Haunted (A Bishop/SCU Novel Book 15) Read Online Free

gets a look,” she said, “but rangers are pretty experienced at estimating how long . . . carrion . . . would last out here.”
    “I’m afraid to ask for details,” Hollis confessed.
    Miranda nodded understanding. “I know what you mean. But it may turn out to be important that if he’s familiar with these mountains, and we have to assume he is, he would have been safe betting that a harsh winter has left a lot of hungry animals in the area. The rangers say wolves, coyotes, and even some big cats have come far enough down out of the mountains to trouble area ranchers.”
    “Then,” DeMarco said, “these girls haven’t been here long.”
    “Probably not even overnight. He doesn’t profile as the type to stick around and watch law enforcement trying to figure him out, but we may be closer to him right now than we’ve been so far.”
    Hollis said, “Wait. If we’re saying that the same killer took not only Sara Knotts and Jill Crandall back just after Christmas, but then Angela Fox and Megan Dorchester just a couple of days ago . . .”
    “Then he probably didn’t kill Sara and Jill until he had two more . . . replacements,” Miranda said.
    Hollis kept her voice level with an effort. “I don’t see how he kept these two girls alive, not if he’s been working on them for nearly a month. I don’t have to be a doctor to know that the bruises on those girls vary from weeks old to only a day or two.
And
they both have broken bones, that’s clear enough. Even if most of the slashes look . . . fresh.”
    DeMarco shook his head slightly. “I think that in addition to using them as punching bags he found some creative ways of mental and emotional torture to try out before he finished them with the knife or knives,” he said. “The girls have clearly been starved and bound, and I’m sure he scared the hell out of them in a dozen different ways. Keeping them in total darkness, maybe locking them in coffin-like boxes; one of the girls has wood splinters in her hands and feet. Maybe he separated them so they felt totally alone. Or did whatever it took to make one scream to further terrify the other.”
    “Which,” Hollis said, “begs the question of where he kept them. I somehow doubt he was herding them along in front of him for weeks, even way out here. Especially way out here. And yet we’re at least—what?—eighty miles south of where these two disappeared?”
    “About that,” Miranda agreed. “The rangers didn’t think he would have made it this far, but . . .” But they’d had inside information disguised as a hunch. And Miranda could be very persuasive.
    Hollis was still thinking out loud. “And no signs of tire tracks anywhere in this area, except for the ATV tracks the rangers have already eliminated as their own vehicles. If he’s been on foot all this time, how did he transport the girls this far?”
    “He’s had the time,” DeMarco pointed out. “But only if he had wheels or horses part of the way. No way he hiked this far in less than a month, not in this terrain, and definitely not with hostages.”
    “Horses,” Hollis said. “I hadn’t thought of that. He could have transported the girls that way. Maybe drugged or gagged to keep them quiet, and slung across a pack horse.”
    “Not exactly a common sight in these mountains,” Miranda said thoughtfully. “But if he knows the terrain, he could have kept well off the trails. With so many pine forests, he could have passed a hundred yards from a well-traveled road without being seen.”
    DeMarco nodded. “But we’re still left with the question of where he did his torturing. Where, presumably, he’s currently holding Angela Fox and Megan Dorchester. And if he has horses, you’re talking additional supplies and/or pasture. This time of year, he’d have to be feeding grain and hay; there’s no grass to speak of.”
    Hollis looked at him with interest. “I hadn’t thought of that, either. Sounds like a lot