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

her hand beneath the table. “I’m sorry, Dee-Dee. Sorry we were right about where he’s been. Sorry that this just means more questions for you.”

She wiped the tears from her face with her free hand. “Did you know?”

The guard behind her barked from atop the catwalk. “No physical contact!”

Arlo drew his hand back. She huddled, sad and hollow, needing a hug now more than ever in her life.

“Did you?” she asked.

“I didn’t. But…”

“What?” she asked.

“Dee-Dee, you don’t look anything like him. And you and me… our faces are a completely different shape.” He pointed at his cheeks. “You got no dimples. No cleft chin and my hair is curly.”

“And you have his hazel eyes.”

“How could you remember that?”

“From the two photos you rescued before the bonfire.”

“Oh, right. You have them?”

She nodded.

He inhaled and then blew away a breath. “So now what?”

“I guess I’d like to join Aunt Donna when she buries your dad.” Her chin sank to her chest. “Arlo, Donna isn’t my aunt anymore.”

“She’ll always be your aunt.”

“She took me in, helped me through college. I have to pay her back.”

“You don’t owe her, Dee-Dee. Family is more than blood.”

She nodded, understanding but not accepting his belief, but praying Aunt Donna would feel the same.

“And on the burial, how about wait on that? I’d like to be there.”

“Sure. No hurry.” Nadine wrung her hands under the table. “Arlo? Any idea who my dad is?”

THURSDAY

Yesterday they had run background checks on each dark-haired male between twenty and forty-five, and had identified which had hunting and fishing licenses in any of the three counties targeted in her geographic map.

Last night Nadine worked from the safe house, reviewing the database on the server that included each available photo, criminal records, wants and warrants and known associates for all the men that Demko and Skogen’s team had provided that fit her criteria in her suspect profile.

This morning she was at it again, sitting with her computer and coffee at the dining room table when Demko appeared holding an open laptop.

“I was going over surveillance footage with the digital forensics agent. We want you to see something.”

She couldn’t imagine what this was because despite scouring the hotel security recordings from the time of her arrival, they had made no progress on identifying the Huntsman among the guests. They knew he had been in the room opposite hers, but they also knew he’d gained entry through the window.

Demko set his open laptop on the table before her. Agent Wynns offered a good morning from the screen via video call. Demko explained that he had asked about any personnel who had recently quit or left employment at the hotel. There was only one. A man who had worked midnight to seven at the bell stand and had left with no notice.

“Then we found this.” Wynns shared his screen, running the security video clip of a man in a bellman’s uniform in the breakfast area the morning after Nadine arrived.

“Who is he?”

“Unknown. Manager initially identified him as one of his people. Originally named this man as the employee who had left. Trouble is, this is the morning after he failed to show for his shift. And employees that we’ve spoken to do not recognize this person,” said Wynns.

She studied the footage of the man, who kept his head down. “Is that him?”

Demko nodded. “We have video of him leaving the hotel after Santander. She heads to the bus stop on Wednesday after her shift. He approaches her, wearing a uniform of some kind, then accompanies her back to his pickup truck.” He met her gaze. “His truck has a white cab.”

“Plates?”

“Nope. Got the make and model, though.”

“Is the bellman, the one who left without notice, dead?”

“We’re checking.”

“Why are you just seeing this now? You’ve been over this surveillance footage again and again.”

“There was nothing suspicious about a woman getting into a vehicle at a bus stop.”

Nadine pressed her hands to her forehead.

“How did he know that you’d call me to profile?” she asked. “How did he know I’d stay at that hotel?”

“Serial killer in your mother’s home territory. You just finishing your training at BAU and your recent success with the Copycat case,” said Agent Wynns. “Seems a logical leap.”

“Timing is perfect,” added Demko.

Her gut had told her that the Huntsman had been watching her the morning she had not finished her breakfast. Had witnessed the interaction between her and the breakfast attendant, Bianca Santander.

Now they had proof.

Nadine arrived at the sheriff’s office at nine-thirty in the morning with her escort and was shown into the interview room.

Despite her vague description, Skogen and Demko had homed in on several of the males from the database.

Two in particular. One was an employee at the gun shop that Demko and she had visited, because Skogen’s attempt to question the man caused him to immediately lawyer up. Skogen would be speaking to him this afternoon in the presence of his attorney.

The second man, Simon Kilpatrick, had agreed to come in for another interview this morning.

Nadine didn’t like the son of the owners of the outdoor adventure outfit for their unsub because, unless he was playing them, he seemed incapable of orchestrating such a plot. He had already been interviewed, and had been in custody when the first letter from the killer had been mailed. Despite her opinion, they’d obtained his phone and Simon had furnished the password, which rather proved her point.

She sat in on the interview. Simon was smallish, muscular, approximately thirty years in age and had a definite lisp and a high voice.

The longer she listened to him, the more convinced she was, yet again, that he wasn’t smart enough to pull this off. Regardless of a high IQ, he didn’t have the façade of normalcy necessary to operate successfully as a killer.

The interview went sideways when Skogen asked for permission to release Simon’s medical records. He refused and asked for his parents, a request that Skogen denied. Simon had then asked if he was under