Page 27 of The Girl He Wanted

"There's a Linus Brink who lives near here," she said, reading from the screen as she looked into him. “It looks like he's a ranger who works in the forests near here. The address I can find for him is for a ranger's station about ten miles outside of the town."

"Give me the address, and I'll get us there," Christopher said. He sounded even more eager than Paige was to keep going, in spite of how hard they'd already been pushing today. He was obviously determined to finish this case and get back to DC.

Paige handed over the address and continued to look into Linus Brink while Christopher drove, the streets of the town flashing by around them. Above, dark clouds were starting to gather; it seemed as though Winterly was in for a storm at some point today. A big one.

There wasn’t much about Linus Brink online, but she managed to find a few different social media accounts under his name. They were all private, but she could see a few pictures that he had posted. He was a tall man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Something about him seemed off, unsettling even.

As she dug deeper into Linus Brink's background, Paige found herself growing more and more concerned. He had a criminal record, including several charges for stalking and a restraining order filed against him by an ex-girlfriend. It seemed that he had a pattern of becoming fixated on women, following them, and frightening them. Paige found the file on the restraining order, reading through it.

"Brink's ex-girlfriend took out a restraining order against him," Paige said to Christopher. "It says here that he was controlling, that he seemed to like making her afraid, that he was violent."

Christopher's jaw tightened. "That's not good. But it might be consistent with the kind of guy we’re looking for."

Paige nodded, scrolling through more of the file. "And it looks like it wasn't just his ex-girlfriend. There are reports from a few different women who say that he followed them, harassed them. None of the cases were strong enough to press charges, but it's clear that he has a history of being a danger to women."

"Definitelynot good."

"No, it's not. If we add in the fact that he was thrown out of the therapy group for secretly recording their conversations while they were doing exposure therapy, he's starting to look like a good suspect."

Christopher's grip on the steering wheel tightened, his expression tight. "It sounds like he could be our guy."

Paige nodded. "I think so, too, but we can't jump to conclusions. We need to talk to him first. We need evidence. We need to see if we can get him to slip up."

They fell into a tense silence as they drove to the ranger's station. The storm clouds above covered the sky completely now, rendering the world around them grey. Paige tried to push aside the unease that was starting to creep over her. They were trained FBI agents; they could handle themselves. But something about Linus Brink, the way he had been thrown out of the group therapy sessions, the way he had fixated on Bea ... it all added up to a dangerous and concerning combination.

They were approaching the forest now, trees close on either side of the road so that they almost seemed to shut out the world beyond. It was like they were driving into somewhere that had nothing to do with Winterly, or with civilization.

The ranger's station was a small building on the edge of the forest, surrounded by trees on all sides so that it was practically invisible until they were almost on top of it. Christopher pulled up in front of it, and they both got out, approaching the building cautiously. Paige could feel her heart pounding in her chest as they knocked on the door.

They waited for a few moments, but there was no answer. Christopher knocked again, louder this time and more determined.

"Linus Brink! This is the FBI!"

Still, there was no response from inside.

Paige checked the address again. This was definitely where Linus Brink was supposed to be living.

"Maybe he's out on patrol?" she suggested. After all, he was the ranger here. It was his job to make sure that nothing went wrong in the forest.

Christopher frowned. "It's possible. But I don't like leaving this open-ended. We should take a look around, see if we can find him."

They started to walk around the station, looking for any signs of Linus Brink. It was quiet, and the sounds of the forest around them only made it eerier.

"There's no sign of him," Christopher said.

Paige could only agree with that. Had they come all that way for nothing? No, Paige wasn't prepared to leave without finding the man who seemed like their best suspect so far.

She started to look around for any sign of where he might have gone. She happened to glance out of one of the windows of the ranger's station, and in the forest, she saw a flicker of something moving, something orange.

"There's someone out there," Paige said.

Christopher looked across, following the line of her gaze. "Maybe it's him."

There were other possible explanations, of course, but few that made sense.

"It could be someone else," Paige said, but she didn't believe it. "Let's go check it out."

They moved carefully, not wanting to give away their position, they had to move quickly, and that presumably meant that whoever was out there would see them coming. The flash of orange was moving steadily deeper into the forest, and they followed it, moving along one of the trails as quickly as they dared in the gloom caused by the storm clouds.

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