by Lisa Gardner
The girl was moaning again.
The man bent over. “Shhhh,” he whispered in her ear. “You don’t want to wake up just yet.”
The water surged again. The man turned his back on the girl and left.
CHAPTER 15
Quantico, Virginia
9:28 P.M.
Temperature: 91 degrees
“She doesn’t look very good,” Rainie said.
“I know.”
“What the hell happened to her eye? It looks like she’s gone ten rounds with Tyson.”
“Shotgun training would be my guess.”
“She’s definitely lost weight.”
“It’s not supposed to be easy.”
“But you’re worried about her. Come on, Quince. Give up the ghost. You’d like to go punch Watson’s lights out. Pretty please. I’ll hold him down for you.”
Quincy sighed. He finally put down the case file he was reading—the homicide notes from the Georgia case years ago. These were just summary documents, of course. The original detective reports, evidence sheets, and activity logs probably took up enough boxes to fill a small family room. They both hated working off case summary reports—almost by definition, the documents were filled with erroneous assumptions and conclusions. Here, however, they had to make do.
The page Quincy currently had open was labeled “Profile: Atlanta Case #832.” Rainie’s hands itched reflexively. GBI’s profile of the Eco-Killer, no doubt. She’d like to read that report herself, particularly after listening to that Georgian cop’s take on things. But Quincy had grabbed the file first. He’d probably read it long into the night, pinching the bridge of his nose in that gesture which meant he was thinking too hard and giving himself a headache.
“If I say anything, she’ll just get angry,” he said now.
“That’s because she’s your daughter.”
“Exactly. And my daughter hates for me to be involved in her life. My daughter believes pigs will fly before she’ll accept help from me.”
Rainie frowned at him. She was sitting Indian-style in the middle of the orange-covered bed. This was only her fourth time at Quantico and the place never failed to intimidate the crap out of her. The grounds practically screamed reputable-law-enforcement-agents-only. Even though she and Quincy had been together for six years, they were still given separate rooms—they were unmarried, you know, and the Academy did have its sense of propriety.
Rainie knew the way the world worked. She would never have been allowed through those hallowed gates if she hadn’t had Quincy to vouch for her. Not way back when, and not now. Thus, she could understand some of Kimberly’s issues, having taken the long route to elite law enforcement herself.
“I don’t think she’s going to make it,” Rainie said flatly. “She looks too haggard around the eyes. Like a dog that’s been beat too many times.”
“The training pushes you. It’s meant to test your level of endurance.”
“Oh, bullshit! You think Kimberly lacks endurance? My God, she held up even after a madman killed Bethie. She remained functional and alert when that same madman came after her. I was with her, remember. Kimberly has plenty of endurance. She doesn’t need a bunch of numbnuts in suits to prove otherwise.”
“I don’t think Watson would care to be labeled a numbnut.”
“Oh, now you’re just pissing me off.”
“Apparently.” Quincy threw up his hands. He’d discarded his suit jacket after their meeting with Watson and Kaplan. Sequestered in his room, he’d even gone so far as to roll up the cuffs of his white dress shirt and loosen his tie. He still looked like an FBI agent, and Rainie had the overwhelming compulsion to fight with him, if only to mess him up a little. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Stop being an agent.”
“I am not an agent!”
“Oh, for the love of God. There is no agent more agent than you. I swear you have pin-striped ties encrypted into your DNA. When you die, the coffin is going to read Property of the FBI.”
“Did you just think that up off the top of your head?”
“Yep, I’m on a roll. No changing the subject. Kimberly’s in trouble. You’ve seen her, and you’ve seen how Watson is treating her. It’s only a matter of time before things come to a head.”
“Rainie … Not that you’re going to want to hear this, but Watson is an experienced Academy supervisor. Maybe he has a point.”
“What? Are you fucking mad?”
Quincy sighed deeply. “She disobeyed orders. Even if she had good reasons, she still disobeyed orders. Kimberly is a new agent. This is the life she chose, and the whole beginning of her career is going to be defined by doing what she’s told. If she can’t do that, maybe the FBI isn’t the right organization for her.”
“She found a body. When you were training here, how many bodies did you find? Uh huh. That’s what I thought. She has the right to be a little rattled.”
“Rainie, look at these crime-scene photos. You tell me. Who does this girl look like?”
Rainie grudgingly turned her gaze to the photos, currently spread out on the foot of the bed. “Mandy,” she said without hesitation.
Quincy nodded somberly. “Of course she looks like Mandy. It’s the first thing I noticed and the first thing you noticed. Yet Kimberly hasn’t mentioned anything about it.”
“If she so much as whispers that the victim reminds her of her dead sister, they’ll cart her out of here in a straitjacket for sure.”
“And yet the victim must remind her of her sister. Isn’t that the whole point?”
Rainie scowled. He was leading her down some psychobabble trail. She could feel the trap closing in. “You’re working the case,” she countered.
“I’ve worked over three hundred homicides. I’ve had a bit more time to develop objectivity about these things.”
“But you saw the resemblance.”
“I did.”
“Does it bother you, Quincy?”
“What? That a victim should look so much like Mandy, or that Mandy is still gone, and I never did a damn thing to help her?” His question was harsh. Rainie took that as an invitation to slide off the bed. He stiffened when she first touched his shoulders. She expected that. After all these years, they each still had their barriers and self-defenses. It didn’t used to bother her so much. But lately it had been making her sad.
“You hurt for her,” she whispered.
“For Kimberly? Of course I do. She’s picked a hard path. It’s just sometimes …” He blew out a breath.
“Go on.”
“Kimberly wants to be tough. She wants to be strong. I understand that. After everything that happened to her, a desire for some level of invincibility is natural. And yet … does shooting a gun make you omnipotent, Rainie? Does pushing yourself to run six miles every day mean you’ll never be a victim? Does engaging in every kind of physical combat imaginable mean you’ll never lose?” He didn’t wait for her answer; none was necessary. “Kimberly seems to honestly believe that if she can become an FBI agent, no one will ever hurt her again. Oh God, Rainie, it is so damn hard to watch your child repeat your own mistake.”
Rainie slid her arms around his shoulder. She leaned her head against Quincy’s chest. Then, because there were no words to comfort him, she went to the one topic that was always safe. Work. Dead bodies. A good, intriguing homicide case.
“Do you think the Georgian hunk is right?” she asked.
“The Georgian hunk?”
“I’m only thinking of Kimberly. I’m very altruistic that way. So, you grabbed the case file first. What do you think of his allegation that the Georgian Eco-Killer is now hunting Virginian prey?”
“I don’t know yet,” Quincy said reluctantly. His hand came up and rested on the back of her neck. After another moment, he stroked her hair. She closed her eyes, and thought for a moment that things might be all right.
“The Eco-Killer is an interesting case, remarkable almost more for what
the investigators don’t know about the killer than for what they do. For example, seven homicides later, the investigators have recovered no murder weapon, identified no primary murder scene, and not recovered a single bit of trace evidence such as hair, fiber, blood, or semen. In fact, the killer seems to have spent only the barest amount of time with each of the victims, limiting the opportunity for evidence transfer. He simply strikes, kills, and runs.”
“An efficiency freak.”
Quincy shrugged. “Most killers are driven by blood lust. They don’t just want to kill, they want to savor their victim’s pain and suffering. In contrast, this is the coldest string of murders I’ve ever seen. The UNSUB has little apparent interest in violence and yet, he is extraordinarily deadly.”
“He’s into gamesmanship,” Rainie thought out loud. “For him the sport isn’t the kill, but setting up the bodies, and establishing his riddles. Then he writes his notes, ensuring he’ll receive credit for his crime.”
“He writes the notes,” Quincy agreed. “Giving his game an environmental slant. Now, do we believe this man really cares about the environment, or is this yet another aspect of his game? I don’t know enough yet, but I’m fairly certain that even the notes are just another type of prop. The man is setting a stage. He is like the great Oz, hiding behind a curtain and pulling all the strings. But to what end? What does he really want—and what does he really get—out of doing all this? I don’t have that answer yet.”
“So what are the similarities between the Georgia case and this one?” Rainie prodded.
“Cause of death,” Quincy said promptly. “There aren’t too many serial predators who kill using prescription tranquilizers. At least not male killers.”
“Women love poison,” Rainie said knowingly.
“Exactly. Your dear friend Watson, however, also raised some good points. First, the Georgian Eco-Killer always dumped the first victim near a major road, where his ‘map’ per se could be easily found. Following that pattern, the victim could still be left on the Marine base, but should be near such roads as MCB-4 or MCB-3. A dirt jogging path isn’t quite the same. Second, the stitched-up mouth bothers me. It shows an increased need for violence, postmortem mutilation of the victim, let alone the very obvious symbol of the victim keeping her mouth shut.”
“Or the killer is engaging in a more dangerous game, as Special Agent McCormack theorizes.”
“True. The new location, however, bothers me as well. I’ve only just glanced at the Georgia profile, but one of the main assumptions is that the man is local. His knowledge of certain areas is too intimate to be an outsider’s. In fact, the very nature of his game is that of someone who lives in and loves his surroundings. That’s not the kind of person who simply shifts to a whole new state.”
“Maybe he felt the police were getting too close.”
“It’s possible. For his game to work in Virginia, however, he’d have to do his homework.”
“What about the phone calls?” Rainie switched gears. “It seems more than coincidental that McCormack should start getting anonymous tips that the Eco-Killer would strike in Virginia right before the discovery of a new body. Seems to me the caller might know something.”
“The anonymous tips are what make it interesting,” Quincy agreed. He sighed again, then rubbed his temple. “Seems at the end of the day, we have six reasons why the cases shouldn’t be related, and half a dozen reasons why they should. Now we need a tiebreaker.” He looked at her. “You know what? We need to know the victim’s ID. Right now, we have one body, which may or may not bear resemblance to another case. If, however, we had concrete evidence that two girls had been kidnapped …”
“Then it would definitely point to the Eco-Killer,” Rainie filled in.
“Then I would definitely pay more attention to the Georgia case.”
“Has Kaplan checked missing persons reports?”
“He has someone going through old files. No new cases, however, have opened up in the last twenty-four hours. At least not for a young woman.”
“How sad,” Rainie murmured. “To be kidnapped and murdered, and have no one even realize that you’re gone yet.”
“Most colleges are on break,” Quincy said with a shrug. “If our victim is a student, the lack of a regular schedule might make it take longer for anyone to notice that she’s disappeared.”
“Maybe that’s why there’s no ID,” Rainie said after a moment. “If we don’t know who she is, we can’t know for sure that she—or a companion—is missing. The Eco-Killer has bought himself some time.”
Quincy eyed her speculatively. “But doesn’t that work both ways?”
“He either is the Eco-Killer and doesn’t want us to know it yet,” she said slowly.
“Or someone has done their homework,” Quincy concluded quietly. “Someone has committed murder, and now is seeking to cover his tracks by sending us off on a wild-goose chase.”
“Where do you want to start?” she asked.
“We start where we always start. Close to home. Right here.” His arms finally went around her waist. He drew her up against his chest. “Come on, Rainie,” he murmured in her ear. “Tell me the truth. Haven’t you always wanted to tear apart the FBI Academy?”
“You have no idea.”
And then, a moment later: “I’m trying,” he whispered.
“I know,” she said, and closed her eyes against the fresh sting of tears.
CHAPTER 16
Quantico, Virginia
9:46 P.M.
Temperature: 91 degrees
Kimberly sat alone in her dorm room. Lucy had returned briefly, dumping one pile of books on the cluttered desk before scooping up the next.
“Wow, you look worse than you did this morning,” she said by way of greeting.
“Been working on it all day,” Kimberly assured her.
“Finding a corpse must be hard on a girl.”
“So you heard.”
“Everyone’s heard, my dear. It’s the hottest topic around. This your first corpse?”
“You mean other than my mother and sister?”
Lucy stilled in front of the desk. The silence grew long. “Well, I’m off to study group,” she said finally. She turned, her expression gentle. “Want to come along, Kimberly? You know we don’t mind.”
“No,” Kimberly said flatly.
And then Lucy was gone.
She should sleep. Supervisor Watson was right. Her nerves were frayed, the adrenaline rush gone and leaving her feeling empty. She wanted to tip over on the narrow bed. Slip into the blessed numbness of sleep.
She’d dream about Mandy. She’d dream about her mother. She wasn’t sure which dream would hurt her worse.
She could find her father over at the Jefferson Dormitory. He would talk to her, he always did. But she knew already the look she’d see on his face. Slightly distracted, slightly puzzled. A man who had just started a terribly important assignment, and even as he listened to his daughter lament, the other half of his brain would be reshuffling crime-scene photos, murder books, investigator logs. Her father loved her. But she and Mandy had come to understand early on that he mostly belonged to the dead.
She couldn’t stand the empty room. She couldn’t stand the sound of footsteps in the hall. People meeting friends, sharing laughs, swapping stories, having a good time. Only Kimberly sat alone, the island she’d worked so hard to become.
She left the room, too. She took her knife and disappeared down the hall.
Outside it was hot. The dark, oppressive heat greeted her like a wall. Ten P.M. and still this unbearably sticky. Tomorrow would be punishing for sure.
She slogged forward, feeling blotches of dark gray sweat bloom across the front of her T-shirt, while more moisture began trailing down the small of her back. Her breath came out in shallow pants, her lungs laboring to find oxygen in air that was 90 percent water.
She could still hear fading laughter. She turned away from it and headed toward t
he welcoming dark of the firing range. No one came out here this time of night. Well, almost no one.
The thought came only briefly, and then she knew just how much trouble she was in.
“Been waitin’ for you,” Special Agent Mac McCormack drawled softly, pushing away from the entrance to the range.
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I don’t like to disappoint a pretty girl.”
“Did you bring a shotgun? Well then, too bad.”
He merely grinned at her, his teeth a flash of white in the dark. “I thought you’d spend more time with your father.”
“Can’t. He’s working the case and I’m not allowed.”
“Being family doesn’t entitle you to some perks?”
“You mean like a sneak peek of homicide photos? I think not. My father is a professional. He takes his job seriously.”
“Now, how many years of therapy has it taken you to say that in such a calm, clear voice?”
“More than most suspect,” she admitted grudgingly.
“Come on, sugar. Let’s take a seat.” He headed out into the green field of the range without looking back. It amazed her how easy it was to follow him.
The grass was nice. Soft beneath her battered body. Cool against her bare, sweat-slicked legs. She lay back, with her knees pointed at the sky and her short, serrated hunting knife snug against the inside of her left leg. Mac lay down beside her. Close. His shoulder brushing hers. She found his proximity faintly shocking, but she didn’t move away.
He’d showered since their meeting with Kaplan and Watson. He smelled like soap and some kind of spicy men’s aftershave. She imagined that his hair was probably still damp. For that matter, his cheeks had appeared freshly shaven when he’d walked through the glow cast by the streetlight. Had he cleaned up for her? Would it matter if he had?
She liked the smell of his soap, she decided, and left it at that.
“Stars are out,” he said conversationally.
“They do that at night.”
“You noticed? Here I thought you driven new agent types were too busy for those kinds of things.”
