Quinn reached over and squeezed Ryan’s shoulder until the boy looked him in the eye. “You did the right thing.”
He stood and his joints popped from squatting so long, reminding him that he’d be forty this fall. “Thank you, Judge,” Quinn said as he turned to face Richard Parker.
An impeccably dressed blonde with vivid green eyes stood next to Parker with a blank expression. Parker’s wife? Quinn was surprised he hadn’t heard her approach.
“Mrs. Parker?” he asked, hand extended.
She took his hand, her grip surprisingly strong for someone who looked so fragile. Her fingers were icy cold, though the day had warmed considerably since he’d viewed the victim earlier this morning. “Delilah Parker.” Her voice was smooth and cool.
“Special Agent Peterson, ma’am.”
“I’ve made lemonade and banana bread in the kitchen, if you would care for some.”
Quinn was about to decline when Nick said, “Thank you, Mrs. Parker. We are much obliged at your hospitality.”
She beamed at Nick. “Excuse me, I’ll ready a tray.” She hurried off.
Quinn dragged his heels as they followed Judge Parker to the house. “We need to get back to the ridge.”
“Some things you don’t do. Refusing food from Mrs. Parker is one of them.”
“Playing politics,” Quinn mumbled sarcastically.
“Ten minutes will save me months of headache. Believe me. I declined the first time, too.” Nick rolled his eyes.
Quinn wasn’t quite sure what to make of the Parker family. Though the judge joined them in the dining room, Quinn noticed he and his wife didn’t speak much to each other.
Mrs. Parker’s impromptu get-together was surprisingly elaborate. She served the lemonade in crystal and the banana bread with fresh whipped cream on white bone china. Quinn felt uncomfortable with the formality, but Nick seemed to accept it with ease. When Quinn complimented her on a beautiful home, she beamed. The Stepford Wife of Montana, he thought, hiding a grin.
Nick was true to his word. Ten minutes later they were on their way, headed back to the stable to collect samples from the horses’ hooves before leaving.
“What’s with Parker’s wife?” Quinn asked as he shut the passenger door of Nick’s truck. “A little formal for a morning snack, wouldn’t you say?”
Nick shrugged as he started the ignition and drove down the long, winding road leading from the Parkers’ ranch to the main highway. “She likes entertaining. I declined the first time I came out here years ago when a couple of their cattle had been stolen. After I was elected, Judge Parker explained that his wife takes hospitality seriously, and he’d appreciate it if I accepted in the future.”
“You should have told me Parker was a judge. I didn’t even remember he was an attorney.”
“Nonpracticing at the time. He was on the Board of Supervisors. Now, he’s a state Superior Court justice. Word is he’s up for consideration to the Appellate Court.”
“That’s a big jump.”
Nick shrugged. “He has friends in high places.”
“Wonderful,” Quinn said cynically.
Nick shot him a glance. “You’re not thinking that Richard Parker has anything to do with what’s been happening to these girls?”
Quinn didn’t say anything for a minute. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “We have no witnesses, and Miranda only had vague impressions of her attacker’s shape and size.”
The Butcher not only kept his victims bound in chains to the floor, but he blindfolded them. Miranda swore she would know him by smell, but a man’s scent would be next to impossible to get a conviction on. They needed hard evidence.
Quinn hadn’t realized how much he had missed Miranda until he saw her today. He’d wanted to touch her, make sure she was really there, in the flesh and not another dream.
“She led us to the shack she’d been held in,” Nick continued. “She tracked down where the Croft sisters had been imprisoned. Miranda has led us to more evidence than anything you or I could have done on our own.”
Quinn knew it, and he knew why. The very reasons why Miranda would have made a damn good FBI agent were the same reasons why she would likely have gotten herself killed.
Miranda was driven, steadfast, unwavering in her pursuit of a killer. But she was obsessed with the Butcher. The case ate at her until it consumed her existence. Quinn didn’t blame her. Hell, who would? The bastard had destroyed her life. She’d had to rebuild it, brick by brick. And, amazingly, she had become an intensely strong woman. No longer a victim, but someone whom Quinn greatly admired for her ability to heal.
While she had dealt with being raped and tortured better than any victim he’d ever met, she hadn’t handled the survivor’s guilt. She blamed herself for Sharon’s murder, and her decision to join the FBI was more to avenge Sharon than to become an agent. And, ultimately, it was her need for vengeance that showed up in the psychological tests. Quinn had gone to bat for her time and time again, but when faced with the results of repeated sessions with the shrink, he had to agree Miranda wasn’t ready.
He ran a hand over his face and closed his eyes. Because he’d loved her, and because his recommendation as much as her qualifications led to her acceptance into the Academy in the first place, he’d insisted that he be the one to tell her.
It hadn’t gone well.
He would never forget the look of betrayal in Miranda’s deep blue eyes when he told her she was out of the Academy. Was it really ten years ago? Damn, he missed her.
“Shit,” Nick muttered as he slammed on the brakes. Quinn jerked in the passenger seat, opened his eyes.
There were at least thirty Jeeps, trucks, and cars parked along Route 84. Quinn scanned the area. “Miranda finally gained some sense. Her Jeep isn’t here.”
Nick glanced at Quinn as he carefully turned onto the rough logging road. “You think she didn’t just drive in?”
“You said no unauthorized personnel could use the old road,” Quinn said. “I would—”
“Quinn, she is authorized. She’s the director of Search and Rescue, a division of the Sheriff’s Department.” Nick paused. “Miranda doesn’t want to be protected, so give it up.”
“It has nothing to do with protection, and everything to do with jeopardizing this case.”
“Miranda knows these woods better than anyone, including me. I’d be surprised if she didn’t have every hill and crevice memorized. She has a frickin’ map on her bedroom wall! She sleeps and rises to six red pins staring at her, reminding her that she survived.” Nick took a deep breath. “Seven. Seven pins now.”
Quinn glanced at Nick’s hard profile, but couldn’t miss the emotion tightening his expression. He didn’t know whether it was his naked emotions or the rawness in his voice, but Quinn knew with certainty that Nick was still in love with Miranda. He pictured Nick in Miranda’s bedroom staring at the map that had become such a focal point in her life. Nick would be wanting to help Miranda find peace, but unable to tear her away from her nightmares. Quinn shifted uncomfortably.
He’d heard about their relationship from his partner, Colleen Thorne, when she returned from investigating the Croft sisters’ murder. Years after Miranda stopped speaking to him, refused to see him, it still hurt to think about her with another man. Even one he liked and respected.
Damn, he’d loved her! Few women could compare to Miranda. Her intensity, her laugh, her strength, her strong sense of right and wrong. Everything about Miranda was passionate, from how she lived her life to her quest for justice.
That she’d turned to Nick when she was ready for another relationship irritated and hurt him. She’d forced him to give her space, and against his better judgment he did. But she never came back to Quantico, never returned his calls, never accepted that he’d made the only decision possible. Then, she started seeing Nick.
He didn’t want to know about their relationship, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “What happened?”
“What?”
“Why’d you two break up?”
Nick shrugged. “Lots of things. Mostly, I couldn’t stand not being able to protect her.”
“Hmm.” Miranda didn’t need protection, except from herself. What she needed was to get over the guilt. But she never recognized her obsession, let alone did anything to fix it.
“I think what did it was I wanted to take her away from Montana,” Nick said. “I could be a cop anywhere. I’d always thought Texas would be a good place to live. A helluva lot warmer than the Gallatin Valley.”
“I can just picture you with a white ten-gallon hat,” Quinn said with a half-smile.
“Miranda wouldn’t leave. She’s determined to do what she can to protect the women of Bozeman. She teaches a self-defense class every week at the University. She heads up the search and rescue—not just when another co-ed turns up missing, but when hikers are lost, skiers disappear in an avalanche, anything. Last year two little girls wandered off from their campsite just this side of the Wyoming border, in Yellowstone. Miranda tracked them, found them, and brought them to safety.”
Quinn said nothing. What could he say? He had no claim to Miranda, no right to know anything about her. But dammit, he wanted to. He wanted to know everything that had happened in her life during the ten years since he’d last seen her.
“Thanks for coming, Quinn,” Nick said several moments later. “I know it’s not easy on you to work with her.”
As Nick stopped the truck behind Miranda’s red Jeep, Quinn said, “I have no problem working with Miranda, but if she crosses the line she has to be pulled.”
“Agreed.”
They got out of the SUV and the first thing Quinn noticed was Miranda standing up on a ledge, hands on her hips.
“Where have you been?” She bounded down the embankment and stood in front of them, jaw set. “You said two hours, it’s been nearly three!”
Though pale and thin, her deep blue eyes rimmed with fatigue, Miranda was a beautiful woman. A bundle of barely contained energy and strength Quinn had always admired.
“We went to interview the boys who found the body,” Nick said.
Quinn wanted to ask Miranda what business it was of hers, but bit his tongue. She was part of the investigation, at least for the time being. Nick had already established her role and Quinn wasn’t going to step on his toes.
Not yet, anyway.
So the sheriff had brought in the Feds again.
It was easy to spot the city boy, all done up in new blue jeans, stiff boots, unused down jacket. All the times the hotshot government types came to town looking for clues, they’d found nothing.
Because he was smarter than all of them.
He recognized Agent Peterson. He’d been around before, a long time ago. He’d proven to be an able opponent then—he’d been so close, but couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
He almost laughed at his pun. Fools. All of them.
Except her. The one who got away.
His entire body tensed and the horse beneath him shifted uneasily on the mountain path, high up from where the cops milled about. He forced himself to relax, patted the gelding gently until the horse calmed. Soothing the animal also helped him contain his anger.
He wanted to kill Miranda Moore so badly he could feel her body beneath his. He pictured himself inches from her face. Grabbing her hair and jerking her head back. Exposing that white throat. Feeling her entire body tremble as he unsheathed his knife and held it to her neck.
One swift slice and her warm blood would coat him and the earth.
But she’d got away. He’d lost. His failure ate at him, a reminder that he was flawed. He should never have gone after a local. It wasn’t her he’d wanted, anyway. It was the blonde she had been with. He didn’t have a choice; if he wanted the blonde, he had to take her friend.
He still wanted to kill her, but he couldn’t.
She’d won, after all.
Twelve years ago his greatest fear of being caught lay with Miranda Moore. Had she seen or heard anything that would lead the police to him? He’d been so careful, but he hadn’t thought she’d live. He’d felt cheated watching her fall off the cliff into the Gallatin River, certain she wouldn’t survive.
He’d been surprised and worried when he saw the news reports the next day that she was alive.
But as time passed, he relaxed. She didn’t know anything, either didn’t remember or never saw him.
No, he couldn’t kill her now. But if she got too close, that would change.
He glanced at his watch and frowned. He hadn’t planned on being here this late. Gently urging the gelding along the narrow mountain path, he headed South.
CHAPTER
6
“Do you all understand what you’re supposed to do?” Nick asked after detailing the responsibilities of the search team. One sworn Gallatin County sheriff’s deputy or Bozeman police officer was paired with one volunteer. Three out of four on-duty cops stood there, some worried, some excited, most sipping the hot coffee Miranda’s father had had the foresight to send with her.
Miranda looked around at the men and women who made up the search team. They’d be searching for evidence. Bullet casings, footprints, torn clothing. Anything that might lead them to the killer.
She caught Assistant Sheriff Sam Harris staring at her and turned her head. She didn’t like the man who’d lost the election to Nick when he ran for sheriff a little over three years ago, six months before the Croft sisters were killed. When Nick made the fifty-year-old deputy the undersheriff, Miranda told him he was making a mistake. Harris would undermine him every chance he got. Nick disagreed, and Miranda tried to keep her feelings to herself.
It was one-thirty P.M. They had less than five hours of daylight left.
Miranda intended to pair off with Cliff Sanderson, a Bozeman cop she respected who helped her teach the self-defense class at the University. She waved at him as she crossed the clearing and he smiled back, his boyish dimples taking ten years off his thirty.
“Nick,” she said as she approached him for her assignment. “I want grid C-1 through 10. Sanderson and I can cover it, and I think—”
“You should stay here,” Quinn told her, arms crossed.
She glared at him, his dark, intense eyes trying to command her to do his bidding. She couldn’t help but remember the many times she’d appreciated his intensity, the way a mere gaze melted her like butter on a hot griddle.
She ignored him.
“C-1 through 10,” she repeated as she hoisted her backpack over her shoulders and cinched the belt around her waist. She adjusted her .45 in her waistband for comfort.
“You have a gun,” Quinn said through clenched teeth.
“So do you,” she snapped back, instantly regretting showing that he’d gotten to her. “Do you have a problem?” Damn, she was being sarcastic, a sure sign of insecurity.
She glanced around. The cops and volunteers had grown quiet, showing interest in the brewing argument. However, she certainly didn’t want to be the center of attention.
“Nick,” she said quietly.
“You’re with Peterson,” he said just as quietly, refusing to look at her.
“What?” she exclaimed, forgetting the audience.
“You’re with Peterson or you’re not going. You can have the ‘C’ grid.”
She got the area she wanted, just not the partner. She almost said she wasn’t going.
But that was exactly what Quinn Peterson wanted. “Fine,” she said through clenched teeth.
She turned on her boot heel and spotted him. Elijah Banks. Long dirty-blond hair tied in a leather band, wire-rim glasses, narrow face on a skinny frame. She’d never forget the so-called journalist who’d made her life a living hell after she thought she’d put hell behind her.
Jaw tight, she strode over to the edge of the clearing where Eli stood, camera around his neck, rapidly writing God-knew-what garbage on one of his ubiq
uitous notepads.
“Banks!” He looked up and grinned. Stopping right in front of him, her feet almost touching his, she grabbed the notepad from his hand. Without looking at what he’d written, she ripped the pages out and threw the pad on the muddy ground, then tore his notes into tiny pieces.
She saw red every time Banks crossed her mind. Every time she saw his pathetic name in the newspaper. Every time she remembered the secrets—her secrets—he’d written about for everyone to read and pity her.
Eli held his hands up and took a step back. “That’s my property you just destroyed.” The damn half-smirk never left his face.
“What fool let you into a secure crime scene?” She glanced around, hating the commotion she was making but unable to stop herself. “You just waltzed right in, didn’t you?”
Nick tapped her elbow and urged her to step back, standing between her and the reporter. “Eli,” he warned, “you need to leave.”
“Sheriff,” Eli said in that condescending mocking tone Miranda despised, “can you confirm that the body of Rebecca Douglas was found this morning by Judge Parker’s son?”
“You know I can’t confirm anything until the body has been identified.” Nick tensed at Miranda’s side. Damn, how did the press find out so quickly?
“So there was a body found?”
Miranda wanted to scream at Eli Banks, to tell him that Rebecca wasn’t a body but a person, but that’s what he wanted. A reaction. She swallowed her anger and spun around, walking right into Quinn. He put his hands on her elbows to steady her.
She glanced up at him, startled.
“He’s not worth it,” Quinn whispered.
She didn’t, couldn’t, say anything. Being this close to Quinn unnerved Miranda. When he looked at her, stared at her with the familiarity of a lover, she couldn’t help but remember she had loved him once, and he’d loved her.
At least, that’s what he’d told her.
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