The FBI Profiler Series 6-Book Bundle

by Lisa Gardner

  “We hope so,” Mac said.

  “Then your water’s pH is due to organic waste. See, if mill wastes are not disposed of properly, the organic matter leaches into a stream, where it leads to bacterial buildup, eventually suffocating all other life-forms. Has Brian tested the sample for bacteria yet?”

  “The amount’s too small.”

  “But the high salinity,” Armitage was muttering. “Must be minerals of some kind. Pity he can’t test it more.”

  “Wait a minute,” Kimberly said intently. “You’re saying this is from a mill, not a mine?”

  “Well, I don’t generally associate sawdust with coal mines. So yes, I’m going to say a lumber mill.”

  “But that could give you acidic water?”

  “Contamination is contamination, my dear. And with a pH reading of three-point-eight, your water came from an extremely contaminated source.”

  “But Knowles indicated this water is at a crisis,” Mac said. “Aren’t mills regulated for how they dispose of waste?”

  “In theory, yes. But then, there’s a lot of lumber mills in this state and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the smaller, backwoods operations fall through the cracks.”

  Nora Ray had finally perked up. She was looking at the palynologist with interest. “What if it were a closed mill?” she asked quietly. “Some place shut down, abandoned.” Her gaze flickered to Mac. “That would be his kind of place, you know. Remote and dangerous, like something from a B-grade horror movie.”

  “Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of abandoned mills in the state,” Armitage said. “Particularly in the coal counties. That’s not a very populated area. And, frankly, not a bad location for a horror movie.”

  “How so?” Mac asked.

  “It’s an impoverished area. Very rural. People first moved out there to get their own land and be free from government. Then the coal mines opened and attracted hordes of cheap labor, looking to make a living. Unfortunately, farming, timber, or mining hasn’t made anyone rich yet. Now you just have a broad expanse of bruised and battered land, housing a bruised and battered population. People still eke out a living, but it’s a hard life and the communities look it.”

  “So we’re back to seven counties,” Mac murmured.

  “That would be my guess.”

  “Nothing more you can tell us?”

  “Not from a minute sample of sawdust.”

  “Shit.” Seven counties. That just wasn’t specific enough. Maybe if they’d started yesterday or the day before. Maybe if they had hundreds of searchers or what the hell, the entire National Guard. But three people, two of them not even in law enforcement …

  “Mr. Armitage,” Kimberly spoke up suddenly. “Do you have a computer we can use? One with Internet access.”

  “Sure, I have my laptop.”

  Kimberly was already up out of her chair. Her gaze went to Mac and he was startled by the light he now saw blazing in her eyes. “Remember how Ray Lee Chee said there was an ology for everything?” she asked excitedly. “Well, I’m about to put him to the test. Give me the names of the seven coal-producing counties and I think I can find our rice!”

  CHAPTER 37

  Quantico, Virginia

  1:12 P.M.

  Temperature: 98 degrees

  Dr. Ennunzio was not in his office. A secretary promised to hunt him down, while Quincy and Rainie took a seat in the conference room. Quincy rifled through his files. Rainie stared at the wall. Periodically, sounds came from the hallway as various agents and admin assistants rushed by doing a day’s work.

  “It’s not that simple,” Quincy said abruptly.

  Rainie finally looked at him. As always, she didn’t need a segue to follow his line of thought. “I know.”

  “We’re not exactly spring chickens. You’re nearly forty, I’m pushing fifty-five. Even if we wanted to have kids, it doesn’t mean it would happen.”

  “I’ve been thinking of adopting. There are a lot of children out there who need a family. In this country, in other countries. Maybe I could give a child a good home.”

  “It’s a lot of work. Midnight feedings if you adopt an infant. Bonding issues if you adopt an older child. Children need the sun, the moon, and the stars at night. No more jetting around the world at the drop of a hat. No more dining at fine restaurants. You’d definitely have to cut back on work.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Don’t get me wrong, Quincy. I like the work that we do. But lately … it’s not enough for me. We go from dead body to dead body, crime scene to crime scene. Catch a psychopath today, hunt a new one tomorrow. It’s been six years, Quince.…” She looked down at the table. “If I do this, I’ll quit the practice. I’ve waited too long to have a child not to do it right.”

  “But you’re my partner,” he protested without thinking.

  “Consultants can be hired. Parents can’t.”

  He turned away, then tiredly shook his head. He didn’t know what to say. Perhaps it was only natural that someday she would want children. Rainie was younger than him, hadn’t already weathered the domestic storm that had been his pathetic attempt at domestic bliss. Maternal instincts were natural, particularly for a woman her age who was bound to be hearing the steady beat of her own biological clock.

  And for a moment, an image came to him. Rainie with a small bundle wrapped in her arms, cooing in that high-pitched voice everyone used with babies. Him, watching little feet and hands kick in the air. Catching that first giggle, seeing the first smile.

  But the other images inevitably followed. Coming home late from work and realizing your child was already in bed—again. The urgent phone calls that pulled you away from piano recitals and school plays. The way a five-year-old could break your heart by saying, “It’s okay, Daddy. I know you’ll be there next time.”

  The way children grew too fast. The way they could die too young. The way parenthood started with so much promise, but one day tasted like ashes in your mouth.

  And then he felt a hot, unexpected surge of anger toward Rainie. When he’d first met her, she’d said she never wanted marriage or kids. Her own childhood had been a dark, twisted tale, and she knew better than most to believe she could magically break the cycle. God knows, he’d asked her to marry him twice over the past six years, and each time she’d turned him down. “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” she’d told him. And each time, though it had hurt a little, stung more than he’d expected, he’d taken her at her word.

  But now she was changing the rules. Not enough to marry him, heaven forbid, but enough to want kids.

  “I’ve already served my time,” he said harshly.

  “I know, Quincy.” Her own voice was quiet, harder on him than if she had yelled. “I know you raised two girls and dealt with midnight feedings and adolescent angst and so much more. I know you’re at the phase of your life where you’re supposed to be looking forward to retirement, not your kid’s first day of kindergarten. I thought I would be there, too. I honestly thought this would never be an issue. But then … Lately …” She gave a little shrug. “What can I say? Sometimes, even the best of us change our minds.”

  “I love you,” he tried one last time.

  “I love you, too,” Rainie replied, and he thought she’d never looked so sad.

  When Dr. Ennunzio finally strode into the room, the silence was definitely awkward and strained. He didn’t seem to notice, however. He came to an abrupt halt, a stack of manila files bulging under his arm. “Up,” he told them curtly. “Out. We’re taking a walk.”

  Quincy was already climbing out of his chair. Confused, Rainie was slower to follow suit.

  “You got a call,” Quincy said to Ennunzio.

  The agent shook his head warningly and looked up at the ceiling. Quincy got the message. Years ago, a BSU agent had spied on his fellow members of the FBI. Elaborate surveillance systems and audio devices were found snaking through the vast crawl space above the dropped ceiling. Better yet, wh
en the FBI began to suspect espionage activity, they had responded by inserting their own surveillance devices and wiretaps to catch the man. In short, for a span of time—who knows how long—all the BSU agents were being watched by both the good guys and the bad. Nobody forgot those days easily.

  Quincy and Rainie followed Ennunzio to the stairwell, where he swiped his security badge over the scanner, then led them up to the great outdoors.

  “What the hell is going on?” the linguist asked the minute they were across the street from the building. Now their conversation was muffled by the steady sounds of gunfire.

  “I’m not sure.” Quincy held up his dead cell phone. “I’ve been a little out of touch.”

  Ennunzio shook his head. He looked decidedly frayed around the edges and not happy with how things had turned out. “I thought you guys were doing good. I thought by talking to you, I was assisting a major investigation. Not killing my own career.”

  “We are doing good. And I have every intention of catching this man.”

  “Things are heating up,” Rainie told him. “We found another victim late last night. Everything matches the Eco-Killer’s MO. Except this time he kidnapped four girls at once. Which means two more are out there, and if we’re going to break this thing, we need to move fast.”

  “Damn,” Ennunzio said tiredly. “After meeting with you guys, I was hoping … Well, what do you need from me?”

  “Any luck with the newspaper ad?” Quincy asked.

  “I sent the paper out to the lab, so I don’t have results yet. Given that the ad was delivered already typeset inside an envelope with a computer-generated label, there’s no handwriting to analyze. Perhaps we’ll get lucky with paper choice and ink. As for the text, I don’t have anything new to say. Author is most likely male and of above-average intelligence. I repeat the theory that we might be dealing with someone who is somehow mentally incapacitated. Maybe suffering from paranoia or otherwise impaired. Ritual is obviously extremely important to him. The process of killing is as satisfying as the killing itself. You know the rest of that as well as I do.” Ennunzio looked at Quincy. “He’ll never stop unless someone makes him.”

  Quincy nodded his head. The news discouraged him more than it should and abruptly he was tired of everything. Worrying about Kimberly. Worrying about Rainie. And wondering what it meant when talk of babies scared him more than talk of psychopaths.

  “Special Agent McCormack received another call,” Quincy said. “He was going to write down the conversation, but with everything that’s happened, I don’t think he’s had the time.”

  “When was he contacted?”

  “Late last night. When he was at the crime scene.”

  Ennunzio immediately looked troubled. “I don’t like that.”

  “The UNSUB has a keen knack for timing.”

  “You think he’s watching.”

  “As you said, he likes the process. For him, it’s as important as the kill itself. We have a new theory.” Quincy was watching Ennunzio’s face very closely. “The UNSUB most likely uses a cargo van as his kill vehicle. We understand from Special Agent Kaplan that there is an unusually high number of vans coming and going off the base these days—they belong to various contractors doing construction work on the property.”

  Ennunzio squeezed his eyes shut. He was already nodding. “That would fit.”

  “Kaplan is now examining the list of workers for anyone with a previous address in Georgia. That may give us a name, but I think it’s too late.”

  Ennunzio opened his eyes, staring at them both sharply.

  “The UNSUB wanted Quantico, the UNSUB got Quantico, and now he doesn’t need it anymore,” Quincy continued. “The action is out in the field, and I think that’s where we’re going to have to go if we’re to have any chance of finding him. So, Doctor, what do you know that you’re not telling us yet?”

  The forensic linguist appeared genuinely startled, then wary, then carefully composed. “I don’t know why you say that.”

  “You’re taking a lot of interest in this case.”

  “It’s what I do.”

  “You’ve gone out of your way to focus on the caller, when in fact, you deal with notes.”

  “Linguistics is linguistics.”

  “We’re accepting all theories,” Quincy tried one last time. “Even the fuzzy, half-baked ones.”

  Ennunzio finally hesitated. “I don’t know. There’s just something about this … A feeling I get on occasion. But feelings are not facts, and in my line of work I should know better.”

  “Would it make a difference,” Rainie said, “if we told you we had three more clues?”

  “What are they?”

  “Water. Some kind of residue. And some uncooked rice. We believe we can trace the water and residue. We haven’t a clue about the rice.”

  Ennunzio was gazing at them now with a curious smile on his face. “Rice?”

  “Uncooked long grain. What about it?”

  “You said he favors dangerous terrain, correct? Unpopulated areas where there is little risk of his victims being found by accident? Oh, he is good, very, very good.…”

  “What the hell do you know, Ennunzio?”

  “I know I used to be a caver in my younger days. And now I know your UNSUB was, as well. Quick, we need to make a call!”

  CHAPTER 38

  Virginia

  3:12 P.M.

  Temperature: 101 degrees

  The sun was high in the sky. It baked Tina’s little pit, until the mud flaked off her body to reveal tantalizing slices of burnt, festering skin, and the mosquitoes had themselves some lunch. Tina didn’t care anymore. She barely felt the pain.

  No more sweat. She didn’t even have to pee and it had easily been over twelve hours. Nope, not even the tiniest drop of water could be squeezed from her body. Dehydration definitely severe now. She worked at her task, covered in goose bumps and shivering again and again from some deep, unnatural chill.

  Rocks didn’t work. Too large and bulky for prying away rotting wood. She’d remembered her purse and feverishly dumped out the contents in a jumbled pile on the center of the boulder. A metal nail file. Much better.

  Now she gouged out slices of old railroad ties, desperately crafting footholds and handholds while the mosquitoes buzzed her face, the yellow flies bit her shoulders, and the world spun round and round and round.

  Nail file dropped. She slithered to the ground. Panting hard. Her hand trembled. It took so much effort just to locate the file in the mud. Oh looky, another snake.

  She would like to close her eyes now. She would like to sink back into the comforting stink of the muck. She would feel it slide across her hair, her cheek, her throat. She would part her lips and let it into her mouth.

  Fight or die, fight or die, fight or die. It was all up to her, and it was getting so hard to know the difference.

  Tina retrieved the nail file. She went back to work on the railroad ties, while the sun burned white-hot overhead.

  “Where am I going? Right turn? Okay, now what? Wait, wait, you said right. No, you said left. Damn, give me a sec.” Mac slammed the brakes, threw his rental car in reverse and jolted backward thirty feet on the old dirt road. Sitting beside him, Kimberly was trying desperately to find their location on a Virginia state map. Most of these old logging roads didn’t seem to show up, however, and now he had Ray Lee Chee trying to guide him by cell phone over terrain that was as spotty as the phone connection.

  “What? Say that again? Yeah, but I’m only hearing every fourth word. Bats? What’s this about bats?”

  “Cavers … rescue team … bats … on cars,” Ray said.

  “A batmobile?” Mac said, just as Kimberly yelled, “Look out!” He glanced up in time to see the giant tree fallen smack across the middle of the road.

  He hit the brakes. In the backseat, Nora Ray went, “Oooomph.”

  “Everyone okay?”

  Kimberly looked at Nora Ray, Nora Ray looked at Kimbe
rly. Simultaneously, they both nodded. Mac gave up on the road for a second, and returned his attention to the cell phone.

  “Ray, how close are we?”

  “… two … three … zzz.”

  “Miles?”

  “Miles,” Ray confirmed.

  All right, forget the damn car, they could walk. “How’s the team coming?” Mac asked. Ray was under strict orders to assemble the best people he could find for a down-and-dirty field team. Brian Knowles, the hydrologist, and Lloyd Armitage, the palynologist, were already on board. Now Ray was trying to round up a forensic geologist and a karst botanist. In theory, by the time Mac, Kimberly, and Nora Ray magically found and rescued victim number three, Ray’s team would have arrived, ready to analyze the next round of clues and pinpoint victim number four. It was late in the game, but they were preparing to make up for lost time.

  “Bats … cavers …” Ray said again.

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “Karst … volunteers … bats …”

  “You have volunteer bats?”

  “Search-and-rescue!” Ray exploded. “Cavern!”

  “A volunteer group for search-and-rescue. Oh, in the cave!” Mac hadn’t even thought that far ahead. Kimberly had searched the various county names combined with rice, and lo and behold, up had come an article on the Orndorff’s Cavern. Apparently, it was home to an endangered isopod, a tiny white crustacean that’s approximately a fourth of an inch long. To make a long story short, some politician had wanted to build an airport in the area, environmentalists had tried to block it using the Endangered Species Act, and the politician had replied that no way in damn hell would progress be halted by a grain of rice. And now the Orndorff’s Cavern isopod had a cool nickname among karst specialists.

  So they had a location. If they could find it, and if they could get the girl back out.

  “Water … dangerous,” Ray was saying on the other end of the phone. “Entrance difficult … Ropes … coveralls … lights.”