by Lisa Gardner
She was going to be sick. No, she couldn’t be sick. It was an inefficient use of the little water she had left. She was going to throw up anyway. Not even dead yet and already being used for maggot bait. How much longer could she possibly go on like this? Her poor baby. Her poor mom.
And then, that calm, practical Minnesotan voice from the back of her head started speaking to her again: You know what, girl? It’s time to get tough. ’Cause you either do something now, or you really do get to forever hold your peace.
Tina’s gaze went to the oozing black mud.
Just do it, Tina. Be tough. Show the rat bastard what you’re made of. Don’t you dare go down without a fight.
She sat up. The world spun; the bile rose immediately in her throat. With a gagging cough, she choked it back down. Then, she pulled herself wearily to the edge of the boulder and gazed at the muck. Looks like pudding. Smells like …
No throwing up!
“All right,” Tina whispered grimly. “I’ll do it. Ready or not, here I come!”
She stuck her right foot in the muck. Something promptly slithered against her ankle, then darted away. She bit her lower lip to keep from screaming and forced her foot deeper into the muck. It felt like sliding her body into rotted-out guts. Warm, slimy, slightly chunky …
No throwing up!
She thrust her left foot into the ooze, saw the clear outline of a black snake slide away and this time she did scream, long, hoarsely, and helplessly. Because she was afraid and she hated this and oh God, why had this man done this to her? She’d never hurt anyone. She didn’t deserve to be cast in a pit where she was baking alive while flies laid shiny white eggs into the deep sores of her skin.
And she was sorry for having sex now, and she was sorry for not taking better precautions, and she was sorry she had messed up her young life, but surely she didn’t deserve this kind of torture. Surely she and her baby at least deserved a shot at making a better life.
The mosquitoes swarmed. She batted at them again and again, while standing mid-calf in the muck and gagging helplessly.
Drop down, Tina. It’s like plunging into a cold pool. Just grit your teeth, and plunge into the muck. It’s the only option you have left.
And then …
There, in the distance. She heard it again. A sound. Footsteps? No, no. Voices. Someone was around.
Tina jerked back her head to the mouth of the open pit. “Hey,” she tried to scream, “hey, hey.”
All that came out of her parched throat was the croak of a frog. The voices were fading. People were around, but walking away, she was sure of it.
Tina grabbed her half-empty gallon of water. She took giant, greedy gulps, desperate for help and careless of rationing. Then, with her newly lubricated throat, she threw back her head and screamed in earnest.
“Hey, hey. I’m down here! Someone, anyone! Oh please, come here …”
Kimberly was running. Her lungs were burning; a stitch had developed in her side. Still she powered down the slippery slope, crashing through thick brush, jumping over rotting logs, careening around boulders. She could hear the hot, heavy breathing of Mac, racing by her side.
It was a suicidal pace. They could twist an ankle, plummet over a ledge, crash into a tree, or suffer things that would be much, much worse.
But the sun was setting fast now, daylight slipping through their fingers to be replaced by a fiery dusk that shot the sky bloodred. And the path, so distinguishable only fifteen minutes ago, was already slipping into shadow, vanishing before their eyes.
Mac surged ahead. Kimberly put her head down and forced her shorter legs to keep up.
They came crashing down the heavily wooded slope into a sudden, broad clearing. Thorny bushes and tightly packed trees gave way to knee-high grass. The ground flattened out and footing eased up.
Kimberly didn’t slow. She was still tearing forward at full throttle, trying to pick out the trail in the fading light, when she registered two things at once: the jagged tumble of hundreds of boulders off to her left and then, just fifteen feet up the pile, a startling strip of red. A skirt, her mind registered. And then … A human body. The girl!
They had found the girl!
Kimberly streaked toward the pile of rocks. Vaguely, she heard Mac yelling at her to stop. He grabbed at her wrist. She pulled away.
“It’s her,” she shouted back triumphantly, springing onto the pile. “Hey, hey you! Hello, hello, hello!”
Three sharp whistles sounded behind her. The international call of distress. Kimberly didn’t understand why. They had found the girl. They had saved the day. She had been right to leave the Academy. She had finally done it.
Then the girl came fully into view and any bit of triumph Kimberly had felt burst like a proverbial bubble and left her halted dead in her tracks.
The streak of red was not a piece of brightly dyed cotton, but a pair of white shorts, now stained darkly with dried blood. The sprawling white limbs—not a young girl lying peacefully down to rest, but a bruised and bloated body, twisted beyond recognition. And then, as Kimberly watched in the dusky pall, she swore she saw one of the girl’s limbs suddenly move.
The sound hit her all at once. A constant, building thrum. The deep vibration of dozens upon dozens of rattlesnakes.
“Kimberly,” Mac said quietly from the ground behind her. “For the love of God, please don’t move.”
Kimberly couldn’t even nod. She just stood there, perfectly frozen, while all around her, the shadows of the rocks uncurled into the shapes of snakes.
“The girl’s dead,” Kimberly said finally. Her voice sounded hoarse and faint, the tone of a woman already in shock. Mac eased closer to the boulders. By his third footstep, a fresh round of rattling shook the pile. He stopped instantly.
The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere. Ten, twenty, thirty different vipers. They seemed to be everywhere. Sweet Jesus, Mac thought, and reached back slowly for his gun.
“She must have been tired and dazed,” Kimberly murmured. “Saw the rocks. Climbed up for a better view.”
“I know.”
“My God, I think they bit every inch of her body. I’ve never … I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Kimberly, I have my gun out. If something moves, I’m going to shoot it. Don’t flinch.”
“It won’t work, Mac. There are too many of them.”
“Shut up, Kimberly,” he growled.
She turned her head toward him and actually smiled. “Now which one of us is being earnest?”
“Snakes don’t like us any more than we like them. If you just remain calm and don’t move, most of them will disappear back into the rocks. I’ve sounded the whistle; help will be here shortly.”
“I almost died once. Did I ever tell you that? A man I thought I knew well. It turned out he was just using me to get to my father. He cornered Rainie and me in a hotel room. He held a gun to my head. There was nothing Rainie could do. I still remember just how the barrel felt. Not cold, but warm. Like living flesh. It’s strange to feel so helpless. It’s strange to be trapped in the arms of another human being and know he’s going to take your life.”
“You’re not dead, Kimberly.”
“No, my father surprised him. Shot him in the chest. Thirty seconds later, everything had changed and I was the one still alive, wearing his blood in my hair. And my father was telling me everything would be all right. It was nice of him to lie.”
Mac didn’t know what to say. Light was fading fast, the pile of boulders quickly becoming another world, filled with too much black.
“She never stood a chance,” Kimberly murmured, her gaze returning to the girl’s body. “Look at her in her shorts and silk blouse. She was dressed to have fun in a bar, not fend her way in a wilderness. It’s beyond cruel.”
“We’re going to find him.”
“Not until another girl is dead.”
Mac closed his eyes. “Kimberly, the world’s not as bad as you think.”
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“Of course not, Mac. It’s worse.”
He swallowed. He was losing her. He could feel Kimberly slide deeper into fatalism, a woman who had escaped death once and didn’t expect to get that lucky again. He wanted to yell at her to buck up. And then he wanted to take her into his arms, and promise her everything would be all right.
She was right: when men tried to protect the people they cared about, they inevitably resorted to lies.
“Do you see the snakes?” he asked shortly.
“There’s not enough light. They blend into the boulders.”
“I don’t hear them.”
“No, they’ve fallen silent. Maybe they’re tired. They’ve had a busy day.”
Mac edged closer. He wasn’t sure how near the old landslide he could get. He didn’t hear any fresh rounds of rattling. He crept to within five feet, then took out his flashlight, flaring it over the pile of boulders. It was difficult to tell. Some rocks seemed clear. Others had bulging outlines that could very well be more rattlers.
“Do you think you can jump to me?” he asked Kimberly.
She was at least twenty feet away, at an awkward angle in the rock pile. Maybe if she bounded quickly from boulder to boulder …
“I’m tired,” Kimberly whispered.
“I know, honey. I’m tired, too. But we need to get you off those rocks. I’ve sort of grown attached to your sunny smile and gentle disposition. Surely you wouldn’t want to disappoint me now.”
No answer.
“Kimberly,” he said more sharply. “I need you to pay attention. You’re strong, you’re bright. Now, focus on how we’re going to get out of this.”
Her gaze went off in the distance. He saw her shoulders tremble. He didn’t know what she thought about but, finally, she turned back to him. “Fire,” she told him quietly.
“Fire?”
“Snakes do hate fire, right? Or have I watched too many Indiana Jones movies? If I make a torch, maybe I can use it to scare them away.”
Mac moved fast. He wasn’t an expert on snakes, but it sounded like a plan to him. He used his flashlight and quickly found a decent-sized fallen limb. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
He lofted the branch into the air with an easy underhand. A moment later, he heard the small thump as she caught it in her hands. They both held their breath. A slight buzzing rattle, low and to the right.
“Stay still,” Mac warned.
Kimberly dutifully froze and after several long minutes, the sound faded away.
“You need to get into your pack for the other supplies,” Mac instructed. “If you have an extra pair of wool socks, wrap one around the end of the branch. Then you’ll notice a small film canister in your front pocket. I added that. It contains three cotton balls dipped in Vaseline. They make an excellent fire starter. Just tuck them into the folds of the sock and hit ’em with a match.”
He held the flashlight, illuminating her in its beam of light as she went to work. Her movements were slow and subdued, trying not to call attention to herself.
“I can’t find my extra socks,” she called back at last. “What about a T-shirt?”
“That’ll do.”
She had to set her pack down. Mac briefly lit up the ground beside her. It appeared free of snakes. She gingerly lowered her pack. Another hiss as the snakes sensed the disturbance and voiced their disapproval. She stilled again, straightening at the waist, and now Mac could see the fresh sheen of sweat on her brow.
“You’re almost done,” he told her.
“Sure.” Her hands were shaking. She fumbled the stick briefly, nearly dropped it, and a fresh rattle, close and loud, reverberated through the dark. Mac watched Kimberly squeeze her eyes shut. He wondered if she was now remembering another truth about that day in the hotel room—that when the man had held a gun to her head, her first thought had been that she didn’t want to die.
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?”
