The FBI Profiler Series 6-Book Bundle

by Lisa Gardner

  “I have a sister,” said the brunette. “Will she dream of me?”

  “Every night.”

  “That’s very sad.”

  “I know.”

  “I wish there’s something we could do.”

  “You’re dead,” Nora Ray said. “You can’t do anything at all. Now, I think it’s up to me.”

  Then her sister was gone, the pasture had vanished, and she was spiraling away from the pond long before she was ready. She woke up wide-eyed in her bed, her heart beating too fast and her hands knotted around her comforter.

  Nora Ray sat up slowly. She poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on her nightstand. She took a long drink and felt the cool liquid slide down her throat. Sometimes, she could still feel the salt building like rime around her mouth, coating her chin, covering her lips. She could remember the deep, unquenchable thirst that ran cell-deep, as the sun pounded and the salt built and she went mad with thirst. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

  She finished her glass of water now. Let the moisture linger on her lips, like dew on a rose. Then she left her room.

  Her mother slept on the couch, her head crooked awkwardly to the side, while on the TV Lucille Ball crawled into a vat of grapes and gamely stomped away. In the neighboring bedroom, Nora Ray glimpsed her father, slumbering alone on the queen-sized bed.

  The house was silent. It filled Nora Ray with a loneliness that threatened to cut her heart in two. Three years later, and no one had healed. Nothing was better. She could still remember the harsh grit of salt, leaching the last moisture from her body. She could remember her rage and confusion as the crabs nibbled on her toes. She could remember her simple desire to survive this hell and return to her family. If she could just see them again, slide into her parents’ loving embrace …

  Except her family had never returned to her. She had survived. They had not.

  And now, two more girls in the pastureland of her dream. She knew what that meant. The heat had arrived on Sunday, and the shadowy man from her nightmares had resumed his lethal game.

  The clock glowed nearly two A.M. She decided she didn’t care. She picked up the phone and dialed the number she knew by heart. A moment later, she said, “I need to reach Special Agent McCormack. No, I don’t want to leave a message. I need to see him. Quick.”

  Tina didn’t dream. Her exhausted body had given out, and now she was collapsed in the mud in a sleep that bordered on unconsciousness. One arm still touched the boulder, a link to relative safety. The rest of her belonged to the muck. It oozed between her fingers, coated her hair, slithered up her throat.

  Things came and went in the sucking muck. Some had no interest in prey quite that large. Some had no interest in a meal that wasn’t already dead. Then, up above, a dark shadow lumbered along the path, stopping at the edge of the pit. A giant head peered down, dark eyes gleaming in the night. It smelled warm-blooded flesh, a fine, delectable meal that was just its size.

  More sniffing. Two giant paws raked one side of the hole. The depth was too great, the terrain not manageable. The bear grunted, lumbered on. If the creature ever came up, it’d try again. Until then, there were other fine things to eat in the dark.

  The man didn’t sleep. Two A.M., he packed his bags. He had to move quickly now. He could feel the darkness gathering at the edges of his mind. Time was becoming more fluid, moments slipping through his fingers and disappearing into the abyss.

  Pressure was growing in the back of his skull. He could feel it, a true physical presence at the top of his spine, with another tendril starting to press against the inner canal of his left ear. A tumor, he was pretty sure. He’d had one before, years ago when he’d had his first “episode” of vanishing time. Had it been only minutes he’d lost in the beginning? He couldn’t even remember that anymore.

  Time grew fluid, black holes took over his life. One tumor was removed. Another came back to eat his brain. It was probably the size of a grapefruit by now. Or maybe even a watermelon. Maybe his brain wasn’t even his brain anymore, but a giant malignant mass of constantly dividing cells. He didn’t doubt it. That would explain the bad dreams, the restless nights. It would explain why the fire came to him so often now, and made him do things he knew he shouldn’t.

  He found himself thinking of his mother more. Her pale face, her thin, hunched shoulders. He thought of his father, too, and the way he always strode through their tiny cabin in the woods.

  “A man’s gotta be tough, boys, a man’s gotta be strong. Don’t you listen to no government types, they just want to turn us into mealy-mouthed dependents who can’t live without a federal handout. Not us boys. We got the land. We will always be strong, as long as we got the land.”

  Strong enough to beat his wife, abuse his kids and wring the neck of the family cat. Strong enough, and isolated enough, to live as he goddamned pleased, without even a neighbor to hear the screams.

  The black storm clouds built, rolled, and roared. Now he was sitting tied to a chair, while his father took a strap to his brother, his mother washed the dishes, and his father told them both that next it would be their turn. Now he and his brother were huddled under the front porch, planning their big escape, while above their heads their mother wept and their father told her to go inside and wipe that goddamn blood off of her face. Now it was late at night and he and his brother were sneaking out the front door; at the last minute they turned, and saw their mother standing pale and silent in the moonlight. Go, her eyes told them. Run away while you still can. Her bruised cheeks were streaked with wordless tears. They crept back inside. And she clutched them to her breast as if they were the only hope she had left.

  And he knew then that he hated his mother as much as he had ever loved her. And he knew then that she felt the same about him and his brother. They were the crabs stuck together in the bottom of a bucket, and pulling one another down so no one ever made it to freedom.

  The man swayed on his feet. He felt the dark roll in, felt himself totter on the edge of the abyss … Time was slipping through his fingers.

  The man turned. He drove his fist forcefully into the wall, and let the pain bring him back. The room came into focus. The dark spots cleared from his eyes. Better.

  The man crossed to his dresser. He got out his gun.

  He prepared for what must happen next.

  CHAPTER 30

  Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

  2:43 A.M.

  Temperature: 88 degrees

  Rainie and Mac were still working the victim’s body when Quincy materialized before them. His gaze went from them to Kathy Levine, then back to them.

  “She’s one of us,” Rainie said, as if he’d asked a question.

  “Definitely?”

  “Well, she risked ordering a search team based solely on Mac’s hunch, and now she’s picking rice out of a corpse’s pocket. You tell us.”

  Quincy raised a brow and glanced at Levine again. “Rice?”

  “Uncooked white,” she said briskly. “Long grain. Then again, I’m a botanist, not a chef, so you may want a second opinion.”

  Quincy switched his attention to Mac, who was carefully going over the girl’s left foot. “Why rice?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She’s wearing a necklace—some kind of vial filled with a clear fluid. That might be a hint. Then we got about nine different bits of leaves, four or five samples of dirt, half a dozen kinds of grass, some crushed flower petals, and a whole lotta blood.” Mac gestured to a stack of evidence containers. “Help yourself to a sample. And good luck figuring out if it came from her hike through the woods or from him. This new strategy of his definitely puts a wrinkle in things. What’d you do with Kimberly?”

  “Feds got her.”

  Three heads shot up. Quincy smiled grimly. “I believe there’s been a change of plans.”

  “Quincy,” Mac said curtly. “Tell me what the hell you’re talking abou
t.”

  Quincy didn’t look at him directly. Instead, his gaze went to Rainie. “The FBI case team arrived. No Kaplan, no Watson. In fact, I don’t recognize anyone on the team. They pulled in, spotted Kimberly, and immediately pulled her aside for questioning. I’m supposed to be waiting outside the lodge.”

  “Those assholes!” Rainie exploded. “First they want nothing to do with this. Now it’s suddenly their party, and no one else is invited to play. What are they going to do? Start all over at this stage of the game?”

  “I imagine they are going to do exactly that. The FBI can launch a pretty good search, you know. They’ll bring in computer operators, stenographers, dog handlers, search-and-rescue teams, topography experts, and recon pilots. Within twenty-four hours, they’ll have a full ops center set up roadside, while planes search the surrounding areas with infrared photography and volunteers stand by to assist. It’s not too shabby.”

  “Infrared photography is bullshit this time of year,” Mac said tightly. “We tried it ourselves. Every damn boulder and wandering bear shows up as a hit. Not to mention deer also look roughly like humans in the still photos. We ended up with hundreds of targets and not a single one of them was ever the missing girl. Besides, that assumes the next victim is somewhere in these woods, and I already know she isn’t. The man doesn’t repeat an area, and the whole point of his game is to ramp up the challenge. The other girl is somewhere far from here, and believe it or not, someplace even more dangerous.”

  “Judging from what I’ve seen so far, you’re probably correct.” Quincy turned around, looking back up the darkened path. “I give the new federal agents ten minutes before they arrive down here, and that delay is only because Kimberly promised to be unforthcoming with her answers. I know she’s good at that.” He grimaced, then turned back. “All right, for the next ten minutes at least, I’m part of this case and have authority over evidence. So, Ms. Levine, as a botanist, are any of these samples definitely out of place?”

  “The rice,” she said immediately.

  “I’ll take half.”

  “The vial with fluid, maybe. Though that could be a personal possession.”

  “Do we have an inventory of what any of the girls were last seen wearing?”

  “No,” answered Rainie.

  Quincy mulled it over. “I’ll take half the fluid.”

  Mac nodded, and immediately produced a glass vial from the evidence processing kit. Quincy noticed his hands were shaking slightly. Maybe fatigue. Maybe rage. Quincy knew from his own experience that it didn’t really matter. Just as long as you got the job done.

  “Why take only half the samples?” Levine asked.

  “Because if I took the whole sample, something would be missing. The other agents might notice and ask, and then I might feel compelled to hand it over. If, on the other hand, nothing’s obviously missing …”

  “They’ll never ask.”

  “And I’ll never tell,” Quincy said with a grim smile. “Now, what else?”

  Levine gestured helplessly to the pile of bags. “I honestly don’t know. Lighting’s not great, I don’t have a magnifying glass on me. Given the state of half of this stuff, I’d say she picked it up crashing through the underbrush. But without more time for analysis …”

  “He generally leaves three to four clues,” Mac said quietly.

  “So we’re missing something.”

  “Or he’s making it harder,” Rainie commented.

  Mac shrugged. “I’d say the stack of false positives makes it hard enough.”

  Quincy glanced at his watch. “You have five minutes. Sort through, then go. Oh, and Rainie, love, better turn off your cell phone.”

  Mac had finished with the girl’s foot and was moving up the body. He tilted back the girl’s head, cracked open her mouth, then inserted a gloved finger into the abyss. “He’s twice hidden something in a victim’s throat,” he said by way of explanation. He twisted his hand left, then right, then sighed and shook his head.

  “I got something.” Rainie looked up sharply. “Can I get some better light? I don’t know if this is just bad dandruff or what.”

  Quincy adjusted his flashlight. Rainie parted the girl’s hair. There appeared to be a fine powder dusted over the strands. As Rainie shook the victim’s head, more residue fell onto the plastic bag she had laid beneath it.

  Levine moved closer, catching some of the dust on her finger and sniffing experimentally. “I don’t know. Not dandruff. Too gritty. Almost … I don’t know.”

  “Take a sample,” Quincy ordered tersely, his gaze returning to the path. There, he heard it again. Not far off anymore. The thump of descending footfalls.

  “Rainie …” he murmured tightly.

  She hastily scraped a small bit of the powder into a glass vial, corked it, and threw it in her fanny pack. Kathy added some of the rice; Mac had already claimed half of the fluid.

  They were scrambling to their feet as Quincy moved toward Levine. “If they ask, you started working the scene under my orders. This is what you found, properly catalogued and waiting for them. As for me, last you knew, I was heading away from the scene. Trust me, you won’t be lying.”

  The footsteps pounded closer. Quincy shook the botanist’s hand. “Thank you,” he told Kathy Levine.

  “Good luck.”

  Quincy headed down the hillside and Rainie and Mac quickly followed suit. Levine watched as the darkness opened up, and then there was no one there at all.

  “For the last time, how did you know to come to the park? What led you and Special Agent McCormack straight to Big Meadows and another girl’s body?”

  “You’d have to ask Special Agent McCormack about his reasoning. Personally, I was in the mood for a hike.”

  “So you just magically discovered the body? Your second corpse in twenty-four hours?”

  “I guess I have a gift.”

  “Will you be asking for another hardship leave? Do you need more time to grieve, Ms. Quincy, in between finding all these dead bodies?”

  Kimberly thinned her lips. They’d been at this for two hours now, she and Agent Tightass, who had introduced himself with a real name, though she’d long forgotten what it was. He’d thrust, she’d parry. He’d punch, she’d dodge. Neither one of them was having much fun, and in fact, given the late hour and lack of sleep, both of them were getting more than a little pissed.

  “I want water,” she said now.

  “In a minute.”

  “I hiked five hours in nearly a hundred-degree heat. Give me water, or when I succumb to dehydration, I’ll sue your ass, end your career, and keep you from ever having that fat government pension to fund your golden years. Are we clear?”

  “Your attitude doesn’t speak well for an aspiring agent,” Tightass said curtly.

  “Yeah, they didn’t care for it much at the Academy either. Now I want my water.”

  Tightass was still scowling, obviously debating whether he should give in, when the door opened and Kimberly’s father strode in. Funny, for the first time in years, she was genuinely happy to see him, and they’d only parted ways hours ago.

  “The EMTs will see you now,” Quincy said.

  Kimberly blinked her eyes a few times, and then she got it. “Oh, thank God. My aching … everything.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tightass started.

  “My daughter has had a very long day. Not only has she been instrumental in finding a lost woman, but as you can tell by looking at her arms and legs, it was at great personal cost to herself.”

  Kimberly smiled at Tightass. It was true. She did look like hell. “I walked into a patch of stinging nettles,” she volunteered cheerfully. “And some poison ivy. And about a dozen trees. Not to mention what I did to my ankles. Oh yeah, I need some medical attention.”

  “I have more questions,” Tightass said tersely.

  “When she’s done being treated, I’m sure my daughter would be delighted to cooperate.”

  “She’s not co
operating now!”

  “Kimberly,” her father said in a chastising tone.

  She shrugged. “I’m tired, I’m hot, and I’m in pain. How am I supposed to think clearly when I’ve been denied water and proper medical attention?”

  “Of course.” Quincy was already crossing the room and helping her out of the metal folding chair. “Really, Agent, I know my daughter is a very strong young lady, but even you should know better than to question someone without first getting them proper treatment. I’m taking her straight to the EMTs. You can ask your questions again after that.”

  “I don’t know—”

  Quincy already had his right arm wrapped around Kimberly’s waist, and his left hand holding her arm around his shoulder, as if she was in desperate need of support. “Come to the medic station in thirty minutes. I’m sure she’ll be ready for you then.”

  Then Quincy and Kimberly were out the door, Quincy half bearing her weight and Kimberly managing a truly impressive limp.

  In case Tightass was watching, Quincy took her straight to the first-aid station. And as long as she was there, Kimberly had some water, grabbed four orange slices, and then saw an EMT—for approximately thirty seconds. He gave her salve for her legs and arms, then she and Quincy were striding rapidly away from the station and into a remote section of the parking lot.

  Rainie was waiting. So was Mac. They each had a vehicle.

  “Get in the car,” Quincy said. “We talk again on the road.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

  3:16 A.M.

  Temperature: 88 degrees

  Mac followed Quincy’s taillights, leading them away from the buzzing chaos of Big Meadows, and into the inky black of a winding road lit only by the moon and stars.

  Kimberly didn’t speak right away. Neither did Mac. She was tired again, but in a different sort of way now. This was the physical fatigue that came after a long, arduous journey and little sleep. She liked this kind of tired better. It was familiar to her. Almost comforting. She had always pushed her body hard and it had always recovered quickly. Her battered emotions, in contrast …