The Hunt (26 page)

If he left, what would happen to them? Who would watch them? Track them? Protect them?

No. He wasn’t leaving. And she couldn’t make him.

Besides, he hadn’t finished with the blonde he had hidden away. He couldn’t leave until he was done with her.

Slap!

He raised his hand to his cheek, the heat from her assault spreading from his head to the rest of his body. He stared at her—he’d almost forgotten she was standing in front of him, talking.

“You haven’t listened to a word I said! I swear, you’re nothing more than a fool. Get your stuff together.
Now!
”

“No.”

He sounded calm. In fact, he felt free. He savored his defiance.

“What?” She sounded shocked. Good.

“I’m not leaving. Not yet.” He took a step toward her. He was seven inches taller than The Bitch, but he’d never felt bigger until now. He straightened his spine and stared her down.

She glanced away first, taking a step back. Was that fear on her face? Yes, it was. He knew that look well. He just never had thought he’d see it on her.

For years she’d coddled and neglected him; loved and hated him; protected and hurt him.

She no longer had any power over him. The years washed away.

Her eyes darted right and left, but she smiled. A shaky smile.

She knew.

“Sweetheart,” she said in that cooing voice of hers. “Be reasonable.”

“I’m not leaving until the eggs are hatched.”

“But—”

His hand came down across her face and she staggered backward.

He didn’t know who was more startled—her or him. He’d never raised a hand to her. Never seriously considered it.

But she’d never attacked his birds before.

He grew under the power of her fear. The tables had turned.

“You can do whatever you damn well please,” he told her. “I’m not leaving.”

CHAPTER

23

Nick remembered the first time he got drunk. Not simple intoxication. Mind-numbing, porcelain-god-bowing, ground-worshipping drunk.

He would gladly trade the pain in his head now for a three-day hangover.

A moan escaped his parched lips, the faint sound making his headache worse. His eyelids felt crusted with sand and shut tight by weights. Just the thought of moving intensified the pain.

But he was alive. That, he knew. Surely there wasn’t pain when you were dead? Unless hell existed and he’d done something bad enough to merit eternal damnation. The way he felt now, he might prefer hell.

Cold seeped through the pain in his head. He shivered, then moaned from the pain of moving. Though deeply chilled, he wasn’t outside. He was lying on his side, something harder than the ground beneath him. A wood floor. The smells. Mold. Urine. Dead animals. The musty stench of layer upon layer of damp dirt.

He tried to move his arm. His hands were numb, but not from the cold. They were bound behind him. He breathed deeply, riding the tide of pain as he exhaled. His breath came right back at him; his face was up against a wall.

What had happened? He’d been driving . . . where? That’s right, to the small A-frame on the far southern boundary of Judge Parker’s vast land holdings.

He hadn’t seen anything suspicious and was about to head home. A complete waste of time, and he remembered thinking he was glad he hadn’t bothered Quinn. He’d turned, seen a pair of boots, and thought it odd that they sat by the side door of an unused cabin.

He’d reached for his gun, but someone hit him from behind. He hadn’t heard a thing, only felt a sharp pain . . . then nothing.

Until now.

Had his attacker been sitting in the dark in Parker’s cabin the entire time Nick had been walking the perimeter? Why? Had someone broken in? Were people using it illegally? Or did Parker know them?

Was his far-reaching theory true about the Butcher using it as home base?

Nick knew with certainty that he wasn’t in Parker’s cabin. The foul odors and deep cold suggested a makeshift cabin or small shack.

Deep cold. Miranda hated the cold because of what the Butcher had done. Now, Nick was in the same position. Bound, on a cold wood floor.

Could Richard Parker be the Butcher?

Nick couldn’t imagine the judge he’d known his entire adult life torturing women. But he partly fit the profile, didn’t he? Maybe a little older. And he was married and certainly not a loner. But Parker was physically fit and had been raised hunting and fishing in southwest
Montana
. Of course, the most damning evidence was that Nick had been attacked at Parker’s cabin.

FBI profiles could be wrong. The thought that Parker could be the Butcher sickened Nick. He remembered all the times he’d gone to the judge for help getting additional resources. The strings Parker had pulled to get the county to allocate more resources for searches that always ended with bad news. Could Parker have been laughing from the sidelines, knowing how wrong the police were in their analysis? Did he get some sort of sick pleasure watching Miranda search for women he held captive?

There was no concrete proof the Butcher was Parker. The killer could have staked out the cabin, seen that it was rarely used, and stayed there without incident. Or Parker could have rented it or loaned it to a friend.

Shit. He should have left the damn message on Quinn’s voice mail. They could have surveilled Parker, put an undercover team on the house, dug deeper into Parker’s past.

He’d spent so much time second-guessing himself this week that he hadn’t listened to his instincts. Now he was paying the price.

A slight noise, a rustling, made him jump. Rodents? A bear?

No. The sound hadn’t come from outside.

He wasn’t alone.

Nick didn’t know how he knew it, but all at once he sensed someone else breathing the same air he was. Then he heard it. A faint whisper.

The pounding beneath his skull was so loud it took him a minute to understand the words.

“Who’s there? Who’s there?”

He tried to speak, but it came out a moan.

“Who’s there?” Whispered. Hoarse. Female.

He licked his dry lips. “Sheriff.” The effort to speak hurt.

“Who?”

Dammit, he could barely think, let alone talk.

He forced himself to swallow. “Sheriff. Thomas.” He spoke each word carefully.

“Sheriff?”

Nick realized then that the person wasn’t whispering. The voice was hoarse. Like when his brother Steve had laryngitis back in high school.

Or a throat raw from repeated screaming.

“Ashley?” Even speaking single words pained him, but he had to get over it. He was certain he had a concussion. And there was something wrong with his legs. Maybe they were bound as well, but he couldn’t feel anything below his waist. Nick’s entire body was cold and numb.

But he was alive. He planned on staying alive. And keeping Ashley van Auden alive, too. How he would do this was another story. He didn’t know where he was, what time it was, or how the hell to get out of here.

“Yes.” Her voice squeaked out, then ended in a sob. She was so close that if he wasn’t bound he could reach out and touch her. “He’s going to kill us. He’s going to kill us. It’s him. The Butcher. He’s going to kill us like all those others—”

“Shhh.”

Ashley repeated her mantra over and over, making Nick’s head throb. He tried to shush her, but couldn’t, so he tried to ignore her. That failed, too.

“Ashley. Ashley.” He repeated her name until she finally stopped sobbing.

She whimpered. “What?”

“We need to plan. Think.” Think? Hell, he could barely calculate two plus two.

“I don’t want to die,” she sobbed.

Neither did he. “At some point he’ll release you.”

“And then he’ll kill me! I know what he did to Rebecca Douglas. H-h-he slit her throat. He k-k-killed her!”

“Ashley. Stop.” Nausea rose in his throat and his mind swam, dizzy. He took in as big a breath as he could; eased it out. In. Out. He couldn’t lose consciousness again. It was too dangerous for both of them.

“Sheriff?”

From the concern in her whisper, he must have dozed off or passed out for a minute. “I’m here.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

“Sorry.” He exhaled. “Do you know where you are?”

“No. I’m blindfolded. I can’t see anything.”

“Did you see anyone when you were kidnapped?”

“No,” she sobbed. “No one. Ohmygod, Jo! She’s not here, she hasn’t answered me. She’s dead, isn’t she? She’s dead.” Ashley started sobbing hysterically. It took Nick several minutes to calm her down. It wouldn’t do any good for Ashley to know her friend was in a coma, so he lied.

“JoBeth is going to be fine. She’s in the hospital, but she’s going to be fine.”

“Thank God, thank God.”

Did the Butcher think Nick knew his identity? He must have felt threatened somehow to have attacked him at the cabin.

If that was the case, there was no way the Butcher would give Nick a chance to escape. Unless he found a way out, he was as good as dead.

“No matter what, when you get out of here, run. Don’t do the expected. Try to cover your tracks. Avoid screaming or even breathing too loud. Stay in the trees. If it’s night and you can’t go on, bury yourself under leaves and hide. But as much as you can, run.” He pictured a map of the places the Butcher chased the women. Everything was south of the interstate, west of Gallatin Gateway. “Head northeast as much as possible. Eventually, in a day, maybe two or three, you’ll hit the main road.”

“How do you know?”

“I know his hunting ground.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll stay with you if I can.”

She didn’t say anything. Maybe she knew how injured he was. Or maybe she thought he wouldn’t be released.

Several moments passed, and Nick thought Ashley had gone to sleep. “He hurt me.”

Her voice was faint. Pleading. Almost childlike.

“I know, honey. I’m sorry.” He was so sorry. Her abduction was partly his failure. He hadn’t been able to protect the women in his town from the madman who stalked them.

That hurt as much as the pain in his head.

Lying here, on the cold, hard floor, Nick knew they were in a dire situation. The Butcher would be back before anyone could find them. No matter how many people were out searching, they’d never be able to cover enough ground.

He had to think, come up with a plan to save Ashley and himself.

But he feared it was already too late.

CHAPTER

24

Miranda knocked on the door of Professor Austin’s basement office in Traphagen Hall. It hadn’t changed in the fifteen years since she’d taken his class. Rocks were the prominent decorative item in the overstuffed office. Topographical maps of the western United States filled the walls along with faded charts of rock and soil comparisons. The entire room smelled like dirt and paper.

Professor Austin had already been old when Miranda was in his class; he hadn’t changed. His white hair stood straight up, and his beard needed a trim. But his emerald eyes sparkled with recognition when Miranda cleared her throat to catch his attention.

“If it isn’t Miranda Moore!” He stood, not noticing or caring when a stack of papers hit the floor, some sliding under his desk. No wonder he’d lost their midterm essays fifteen years ago.

“Hi, Professor,” she said as he gave her a hard slap on the back and a wide grin.

“It hasn’t been so long that you forgot to call me Glen?”

“Sorry.” On the first day of class, Professor Austin insisted everyone call him by his first name. The problem was, he
looked
like a professor, and Miranda always felt uncomfortable calling him something as informal as “Glen.” Maybe if his name were Archibald . . .

“What brings you here so early?”

“The Rebecca Douglas murder.”

The professor’s face clouded. “Poor girl.”

“The investigators found something unusual and I thought you might be able to help.”

“Me?” He sat on the corner of his desk and more papers toppled to the floor. He motioned for Miranda to sit in the single chair.

She removed a large box of books from the seat before sitting. “There’s an unusual soil sample that’s been sent to the FBI lab at Quantico for testing. It’s red. Like brick. The lab technician says it’s clay. I couldn’t think of any place around here that had red clay or soil. I thought maybe you would know of some place.”

“Hmmm.” He looked beyond Miranda, over her shoulder at the wall behind her, lost in thought. “There’s an area over by Three Forks along the
Missouri
, but I wouldn’t call it brick-colored. Red dirt. Hmmm.” He thought again, then jumped up suddenly, startling Miranda.

He crossed to the crammed bookshelf, pulled out a thick tome, and turned to the back. Nodding and muttering to himself, he flipped through the book and stopped. “Red soil, particularly clay, is an erosional product that is very common in the Middle Paleozoic sandstone formations.”