CHAPTER FOUR
Sunday, June 18
6:20 p.m.
“If we go out tonight, we can overnight at the campsite near the crime scene and then hike back first thing in the morning.”
Maggie knew he was going to say it even before the words left his mouth. Vic Sutherland might present a laid-back persona to the world, but that surface hid a drive and restlessness that used to rival hers. He looked . . . good. He’d always been attractive in a nontraditional sort of way—his features a little too craggy, his pale eyes too unnerving against his black hair and dusky skin, the movements of his big body always perfectly controlled. She’d forgotten how tall he was. It was such a silly thing to focus on, in the face of everything going on, but at five ten, she’d gotten used to looking everyone in the eye.
Vic towered over her.
She very carefully didn’t think about the fact that he was no longer married. It didn’t change anything. She wasn’t the same kid with stars in her eyes that she’d been after graduating from the FBI academy. She’d seen enough of the world to leave her bruised, and though her parents had pressured her to come home afterward and fall into line like a good little child, she’d gone searching again. She’d found something in the FBI, and even if she hadn’t been able to cut it, she couldn’t trade her dreams in for a job as a lawyer or doctor or, heaven forbid, a housewife to a lawyer or doctor. She would have wilted away to nothing in those roles.
It was only when she found the park rangers that she’d achieved something resembling peace.
She should have known the monsters would follow her. It took them seven years, but they managed all the same.
She didn’t say any of that, though. If he could focus on the case, then she’d be damned before she did anything else. “We can get up there before dark and take a look. It would give you a chance to let it sit and then take a second look in the morning if you need to.”
Vic liked to mull things over, to prod and push until facts shifted into place in his head. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get that opportunity this time around. The fact that the weather had held this long was a small miracle. Storms along the Continental Divide were a regular occurrence, and sometimes downright violent. Even without taking the isolated location into account, it was only a matter of time before one of those storms rolled through and eliminated anything worth finding.
He watched her as if he could divine her thoughts. “Okay.”
She hated the way her cheeks heated. She had more control than this. He was attractive and they had something of a history, sure, but he hadn’t tracked her down because he missed her so much. Even if he had . . .
Stop it.
She grabbed the backpack she’d packed before guiding the day trip today. “I just need to throw a few extra things in here.”
“I have a tent.”
She stopped short. “Great.” Maggie forced her feet back into motion. She methodically refilled her supplies from the ranger station and then headed back out. This is about the case. Remember that. Damn it, remember that. “Let’s go.” She knew she was being short with him, but he’d had time to come to terms with the fact they were going to be face-to-face again.
Maggie hadn’t.
She kept her pace slow, even though all she wanted to do was charge onto the path and get this investigation over with as soon as possible. Professional. She could be professional. It didn’t matter that the last time she’d seen Vic she’d had a total breakdown, had ended up needing him to comfort her, and then had lost her mind and kissed him. Her partner. Her married partner.
At that point, she’d already planned on getting the hell out of the FBI. But after embarrassing herself so thoroughly, she’d cut all ties with Vic and everyone else in the BAU.
Maggie stopped short and spun. “What is the BAU doing here?”
Vic, damn him, just raised his eyebrows. “I got called in.”
“Don’t try that bullshit with me. I know how the system works. We have a murder, they send in the local Feds. That means it’s either Jake or Tessa. Not the BAU.” The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit had been set up as a support system for law enforcement dealing with the worst kind of criminals imaginable. Serial killers, specifically—whether they crossed state lines or not. All local law enforcement had to do was call in for assistance and the head of the BSU, Britton Washburne, would send a team to create a profile and offer an outside opinion.
They wouldn’t be called in for a single body, no matter how horrible the murder was.
She narrowed her eyes as a chill raced down her spine. “What do you know?”
He hesitated, as if debating whether to lie. Finally, he sighed. “Keep going. I’ll fill you in.”
Standing there, a hundred yards from the trailhead, and demanding answers was childish—especially when they were wasting precious daylight. She nodded and started walking again, painfully aware of the man at her back. “Tell me.”
It took another hundred yards before he spoke. “This is the third murder in a national park in the last year.”
Third.
Three meant serial killer. Three in a year was a lot. “What about before then?”
“Nothing. Some parks have more deaths than others, and some of those are even murders, but nothing that bears any similarities to this.”
Each serial killer was different, but some had cooling-off periods that numbered in the years when they first started. To go from nothing to three kills in a year was unusual in the extreme. “What parks?”
“Grand Teton and Mount Rainier.”
Different parks for different kills. If this was a hunter, it made sense to stick to one territory, but at the same time, if it was a hiker who was familiar with the parks in the Northwest, then maybe that offered more opportunity . . . The whole thing made her head hurt. She hadn’t thought like this—like an agent—in almost a decade. She was out of practice.
So she went with what she knew—the parks. “I worked a season in Mount Rainier. That’s a quiet park. The storms coming off the coast cause the most problems, but even then, there are rarely deaths as a result.”
“I know.” Another silence, and she could almost hear him debating how much to share. Again.
“You might as well tell me. Though, from the little you’ve shared, it sounds like your unsub hits a park, kills their victim, and then moves on.”
“That’s been the case previously, yes.”
She heard what he wasn’t saying. “But you don’t think it is this time. Why?”
“I think the unsub was testing out how they felt about killing with the two previous victims. The first one—female, Caucasian, midthirties—was shot with a bow from the back. The unsub strung her up but didn’t go through with the field dressing. There was a small cut in the groin area, but that was it.”
“Chickened out.”
“That’s my take.”
No matter what fiction would have people believe, it took a special kind of monster to kill another human being in cold blood. Most murders were perpetuated by those closest to the victim, and they were driven by emotion. Love, hate, jealousy, fear. Stranger-on-stranger murder was significantly rarer, and serial killing was rarer yet. Maggie ducked under a low-hanging branch. The fact that there were hesitation marks in the cuts seemed to indicate that that woman was the first victim—rather than the first victim they’d found. “The second victim?”
“Grand Teton. It was a man this time—also Caucasian, midtwenties—and whatever held the unsub back with the first victim, they went all the way through with the field dressing this time.”
Maybe because it was a man, maybe there were other factors. Escalating was normal. It was likely that during the cooling-down period, while the unsub fantasized over and over again about the kill, he or she had worked themselves up into a frenzy. In an effort to re-create that feeling of bliss, they’d taken their plans all the way this time. “How long between murders?”
“Nine months. Three months between the Grand Teton one and this one.”
She shot him a look over her shoulder. “Any connection between the two victims?” They wouldn’t know if there were connections between those two and the third until they figured out who the hell she was.
“No. The man was hiking alone—something he did regularly. The woman had been with a group of friends and split off to head back to the trailhead because she had work later that day. She was also an experienced hiker, though she didn’t go out as often as the man did. Both were reported missing within twenty-four hours, and both were found near designated campsites.”
She mulled that over as she climbed, her legs burning from the second time up this trail in a day. Maggie had hiked longer distances over worse terrain, and there were a few times she’d sprinted the majority of the trip from Goat Haunt to Kootenai Lake, though excepting the murder, it’d been a while since they’d run into an emergency needing that kind of speed.
A killer who hunted lone hikers usually meant a crime of opportunity, but there was a lot of prep that went into hunting, let alone hunting a person. This wasn’t some random person who woke up one day and thought it’d be a great idea to hunt humans. This was someone who’d hunted most of their life. Unfortunately, in Montana, that didn’t narrow down the field of suspects much—especially if this person was killing strangers.
She dug her water out and took a long drink. “I’m sure you’ve already thought of this, but you’re looking for someone with extensive hunting and backcountry experience. No one is going to be able to haul a compound bow in through the normal trails—not without a ranger or some other hiker seeing it. Even with an overnight pack, it’d be nearly impossible to hide it.” A compound bow case was made to fit the bow itself, since the bow didn’t collapse. A hiker’s backpack was big, but it wouldn’t fit inside. Someone would notice. “Depending on what time of day they were killed and where, exactly, this person also stayed at least one night in the park and might have a camp set up somewhere off the main trails.”
“How do you track that sort of thing?”
Squatters were always something of a problem, simply because there was so much ground to cover and no effective way to do it if they weren’t on the trails. “We have backcountry rangers like me. We monitor the less-traveled trails for potential issues—rock slides, avalanches, anything that isn’t as it should be—and keep an eye out for anyone who’s where they’re not supposed to be.”
“We checked park permits against the two parks, but no one popped as being in both during the time frame.”
Whoever this guy was, he was too smart to slip up like that. She frowned. “The unsub would cover their tracks on that, but I’d bet he or she applied for permits while they were casing the park.” She used the turn in the trail to look behind her, noting the way his lips twitched. “But you already thought of that, didn’t you?”
“There’s over fifty people who applied for permits in both parks in the last year, and that number doubles if you go back two years.”
And there was no telling how long the unsub had spent planning this. There could have been many trips to all three parks over the course of several years. Lots of avid hikers in this area of the country hit all three parks—in addition to Yellowstone. It would be like hunting for a needle in the haystack. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
He didn’t bother to deny it. “It’s not based in fact. I just have a feeling that this woman won’t be the last in Glacier.”
She’d learned to trust Vic’s feelings when they were partners. He wasn’t much older than she was—a mere five years—but between his time in the SEALs and his years in the BAU, he had finely honed instincts. People tended to doubt the woo-woo aspect of a cop having a sixth sense, but she’d seen it in action. “Then I guess we need to find out who the hell this woman was and figure out who might be next.”
Her mind went to the group of midtwenties kids she’d met earlier, but she shook it off. They were a group of five, and none of them had any plans on hiking to the trailhead to go to work. They wouldn’t venture out on their own, so the unsub had no reason to track them.
With there being only one murder, no matter how terrible, the park wouldn’t be issuing any kind of warning or closing any trails. The unsub had a pattern of killing once and leaving the park behind, so there was no reason to think that creating a panic by announcing that there was a serial killer in Glacier was worth the trouble.
She still wished she’d taken the time to warn them.
Sunday, June 18
7:31 p.m.
Vic tried to pay attention to his surroundings. It was possible—probable, even—that the unsub had hiked this very trail at some point. It was more likely that he or she had hiked in from one of the less-traveled trails, but it still paid to take in the area around them.
One never knew who could be watching.
But his gaze kept tracking back to Maggie. She moved with purpose up the trail, undeterred by the steep climb and barely breathing hard. She wore pants and utilitarian boots, and her pack blocked most of his view, except for the back of her head.
He should stop staring. Things were already awkward between them without that kiss suddenly feeling like it was yesterday instead of seven years ago. If he concentrated, he could still feel her in his arms, taste her on his lips. It shouldn’t have been the defining moment of their time together as partners, but he couldn’t set it aside. “I took advantage.” He didn’t realize he’d intended to speak until the words were out of his mouth.
“That’s not what it was.”
It said something that she answered without asking him to clarify. He should have been the solid presence for her to break against during that case, and he’d betrayed that. “I was the senior partner. I shouldn’t have let it get that far.”
She stopped and turned to face him. With incline in the path beneath their feet, she could look him directly in his eyes. “I was an adult. I kissed you, knowing you were married and that it was inappropriate. So if you’re so determined to start aiming the blame somewhere, aim it at me.” She sighed. “Vic, it was one kiss, and you stopped it almost as soon as it started. I’m embarrassed I even went there. I was inappropriate. Can we just forget it happened and move on?”
That was the problem. He’d never forgotten. He’d tried. Fuck, he’d done his best to exorcise the memory of her in the years since he’d seen her. So much shit had been packed into that single year—his marriage reaching the breaking point, a case that would give even the most jaded agent nightmares, a new partner that he should have protected but who had burned out instead.
Now’s not the time.
It might never be the time.
But it sure as hell wasn’t appropriate to start this conversation when they were on their way to a crime scene. So he nodded. “We’ll talk about it later.”
She frowned. “That’s not what I said.”
“That’s what I’m offering.” He wasn’t willing to let a chance with Maggie—a real chance—slip through his fingers. It didn’t matter that the circumstances were less than ideal.
“I don’t understand you.” She turned without another word and kept going.
Vic didn’t speak for the rest of the hike. He’d already crossed the line as it was. He wouldn’t keep pushing Maggie. Now that he had plans to talk to her later, he was better able to focus on what they were walking into.
Kootenai campground was tucked just inside the tree line. Maggie didn’t pause at any of the designated tent spots, continuing on to the lake’s edge. Vic stopped short, the sheer beauty of the place washing over him.
From the clear, untouched lake, the forest and mountains rose up to snowcapped peaks. He’d seen the park from the helicopter and through the drive on Going-to-the-Sun Road, but it was something else altogether to be in the middle of it, knowing that you were no longer at the top of the food chain. “How many people are injured and killed by wildlife in this park a year?”
“Usually none.” Maggie’s gaze was on the mountains across from them. “We have more grizzlies than there were a few decades ago, but our rangers do our best to educate people on how to handle them, and ensure that they have bear spray when they’re going to certain parts of the park during certain times of the year.”
“And the other animals?” Grizzlies were what Glacier was known for, but that didn’t mean they were the only ones to be on the lookout for.
“Moose are mean, but usually keep their distance unless they’re feeling threatened. Same with the others. Mountain lions are ambush predators, but they’re cowards at heart. They might go after a lone hiker and stalk them for miles, but they will usually stay away from groups.” She hesitated. “That’s the key word there—usually. Any animal is dangerous if cornered or with its young, and we’re in their territory. But as long as people are respectful of that and take precautions, deaths are the exception to the rule.”
It sounded like a rote lecture, and he had to wonder how often she’d given it. Vic nodded at the blur almost in the middle of the mountains, too regular to be natural. “What’s that?”
“Porcupine Lookout. It’s kind of a bitch to get to, but the view is totally worth it. Only one trail in and one out.”
He noted that. There would be a lot of places like that in the park—places off the beaten trail that an avid hiker could get to for a spectacular view. That wasn’t where they were headed, though. “Where was the body found?”
“This way.”
He’d half expected it to be near the lake itself, but Maggie led him along the shoreline and then into the woods themselves. They passed several more lakes before she finally stopped at one that was just a fraction of the size of the largest.
There was still evidence of blood on the dirt beneath two trees, though the ground had been disturbed by some animal. He circled the small clearing slowly, letting his impressions roll over him.
The two trees were equal distance apart, and both had marks high enough on them to require either a person well over his six foot four inches, or climbing. “Lot of trouble to get to that.” He pointed to where the ropes were still knotted.
“Not really.” She set her pack down, rolled her shoulders, and nimbly scaled the tree. Maggie braced herself between a branch and the trunk and held up her hands. “The unsub has probably practiced the knots—they didn’t slip when he put weight on them—and he chose these trees for their position relative to each other and the fact that they’re easily scalable.”
“He.”
She rolled her eyes, the worry that had lurked there since he’d arrived retreating. “Don’t take the instructor tone with me. You know as well as I do that, historically, the vast majority of serial killers caught are men, and that women, while more than capable of murder, tend to use different methods than men do.” She made a face. “Though you also know my thoughts on that.”
Yeah, he did. Back when she’d been fresh from the academy, Maggie had spun her theories that they only found male serial killers because that was all they expected to find. If a person was looking for evidence to support a theory they believed was a truth, they would ignore any indication that didn’t support their conclusion.
She had a point, but the number of female serial killers caught was still a fraction of the males.
Then again, a year ago, he’d assisted on a case involving just that, so she was right—ruling out one gender seemed foolish in the extreme. “We’ll use he to simplify things, but I promise to keep an open mind.”
“How big was the man killed in Rainier?”
“One hundred fifty pounds, tops.” He followed her train of thought and nodded. “Not impossible for a strong woman to string up in this manner, but it would be challenging.”
“Moving deadweight around is challenging no matter which way you swing it—unless you’re the Hulk.” She shimmied down the tree and carefully stepped around a patch of dried blood. “Did they take the rope in?”
“It appears to be generic mountaineering rope, which can be found in any outdoors-type store.”
She propped her hands on her hips and glared at the remnants of the rope tied to the trees. “It would have been really convenient if it was some kind of special rope only sold in one store, huh?”
“Unfortunately, that sort of thing only happens on television.”
“I know.”
Vic did another circuit of the area. He was no tracker, able to determine how many people had entered a clearing or divine any information about them, but even he could see the broken branches and flattened greenery leading to the west. “This wouldn’t have been made by one of your rangers or the tourists.”
She walked over. “The tourists came in from the east, the same direction we did. They took one look at the body and basically fled screaming. David and Ava were here with me, but all we did was cut down the body and transport it back to the station.” Her face went a little pale, and he didn’t imagine that was a trip she was keen to remember anytime soon. She rallied. “This is too uniform to be an animal, but I’d expect better of our unsub.” He started to speak, but she murmured, as if to herself, “But then, it’s hard to be stealthy when hauling around a dead body.”
Maggie hadn’t lost her instincts. That much was clear.
He glanced at the sky, taking in the first streaks of purple. “Do we follow it or come back in the morning?” He didn’t like the idea of leaving a lead dangling, but he liked the idea of being stranded in the middle of Glacier in the dark even less. There were no city lights to break the night here, and the stars, while beautiful, weren’t adequate to keep them from stepping wrong and hurting themselves—or worse.
She looked like she wanted to chase down the trail as much as he did, but she shook her head. “We camp. In another hour, we won’t be able to follow the trail anyways, and we might destroy evidence trekking back if we’re not careful. Better to start at dawn, when we have plenty of time.”
“Good.”
He turned and looked out over the lake. While smaller than the first one, it was still plenty large and created an unobstructed view of the entire shoreline. The walk here from the campgrounds hadn’t taken all that long, and the trail was worn down enough to suggest that plenty of people had made the same exploration. “How many people come through this park a year?”
“A little over two million. A good portion of those will go through this park once and never come back, but there are people who come every year—multiple times a season.”
They’d considered that after the first death. “We looked at seasonal and temp workers, but nothing is popping. The seasonal rangers sometimes jump parks, which complicates matters further.”
“You think it’s a park ranger?” There wasn’t shock or horror in her voice, just a true curiosity.
Vic finally moved away from the view and started back toward the campground. “Do you think it could be a ranger?” He genuinely wanted to know what she thought—but he also wanted to know how well her training had held up. It had been a long time since she was an agent, and though she’d had the makings of a good one, she’d left the BAU before that had been realized.
“Sure. I mean, I instinctively want to say no, because I’m at least on speaking terms with all the regular rangers here and most of the seasonal ones, but it’s possible. Anything is possible.”
He let her chew on that as they hiked back. No one had arrived since they left, and so they had the campground to themselves. Though it meant they didn’t have to watch their words, it still made him a little uncomfortable.
It was more than the unsub potentially being close enough to be a threat.
It was the fact that the last time he and Maggie were alone, she’d been in his arms. Even with the case hanging over their heads, the memory stood between them almost like a living thing.
So much for not being distracted.
Sunday, June 18
9:45 p.m.
Maggie had been so focused on getting to the scene where they found the body as well as thinking about the past bearing down on her that she hadn’t really thought about the overnight accommodations. But as she set up the tent, she couldn’t ignore the truth any longer.
She and Vic were going to sleep in the same tent.
The thrill that went through her at the thought had no place in a murder investigation—or a national park. Maybe I should just set up my sleeping bag by the fire. It wouldn’t be quite as secure as the tent, but she wasn’t going to get any sleep lying a few scant inches from the man who’d occupied more than his fair share of her thoughts over the years. Here he was, still larger than life and still too handsome—and now single.
Stop it.
Think of the case. Think of the murderer who might, even now, be stalking the woods around us.
Maggie caught a whiff of wood smoke and turned to find that Vic already had a fire burning. “Handy.”
“You aren’t the only one with outdoors skills.” His brows slanted down. “Though I’m out of practice.”
That obviously bothered him. When they were partners, she’d assumed the way he acted was because he was the senior partner who intended to show her the ropes. In hindsight, it was more than that. It was one of the fundamental things that made up his personality.
He protected. He led. He took care of those around him.
It had to be killing him a little bit to be so out of his element in their current situation.
“You’re still faster than most people.” She dragged her pack over to the fire and dug through it. They’d refilled their water before coming back to the campground, so now it was a matter of figuring out food. “Do you want beef ravioli or chicken noodle?”
“Maggie.”
She glanced up to find his pale eyes laughing at her. “What?”
“You didn’t really think I’d come out here without my own MREs, did you?”
Well, now that he mentioned it, she felt a little silly assuming that he’d act the same as the Fed had the only other time she’d played guide. That idiot had hiked behind her, complaining the whole way about his shoes pinching, and had forgotten to pack anything except a single bottle of water. No water purifier. No bear spray. No MREs. Not even a damn protein bar. By the end of that day, she’d been ready to wring his neck.
So now she always packed double the food she’d personally need if something went wrong. It was a pain to add more weight to her pack, but it was better than having to sacrifice much-needed calories because some tourist hadn’t planned effectively.
But Vic was no tourist.
To cover up how flustered that realization made her, she said, “What have you got? Want to trade?”
His smile reached his lips. “I’ll take that beef ravioli if you want some spicy turkey chili.”
“Deal.” She passed it over, and they went about preparing their food. With MREs, it was easy—they were self-heating, so it was a matter of engaging it and letting it do its thing. Some park rangers packed in other stuff, but she preferred the MREs. Easy to cook, easy to clean up, easy to pack in and out.
They ate in silence, and she went back to mulling over everything he’d told her. A serial killer. In her park. Oh, she knew Glacier wasn’t actually hers, but she claimed it all the same. To know there could be someone hunting innocent people out here in the woods made her skin crawl. There was no telling when the unsub would strike again—or whom. Depending on the timeline and the path he took, he could hike well over twelve miles a day, traveling anywhere in the park within a few short days. They didn’t know his plan, didn’t know his timeline, didn’t know anything that would catch him before he killed again.
Get ahold of yourself.
“I left the FBI because I didn’t want to deal with this kind of thing anymore.” She didn’t realize she was going to speak until the words were pouring out of her. “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe he’ll move on like he has the last two times.” They had absolutely no indication that the unsub would stay in the park, aside from his shrinking cooling-down period. If he followed the previous pattern, he’d halve the time between murders—which meant they had another six weeks or so before someone would be in danger again.
In theory.
“Maybe.” There was no censure there, no judgment.
She felt the sting anyway. Maggie looked up, finding him watching her. All the old insecurities she’d fought so long and hard to get past rose up in a wave that threatened to pull her under. “I couldn’t cut it. You don’t need to say it—we both know it’s the truth. It took all of one case to break me. It was pathetic.”
“Maggie, stop.”
She realized she was breathing hard and cursed herself all over again for her weakness. She had failed so spectacularly at being an FBI agent, but up until this point, she’d been a pretty damn good park ranger. Having the two meet in such an unexpected way sent her right back to that feeling of helpless fury she couldn’t escape seven years ago. “See. I’m not cut out for it.”
“For fuck’s sake, Maggie, that case messed up everyone. No one keeps their head on straight when kids are involved. You were twenty-one, and it was your first case. You were allowed to be shaken up seeing that shit. I understand why you left the BAU—I never thought less of you for that decision. No one did. But this self-pity act isn’t you.”
“How do you know what is or isn’t me anymore? We haven’t seen each other in seven years.” Some days she was so sure she knew who she was. Others . . . not so much. She had been mostly written off as a lost cause by her parents after that fateful Thanksgiving seven years ago. They’d thought her leaving the FBI was a sign that she was finally seeing the light and deciding to follow along with their plans. The only thing she’d wanted was a safe place to recover from her burnout . . . The fight had been loud and angry, and she’d barely spoken to them since.
And, aside from a few misogynistic assholes in the park rangers, she’d more than proven herself ages ago professionally.
That was the problem. She might have proved herself to other people, but there was still a nagging little voice inside her that assured her she’d never be good enough.
He didn’t look away. “I know enough.”
She started to tell him that he was wrong, but a sound cut through the night. Maggie shot to her feet, spinning to face the lake. The fire made her night-blind, and she took several steps away from it, squinting. She felt Vic next to her, so close his shoulder brushed hers. He had his gun out, and he was staring at the same spot she was. “That wasn’t any animal I know.”
“You’re right. That wasn’t an animal. That was a human screaming.”