Page 2 of The First Hunt (The Final Hunt)

HOLLY

I n her empty apartment, Holly blew out the six dotted-blue birthday candles in one breath. “Happy birthday,” she said.

She looked out her second-story window at Mount Rainier’s snow-capped peak, barely visible in the waning daylight, wondering if the parents who’d adopted her sister’s child loved him as much as she did. She’d never laid eyes on her nephew, and probably never would.

Holly tore her gaze from the window before slicing herself a piece of chocolate-frosted yellow cake, licking the frosting off her finger before taking a bite.

The lock on her apartment door released with a click before swinging open.

Holly turned, mouth full of cake, to see her fiancé step into her apartment.

Holly placed a hand over her heart. “You scared me. I didn’t think you’d be off work for another few hours.”

Jared peeled off his coat and flung it over the back of her couch. “Yeah, neither did I. I got sent home early. My asshole sergeant told me to take the rest of the night off.” He put his hands on his hips and began to pace back and forth in her small living room.

Holly set down her fork. “What? Why?”

Jared paused. “I gave him a piece of my mind about what’s wrong with the Green River Killer investigation.

” Jared shook his head and resumed his pacing.

“I spent all week chasing a lead only to find out a detective from SPD had already ruled it out. We’ve got to have better communication on the task force.

It’s no wonder they haven’t caught this asshole by now.

” He spun toward her, jabbing a finger at the middle of his chest. “I should be the one running the task force.”

Holly’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “So, why aren’t you still at work?”

“Because I ran my mouth off,” he shouted. “I was pissed.” His chest heaved with a sigh as he tilted his head toward the ceiling.

Now, Holly understood. Jared could be a loose cannon when his temper flared.

She pictured Jared in his superior’s office, voice raised and profanities flying, laying out every flaw in the investigation with the confidence of someone who’d been on the case for years—never mind that he'd been on the task force for less than a month.

“It’s so damn frustrating. This is what I get for doing my job?” His fist impacted with her wall, making Holly jump in her seat.

Her mouth fell open at the sight of the hole in her drywall as her fiancé shook out his fist. “Jared!”

She stood as he spun toward her. The anger on his face faded, replaced with a softer, apologetic expression.

“I’m sorry.” He gestured to the hole. “I’ll fix that tomorrow.”

In stunned silence, Holly watched him move toward her. She’d seen him angry before, but not like this. The thought surfaced unexpectedly— Maybe giving him a key was a mistake. But almost as quickly, she pushed it aside. He was frustrated, that was all. Anyone would be, given the circumstances.

When he got closer, she noticed the glassy sheen on his eyes. “Have you been drinking?”

He shrugged. “I had a few beers on my way home.” His gaze landed on the cake, noticing it for the first time. “What’s this? Did I miss something?”

Holly stared at the blown-out candles. She’d planned to have it all cleaned up before Jared came over, but it was too late for that. Plus, they’d be married soon, so she might as well tell him.

“I celebrate Meg’s son’s birthday every year.” She lifted her gaze to meet Jared’s glazed eyes. “This year he’s six.”

Five years ago, when Holly had gone to the group home to retrieve the few belongings Meg had left behind, she found the adoption paperwork.

She hadn’t even known about her sister’s pregnancy.

Because it had been a closed adoption, Holly had no way of finding out who’d adopted Meg’s baby boy, even though she’d tried.

His mouth twisted into a frown. “And you think that’s healthy?”

She felt a jab in her chest at his insensitive response. He’s just had a bad day and too much to drink. “If eaten in moderation,” she replied, trying to lighten his mood.

He didn’t laugh—or smile—at her quip. Instead, his brown eyes narrowed. “You don’t even know his name. Hell, you don’t even know if he’s alive.”

Holly’s shoulders stiffened. That was enough. “Go home. And when you’re sober, I expect an apology.”

“Holly.” Jared cocked his head to the side. “Come on. Seriously? I’ve had a shit day.”

“Go home, Jared. If you need me to drive you, I will.”

He scoffed. “Don’t be so dramatic.” He turned, but instead of moving toward the door, he strode toward her spare bedroom that she’d converted into an office.

He paused beside the open doorway and looked inside.

“Fine. I’ll go.” He spun around. “But when we move in together, this room has to go. I’m not having a shrine to the Green River Killer in my house.

You’re not a detective. If Major Crimes couldn’t solve your sister’s murder, you sure as hell can’t. ”

Holly’s face burned hot. When she first told Jared about Meg, he’d seemed so supportive. Did she even know him at all? She swallowed over the lump in her throat.

Her fiancé stood at the end of the short hallway, his face softening as he saw her bristle from his remarks.

“Get out.”

“Look,” Jared said. “I care about you, and I’m sorry about what happened to your sister. But you need to move on. The Green River Killer didn’t start killing until two years after Meg was murdered.”

Holly disagreed. She just couldn’t prove it yet. But she wasn’t going to argue with Jared about it tonight. “Please, go home.”

Jared flashed her a look of disappointment before cocking his head.

“I’m only telling you this because I’m worried about you.

” He pointed inside the room at the wall covered by a large map of King County where she’d marked every location of unsolved cases involving young women found strangled in the last five years. “This is crazy, Holly. It’s obsessive.”

A heavy silence filled her small apartment as he swiped his coat off her couch and left without saying goodbye. After he left, Holly exhaled and turned the deadbolt.

Maybe it is, she thought, sitting back down at her kitchen table. But so what? Wouldn’t anyone be obsessive if their sister’s murder remained unsolved five years later?

Yes, making a cake and blowing out candles for a nephew she’d never met was strange.

But he was all she had left of her dead sister, aside from a shoebox filled with Meg’s things.

And aside from her mother, who didn’t really count.

For as long as Holly could remember, Meg and her mother had always been at odds.

While Holly was obsessed with finding out who killed Meg, her mother had chosen to forget Meg had ever existed.

It’s why her mom had moved to Spokane with her new husband—Seattle was full of too many reminders of Meg’s short, troubled life.

After taking another bite of cake, Holly ran her thumb along the thin gold band on her left ring finger. She knew Jared had an edge—a temper—but tonight had been the first time he’d ever lost it like that, punching a hole in her wall. The first time he’d ever reminded her of her father.

Maybe she and Jared were taking things too fast.

She shot a look over her shoulder at the fist-sized hole Jared had left in her living room drywall, then shook the thought away. He’s stressed out from work, and he’s worried about me. That’s all. He’s nothing like my father.

Jared got drunk only occasionally. He had a stable job, wanted to have a family, and promised to be a good father to their future kids.

Jared would stick around and be a part of their kids’ lives in a way that neither of their own fathers had been.

Although , she thought as she swallowed her cake, picking bad men does run in my family .

She scraped the last of the frosting off the plate with her fork. Every year, she made a different kind, hoping to at least once make her nephew’s favorite. With her other hand, she grabbed the framed photo she’d brought to the table with the birthday cake.

She smiled at the photo of her and Meg in front of their parents’ Ford Pinto.

Her thirteen-year-old sister wore overalls, and Holly’s arm was slung around her younger sister’s shoulder as she laughed at something Meg had said.

Even though Meg was three years younger, she towered over Holly’s petite frame.

Holly’s long dark waves were a stark contrast to Meg’s pale blond hair.

Those were happy times for the most part, dampened only on the occasional night when her father went into a drunken rage, which grew increasingly frequent in the year after this photo had been taken.

Looking back, she’d realized that her mother and Meg had taken the brunt of her father’s anger, while Holly had hidden away in her room writing love stories with fairy tale endings and articles for made-up travel magazines, imagining she was anywhere else.

The following summer her father had drunkenly slapped Meg one night, and Holly’s mother ordered him out of the house—the last time any of them saw him.

A few months later Holly left for college in eastern Washington, and not long after that, Meg got into so much trouble in high school that their mom sent Meg to live with their overly strict aunt and uncle in a neighboring suburb.

Before Meg ran away and was placed in a group home.

Before she got pregnant and put the baby up for adoption.

Before she started working at a seedy strip club. Before Meg was murdered.

With a heavy heart, Holly set the photograph beside the cake. In another life, she, Meg, and Meg’s son could’ve celebrated their birthdays together. She got up from the table, leaving her empty plate, and moved down the narrow hallway to her “obsessive” home office.

She sat at the desk and sifted through the mess of handwritten notes beside her typewriter, along with a stack of write-ins she had yet to open.

Ever since she’d covered the infamous murder of popular radio host Cassidy Ray two years ago, her write-ins had been hard to keep up with.

When she’d taken the job as a crime reporter for the Tribune to find out who killed Meg, she hadn’t expected to gain such a following of readers.

Two pieces were due tomorrow at the Tribune : one was her ongoing coverage of a string of burglaries that had been happening at Seattle convenience stores, and the other was an update and a request for information from the public on the disappearance of Jennifer Duran, the twenty-year-old waitress last seen waiting for a bus after leaving a friend’s house on the evening of January 10.

Duran’s disappearance had garnered so much public interest that Holly’s boss wanted her to publish an update every week and ask for the public’s help in finding her, regardless of new information.

Holly lifted her gaze to the opposite wall, where the only article ever written about Meg’s murder was tacked, headlined STRIPPER FOUND DEAD.

Stripper. Not her sister’s name or her age.

Stripper had been all the public needed to know.

Holly wondered how many people who’d read the short article thought Meg had actually deserved to die.

Like Jennifer Duran, Meg had also been last seen at a bus stop before accepting a ride from someone driving a blue car.

On Holly’s handwritten draft of Duran's disappearance, Holly scribbled GRK?

before sliding the pen over the top of her ear, using her thick dark curls to help hold it in place while she typed.

It was largely believed that the Green River Killer’s victims were mostly sex workers or runaways, like Holly’s sister, even though police refused to believe Holly’s theory that the Green River Killer murdered Meg.

But when women like Jennifer Duran went missing, it fostered a growing panic in the public: not only was a serial killer on the loose in King County, but no young woman was safe.

Holly pulled the half-typed page from the typewriter, then leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. Outside, an ambulance siren wailed. She had ten pages of notes to weed through before drafting her piece on the convenience store burglaries.

Becoming the Tribune’s youngest primary crime reporter had come with its drawbacks, but she was at least now getting called to the scene when a Green River Killer victim was found, getting a first-hand look at the work of the man who’d killed her sister.

Holly mindlessly unwrapped a stick of gum from the half-empty pack on the desk before getting up.

She folded the gum into her mouth as she stood facing the map on the wall behind her.

Crossing her arms, she studied the spot where Jennifer Duran had gone missing in relation to where over fifty women—including Meg—had been found strangled in King County in the last five years.

All those murders remained unsolved. What if Jared was right?

I’m not a detective. Am I going to spend my life obsessing over the Green River Killer in the hope of finding a lead in Meg’s murder?

She looked up at the red X on the map that marked where Meg’s body had been found in the yard of an abandoned house in White Center. Holly swallowed the lump that formed in her throat. That was a week after she’d been last seen. No one had even reported Meg missing.

Her phone rang in the kitchen, making her jump. She turned from the map and took a deep breath as she stepped into the hall. It was probably Jared calling to apologize.

She pulled the transparent phone off the hook of the kitchen wall.

“Hello?”

“Holly?”

The gruff voice wasn’t Jared’s. It was her boss at the Tribune. Probably assigning her another burglary to report on before the morning. She checked her watch. If that were the case, she could be up all night. “Yes, this is Holly.”

“I just got a tip from Seattle Homicide. A young female’s body has been discovered in the woods in Riverview, near the West Duwamish Greenbelt Trailhead. I need you to head there now, and I want a full story by midnight.”

A shiver of anticipation rippled through her. Had Meg’s killer struck again? She stretched the phone cord to grab her coat off the chair at the kitchen table. “Got it. I’ll be right there.”