“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.”