The Hunted Girls by Jenna Kernan (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

Beyond double doors sat the refrigerator in which the grim queue likely formed.

Kline seemed not to notice Nadine’s disquiet as her gaze flicked around and settled on a bone saw.

They paused at one of three tables between two bodies. On the right was the bloated female recovered this morning from the natural springs. On the left was a blackened, grotesque, nightmarish partial remains.

“Is that the recent unidentified female?” Nadine could tell nothing, not even the sex of this badly decomposed body.

“Yes. From Grass Lake up in Fort McCoy. Possible drowning. With Dr. Hartfield’s help, we might get them both done today.”

Juliette nodded.

“But we’ll tackle this one first.” Kline pointed to the remains recovered from Silver Glen Springs.

Nadine stayed well back, but still the smell of rot overwhelmed, and her eyes watered. Juliette offered Vicks VapoRub and Nadine applied a dab of the greasy gel beneath her nose. It helped.

The body stretched in perfect stillness before them. Nadine stared down at the naked body of a woman that seemed to have been approaching her senior years, judging from the hair color. Despite herself, she looked for some movement.

She shivered in the icy room and wished she had a sweater.

Kline and Juliette spoke as they conducted a superficial exam of the body. The face was bloated, unrecognizable to Nadine.

“These wounds are unusual,” said Juliette.

Nadine noted the deep gashes at the ankles.

“Seeing the incision on her neck in the water, I thought it might be a suicide, but it’s clear she didn’t do this,” said Kline.

“How long has she been dead?” asked Nadine.

“Oh, less than twenty-four hours.”

This wasn’t Linda, so who was it?

Juliette looked to Nadine.

“Do we have any missing persons for older females?”

Nadine shook her head. “We don’t.”

Kline directed their attention to the ankles of the corpse.

“I believe that she might have been hanging at some point, possibly from a snare. The wire cut deep.” Kline lifted a leg with a gloved hand. “Right through the tendons. See?”

Nadine wished she hadn’t. The stench in here made her cover her mouth, muffling her words.

“Did you say, a snare?”

Nadine’s experience with snares was that they were used on small animals, like rabbits and squirrels.

“Yes. Have a look at the soles of her feet.” Kline moved to the end of the table. “The lacerations tell me she was running barefoot. That accounts for these as well.” She motioned to the many thin slices on the body’s lower legs.

“You think she was running naked through the woods?”

“Looks that way. This is a first for me and that is saying something.” She lifted one of the arms and rotated it. “Have a look at this.”

Nadine did and icy tendrils slithered about her heart. The wound was a puncture. The body’s hands were still bagged, to preserve possible physical evidence, but they did not obscure the thin slice on the upper arm.

“More of them here,” said Juliette, pointing a finger at three small wounds on the upper thigh.

“Like the others. Exit wounds. Entry is on the posterior thigh. She’s got more on her back.”

Nadine blanched. “How many more?”

“Still counting. Arrows again,” said Kline. “If there’s one in the body, we’ll spot it on X-ray.”

The killer had left an arrow point behind in the bodies of both Darnell and Karnowski. She’d seen them. Usually this type of arrow screwed into a plastic housing in the shaft. But these points had the threads filed away, so that when the shaft was removed, the point remained. It was no accident. He’d intentionally planted these projectiles inside his victims.

“Spine injury?” asked Nadine.

Kline glanced up at her through the clear plastic face shield. “We’ll see.”

The smell was so bad she could taste it at the back of her throat.

Nadine tried to picture this woman’s death.

It seemed to Nadine that someone had sent this woman running naked through the thick tropical underbrush and shot her from the back multiple times. Was that before or after catching her in the snare? A running target was more challenging. A swinging one perhaps more enticing because you could see her face.

“Could you determine if she was snared while alive?”

“Definitely. The bruising alone and the tissue damage.”

Nadine folded one arm about her and used the opposite hand to pinch her nose with her thumb and index finger to block the stench. Breathing through her mouth was only slightly better.

Then she closed her eyes. She could see this woman, running for her life. Tripping and falling and scrambling to her feet, unaware she was being herded along.

Nadine pictured her plight. Her pink body darting in and out of palmettos. The rustle of the wide fronds and the rasp of her heavy breathing, punctuated by her weeping. She would have taken the animal trail, of course. Easier to run.

I let her get just far enough ahead to feel she might escape. It’s so much sweeter that way. Do I shoot her now or wait until she’s helpless? If I shoot her now, she might fall and not get up. I want to see my snare.

Patience. I follow, stalking with my bow gripped tight. Waiting. Just a few more steps…

“Dr. Finch?”

Her eyes snapped open. Both women stared at her.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You were making a sound. I thought you might be feeling ill.”

“I’m fine.”

A tapping caused them to turn. Skogen stood in the observation area, gesturing to Nadine.

She nodded at Kline and Juliette and stepped out to talk to him. His face was grim.

“We got another call from the Orlando Star. They’ve got a new letter we believe is from our boy.”

Outside, warm sunshine drove away the chill, but the stink continued to linger in her nostrils. She used a napkin to wipe away the Vicks.

“He’s calling himself ‘the Huntsman,’” said Skogen.

She glanced up at him. “Appropriate.”

His expression was giving her a really bad vibe, like he knew something, and she wasn’t going to like it.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“He’s issued a challenge.”

“To whom?” But even as she said it, she already knew the