The Hunter's Lair

The damn signal died somewhere past the county line, swallowed by the dense pines and the indifferent silence of the wilderness. Jack hadn't answered my calls for the last three hours, and every instinct screamed that this was a mistake. A big, stupid, potentially fatal mistake. Captain Mulligan had warned me about Jack’s methods – the "lone wolf," he’d called him, a phrase that always set my teeth on edge. But this was beyond bending the rules; this was a full-blown vanishing act.

“Damn it, Jack,” I muttered, gripping the steering wheel of my unmarked sedan. The tires crunched on a gravel track that was rapidly devolving into a rutted mess. The GPS had given up the ghost an hour ago, leaving me to navigate by a crumpled topographical map and the fading light. Jack had been chasing a whisper, a rumor about a guy known for poaching out in this neck of the woods, someone who fit the killer's profile like a glove. A hunter who hunted other hunters. The irony wasn't lost on me, but right now, all I felt was a cold knot of dread tightening in my gut.

The map indicated a small, abandoned logging camp somewhere ahead. Jack had mentioned it, a place where the poachers supposedly stashed their gear, a place locals avoided like the plague. It was the kind of place a desperate rookie would go, the kind of place a seasoned killer would use as a lair. And Jack, bless his overeager heart, had gone in alone.