2 - The Hunt

by Allison Brennan

  Well, he intended to cut the strings of the puppeteer. He had finally agreed to meet her in Missoula tonight, and they’d drive from there to wherever. He’d had to agree. If he’d told her what he was going to do, she wouldn’t have left him.

  No, tonight was the hunt. Tonight he would be free. He would take his prize and then just keep going. He could live for months off the land this summer. He’d walk all the way to California if he had to.

  She would never find him. He would be free at last.

  And his hunts, his women, would finally be his own.

  He left the house quietly and went the long way to the meadow. He had another path to get down to his girl.

  First things first. Follow Miranda Moore. He would take great pleasure in slitting her throat. He had wanted to kill her when she had first escaped, but The Bitch said no. Like she was pleased one got away. She had laughed at him, taunted him, and he longed to take her neck into his hands and break it, like the neck of a chicken. Crack. Toss her by the side of the road and let the cougars chomp on her, the bugs crawl in and out of her mouth. It would serve her right.

  But of course he didn’t. Not then. He’d always believed that without her, he would be nothing. Without her, he would have perished years ago. She’d saved him more times than he could count. He’d been grateful. He’d loved her.

  He hated her now. And this hate trampled all over any love he’d ever had for her.

  He started down the slope toward the gulch below, planning his kills. First, Miranda Moore and the cops. Then, his girl.

  And then, his fucking sister.

  Two gunshots echoed from the canyon below. His girl. They were stealing his girl.

  The bitch would pay!

  He trekked faster down the mountain. The hunt was on.

  “We can’t wait for Quinn,” Miranda told Booker.

  They’d gone directly to the south meadow in her Jeep. When she didn’t see Quinn, they drove up to the house.

  No one answered.

  She tried Quinn again, got voice mail again. Damn him, didn’t he have call waiting?

  Miranda took a deep breath. The mountains wreaked havoc with cell phones. She had call waiting and half the time calls went directly to voice mail because the towers got mixed signals. It didn’t help that the weather was turning; the bright, sunny morning had disappeared, leaving a gray pallor over the entire mountain. The serious storm was supposed to hold out for late tonight. She hoped it would.

  Quinn would be here soon. She knew he would. But could she wait? Between the weather and their not knowing the whereabouts of David Larsen, Ashley’s fate was in question.

  Miranda sensed she was close. She had to try. If Ashley died today down in the canyon locals called Boulder Gulch, and Miranda had waited to search, she’d never forgive herself.

  Besides, Lance Booker was with her. He was a good cop, strong too. It was two against one. And Larsen didn’t know the police were on to him. The element of surprise would be an added benefit.

  “Ashley’s down there. I know it,” she told him. “If he feels the pressure of the police on him, he could kill her and disappear. Right now. We have to get to her first. We can’t wait for Quinn or my team.” She’d called everyone off their searches and told them to meet at this location and proceed with caution.

  “You’re right,” Booker relented.

  She slowly let out her breath. She wasn’t sure what she would have done if Booker hadn’t agreed to go down to Boulder Gulch with her. But if they were going to track Larsen’s steps, they needed to do it while it was still light.

  She pulled out her topo map and folded it so she had Boulder Gulch and the surrounding area clearly visible. She pocketed it, looked along the ridge of the slope. She saw the disturbance in the leaves and dirt from where Larsen had come up the slope and greeted Ryan.

  “Here.” She motioned for Booker, her heart pounding so loud she worried the deputy would hear her fear.

  Could she do this? Knowing she might come face-to-face with her attacker?

  How could she not? If she waited even ten more minutes, Larsen might get to Ashley first and kill her.

  What if Ashley was already dead? But Miranda felt she was still alive. It was too soon to hunt her. Larsen was cocky. He liked to keep them long enough to break them. To weaken them, so they didn’t have a chance to survive his hunt.

  He hadn’t broken Miranda. He hadn’t killed her. She’d gotten away, and now she would take away his prize. Ashley.

  She called her team leader, Charlie. “Booker and I are going after Ashley.”

  She followed Larsen’s path. He’d zigzagged his way up the slope to keep from falling. Some places were dangerous: if she started to slide down, she wouldn’t be able to stop until she hit a tree.

  Boulder Gulch was a narrow, two-thousand-acre canyon that cut through the mountain with a seasonal creek. It had incredible rock formations. She’d come here with Professor Austin’s geology class. The trip had been treacherous, even though they had followed an easier path, on the canyon’s far eastern slope. But now they’d have had to drive nearly an hour around the mountain to get to it.

  Coming down this side was the fastest way to the bottom.

  They’d been virtually scaling down the mountain without ropes for fifteen minutes. Booker and she didn’t talk because they couldn’t. In the back of her mind, Miranda knew Ashley would be in no condition to come back up this way. They’d have to go the long way out of the gulch. That meant miles of relatively flat river rock, hours of walking.

  Or running.

  She could see the bottom of the gulch. “Booker.” She gestured down the slope. “We need to find another way down.”

  “This is how he came up,” Booker said.

  “But he was coming uphill. He could use his momentum to pull himself up, grabbing trees for support. It’s nearly three hundred feet down. And the last fifty feet are boulders. It’s too dangerous.” She’d had too many of her team members injured over the years trying to get up and down the sometimes sheer face of the mountainside.

  Booker didn’t look happy. “We could be far away before we find a better place.”

  “It looks a little better over there. Then we’ll backtrack when we get to the bottom. But we need to hurry. We don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  She turned, walking parallel to the canyon bottom. The wet dirt beneath the thick layer of pine needles made the stretch difficult. The air was cooler down here, and it didn’t help that the day had become overcast. Almost on cue, a fat raindrop hit her face.

  “Watch out. The moisture is going to make the needles slippery,” she told Booker.

  “Miranda, I’ve lived here my entire life. I know the mountains.”

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  He flashed her a smile. “Let’s go down here.” He pointed to a slope that didn’t look much safer than the area they’d passed up. Lots of pine needles, a few fallen trees, the occasional protruding boulder. And a sharp angle downward.

  “You sure?” She looked in the direction they were walking. There didn’t seem a better place within sight.

  “Absolutely. See how it slopes at the bottom? It’s just the next fifty feet that’ll be difficult.”

  “All right.” She wasn’t as confident, but another drop of water hit her face. She feared time was running out.

  Booker started down first. She followed in his footholds, keeping her body nearly flush with the mountainside to maintain her balance.

  She saw Booker slide as the ground gave way beneath him, layer upon layer of loose dirt and leaves unable to support his weight. The week of drying from the rains had left the ground moist, but loose.

  “Lance!” she called. He struggled to control his descent, but he slid faster and faster, then started to roll.

  He hit the bottom. Half covered with debris, he didn’t move.

  Miranda scrambled down the mountain as fast as she dared. It was easier with all the loose dirt g
one.

  “Lance, are you okay?”

  He rolled over, but when she got to the bottom of the gulch, winded, she saw he was in pain.

  “What happened?”

  “I think I cracked a rib. It might be broken.”

  Her heart beat so hard she thought it would burst through her rib cage. They were at the bottom of the gulch. Alone. And the Butcher would be coming back sometime tonight.

  She had to get Booker out of here, but there was no way he could make it up the mountain. And it was more than a five-mile trek down the gulch to the other side—they might be able to make it, if they stopped frequently.

  But what about Ashley? How could Miranda leave her when she was so close? When the Butcher was going to come back?

  “Go find her,” he said as if reading her mind. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not leaving you. That’s one of my rules—when your partner falls, you stay until help arrives.”

  “These are extraordinary circumstances.” He sat up, wincing. “I’ll go with you far enough to find a place to hide.”

  Miranda helped him up, grimacing at the pain on his face. “You’ll be okay, Lance. But if you have trouble breathing, you can’t move. If your rib is broken, sudden movement could puncture a lung.”

  “It just keeps getting better and better.”

  They backtracked along the boulders until they found Larsen’s trail again. But with the rocks it was difficult to see where he’d come from before heading up the mountain.

  “Look around, Lance. Any sign where he went?” The few raindrops had turned into a misty drizzle. It felt good now, but soon it would make visibility poor.

  “There,” Booker said, pointing across the creek toward the rich, thick growth that bordered that side of the gulch.

  Sure enough, a small sapling had been trampled.

  It could have been done by a bear or a mountain lion. But it was the closest they had come to a trail, and they took it. As they went deeper into the woods, it was obvious by the soil prints that a two-legged predator had come this way.

  “You okay to go on?”

  “I’m fine for now.”

  Still, they went slower than she would have liked. She took out her radio and called her location in to Charlie. Charlie was on Miranda’s team and had ten years more experience than she did. Though filled with static, it was good to hear his voice. Charlie’s team was ten minutes from the Parker Ranch.

  That meant it would take them at least an hour to get to the bottom of the Gulch.

  “Charlie, I’m out.”

  “Roger that, take—”

  “Wait.”

  Then she saw it: the shack.

  “Miranda?”

  “It’s here. I think I found Ashley. I’m checking.”

  “Proceed with caution.”

  She swallowed. “I am. Out.”

  The dilapidated wood structure sagged with age and Montana’s cold, wet winters. The tin roof was rusted in spots, but unlike Rebecca’s prison, this one had at least one window.

  Every pore of her body screamed, “Be careful!” He could be here. David Larsen, the Butcher.

  “Miranda,” Booker whispered. He stood right behind her. He looked pale and was sweating profusely.

  “You have to sit down,” she said quietly.

  “I can’t. What if he’s there?”

  “Be backup.”

  They drew their guns. She was surprised her hands weren’t shaking, although every hair on her body seemed to be tingling.

  Holding her gun with both hands, she cautiously approached the structure. Booker motioned for her to go one way and he’d take the other. She pointed to the window. He nodded, and she squatted beneath it, trying to keep her breathing under control. She was almost gasping, her fear bubbling to the surface.

  Not now. Please, not now. Ashley’s life depended on her. If she failed . . .

  No. She couldn’t, wouldn’t fail.

  Slowly, she peered into the room. As her eyes adjusted to the near dark of the cabin, she saw a naked woman tied on a filthy mattress in the middle of the floor. Her blonde hair looked dark from dirt and blood.

  Sharon.

  The pain, the anger, the humiliation came flooding back, overwhelmed her, and she sank to her knees. Oh, God, why? Why did you create such a monster?

  It wasn’t Sharon, it was Ashley. And Ashley needed her.

  What if she was already dead?

  Miranda took a deep breath and stood, looking through the window again. As she watched, she saw the rise and fall of the woman’s chest. She was alive. Maybe there was a God after all.

  Then Miranda realized Ashley wasn’t alone.

  Miranda was ready to shoot the man through the window. He was lying next to Ashley as if basking in the afterglow of sex. She’d shoot him and cut off his balls and stuff them down his throat. Hate and rage filled her and she lifted her gun.

  She paused when she saw a glint of metal. She tried to see the man’s face, but couldn’t. He was restrained, tied with rope, his hands and feet bound behind his back.

  The body was familiar. Dark hair. Beige shirt.

  Nick.

  He was alive!

  CHAPTER

  31

  Miranda rushed around the side of the shack. Damn, the door was chained.

  She pounded on the door. “Nick! Nick it’s Miranda! I’m going to shoot off this lock and get you out of there.”

  She heard a faint voice but couldn’t make out what he said. Ashley cried out, a cross between pain and joy.

  “Booker! Where are you?” Miranda glanced from side to side, but didn’t see him.

  “Here.” His voice came from the other side of the cabin, faint. She feared his injuries were worse than he’d let on.

  “Nick’s inside the shack with Ashley. I’m going to get them out. Larsen is nowhere in sight, but keep a lookout.”

  Silence.

  “Lance? Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.”

  Dammit, now she had two seriously injured cops and a civilian. First things first: free Nick and Ashley. Then she could figure out a way to get them all out of here.

  She aimed her gun at the lock. It took two bullets to bust it, then she kicked open the door.

  The stench of blood, violent sex, and human waste filled her senses, sickening and familiar. She gagged and turned her head. She and Sharon had lived in such filth.

  She froze. She wanted to go in, make sure Nick was okay. But her feet felt filled with lead, embedded in cement, and the harder she tried to make them move, the heavier they became.

  Her body trembled. Just the thought of crossing the threshold of the shrinking space numbed her. Slowly, her peripheral vision closed in.

  No. Not now. Please.

  She fell to her knees. I can do this. I can go in. Save them.

  No I can’t. I’m weak. He defeated me. He’ll come back and finish the job. He took Sharon and I ran. I couldn’t save her. Now I can’t even save myself.

  “Miranda?”

  Nick’s voice. Gruff and raw.

  “Miranda!” Still raw, but commanding.

  “Nick. I—” She took a deep breath. She was going to hyperventilate if she wasn’t careful.

  “I need you. Ashley needs you. Get in here. He’s going to return.”

  After all these years, the Butcher would defeat her. He made her claustrophobic. He gave her fear.

  “I. Can’t.”

  “You can, Miranda. I know you. I trust you. Take a deep breath.” He sputtered and coughed, struggling to get the words out. “You can do it,” he said, ending on a gasp of air.

  She could, couldn’t she? She could overcome her fear. She had to. For Nick. For everything he’d done for her, for his support and encouragement and friendship. She hadn’t come this far to fail.

  And she loved him. She could see it so clearly now, the difference between Nick and Quinn. She loved them both. She hadn’t realized that
before. But she could love two men. One as her lover. The other as her brother.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out.

  She took another deep breath and forced herself to enter the shrinking room. The walls started to cave in around her, each step drawing them closer. Her chest tightened. She had no air. No air.

  Not now. No, not now.

  Shaking, she reached for the ropes that bound Nick. Her fingers struggled with the elaborate knots. The walls reached out, grabbing for her.

  “Miranda.” His voice was raw.

  “I’m getting you out of here.” Her voice sounded weak and her body trembled. She focused on the knots. If she simply worked on them she could forget the shrinking walls, the foul stench, the memories of violence. She had to. For Nick. For Ashley.

  For herself.

  “Forget me. Get Ashley out of here. Send someone back for me.”

  “I can’t. Nick, the Butcher is David Larsen. Delilah Parker’s brother. The police can’t find him, but he was seen near here. I can’t leave you, he’ll be back tonight.” Or sooner.

  “I don’t think I can make it,” Nick said, his voice strained.

  “I’ll never leave you.” She swallowed her fear, the shame that she would fail, and worked the knots so she wouldn’t think about how much smaller the room had become since she’d entered. “We thought you were dead.”

  “I made a mistake.”

  “You can tell me all about it later,” she said.

  Dammit, the knots were too complicated and tight! Her knife. Why hadn’t she thought of it first? Her mind was going. The room was stifling. Sweat poured from her face, her body saturated in her own panic.

  If she didn’t pull herself together, Ashley and Nick would die. And if she didn’t find a way out of this, she and Lance Booker would join them.

  But there was safety in numbers. Four against one, even if three of the four were in less than prime condition.

  She pulled out her knife and carefully cut through the ropes so she wouldn’t injure Nick. A minute later he was free. She then went to work on Ashley.

  The girl was sobbing. “He’s going to kill us.”

  “No. No, I’m not going to let him.” Miranda pulled off the tight blindfold that bound Ashley’s eyes. The girl tried to open her eyes, but failed. “Don’t force it. Give yourself a minute.”