The Hunt (39 page)

“Marry me, Miranda. I love you, and I’m not going to let you walk away this time.”

She nodded, her heart beating fast and sure. “Oh, yes. If you can put up with me.” She tried to laugh, but it was almost a sob. “I can be a little—obsessive about things.” She tried to make light of it, but it was true. When she cared about something, she focused. Hard.

“Only about the things that matter,” Quinn said. “And
we
matter.”

“Yes, we do.”

CHAPTER

36

Quinn met Special Agent Colleen Thorne and her current partner, Toby Wilkes, early the next morning, outside Richard Parker’s fishing cabin near Big Sky. The small A-frame had a wraparound deck and view of the lake below.

Though the rain had stopped sometime during the night, the air was heavy and wet, and a gray mist hung low to the ground.

Two deputies had been stationed outside the cabin all night after securing it, and two more had arrived right before Quinn. Introductions were made and Quinn’s phone rang. It was Deputy Zachary, calling in that he was relieving the cops outside Miranda’s lodge. He hung up, and Colleen raised an eyebrow.

“You have a patrol watching the Lodge? Why?”

“Actually, I have more than a patrol. I have one car outside, a deputy in the Lodge, and another outside Miranda’s cabin.”

“You told me Larsen was dead.”

Quinn shifted uncomfortably. Colleen was a facts-and-logic agent, and a damn good one. His concerns were based on feelings. “It’s Delilah Parker. She might be harmless, but . . .” His voice trailed off. How could he explain the odd sense he had that she knew all along what her brother was up to? “She was his alibi for the rape in Oregon. Until I know why, I’m treating her as a threat.”

“Caution in this case is probably warranted. Ready?” She nodded toward the door.

Quinn broke the seal on the door while Wilkes investigated the grounds.

“How’s Miranda?” Colleen asked.

“Remarkably resilient.”

“Back together?”

He smiled. “The only question is how fast we can make it to the altar.”

Colleen grinned. “I’m glad.”

The cabin had a dark, cold, empty feeling. The main door opened into a large multipurpose room: living area to the left, kitchen and dining to the right. The kitchen door led to the back deck, and two other doors led to a bathroom and large storage room filled with canned food and fishing gear.

The downstairs was bare and utilitarian: sturdy pine furniture with dark coverings; a large round table with six chairs; a corner stove that would easily heat the small cabin.

There was nothing personal downstairs, nothing to suggest anyone had been living here except for a lone coffee mug in the sink. Quinn made a note and bagged it for evidence.

A spiral staircase led to a loft. Though the deputies had already secured the house, Quinn cautiously went upstairs.

At first glance, the room appeared unused. The bed was made, the solitary dresser devoid of personal effects. No clothing littered the floor, and the hamper in the corner was empty.

A window overlooked a small meadow and the slope of a pine-studded mountain. It could have been romantic as a lover’s hideaway.

Under the window was a desk. Simple, with one long, narrow drawer. A wooden chair had been pulled up to the writing area.

With gloved hands, Quinn opened the drawer. Considering the house seemed vacant, he didn’t expect to find anything.

Inside were pens, loose paper, paper clips, and the like. A box, the kind that stationery came in, sat in the middle of the clutter.

Quinn’s chest tightened as his instincts hummed. Carefully, he extracted the box and placed it on the desk.

“What’s that?” Colleen asked, looking around his shoulder.

He didn’t answer and took off the lid.

It was a journal of sorts. The leather cover was worn and faded from repeated handling. He carefully lifted it from the box.

Several business cards fell onto the desk top. No, not business cards.

Driver’s licenses.

Heart pounding, he picked one up, turned it around, and stared at the motor vehicle photograph of Penny Thompson.

Bile rose in his throat as he counted twenty-two driver’s licenses and identification cards. Twenty-two victims over fifteen years. Sharon Lewis. Elaine Croft. Rebecca Douglas. His hands trembled as he held Miranda’s youthful license.

He opened the journal.

Penny lied to me. She told me she wasn’t dating the jock. But I saw them. Their lips locked together. I knew what he wanted to do to Penny. He wanted to fuck her. He wanted her breasts. . . .

With increasing horror, Quinn flipped through the pages.

The Bitch let her go. I had no choice but to kill Penny. Didn’t Dee understand that Penny would have stayed if only I had more time with her? More time to convince her how much I loved her? That I could take care of her?

Dee?
Delilah?

Quinn skipped the account of Miranda and Sharon’s abduction and the documentation of the rapes. He couldn’t read it now. Quinn should have turned the case over to Colleen right then; he was far too personally involved.

But he didn’t. Larsen was dead.

Dee wouldn’t let me kill her.

She said the Moore bitch was too strong for me. That she’d won and I had to accept my losses.

I hate Dee. She pretends to love me but she hates me. Just like Mama. Always like Mama. Oozing kindness with their mouths while their hands and their breasts torment me.

The hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck rose when he saw an entry a few pages later.

I almost killed the Moore bitch. She was alone. Walking. In that field she always goes to near her house. I had her in my sights. I could have taken what was stolen from me.

But she won fair and square. Dee said I couldn’t have my trophy.

I hate them. I hate her. Hate her hate her hate her hate her!

But Dee’s right. I don’t deserve my prey this time. I wasn’t fast enough. I failed. I won’t fail the next time.

I already found the next one. She’s beautiful. She’ll lie, too. They all lie.

I hate her. Hate her hate her hate her . . .

The handwriting deteriorated over the rest of the page as his pen dug into the paper, tearing it in two places. Quinn didn’t know if Larsen hated Delilah or Miranda, or both. He turned the page and found a new entry dated a week later. Ironically, the same week Miranda had left for Quantico. The handwriting was again neat and orderly.

I have one in the old Carson shack. I didn’t think it would hold up, but Dee said it was fine for our game . . .

Quinn slammed the book shut, handing it to Colleen before he did something stupid like shred it.

“Put an APB out for Delilah Parker. She should be considered armed and dangerous.”

It was all Miranda Moore’s fault.

Delilah wept for Davy. Her little brother was dead. She’d cried out when she heard the news as she hid in the Vought family vacation house. They wouldn’t be arriving from their home in California until their kids were out of school next month.

She could stay here until Friday, when the caretaker came to air out the place and dust, but she feared the police would investigate all known vacation houses in the area.

Delilah assumed the police knew everything. She would not go to prison. Locked in a cage like an animal. No. She was not an animal. She had done the best she could. Didn’t anyone understand? She had done her best!

The news on television was vague, just that the Bozeman Butcher had been identified as David Larsen and that he was pronounced dead on arrival at Deaconess Hospital.

Her gut churned. She was supposed to protect Davy, make sure he was never hurt, never caught.

She hated him.

Pain pounded her head. She didn’t hate her brother. No, he needed her. She only hated the attention he’d had when they were growing up.

Growing up, Davy had been shy and quiet. Until they went to college, Davy wasn’t even taller than her, scrawny as a malnourished kid. But he seemed to blossom when their mother died in a car accident. He grew six inches and started working out and turning into a man.

Delilah didn’t like it. Not one bit. Davy was
hers.
Hers to control. Hers to manipulate. Hers to tell what to do and what not to do. He had always listened to her. Always. He had always done what she told him to. And she protected him as best she could. Well, maybe not
the best.
Like, how could she stop her mother from touching him?

Once, when she was fourteen, she hid in the closet. She watched through the slats as her mother touched Davy’s privates. Davy seemed to
like
it. His penis grew hard and he spurted sperm all over their mother’s breasts.

She knew it was wrong, what her mother had Davy do. But who would she tell? Who would believe her? And Delilah had her own problems, anyway. Like how to put a snake in Mary Sue Mitchell’s locker and not get caught.

A poisonous snake. After all, Mary Sue had held hands with Matt Drake in the all-school assembly last week. Did that bitch think she wouldn’t notice?

Davy had always had Mama’s special attention, anyway. Delilah had been the unwanted daughter. Sometimes she preferred the freedom that came with being unwanted; the rest of the time she alternated between hating Davy and their mother.

But she did step in front of their mother’s heavy hand many times, taking the brunt of the beating so Davy wouldn’t have to. If she didn’t love her brother, would she have taken the beatings for him?

But he wasn’t normal. She figured that out at an early age. How could he be normal when his own mother raped him?

You raped him, too.

No! I loved him. He loved me. He always came back, didn’t he? He always said he needed me.

You hurt him.

No! Nothing I did marked him. He understood—pain and pleasure. It was
her.
Miranda Moore. She killed him. She stabbed him. His blood is on her hands.

Kill her.

After sixteen years of marriage, Delilah was surprised she felt nothing but irritation for her husband. He hadn’t loved her. She had done everything for him, kept his house, raised his brat, cooked and cleaned and attended to his stupid functions. She had been the perfect wife.

And he looked at her as if she were a stranger.

The only other thing that bothered her, really bothered her, was Ryan. As if she would hurt her own child! She was not her mother. She painstakingly avoided ever touching Ryan so she wouldn’t be tempted. Not that she was tempted.

She was not her mother.

She hadn’t wanted a child—most definitely not a son. But when she learned she was pregnant—what good was birth control if it didn’t work?—she just
knew
the baby would be a girl.

A girl to raise the way a daughter should be raised. To be lavished with attention, dressed in beautiful clothes, taken to fancy restaurants, given a big debutante coming-out party.

She laughed bitterly.

What she had was a boy. Another Davy.

But she was a good mother, dammit! She did everything for him, too. Baked fucking cookies. Cleaned his fucking room. Went to every fucking teacher’s conference and play and soccer game.

What more did he want? Her blood? Would that satisfy him? Would it satisfy any of them?

She took a deep, calming breath. It wouldn’t do to lose control. Her control had kept her from doing stupid things.

Like the night she almost suffocated Ryan in his crib. At the last minute, she pulled back the pillow from his face. Richard would have known, have her thrown into prison.

Or the time she threatened to tell the police about the girl in Portland. She almost didn’t give Davy an alibi. The stupid, stupid idiot! He was throwing away everything for some rich-bitch slut from the Delta-something sorority.

But in the end she gave him the alibi and was very convincing. Because without Davy, her life would fall apart. She needed him just like he needed her.

Together they were stronger.

Now he was dead.

It was all Miranda Moore’s fault. The bitch would pay.

CHAPTER

37

Miranda woke up late, the sun streaming through her picture windows. Below in the valley a gray fog had settled, but it would soon burn off.

The day promised to be beautiful.

She rolled over expecting to find Quinn beside her. Instead, she found a note.

Miranda—

I didn’t want to disturb you. I’m meeting Colleen down at Big Sky to do a quick walk-through of the cabin. I should be back by lunchtime, or I’ll call if I’m delayed.

I called the hospital. Nick is the same, which is more or less good news. JoBeth Anderson is awake and alert. Ashley was asking for you. She’s going to be okay, thanks to you.