The Hunt

CHAPTER 38

“If you so much as squeak, I’ll kill you. Slowly. And then I will kill your lover.”

Miranda believed Delilah’s threat. She didn’t want to die. Not now, after she’d finally put her demons to rest. She couldn’t bear thinking of Quinn finding her dead body.

Delilah Parker was a sick woman.

Her hands bound behind her back, goosebumps rose on Miranda’s damp skin. She wore a thin cotton robe and nothing else.

Shaking and barefoot, Miranda stumbled down the path, her leg aching. She had no idea where Delilah was taking her, but she wasn’t dead yet. She would find an opportunity to escape.

“Why are you doing this?” Miranda asked.

“Because I want to,” Delilah said like a recalcitrant child. “Now keep moving.”

Keep her talking. Miranda remembered that from her criminal psychology classes.

“Why did you help your brother kidnap women? You’re a woman. Certainly you would have sympathy.”

Delilah shrugged. “It was interesting.”

Interesting? She thought raping and shooting women in the back was interesting!

“You just handed us over to your brother and walked away? Knowing what he was going to do?”

“Keep your voice down,” Delilah hissed.

Miranda couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She pushed on, though she kept her voice low, mindful of the gun in her back.

“How could you do that? Just walk away?”

“I didn’t walk away. I’m not a coward. Not like Davy.”

Miranda stumbled at her words. Delilah prodded her up. “Keep moving.”

“My leg.”

“Who gives a fuck about your leg? Davy’s dead.”

Miranda bit her tongue, tears springing to her eyes. “You knew? You saw?”

“I wanted to watch. To see what it took to break someone. Davy insisted that if he found the right girl she would want to stay with him forever. I told him he was a fool. I was right.”

How could Delilah ignore the endless screams? She watched her brother rape and torture women and it was interesting? To see what it took to break a human being? Miranda’s stomach twisted and bile rose to the back of her throat. She forced herself to swallow, the burning sensation making her grimace.

Delilah was as twisted as her brother!

She continued. “You know, it’s not my fault. Davy took that first girl without telling me. Can you believe that? He just kidnapped her and raped her. He thought that if she knew how much he loved her,” Delilah said, eyes rolling, “she’d stay with him.”

“Penny,” Miranda said, almost to herself.

“He wasn’t supposed to touch another woman without my permission. But I knew, like a wife knows her husband is cheating, I knew he had another woman. I followed him. And there she was, tied on the stinking floor of some abandoned cabin. I watched Davy through the window. Begging her to say she loved him, blah, blah, blah.

“Davy left an hour later and I let her go. I told her how to get down from the mountain. She begged me to take her with me. Like I wanted to help her? I sent her further into the canyon and caught up with Davy before he got to his truck.” She laughed, a surprisingly light and airy sound considering her words.

“I told him he had to kill her. She would turn him in to the police if he didn’t.” She shook her head. “I waited for him. It didn’t take long.”

She pushed Miranda forward. Miranda stumbled over a tree root and fell to her knees. Her stitches pulled and a thin trickle of blood slid down her leg. Delilah kicked her. “Get up!”

Miranda pushed herself up with her calves, legs spread for balance, her anger rising. She was terrified of what Delilah was capable of doing. She showed a complete and total indifference to the pain and suffering of others.

“You’re sick, Delilah. You. Getting a thrill out of watching your brother rape women.”

Miranda braced for an attack that didn’t come. Delilah remained silent, and Miranda realized then where they were headed. Her field. Her special meadow where she went to think, to relax, to celebrate life.

Had Delilah watched her sit in the middle of the wide, open space? Followed her? Stalked her? What about her sick brother? Had he?

At the far edge of the clearing, Delilah pushed Miranda down. She stumbled and couldn’t avoid her face hitting the ground. Tears sprang to her eyes, more from indignation and fear than pain.

Delilah looked delicate, but she was strong. She pushed Miranda up against a tree and sat her down, the rocks and sharp pine needles stabbing her butt and legs, but Miranda resisted the urge to cry out. She wouldn’t give the bitch the satisfaction. Delilah untied Miranda’s hands.

This was her opportunity.

Miranda swung her arms together toward Delilah. Anticipating the move, Delilah used the grip of her gun against the side of Miranda’s head. Miranda fell to the ground, her breath coming harsh and deep. She ground her teeth against the pain and nausea. Delilah pushed her up against the tree, binding her hands around it. Delilah pulled hard on her arms and Miranda cried out.

“What are you doing?” Miranda managed to ask.

“Waiting.”

“For what?”

“For your lover to show himself.”

“You’ll never get away with this.” That sounded so stupid! Worse, she feared Delilah was desperate enough to do anything.

Miranda ran scenarios through her head. She could scream, but Delilah would simply render her unconscious. She could kick out, hope to loosen the gun from her grip, but tied to the tree Miranda had no opportunity to seize the gun. The best chance she had was to warn Quinn when he came close enough. Warn him that it was a trap. She could only hope he would figure it out before it was too late.

“I watched you and that cop,” Delilah continued. “Screwing each other last night.”

She was there? She’d been so close and they hadn’t known. Miranda felt tainted that her most intimate moment with Quinn, their reunion, had been observed by such a twisted, sick individual.

“When I was little I never understood what was so wonderful about sex. It seemed so messy. Sweating bodies and all that. I used to watch my mother, after my daddy left us. Watch her with men. Watch her with Davy.”

Miranda’s ears perked up. Her mother had molested her own son? The whole family was deranged. A faint spark of pity shot through Miranda’s soul, but she suppressed it. We all have choices. They chose to be evil.

Delilah said nothing for a long moment. Then, “I used to hate Davy. Mama loved him more. Cuddled him. Hugged him. I was the unwanted daughter. Daddy had loved me, but he left and never came back. Never, not even once. Just walked out the door.” She took a deep breath and shook the childlike tone from her voice. “But Mama loved Davy more and took him to her bed. Did everything for him. And I hated him. Of course, once I realized she was fucking him I sort of felt sorry for the kid. He’d lie there and cry. So pathetic. Why didn’t he fight back? Why didn’t he just leave?” She shook her head.

“I didn’t let him kill you,” Delilah told her.

Miranda stifled a response. Now was not the time to challenge Delilah.

“After you got away, he wanted to kill you, but you fought back. I admired that. And look how you repaid me. I gave you your life and you killed my brother!” She hit Miranda in the face and her head slammed into the tree. Miranda literally saw stars and shouted in pain.

“You sick bitch!”

“None of that,” Delilah said. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and stuffed it in Miranda’s mouth, then tied a length of rope around her face to keep the gag in place.

Miranda was now helpless to warn Quinn. Her stomach lurched. Please, please stay away.

I can’t bear to watch you die.

Officer Dick Walters was dead. Shot in the back of the head. And Miranda was missing.

Quinn turned from the cop’s faceless body on Miranda’s small porch and gave orders to the half-dozen sheriff’s deputies already there. More were on their way, plus additional FBI agents, but time was of the essence. Quinn couldn’t wait for more help.

Delilah hadn’t even attempted to cover her tracks. She expected them to follow. Wanted them to follow.

What was her goal? She had Miranda, presumably alive-there was no blood inside the cabin-but why keep her alive?

Delilah wanted someone or something, and taking a hostage would give her leverage.

Quinn hated hostage negotiations. The intense stress of being responsible for the lives of innocent people had destroyed some of the best agents he had worked with. But it was worse when the hostage was someone you knew.

Or someone you loved.

“Proceed with caution,” he told the deputies, directing two to the right, two to the left, and two with him directly up the trail Delilah had taken.

They hastened, staying as close to the tree line as possible in case of an ambush. They didn’t go far, not even two hundred yards, before the trail opened into a meadow, camouflaged by a thick growth of trees.

Quinn couldn’t miss her. Miranda’s white robe practically glowed in the green and brown of the tree-lined meadow, like a beacon advertising her location. She sat up against a tree. He pulled out his field binoculars and stared.

She was tied to the tree and gagged. Her hair was wet and she wore only a thin robe. But the cold was the least of her problems.

Quinn couldn’t see Delilah anywhere. He smelled a trap.

He ached to run to Miranda, but took a step back. It would do neither of them any good if he was gunned down.

He spoke quietly into the radio. “It feels like a trap. Do not, I repeat, do not walk into the clearing.”

He turned to Jorgensen. “Bullhorn.”

The cop handed it to him.

Quinn took a deep breath. This was it.

“Delilah Parker,” he said into the bullhorn, his voice loud and tinny-sounding.

“Delilah, I’m Special Agent Quincy Peterson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You might remember me. You graciously served me lemonade and banana bread when I first came to town.”

Quinn said the first thing that came to his mind, but it felt right. He motioned to the other men to take either side and stay out of sight. He nodded to Jorgensen, who turned and headed back to the Lodge. Plan B was a last resort.

Quinn feared it was their only option.

Delilah Parker was all about control and image. Quinn remembered what Nick told him about her need to be the hostess, how you never turned down a drink or meal from Mrs. Parker.

He needed to appeal to that side of her.

Not the side that watched her brother rape nearly two dozen women.

“Delilah? Can you come out so we can talk?”

“No! He’s doing it wrong!”

Delilah was angry and Miranda glanced from her to Quinn nearly a football field away.

Delilah had been hiding behind a hollowed-out, rotting tree. Her goal was to shoot Quinn when he came for Miranda. So Miranda could watch him die.

But Quinn wasn’t playing her game, and now Delilah was angry. She pounded the ground and pouted.

Quinn’s voice came over the speaker. “Delilah, this is between you and me now. No one else. You tell me what you want, and I’ll figure out how we can get it for you. Okay?”

“No!” Delilah jumped up and strode over to Miranda, the tip of the gun touching her head. Miranda couldn’t stop shaking. She’d seen Dick Walters’s body. Delilah would kill her, too.

And she would kill Quinn if she had an opportunity.

“Put the gun down so we can talk,” Quinn said. He was walking around the short side of the meadow. Seeming to be moving farther away, but Miranda knew what he was doing. Trying to get closer. Trying to distract Delilah from everything else going on. Miranda saw only one cop among the trees. There had to be more.

“No, no, no!” Delilah kicked the ground. “Don’t you see?” she shouted. “Don’t you get it? She has to die. But it doesn’t mean anything unless she sees you die, too. She killed Davy. She needs to suffer for taking him. Don’t you see that?”

“Delilah, I understand what you’re going through,” Quinn said. “Grief is a powerful emotion.”

“You know nothing about grief.”

“Try me.”

“No. You’re buying time. What are you doing? Getting a SWAT team to run in here and shoot me? Well, I’ll tell you, your girlfriend’ll die too.”

Delilah’s hand was steady, but she sweated profusely. Her eyes kept darting back and forth, like a rodent’s. Miranda waited for an opportunity to do something, but she had no idea what. She watched Quinn for a signal, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were on Delilah.

He moved closer.

“Delilah, you don’t mean that. You made some wrong choices, but you didn’t kill any of those girls, right?”

“Who cares? No one cared when I told them what my mother did to Davy. They didn’t believe me.”

“I believe you, Delilah.”

“I’m not stupid, Special Agent Peterson,” she shouted. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get me to break down in remorse and say I’m sorry. Well I’m not sorry. The only thing I’m sorry about is I didn’t let Davy kill this bitch-” she kicked Miranda in the side “-when she got away.”

Miranda started to close her eyes, ready for the pain of a bullet, when she saw Quinn motion with his hand. It was sign language. They were required to learn it at the Academy.

Get low.

From the opposite side of the field, a voice shouted, “Mom! Don’t!”

Delilah turned and the gun moved away from Miranda’s head. Miranda leaned down as far as she could.

“Ryan? You would betray me too?” Delilah turned the gun toward her son.

Then the noise.

Whap! Whap whap whap whap whap!

Delilah’s body was thrown backward into the tree as the bullets hit her. She fell into Miranda’s lap, her eyes looking right into Miranda’s.

“Peace,” she gurgled.

Her body jerked and she died. Miranda stared at Delilah Parker’s dead body.

Quinn knelt at her side and pushed Delilah’s body off her, then pulled out the gag. He untied her as he tried to hold her at the same time.

Quinn got her hands undone. She grabbed on to him, holding him tightly to her, silent tears running down her face. He picked her up, carrying her farther into the trees, away from death.

He kissed her, held her close. “I’m sorry we had to bring in Ryan, but-I only did it as a last resort.”

“I know.”

“Now, Miranda, it’s really over.”