Capturing the Huntsman by C.J. Miller

Author:C.J. Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Nathan took a step back from her and looked away. “There’s a command center at the ranger station a short drive from here. I want to stop in and talk to the rangers who found the victim.”

Nathan had kissed her temple, a casual gesture, but it had the same heavy impact on her. Did the kiss imply an intimacy? Was he attempting to recapture the closeness they had lost when the FBI had shown up that morning?

“Autumn?”

Oh, the command center. The rangers. She was familiar with the station, having worked a number of shifts when she had been a forest ranger a few years before. “Ford told us to back off. What makes you think the rangers will talk to us?”

Nathan smiled at her. “They might not talk to me, but they might talk to their old buddy, former Park Ranger Reed.”

How had he known she’d been a park ranger? She gave him points for doing his homework on her. “Which rangers found the body?” Autumn asked, thinking of Ben.

“I don’t know yet,” Nathan said.

Putting the rangers in a difficult position, a position where they had to choose between friendship and duty, didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t fair to her, either. “If they were told not to discuss the case, I can’t ask them to disobey a direct order. They could lose their jobs.”

Nathan stopped on the path and faced her, taking her hands in his. His dark eyes penetrated hers as if he could see straight to her soul, and his thumbs rubbed her palms in slow, soothing circles. “I wouldn’t ask this of you, of them, if it wasn’t a matter of life and death.”

Autumn swallowed hard as the image of the Huntsman’s latest victim sprang to mind. She saw the victim as she might have been in real life. With a family. Friends. A job. “What is it you need to know?” She pulled her hand away, confused by the message he was sending.

“I need information to catch the killer before he strikes again. I need the details of what they saw before they found the body. Was the area disturbed in some other way? Did they have a clue a body was waiting for them before the smoke started?”

“All right.” Autumn tried to think about the trail in spring, the green and deep brown of the mountains, the heavy smell of earth, the freshness of blooming flowers—anything to blot out the image of the victim.

They walked the rest of the distance to the trailhead in silence and climbed into the truck. After throwing their packs in the backseat, she and Nathan fastened their safety belts and then Nathan pulled out of the spot.

The ranger station, a faded green trailer with wooden stairs leading inside, was a ten-minute drive away. A small crooked sign on the front of the building announced it was Ranger Station No. 403. Autumn knew the combination to the door, doubting it had changed in years. Nothing of value was inside.

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