Smokies Special Agent

Because I wanted to catch the bastard myself.

She pressed her lips together to keep from blurting out those very words.

Silence filled the room. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and let out a deep sigh.

“I was the first one at the office this morning,” he said. “I was the only one here when Zack Towers called to report that he’d shared one of the shelters on the Appalachian Trail last night with another hiker. When you left, you must have put your hand in your pocket to check your gun. He saw the outline of the pistol and called it in. No guns are allowed in any national park unless you’re one of the rangers or investigators working for the National Park Service. That rules you out.”

Her shoulder was beginning to throb from sitting in one position so long. She rubbed it to ease the ache. “There was a hiker with me in the shelter last night. I don’t remember him being named Zack, though. I thought his name was Sunny.”

Duncan nodded. “Sunny’s his trail name. He’s one of our regulars around here, shows up every year around this time, one of the few who likes to hike the AT during the winter. He’s a section hiker.”

“Section hiker?”

“Since you’re out here hiking the Appalachian Trail, I assumed you would have studied up on the lingo.” He let his words hang in the air between them.

Wearying of his game, she said, “I’m only doing day hikes. Normally, I stay in the motel each night and come back in the morning. I don’t know all the terminology because, obviously, I’m not one of those people who can miraculously afford to dedicate nearly a year of their lives to become a two-thousand-miler. That is what they call people who hike from Georgia to Maine in one season, right? NOBOs are the northbound hikers. SOBOs are the southbound ones?”

He nodded. “Sounds like you studied a little bit about the AT before coming here. I wonder why you’d do that? Maybe because you wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be a lot of hiker traffic around to see whatever it is that you’re actually doing here?”

“Or maybe I learned way more than I ever wanted to know about this cursed place when I was here on a stupid senior trip back in high school,” she snapped.

His look of surprise had her closing her own eyes and cursing to herself. She was getting too stirred up, too frustrated. And as a result, she’d just told him something way too close to her true purpose in being here.

The sound of him typing had her opening her eyes.

He typed a moment longer, then looked at her over the top of the screen. “What’s your natural hair color?”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Your eyebrows are dark. You’re a brunette, right?”

“And this matters why?”

He turned the laptop around so she could see the screen. There, in living color, smiling and looking carefree, was her sister in the picture her father had given to the police when Becca went missing. It was the picture from the flyer they’d circulated by the hundreds in Gatlinburg after she disappeared. It was the same picture he’d put on the website he’d created to try to generate leads that would help him find his daughter. But they never did.

Becca.

Her throat tight, she whispered, “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”

Something flashed in his eyes. Sorrow? Regret? Empathy? Whatever it was, it didn’t bother him enough to close the laptop, or minimize the picture of her sister. Instead, his gaze searched hers.

“What I want is what I’ve wanted all along—the truth. I want you to admit that you came here because your boss, and the Behavioral Analysis Unit, refused to believe your theories about serial killers. I think that you dyed your hair blond to make yourself fit the criteria for whatever serial killer you’re currently theorizing about. And I think you very nearly killed Kurt Vale because you mistakenly thought that he was that killer.” He tapped the screen, drawing her attention to her sister’s picture again. “So, tell me, Remi. What’s the current theory? What killer are you after? If I hadn’t stopped you, would you have murdered Vale because you believe he killed your sister?”

She swore a string of obscenities at him and shoved herself up from her chair. She threw a few more insults out into the universe for good measure, then stalked out of the room.

Chapter Six (#uc1159ce7-9924-5646-b7b1-7f0147169007)

Duncan plopped his legs on top of his desk and grabbed a red apple out of his snack drawer. “Shouldn’t Lee and Grady be back with lunch by now?” he complained around a mouthful of the sweet, juicy apple. “I’m starving.”

McAlister stood beside Duncan’s desk, looking out the front window. “What do you think she’s doing?” He motioned toward Remi as she stalked back and forth in the gravel parking lot, golden hair bouncing around her shoulders, cell phone glued to her ear.

Duncan shrugged. “As red as her face is, she’s probably yelling at Supervisory Special Agent Johnson for emailing a copy of her personnel file to us. Or she’s freezing. Or both. When she calms down she’ll realize she left her jacket in here.”

“Maybe I should take it to her.” In four steps, McAlister had the puffy white coat in his hand, ready to play the chivalrous knight to their fuming guest.

“Don’t,” Duncan said. “She has more incentive to come back inside on her own if she’s shivering.”

McAlister dropped the jacket on top of Duncan’s outstretched legs and braced his hand on the wall beside the window. “You don’t seem worried that she’ll take off.”

“Where’s she gonna go?” He frowned at a large bruise on the apple and turned it, looking for a better spot. “She doesn’t have her car up here. She’s injured. No backpack of supplies. No jacket. I’ll bet you dinner that she won’t last five more minutes outside.” He took another bite.

“I think you just bought me dinner.”

Duncan glanced up. Remi wasn’t on the phone anymore. She was running, fast, across the gravel, heading away from the trailer. She was already halfway to the road. “Ah, hell.”

McAlister started laughing.

Duncan tossed the rest of the apple in the trash and grabbed Remi’s coat.

“I’m thinking a big medium-rare steak will do the trick,” McAlister called after him as he ran for the door. “One of those delicious fill-it mig-non numbers at The Peddler Steakhouse. Or maybe a New York strip.”

“Rain check,” Duncan yelled, grabbing his jacket and gloves before barreling outside. He cleared the concrete steps in one leap and landed with a bone-jarring crunch on the gravel.

Remi was nowhere to be seen.

The door opened behind him and McAlister leaned out. “Looks like she’s headed to town. She turned left at the road.”

“Thanks, Pops!” Duncan sprinted after her, yanking on his gloves and jacket as he went.

Five minutes later he was back at his Jeep, cursing as he hopped inside and tossed Remi’s coat on the seat beside him. How a woman a hair over five feet tall could outrun his long stride was beyond him. He would have caught up to her eventually, but closing the gap between them had been taking far too long.

He peeled out of the parking lot, adding a few new gravel dents to the metal storage shed that housed their ATVs and snowplow attachments.

It didn’t take long to catch up to her in the Jeep. She was running on the shoulder of the road at a ground-eating pace. As he slowed alongside her, he rolled down the passenger window.

“Need a lift, pretty lady?” he drawled.

The tightening of her mouth was the only sign that she’d heard him. She stared straight ahead, her hair whipping behind her. Something about her stride seemed off. It dawned on him that it was because of her hurt shoulder. She was using her left hand to hold the sling, probably so it wouldn’t bounce against her chest as she ran. Judging by the lines of pain bracketing the side of her mouth, it wasn’t working very well.