Page 46 of The First Hunt (The Final Hunt)

JOHN

J ohn lowered the bat, assessing Holly’s chest for movement as she lay limp at his feet. Blood pooled from the back of her head onto the concrete floor. He crouched over her, placing two fingers against her neck as his father’s footsteps tromped down the stairs.

No pulse. He stood, relieved. He didn’t want to have to strike her again with the bat.

After Laurie had told him and his father about the crime writer who’d be moving in next door to hide from her abusive ex, John had hoped creeping up on her in the Alberton’s parking lot would be enough to scare her away. Unfortunately, it had to come to this.

“What the hell did you do?” he heard his father shout from less than a few feet away.

John spun around.

His dad gaped at Holly’s body.

“I didn’t have a choice,” John said.

His dad put both hands on his head as he shifted his wide-eyed gaze from Holly’s body to John to the wall behind him. His jaw fell open. “And what the hell is this?”

John pivoted toward the walls. “Oh. I just like to come down and look at these sometimes. I had them in a box under my bed, but after seeing Holly’s wall next door, I wanted a place where I could have them all displayed.

” And with Holly moving in next door, I thought it might be safer to get them out of my room.

That way, if Holly or the police ever found them, they would blame you, not me . But John kept that part to himself.

John smiled, looking between the two walls: one with articles from his father’s kills and the other from his own. “I’m catching up to you.”

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” He grabbed John by his T-shirt, baring his gritted teeth, and shoved John against the wall. “Have I taught you nothing? How do you expect to get away with this? Her murder will lead the cops right to our door!”

John winced, feeling a nail head poke against his spine. “You’ve never fully let me in. Ever since we came back from that trip to Alaska, you’ve been distant. Hell, I don’t even know if you’ve killed anyone since then!” John threw up the arm not holding the bat.

“Watch your language,” his dad said.

“It feels like you don’t think you can trust me. And I’m your son. ” John let his arm fall to his side. “You haven’t even taken me hunting in the last few years.”

His father shook his head. “I’ve failed you as a father. I shouldn’t have let you become like me. I wanted more for you.”

John gripped the bat in his hand. “But I am like you. I’m your son. This is who I am. Who we are.”

Clint stared down at Holly’s body. “And look at what you’ve done now!” He looked up to meet his son’s gaze, his expression more helpless than John had ever seen it. “How did you kill that woman in Fairbanks? You were only a child.”

John grinned. “I’ve been waiting five years for you to ask me that.”