Undercover Hunter. Rachel Lee

he rose to get a cup. Kelly Jackson had been right: the place was decently furnished. Ready to use. He wondered if Jackson would rent it to tourists once the resort opened. People who couldn’t afford the fancy hotel prices up on the mountain but might want to take a little house for a week as a base of operations.

      He’d bought some sweet rolls when they stopped at the grocery for odds and ends, and as his stomach growled he brought out the package. Coffee and a cinnamon bun. It didn’t get much better.

      But then DeeJay showed up, rumpled in yesterday’s clothes. Apparently the coffee had beat out an urge for a shower and clean togs.

      “May I?” she asked.

      “Help yourself. Coffee’s community property. Rolls, too.”

      A faint smile curved one corner of her mouth. So it was possible. She didn’t look pinched and disapproving, but maybe that was because she had just wakened. Give her time to ramp up, he thought, mildly amused.

      She didn’t say anything until she’d packed away a full mug of coffee and half a roll. Then she pushed her mussed hair back from her face and put her chin in her hands. Unlike most women, she didn’t say the usual I must look a fright. Apparently, she didn’t care.

      “We didn’t get a whole lot out of that file last night,” she remarked.

      “Unfortunately. Nothing of real predictive value, unless I missed something.”

      “Well, he seemed to accelerate just a little before it all stopped the first time, but these latest disappearances... He’s spacing it. Unusual.” Then she sighed again. “Three isn’t a large enough sample set. There’s some evidence of acceleration, but it’s hard to be sure. If he’s got that much self-control, we might have some time.”

      Most of these killers began to lose control of their impulses and act with increasing rapidity. So far this guy hadn’t, not in any meaningful way.

      “So in theory,” she said, “we’ve got three weeks, a month, before his next move and next to nothing to go on. But we can’t afford to count on that.”

      “I know. He could snatch and grab again this week if a victim appeals to him.” And that was the devil of it. You could count on most serial killers to stick with a victim type, to stick to their ritual, whatever it was, but there was no sliding scale to accurately predict when they’d act again. Never.

      DeeJay spoke again after a brief silence. “Imagine him hanging his trophies in that cargo netting in the woods. Like advertising. He had to have known they’d eventually be found.”

      “Maybe.” He reached for another roll, then went to get the coffeepot and refilled both their mugs. “I need to know more about how many people go up into those mountains. Hikers and the like. Sooner or later someone would find it, obviously, but after a few years, how much would be left?”

      “The netting would rot,” she agreed. “It wasn’t nylon or plastic. If the bodies hadn’t been wrapped in plastic, they wouldn’t have found much as it was. Do you suppose he’d try that again in the winter?”

      Cade thought about it. “He did it once before. Or maybe he kept some of his victims in cold storage until the weather got better.”

      “He could be doing that now.” She shook her head. “He likes risks, but he’s not stupid. My guess is he won’t be hanging them in the woods this time.”

      Cade eyed her sharply. “Why?”

      She shrugged one shoulder. “I bet he wasn’t happy to lose his trophies.”

      “He must have known he was giving them up when he went away.”

      “Maybe, maybe not. He might have thought they’d never be found. Regardless, he knows they’re gone now, and it wouldn’t make him happy. He needs something more secure, and the way he hung the first ones seems to indicate a need to admire his trophies. To relive the experience.”

      Cade nodded. It was a common enough impulse among serial killers. That’s why they kept trophies, to relive the emotional high they’d gotten. “How many serial killers have you studied who didn’t accelerate?”

      “None. I don’t know whether the compulsion gets stronger or they start to feel invincible. I do know of some cases where they wanted to be caught and stopped. We don’t know which kind we’re dealing with here.”

      “I’m wondering because he came back. Gage is scouring the files for anyone who might have been picked up by the law five years ago and got released last spring or so. Nothing so far. But unless he was in prison, he chose to leave. That means he chose to come back here. That could be key.”

      “It could be.” She ate another mouthful of roll and washed it down with coffee. “Thanks for these. A power bar doesn’t sound good right now.”

      “My pleasure. We could get breakfast at the diner a little later when we go to see the sheriff. I guess search parties are going out again today, but he’s not planning to be out there until this afternoon.”

      “They won’t find anything.” Her tone was almost sad. “So if he chose to come back, why? Unfinished business? Wanting to see if his trophies were still there? Thumbing his nose at the people around here? Because I’m not buying stupid.”

      “What kind of unfinished business?” he wondered.

      Her dark eyes met his, looking almost hollow. “Who knows? But I’d wager it’s personal. He’s got something to settle, and he needs to settle it here. A demon’s riding him.”

      “I’d call him a demon.”

      “No argument from me.” She glanced at the digital clock on the stove front. “I guess I need to clean up to get ready for the day.” She pushed back from the table, and a minute later he heard the wheels of her suitcase trundling down the hall to the bathroom.

      * * *

      Her eyes felt full of grit, but nights on short sleep were nothing new to DeeJay. A shower and some more coffee and she’d be fit. Plus some protein. Those rolls had been great, but she needed eggs and bacon to power up her brain.

      She reached a decision in the shower, however. Cade Bankston wasn’t all that bad. Maybe he hadn’t wanted her as a partner for some reason, but nothing about him seemed misogynistic, at least when it came to work. They’d been cooperating like equals since last night, and she’d had enough of the other kind of relationship to appreciate it.

      So okay, they could work together, which was a huge load off her shoulders.

      The house seemed to have an ample hot water heater. She’d been living in a place where she’d invariably wound up rinsing the soap off in frigid water, no joke in winter Wyoming. She allowed herself an extra minute to luxuriate but, remembering that Cade might well want a shower, too, she sighed and stepped out, reaching for a folded towel from a stack on a shelf over the toilet.

      Not bad for a cheap rental and a whole lot better than some of the motels her former job had put her in. Even the couch had been a satisfactory bed.

      Little spots of color had been added to each room, as if the former occupant—Kelly?—had tried to inject some cheer. She figured her husband, Hank, had taken care of all that in the end.

      When she finished dressing in jeans and a flannel shirt, and her combed, wet hair was tucked behind her ears, she closed her suitcase and stepped out. Men’s voices reached her from the kitchen. It didn’t sound like the sheriff.

      Curious, she ditched her bag at the end of the couch and followed the sound. A strange man was there, and he rose to his feet instantly.

      “DeeJay, this is our landlord Hank Jackson, Kelly’s husband.”

      DeeJay shook the offered hand and smiled. “You have a nice wife.”

      “I think so.” He smiled, a warm, unguarded expression. “But I’m the lucky one. So I was asking