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 ubiquitous 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.
“Let’s go,” she finally said, and stepped around him. She breathed easier.
Nick watched Miranda and Quinn leave, then turned back to Eli. “This is my investigation, Eli,” he said. “You’re trespassing on a crime scene. I’ll make a statement tonight.”
“Right. After the paper goes to bed. Good plan.” He pulled another notepad from his shoulder bag and flipped it open. “Why don’t you save me the trouble of writing how uncooperative you were and give me the information you know you’re going to have to share with me later?”
Nick bit the inside of his cheeks to refrain from saying something he most definitely didn’t want to see in print.
“I cannot confirm that the young adult female body found this morning is in fact Rebecca Douglas. The body has not been identified and is currently awaiting the coroner’s examination and family identification.”
“But it was the Butcher, correct?”
“The coroner’s report should be helpful in that determination.”
“Come on, Nick. Let’s get real here. You know the Butcher had Rebecca Douglas for the past week.”
“Don’t push me, Eli. I remember that the parents of the Croft sisters read about their daughters in the damn newspaper before they even knew they were dead.”
Eli had the good sense to look sheepish. “Okay, off the record. I promise I won’t print anything until the coroner confirms it.”
“You’re getting nothing, Eli. You know that old saying, ‘Fool me once.’ ” Nick had given him one tidbit three years ago when the Croft sisters had been found; he’d never trust the asshole again after seeing his off-record statement in print.
“Aw, come on, Nicky,” Eli said. “One quote. One quote for the paper and I’ll wait like a good little boy for your statement tonight.”
“Deputy.” He motioned to Booker. “Get this man off my crime scene.”
Elijah Banks had rubbed salt in every one of her wounds, starting by printing a picture of her being loaded into a Lifeline helicopter twelve years ago after she barely survived her jump into the icy Gallatin River. What had been a terrifying, humiliating, soul-shattering experience for her had won him some award in some stupid journalism contest. Worse, the photograph had been reprinted in major newspapers across the country.
She couldn’t stand him. But sometimes she suspected she didn’t despise him because he was doing his job in the most obnoxious way possible, but because seeing him reminded her of the worst day of her life, which he’d immortalized in a photograph.
The sun slipped behind Gallatin Peak.
Miranda was numb, but the sudden dip in temperature reminded her she was cold. So cold.
Sharon was dead. He’d shot her in the back. He was coming for her.
Run, Miranda, run!
She stumbled down the steep slope, grabbing a sapling to slow herself. The river was closer; the rush of the rapids a steady hum echoing against the mountainside.