The Killing Hour (23 page)

Come on, Kimberly,
he willed her.
Come back to me.

She got the T-shirt wrapped around the end of the stick. Then she tucked in the cotton balls. Then she found the matches. Her trembling hand held aloft the first small wooden match. The raspy sound of the tip scratching against the box. The match flared to life, she touched it to the cotton balls, and a torch was born in the night.

Immediately, the space around her blazed with fresh light, illuminating not one, but four coiled rattlers.

“Mac,” Kimberly said clearly. “Get ready to catch.”

She thrust the torch forward. The snakes hissed, then recoiled sharply from the flames, and Kimberly bolted off the first boulder. She bounded down, one, two, three, four, as the crevices came alive with slippery shapes tumbling off the boulders as the snakes sought to escape the flame. The rocks were alive, hissing, curling, rattling. Kimberly plunged through the writhing mess.

“Mac!” she yelled. She came catapulting off the final rock and crashed against his hard frame.

“Gotcha,” he said, grabbing her shoulders and already removing the torch from her shaking hand.

For one moment, she just stood there, shell-shocked and dazed. Then, she collapsed against his chest and he held her more gratefully and desperately than he should.

“Mandy,” Kimberly murmured. She began to cry.

CHAPTER 28

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
11:51
P
.
M
.
Temperature: 91 degrees

PROFESSIONALS ARRIVED AND TOOK OVER THE SCENE.
Lanterns were brought in, along with battery-powered lights. Then volunteers, armed with sticks, served as emergency snake wranglers, while men wearing thick boots and heavy-duty pants waded onto the rock pile and removed the victim’s body in a litter.

Kathy Levine stood by as Mac officially reported their latest find to the powers that be. As a national park, Shenandoah fell under FBI jurisdiction; Watson would have his case after all, and Mac and Kimberly would once again be relegated to the role of outsiders.

Kimberly didn’t care. She sat alone on the sidewalk in front of Big Meadows Lodge, watching the emergency vehicles pile up in the parking lot. Ambulances and EMTs with no one to save. A fire department with no blaze to extinguish. Then finally, the ME’s van, the only professional who would get to practice his trade tonight.

It was hot. Kimberly felt moisture roll down her face like tears. Or maybe she was still crying. It was hard to know. She felt empty in a way she’d never felt empty before. As if everything she had ever been had disappeared, been flushed down a drain. Without bones, her body would have no weight. Without skin, she would cease to have form. The wind would come, blow her away like a pile of burnt-out ash, and maybe it would be better that way.

More cars came and went. Exhausted search volunteers returned and headed for a makeshift canteen where they downed buckets of ice water, then sank their teeth into pulpy slices of orange. The EMTs treated them for minor cuts and slight sprains. Most people simply collapsed into the metal folding chairs, physically exhausted by the hike, and emotionally drained by a search that had ended with bitter disappointment.

Tomorrow all of this would be gone. The search-and-rescue volunteers would disperse back to their everyday lives, returning to mundane rituals and routine concerns. They would rejoin their families, hiking parties, fire departments.

And Kimberly? Would she go back to the Academy? Fire shotgun rounds at blank targets and pretend it made her tough? Or play dress-up in Hogan’s Alley, dodging paint shells and matching wits with overpaid actors? She could pass the last round of tests, graduate to become a full-fledged agent, and go through the rest of her life pretending her career made her whole. Why not? It had worked for her father.

She wanted to lay her head down on the hard sidewalk bordering the parking lot. She wanted to melt into the cement until the world ceased to exist. She wanted to go back to a time when she did not know so much about violent death, or what dozens of rattlesnakes could do to the human body.

She had told Mac the truth earlier. She was tired. Six years’ worth of sleepless, bone-weary nights. She wanted to close her eyes and never open them again. She wanted to disappear.

Footsteps grew closer. A shadow fell between her and the ambulance headlights. She looked up, and there was her father, striding across the parking lot in one of his impeccably tailored suits. His lean face was set. His dark eyes inscrutable. He bore down on her fiercely, a hard, dangerous man come to collect his own.

She didn’t have the strength anymore to care.

“I’m fine,” she started.

“Shut up,” Quincy said roughly. He grabbed his daughter’s shoulder. Then he shocked them both by pulling her roughly off the sidewalk and folding her into his embrace. He pressed his cheek against her hair. “My God, I have been so worried about you. When I got the call from Mac . . . Kimberly, you are killing me.”

And then she shocked them both by bursting once more into tears. “We didn’t make it. I thought for sure this time I would be right. But we were slow and she was dead. Oh God, Daddy, how can I always be too late?”

“Shhh . . .”

She pulled back until she could gaze into his hard-lined face. For so much of her childhood, he had been a cool, remote figure. She respected him, she admired him. She strove desperately for his praise. But he remained out of reach, a larger-than-life figure who was always rushing out the door to assist other families, and rarely around for his own. Now, it was suddenly, frantically important to her that he understand. “If I’d just known how to move faster. I have no experience in the mountains. How could I grow up around here and not know anything about the woods? I kept tripping and falling, Dad, and then I stumbled into the stinging nettles and God,
why couldn’t I have moved faster?
”

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

“Mac was right after all. I wanted to save Mandy and Mom, and since I can’t help them, I honestly thought saving this girl would make a difference. But they’re still dead and she’s still dead, and God, what is the point?”

“Kimberly, what happened to your mother and Mandy wasn’t your fault—”

She wrenched away from him. Screaming now, her words carrying across the parking lot, but she was beyond noticing. “Stop saying that! You always say that! Of course it was my fault. I’m the one who trusted him. I’m the one who told him all about my family. Without me, he never would’ve known how to reach them. Without me, he never would’ve killed them! So stop lying to me, Dad. What happened to Mom and Mandy is exactly my fault. I just let you take the blame because I know it makes you feel better!”

“Stop it! You were only twenty. A young girl. You can’t saddle yourself with this kind of guilt.”

“Why not? You do.”

“Then we’re both idiots, all right? We’re both idiots. What happened to your mom and Mandy . . . I would’ve died for them, Kimberly. Had I known, if I could’ve stopped it, I would’ve died for them.” His breathing had grown harsh. She was shocked to see the glitter of tears in his eyes.

“I would’ve died, too,” she whispered.

“Then we did the best we could, all we could. He was the enemy, Kimberly.
He
took their lives. And God help both of us, but sometimes the enemy is simply that good.”

“I want them back.”

“I know.”

“I miss them all the time. Even Mandy.”

“I know.”

“Dad, I don’t know why I’m still alive . . .”

“Because God took pity on me, Kimberly. Because without you, I think I would’ve gone insane.”

He pulled her back into his arms. She sobbed against his chest, crying harder. And she could feel him crying, too, her father’s tears falling onto her hair. Her stoic father, who didn’t even cry at funerals.

“I wanted to save her so badly,” Kimberly whispered.

“I know. It’s not bad to care. Someday, that will be your strength.”

“But it hurts. And now I have nothing left. The game is over, and the wrong person has won, and I don’t know how to simply go home and wait for the next match. It’s life and death. It shouldn’t be this cavalier.”

“It’s not over, Kimberly.”

“Of course it is. We didn’t find the second girl. Now all we can do is wait.”

“No. Not this time.” Her father took a deep breath, then gently pulled away. He looked at her in the dark, breathless night, and his face was as sad as she’d ever seen it. “Kimberly,” he said quietly. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, but this time, there weren’t just two girls. This time, the man took four.”

Rainie was huffing badly by the time she made it down to the crime scene. Lanterns marked the trail, so the footing wasn’t bad, but geez Louise, it was a ways down the mountain. And for the record, while it was now after midnight and the moon ruled the sky, apparently no one had bothered to tell the heat. She’d soaked through both her T-shirt and hiking shorts, ruining her third outfit of the day.

She hated this weather. She hated this place. She wanted to go home, and not to the high-rise co-op she shared with Quincy in downtown Manhattan, but home to Bakersville, Oregon. Where the fir trees grew to staggering heights, and a fresh ocean breeze blew off the water. Where people knew each other by first names, and even if it made it hard to escape the past, it also gave you an anchor in the present. Bakersville, where she’d had a town, a community, a place that felt like home . . .

The pang of longing struck hard and deep. As it had been doing so often these days. A ghost pain for the past. And it filled her with a restlessness she was having a harder and harder time trying to hide. Quincy could sense it, too. She caught him watching her sometimes with a question in his eyes. She wished she could give him an answer, but how could she, when she didn’t have one herself?

Sometimes she ached for things she couldn’t name. And sometimes, when she thought of how much she loved Quincy, it simply hurt her more.

She found Mac standing with a cluster of three people over by the body. The first guy appeared to be the Medical Examiner. Second guy had the look of an assistant. Third person was a woman with short red hair and lots of freckles. She was built like a firecracker, with the muscled legs and broad shoulders of a serious hiker. Not the ME’s office. Probably leader of the search-and-rescue operations.

Thirty seconds later, Mac made the introductions, and Rainie was pleased to find out she was right. ME turned out to be Howard Weiss, his assistant was Dan Lansing, and the redhead was Kathy Levine, who had indeed organized the search.

Levine was still talking to the ME, so the three of them broke away, leaving Mac and Rainie standing over the partially wrapped body.

“Where’s Quincy?” Mac asked.

“He said he needed to have a fatherly chat with Kimberly. I took one look at his face and decided not to argue.”

“They fight a lot?”

“Only because they’re too much alike.” She shrugged. “Someday they’ll figure that out.”

“What about Kaplan and Watson? Are they gonna join the party, or are they not allowed off the base?”

“Not known yet. Watson has a full-time job at the Academy, so while the FBI is definitely assembling a team, it probably won’t involve him personally. Kaplan, on the other hand, is lead investigator on the Quantico homicide. So he has plenty of time, but lacks jurisdiction. Given that he’s a resourceful man, I figure in another hour or two, he’ll crack that nut and show up with full NCIS entourage. Oh, aren’t we the luckiest duckies in the whole wide world?”

She peered down into the black plastic body bag, the contents clearly lit by one of the generator-powered lights. “Whoa.”

“Nearly two dozen puncture wounds,” Mac said. “And countin’. Poor girl must’ve wandered right into the thick of things. After that, she never stood a chance.”

“Her purse? The gallon of water?”

“No sign yet. We don’t know where she was abandoned, though. In daylight, we can find her trail and backtrack. Probably discover her things along the way.”

“Seems strange she’d drop the water.”

He shrugged. “In this heat, a gallon of water is good for about two to four hours. She’s been out here for at least twenty-four, so . . .”

“So even when the guy plays nice, he’s still a total bastard.” Rainie straightened. “Well, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

Mac was silent for a moment. She could see fresh lines on his forehead, a gaunt set to his jaw. He’d been pushing himself hard and he looked it. Still, he didn’t blink an eye. “If it’s all the same, I think I’d like to start with the good news tonight.”

“We might have a name.” Rainie dug out her spiral notepad from her fanny pack and started flipping through. She glanced once more at the body. “Brunette, twenty years old, brown eyes, distinguishable by a birthmark on her upper left breast.” She bent down, then paused, with a meaningful glance at Mac. He was already looking away. She approved. Some people handled bodies as if they were nothing more than dolls. Rainie had never liked that. This was a girl. She’d had a family, a life, people who deeply loved her. There was no need to disrespect her any more than necessary.

Gently, she lifted the top of the girl’s blouse. She had to move her head to let in the light. Then she could see it clearly, the top edge just peeking out from beneath the edge of the girl’s black satin bra—a dark brown clover-shaped birthmark.

“Yeah,” Rainie said quietly. “It’s Vivienne Benson. She was a student at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, spending the summer working for her uncle. He called her landlady yesterday when she didn’t show up for work. Landlady went up to the apartment, found it empty, and the dog howling to be let out of its crate. She took pity on the poor beast, then called the police. According to her, it’s not like Vivienne, or her roommate, Karen Clarence, to stay out all night. Particularly because of their dog, whom apparently they love madly.”

“Karen is a blonde?”

“Actually, Karen’s a brunette.”

Mac immediately frowned. “The body we found at Quantico had blond hair.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not Karen Clarence?”

“No. Betsy Radison. Her brother made the ID just a few hours ago.”

“Rainie, honey, I’m a little tired right now. Can you take pity on an exhausted GBI agent and start your story over in English?”

“I’d be delighted. Turns out the landlady is a real font of information. She was sitting out two nights ago, when Vivienne and Karen came downstairs to wait for their ride. According to her, Viv and Karen were picked up by two other friends from college, and the four of them were going to a bar in Stafford.”

“The four of them?”

“Enter Betsy Radison and Tina Krahn, also living in Fredericksburg and taking some summer courses. All four girls went out Tuesday night in Betsy’s Saab convertible. None has been seen since. Fredericksburg P.D. went into Betsy and Tina’s apartment late tonight. All they could find were a dozen messages from Tina Krahn’s mother on the answering machine. Apparently she didn’t like her last conversation with her daughter. She’s been frantically trying to reach Tina ever since.”

“I gotta sit down,” Mac said. He moved away from Vivienne Benson’s body, found a tree stump and collapsed on the rough shape as if he’d abruptly lost all the strength in his legs. He ran a hand through his damp hair, then did it again and again. “He ambushed four girls at once,” he said at last, trying out the words, feeling his way into the horrible concept. “Betsy Radison, he dumped at Quantico, Vivienne Benson he abandoned here. Which leaves us with Karen Clarence and Tina Krahn, who he may have taken . . . Goddamn . . . The gray birch leaf. I thought that was too easy for him. But of course. It wasn’t an end. Just a strange beginning.”