Capturing the Huntsman

by C. J. Miller

  Nathan lifted his eyes to meet hers. “He’s never left anything behind to give us clues about his agenda.”

  “It could be a hoax,” Autumn said, half wishing it was. A sick joke, some hiker leaving a message to frighten others.

  “It’s all we have to go on. Let’s hope the last victim didn’t come out to play a prank and get herself killed in the process.”

  * * *

  Roger Ford was not pleased when he answered the phone. But Nathan couldn’t have cared less what pleased Ford. From day one, he’d pegged Nathan as trouble because Nathan wasn’t old-school and hard-nosed. Quickly marrying and then getting divorced from Ford’s sister hadn’t helped their relationship, but it was time to leave the past behind.

  Calling Roger Ford in to help was necessary, and since Ford had allowed Autumn to come to the most recent crime scene, Nathan owed him. They had formed a reluctant working relationship. Nathan needed the crime lab to examine the book, and he wouldn’t have access on his own to that type of evidence analysis.

  The moment Ford arrived on the scene, as expected, he corralled Nathan and Autumn thirty feet from Hilde’s shelter and told them to wait. Nathan had half a mind to leave—Ford couldn’t require him to stay—but he wanted to know about that book.

  “At least he didn’t accuse us of committing the murders,” Autumn muttered.

  Nathan’s gaze swerved from the crime scene—or what he could see of it—to Autumn. Every time he looked at her, he was taken aback at how beautiful she was. In the forest, with the backdrop of the trees, she was even more breathtaking. “It has to grate on his nerves that we’ve found more evidence than he has.”

  Autumn gave him a shaky smile. “We keep landing in the middle of the investigation.”

  “We’re looking for evidence and hitting it lucky,” Nathan said.

  Autumn folded her arms over her chest. “How do you take the pressure? How can you do this, day after day?”

  Nathan didn’t always work active crime scenes. Much of his work was research, talking to people and reviewing evidence. “It’s not always like this.”

  “This intense?”

  Every case he worked was intense. From the time he began a case, he’d sink into it and absorb the pieces. “Most cases are intense. This one has a personal aspect to it.”

  Compassion was plain on her face. “Tell me about her. Tell me about Colleen.”

  It was still hard to talk about his sister. Nathan missed her so much. “Colleen was a good woman. But she had demons. Somehow, she couldn’t shake them loose. Therapy and rehab and medications couldn’t make her happy. She relied on alcohol too often. She had her life together when my niece and nephew were babies. When her husband left her and took the kids, she spun out of control. More recently, I thought she was getting better and maybe she’d get a fresh start. The Huntsman saw to it that it didn’t happen.” Talking about her sent an arrow of sharp grief to his core.

  Nathan jammed his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her, from seeking out human contact as a salve on his hurt. Talking about this opened a fresh wound, left him feeling vulnerable and exposed in way he didn’t care for. He could clam up, but he wanted Autumn to understand why it was so important that he find Colleen’s murderer.

  “What was she doing on the trail?” Autumn asked.

  That part of the story was the dark aspect of their lives. He didn’t talk about it much. “Colleen loved being outdoors. When Colleen and I were in middle school, our father walked out on us. Colleen had a lot of trouble with it.” She’d run away several times, and while she always returned home safe, their mother was a wreck every time. After the first three times, when their mother called, the police stopped coming by or looking for her. “Colleen ran away from home and she caused a lot of problems with the family.” It was Colleen’s love of the outdoors that had saved her and cost her her life. “She needed that time. She said being outside was her therapy.”

  Nathan swallowed the thick emotion building in his throat. “She had arranged to go hiking with a friend, but at the last minute, the friend fell sick with the flu. Colleen decided to go anyway.”

  Autumn set her hand on his arm and squeezed. It was as if she’d flipped some switch in him, and the words and emotions he’d kept locked inside bubbled up in his chest. At Colleen’s funeral, he’d remained stoic for his mother, former brother-in-law, niece and nephew. Nathan had been the person they’d leaned on, the calm and rational pillar of strength. He’d promised them he would find her killer. It wasn’t a burden. He was honored to do this, to see that his family got resolution and peace.

  Nathan didn’t have the words. Instead, he settled on a simple phrase, something to convey his gratitude to Autumn for helping him. She might not have known how important this was to him, but she had stuck by him and the case. That connection, that sense that Autumn understood him, strengthened. “Thank you.”

  Autumn wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, letting her head rest on his shoulder. “For what?”

  He dropped his cheek to rest on the top of her head. He struggled to find the words, knowing they would be awkward and weak. Before he’d settled on what to say, Ford broke in.

  “I need you to drive to the crime lab and get fingerprinted and swabbed for DNA.”

  Nathan’s head snapped up and he took a small step away from Autumn. Ford. The man had impeccable timing. “We didn’t touch the book without gloves.”

  Ford cracked his knuckles. “Don’t care. Do it anyway.”

  The spell broken, Nathan sealed up the emotion that pulsed from his chest. Ford might have the manners of a mule, but he’d stopped Nathan from blubbering about Colleen and blurting out overemotional mumbo jumbo that would only serve to complicate matters in the future.

  * * *

  Another small opening in his defenses. Autumn had felt the slightest shift in Nathan, from an investigator to the man he’d been in her bed. Almost as abruptly, he’d closed himself off. His mixed signals were sending her world topsy-turvy, and she worked to steady her reaction. This situation was difficult for him and his family, and she wasn’t planning to complicate things with questions about them or about their future or about what being snowbound in her cabin had meant to him. Those things didn’t rate. They were nonissues and she should stop thinking about them.

  She and Nathan took the trip to the lab with the radio keeping them company. Swabbing for DNA and getting fingerprinted took less than twenty minutes and then they were back on the road, headed toward the Trail’s Edge.

  Autumn’s thoughts wandered to the case, to the victim she’d found hung in the tree, to the blood in cabin twelve and to the victim she’d seen that morning. The journal didn’t fit with the pattern Nathan had mentioned. The Huntsman didn’t leave evidence behind. Like the boot prints in the cabin, was it deliberate? “Why do you think the killer left a message in the journal? He had to know someone would read it.” If not other hikers, then Hilde, when she collected the journal.

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too. He wanted his message found.” Nathan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Does the website where the messages are uploaded get a lot of traffic?”

  “Maybe a few hundred, possibly a thousand people read it.”

  “He’s working to put his message out.”

  Why? And what sense did the ranting make? If Hilde had found the writings first, she might not have put them on the blog. It wasn’t Hilde’s intention to scare hikers or drive them away from the trail. Autumn rubbed her forehead. “How did the killer know about the journal? Hilde doesn’t leave signs on the trail.”

  “I’m sure he hasn’t spent his entire adult life in the wilderness. At some point, he had or has access to a computer. He could have looked at hiking and trail sites for information about the Appalachian Trail and stumbled on Hilde’s sit
e.”

  Autumn laid her head against the window, exhaustion battering her, her eyes feeling gritty and heavy. The more she tried to sort the information and figure out the whys and hows of the case, the more confused she felt.

  “You up for grabbing something to eat?” Nathan asked. “It might make you feel better.”

  “I feel fine.” Her stomach growled and she pressed a hand over it. “Or maybe food sounds great.” It would take the edge off her tiredness if she had some sugar in her blood.

  Nathan pulled into a restaurant parking lot. It was one of the nicer establishments in town.

  “I’m not dressed to eat here,” Autumn said. Little black dresses and suits were appropriate for this place. She and Nathan were wearing tired, worn hiking clothes.

  “I’ve wanted to eat here since I first drove by. We’ll be fine.”

  Easy for Nathan to say. He blended in everywhere. People liked him and he always looked stylish.

  When they arrived at the hostess station, the woman took one long look at Nathan and smiled brightly. “Come this way, sir.”

  He’d been right. No problems being seated. What was it like to live life with a perpetual sense of confidence?

  They were escorted to a window seat. Nathan pointed to a small alcove on the far side of the restaurant. “Any chance we could sit there?”

  The woman smiled and escorted them to the private table Nathan had selected. When she left them alone, Nathan helped Autumn into her seat.

  “How do you do that?” she asked.

  “Do what?”

  “You always get what you want,” Autumn said.

  “I ask for what I want. That helps.”

  Autumn sat and tried not to obsess about how she and Nathan had to look out of place. Her heart stopped and skipped a beat when Nathan sat across from her. He was a handsome man and when they were alone, she had time to look at him and drink in every ounce of his good looks.

  “Are you doing okay? I’ve been worried about you,” Nathan said.

  “This hasn’t been the best month of my life, but not the worst, either,” Autumn said.

  “I think Ford was hoping you’d recognize the body. He had to have a sense the body would be female.”

  “Maybe,” Autumn said. She couldn’t muster up anger even if Ford had been using her for a positive ID. If she had recognized the victim, the person’s family could have been contacted that much faster. She wanted the same thing Nathan and Ford did: for the Huntsman to be found and stopped.

  Her thoughts stuttered to a stop when Daniel and Francine entered the room. They were dressed for the restaurant, Francine in a knit dress that clung in the right places and Daniel in his crisp uniform.

  Her heart lurched for an entirely different reason.

  “Great,” she muttered under her breath. After the day she’d had, her emotions had been jerked around enough that she didn’t think she could handle any more problems. If she was lucky, Daniel would ignore her.

  Nathan glanced at the door. “Is this going to make you uncomfortable? Because we can leave. We can eat anywhere you’d like.”

  She shouldn’t care. She and Daniel were long over and now she had other things in her life to fill her time. “It’s no big deal.”

  But the ache in her stomach indicated otherwise. It was the first time Autumn had seen Daniel and Francine together. She’d heard rumors about them being a couple. She’d seen each of them individually. Seeing them together struck a different chord. “I have to face them at some point.” She felt less anger than she had expected, more the urge to flee. She was tired. She didn’t want to deal with them.

  “Ignore them. You’re the most beautiful woman in this room and I want to look at you and talk about you.”

  Autumn cringed when Daniel strode in her direction. “He’s coming this way.”

  He stopped in front of their table. “Hey, Autumn. What brings you out? I thought you only left the Trail’s Edge once a year.”

  A common complaint he’d had about her desire to stay at the Trail’s Edge.

  How did he reduce her to tiny shreds? She wanted to appear confident and in control, as if her heartbreak was nothing and long over. It still stung to know he hadn’t cared for her the way she’d cared for him. “We’re having dinner. It’s been a long day. Let’s not do this here.”

  Daniel gave Nathan an appraising look. “Are you dating?” he asked.

  Autumn wanted Daniel to know she had moved on from their relationship and was embroiled in a steamy affair with a hot FBI agent whom she had slept with multiple times in the past two days. It was shallow, but it would feel good for Daniel to know she could have something hot with a man. Since it was a man who looked like Nathan, double the bonus.

  “You’re interrupting our date, if that’s what you mean,” Nathan said. His hand moved across the table and covered hers. Along with the gesture, the searing look in his eyes nearly had her leaning away. Heat and desire smoldered in his expression.

  Autumn’s heart lifted. “Nathan’s staying at the Trail’s Edge.”

  “With you?” Daniel asked, straightening.

  Before she could answer, Francine slipped her arms around Daniel in a proprietary gesture. “Daniel, let’s go. I want to order. I’m hungry.”

  Daniel moved Francine’s hands off him and held one of them in his. “Autumn is seeing someone new.”

  “I know. They came to the lounge the other night. People are still talking about them.”

  Autumn’s ears burned. Gossip about her family was something she tried to avoid.

  “You didn’t tell me you saw them having dinner,” Daniel said.

  Francine rolled her eyes. “I don’t give you a list of every person who comes into the lounge every day.”

  “We must have made an impression if people are still talking about it,” Nathan said, perhaps picking up on Autumn’s nervousness.

  Francine waved her free hand dismissively. “New, sexy stranger, that’s all.”

  Autumn relaxed. They were talking about Nathan, not her. She understood their interest. He was tall and darkly good-looking. “Yes, he is.”

  She smiled at Nathan and squeezed his hand, letting him know she appreciated him playing along in front of her ex.

  “Come on, Francine, let’s eat.”

  Francine waved over her shoulder as she and Daniel walked to their table.

  “Thank you for that,” Autumn said when they were out of earshot.

  “For what?”

  “For pretending like your interest is primarily me and not the case.”

  Nathan squeezed her hand. “I am interested in you. I’ve made that clear.”

  But they hadn’t established what the turn in their relationship meant.

  “Are you still in love with Daniel? I want to ask the blunt question because I’ve been in difficult relationships before where it gets messy because of a love triangle and unresolved problems.”

  In love with Daniel? Not even a little. “I am not in love with Daniel.” Autumn tried to explain more. “Daniel and I have a complicated history. He was Blaine’s best friend and they had a falling out, and Daniel and I broke up because he cheated on me. It’s a mess, really,” Autumn said. “But that’s what I’ve come to expect from my relationships. A mess.”

  “What makes you feel that way? Because of the way they end?”

  Could Autumn tell him the most difficult part of her relationship history? While there wasn’t one relationship that was bad, each had serious flaws. “My first boyfriend was a guy I dated for four years in high school. He told me the week before senior prom that he was gay.” It had been devastating. Autumn had been planning a future with a man who didn’t want to be with her, at least, not as a lover. She and Ben were on good terms now, but it had tak
en years to get over what had happened. She still carried around some of the insecurities that came with selecting and staying with a man who was so obviously not physically attracted to her.

  “That must have been hard for you both,” Nathan said.

  It was. “We’re on friendly terms now,” Autumn said. “But I carried around a lot of baggage about it. It had nothing to do with me, but it made me feel...” Like less of a woman. Sexually clueless. Undesirable.

  “Whatever it made you feel then, when I look at you, I want you to know I see a vibrant, sexy woman with so much to offer, so much caring and kindness.”

  Her cheeks heated with pleasure at the unexpected compliment. “That’s how you make me feel.” When they were together, boyfriends of the past were forgotten and her self-consciousness fled to the darkest corners of her mind. She was strong and capable and Nathan wanted her.

  When he’d gotten cold and stoic that morning, Autumn hadn’t known how to react. She thought maybe sex with her hadn’t been as good for him as she’d believed. That maybe she’d misinterpreted his actions or was projecting her feelings onto him. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Nathan was the first man who seemed to desire her as much as she desired him. He was the first man who made her feel good about herself in bed. He didn’t have criticisms or complaints, at least none that he voiced.

  Which amounted to fun in the short-term, but nothing in the future.

  She had started the relationship believing she could maintain distance between them. He hadn’t lied about his intentions or his priorities. But now she had to ask herself a difficult question, a question she might not like the answer to. How would she feel when Nathan left?

  * * *

  FBI agents were still milling around the Trail’s Edge campground, taking pictures and searching cabin twelve for evidence. After overhearing that blood had been found in the cabin, Autumn kept busy with mundane chores, sweeping her floors, cleaning out her fireplace and taking the ashes outside, and feeding and playing with Thor. Nathan had returned to his cabin to review his case file. Alone, she had time to think.