the same game Kurtz Steiger plays.”

“What makes you think you know anything at all about this man?”

“Because I saw right there on that newscast that the Bush Man doesn’t use humans for simple target practice. That would be too easy. He flushes them out, strips them down to their most basic, atavistic impulses, then he puts them on the run, chases them for days sometimes, toying with their minds, playing on their mental weaknesses. He needs them to know he is out there, watching them, hunting them with an expectation of kill. He wants this relationship, and he wants it up close and personal, because he feeds off the smell of human fear.”

“And you think you’re telling me something new?”

She was angering him, but she was not going to back down and concede defeat now. “Yeah, I do think so,” she said. “It’s a small matter of perspective, Sergeant. It makes a huge difference.”

He exhaled angrily, dragging his hand over his hair. “Will you please just call me Gabe?”

Surprise rippled through Silver, and a smile tempted her lips. She almost gave in to it, but didn’t. “You need to see the wilds differently before you can ‘see’ Steiger,” she said. “Some of those law enforcement and military trackers might know how to cut from one footprint to the next, but the ones who can really ‘see’ know where to find their quarry without even looking, just from one track. Like an archaeologist can reconstruct an entire animal using a single bone, a good tracker can use one print to piece together an elaborate story of interlocking events. And that can lead him right to the source without taking a step.”

“That’s psychic bull.” He leaned closer, his mouth coming near hers, and her blood warmed. A tiny warning bell began to clang in the back of Silver’s brain, but she couldn’t stand down. She stared him straight in the eye instead.

“And a woman like you shouldn’t even begin to think of messing with a monster like Steiger.” His voice was low, gravelly.

“Why? Because I’m female?” she asked softly.

“Because I’ve seen what that man does to women. You may be good, Silver, but you’re not that good. You’re no match for him. I know this.”

“Maybe where you come from, Gabe, but out here, things are different. We know that the wolf, while strong, can still be outwitted by the hare.”

Silver turned and walked away, her pulse racing much too fast, her palms clammy, her mouth dry. She hadn’t meant to press him like that. God knew she should have let him be.

She was only making trouble for herself.

She sucked air in deeply, conscious once again of the tight ragged scar pulling across her chest—a reminder of just how carefully she needed to tread with Sergeant Gabriel Caruso.

He trekked down the hill toward Dawson City, late-morning mist shrouding the old gold rush boomtown that lay at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers. It was almost three days since his escape, and his face had been plastered all over the news. He needed to be careful.

In the town’s small library, he pulled the flaps of his fur-lined hunting cap down low, shading his profile as he began searching the Internet for information on Black Arrow Falls.

He’d taken the cap and some clothes from the small cabin by the river where he’d sewn up his leg. At a gas station a few miles out from the cabin, he’d crawled from the shadows and strapped himself under a logging rig. He’d heard the driver say he was heading north. He’d then liberated weapons from a hunting camp outside Whitehorse, busted into another remote cabin farther up the Klondike Highway, and found food and antiseptic for the leg wound still troubling him.

He’d cleaned up thoroughly each time, leaving no trace. He didn’t want to telegraph his actions to Caruso.

He wanted to surprise him.

And he felt controlled, the steady, throbbing pain in his leg keeping him on a keen edge. Pain was his friend. Patience the art of the predator.

Scrolling through the Yukon newspaper online archives, his attention was instantly snared by a Whitehorse Star online report about Silver Karvonen, a tracker who’d located an eleven-year-old boy north of Whitehorse last month, after everyone else had given up hope. He leaned closer. The story said she possessed a tracking skill bordering on psychic. But it was what the next line said that made the blood in his groin grow hot—Silver Karvonen was from Black Arrow Falls.

He quickly punched her name into a search engine.

Almost immediately he came across several articles dating back five years—Karvonen had been a person of interest in an RCMP homicide investigation into the death of an Alaskan bootlegger named David Radkin.

That man had been the father of Karvonen’s seven-year-old son, Johnny, who’d been found drowned and buried under a cairn of rocks near the remains of Radkin’s body in remote bush northwest of Black Arrow Falls near an abandoned gold mine.

It appeared that a bear had been lured to the site by bloody rags hung from a tree. This had piqued police interest. The RCMP had questioned Silver but hadn’t been able to prove anything. The bear had destroyed much of Radkin’s body, along with any evidence.

It remained an unsolved mystery.

He leaned even closer, poring over the grainy black-and-white photograph of what was clearly a wild and beautiful woman.

He felt that familiar tingling thrill of anticipation begin to flood through his belly, that glorious rush into his blood. And Kurtz Steiger knew immediately what he wanted.

Whatever game he chose to play up in Black Arrow Falls, Silver Karvonen was going to be the centerpiece. Worthy prey. A real hunt.

He logged out of the library computer and sensed the librarian suddenly watching him intently.

He paused, thinking fast.

The library was quiet.

The only other librarian had stepped out earlier. There were three elderly patrons besides himself in the facility, and they sat hidden from sight at a big square table situated behind a row of shelves. Steiger slid his eyes slowly up and met the librarian’s gaze squarely.

She swallowed.

He could see a quick flicker of recognition, yet there was also uncertainty in her eyes. She seemed unable to move, or to tear her gaze away from his riveting stare, mesmerized by some quality in him. He had that effect on people. He knew how to use it.

And he had maybe seconds before she reached for that phone sitting just inches from her hand.

Trapping her eyes with his, he scribbled something on a piece of paper, then surged smoothly to his feet, allowing a smile to curl over his lips as he approached her desk.

She looked up, terrified. “Can…I help you?”

He held out his hand, deepening his smile. “Could you tell me where this guide book is located?”

Confused, she dropped her gaze to his hand. Steiger used the instant to whip his hand to her shoulder, where he pressed down and dug his fingers down hard and fast into a pressure point at the base of her scrawny neck.