Free Primal Obsession by Susan Vaughan Page A

of juicy words, he closed the distance between them.
    “Nothing this way.” Carl mopped his forehead with a paper towel. “Can’t even get around. Too steep.”
    “I found ‘em.” Sam pointed the direction he’d come from. “That way about a hundred yards.”
    He’d screwed up the bushwhack. How, he wasn’t sure. He’d work out the problem later with the topo map. Avoiding the censure in Carl’s eyes and the exhaustion in Annie’s, he led them off.
    When the party finally limped into camp in mid-afternoon, it was time to pack up and canoe to the next campsite.
    “This won’t take long,” Nora called to Sam. She unzipped her tent flap and crawled inside. “I just have to gather up my duffel and sleeping bags.”
    “After this morning, I’d like nothing better than curling up in my sleeping bag.” Annie reached for the tent zipper, on the other side of Sam’s tent site. Once inside, she screeched like a dying rabbit.
    “What’s the matter?” he had to ask.
    “Nothing,” came her subdued voice. “I just looked in the mirror. Now I really should curl up. And hide.”
    Ah, the horror makeup. Best to say nothing. He was in the habit of packing up his duffel and tent first thing in the morning, so had only a neat pile to collect. He hoisted his bagged tent and other gear.
    He was trudging toward the shore when Nora screamed.
    She scrambled back out of her tent. She flailed her arms at a dark, buzzing cloud around her head. “ Hornet s!”

 
    NINE
     
    Augusta
     
    At one-fifteen, Justin slid into his seat at the command post conference table. Lieutenant Vernon Watson nodded curtly to him before continuing with his pep talk.
    Justin took the opportunity to catch his breath and drink the coffee he’d snagged at Dunkin Donuts on the way in. His lunch. Again. He itched to lay out what he learned in Waterville to Tavani and Watson. Would the stranger in the dark van jibe with Tavani’s conclusions?
    The girls Caitlin and Breanna had begun hesitantly, but the description they gave him seemed real. He interviewed them separately. Neither was too exact or too reluctant.
    That week in October, they noticed a black minivan parked in the evenings near their West Quad dorm. They got a good look at its driver when he parked beneath the streetlight. Baseball cap, wide face contorted into a perpetual scowl. As for age, Breanna said, “Old, as old as you.” When he told Rissa later, that remark had coaxed a smile even from her.
    Later he would set them up for a session with the police sketch artist.
    Detectives from the Portland and Bangor Police Departments and from sheriffs’ offices in three counties joined Justin and other state police detectives to hear Special Agent Tavani’s profile of the Hunter.
    Detective Bess Peters nodded to him. Peters’s grim determination to get this killer reminded him of his sister. Having a profile would only deepen her resolve.
    Justin surveyed the rest of the faces. Skeptical and suspicious all around. Most cops welcomed high-tech advances, but some considered profiling to be nothing less than voodoo.
    On the portable display board, colored flags dotted a map of Maine and New Hampshire. Green for abductions in North Conway, New Hampshire, Fryeburg, Millinocket, Southwest Harbor, and Portland. Red for locations of the bodies in the White Mountains of NH, in the woods near Rangeley in western Maine, and north in Baxter State Park. Blue for two more women who had disappeared, but because no bodies had been found, the police hadn’t tied them to the Hunter.
    Over the air conditioner’s hum, Tavani thanked Watson and the others for inviting the Bureau to assist them in stopping the Hunter. “Profiling is not magic.”
    More than one detective squirmed in his seat as if fearing Tavani had read his mind. Justin had felt much the same before meeting and working with the agent. Yes, VICAP added computer research to the psychological mumbo jumbo of profiling. But the guy knew how to