by Lisa Gardner
Nora Ray nodded with satisfaction. “And long-term now?”
“Long-term now, you and I finally realize that none of it has made a difference. Your sister is still dead, my family is still gone, and we still have to get on with the rest of our lives. So we start seriously wading through the grief and seriously wading through the guilt and see if we can’t make something out of this mess. Or we do nothing at all, and let a couple of killers take what little we have left.”
“I don’t like long-term now very much,” Nora Ray said.
“I know,” Kimberly said. “I’m a little worried about it myself.”
CHAPTER 41
Lee County, Virginia
8:53 P.M.
Temperature: 96 degrees
The bats came out. In the inky hues of fading daylight, they glided gracefully among the trees, dive-bombing clusters of fireflies and scattering the flickering lights. The humidity was still unbearable, but with the sun low in the sky and the bats feasting silently overhead, dusk took on a peaceful, almost soothing feel.
When Kimberly was younger, she and her sister had loved to catch fireflies. They would run around their back lawn with Mason jars, trying desperately to capture the shooting darts of lights. Mandy had been horrible at it, but Kimberly had gotten pretty good. They’d sit around the patio table, trying to feed the fireflies stalks of fresh-cut grass or tender stems of dandelions. Then they’d let the flies go again; their mother didn’t allow bugs in the house.
Now Kimberly sat in the circle they had formed around a Coleman lantern, her knee brushing Mac’s, while Rainie and Quincy talked of contacting the local coroner. Ennunzio and Nora Ray sat across from Kimberly. Ray and his team remained off to one side, still working the body.
“We’ve done the best we can,” Quincy was saying. “Now we need to notify the official case team.”
“It’ll only piss them off,” Mac said.
“Why? Because we’ve moved the body, destroyed chain of custody for the evidence, and made the crime scene perfectly useless for basic investigative procedures?” Quincy regarded the younger man drolly. “Yes, I’m sure they will have a few thoughts on the subject.”
“Saving a life always takes priority over preserving a scene,” Mac insisted stubbornly.
“I’m not questioning what we did,” Quincy said. “I’m simply trying to bring us back to reality. We found the body, we brought in professionals to analyze the clues, and now we need to start thinking about what should happen next. I certainly hope none of you is suggesting that we return the body to the cavern. Or worse, leave it unattended.”
Everyone shifted uncomfortably. Quincy was right; none of them had thought that far ahead.
“You contact the official case team, and we’ll spend the rest of the night in jail,” Kimberly pointed out. “Which pretty much defeats the purpose of coming here in the first place.”
“Agreed. I was thinking you and Mac should continue. Rainie and I will wait here for the proper authorities. Sooner or later, someone must face the music.” His gaze rested on Rainie’s face.
“If it’s all the same,” Ennunzio said, “I’d like to continue on with the others. I want to be around if Special Agent McCormack gets another call.”
Mac glanced at the cell phone clipped to his waist and grimaced. “Fat chance, with the signal strength around here.”
“As we get closer to civilization, however …”
“I’m going, too.” Nora Ray was regarding Ennunzio steadily, as if daring the FBI agent to deny her.
“This is outside your responsibility,” Quincy said. “In all honesty, Ms. Watts, the biggest help you could give this team right now is to go home. Your parents must be worried.”
“My parents are worried even when I am home. No. I can help and I’m going to stay.”
The tone of her voice was set and none of them had the energy left to argue. Instead, Kimberly turned to Ennunzio, regarding him curiously. “How did you know about this cave? I understand from Josh Shudt that Orndorff’s Cavern isn’t exactly a common cave for exploration.”
“Not after what the mill did to it,” Ennunzio said, “but twenty, thirty years ago, it used to be beautiful.” He shrugged. “I grew up in this area. Spent my free time running wild among these mountains and caverns. It’s been a long time now, but I like to think it’ll come back to me. And maybe the little bits and pieces I remember can be of help. I hardly know the whole state, but I know this one corner of Virginia fairly well.”
“Do you have any idea where he might have placed the fourth victim?” Quincy spoke up quietly, his eyes on Mac.
The special agent rolled out his shoulders, contemplating the question. “Let’s see … he’s done a Marine base, a national forest, and an underground cavern. So what do we have left? Chesapeake Bay rates high on the geological interest scale. I read about scuba diving in some reservoirs formed by flooding old mining towns—that’s gotta float his boat. Then there are a variety of rivers—last time he liked the Savannah.”
“There are two more major mountain ranges,” Ennunzio considered, but Mac shook his head.
“He’s done forests. He’ll go for something different.”
“What about the coastline?” Nora Ray asked. She was still staring at Ennunzio.
“Beaches around here are more populated than the Georgia coastline,” Mac said. “It’s possible, but I think he’ll look for someplace more remote. We can check with Ray.”
He waved his hand, and after a moment, the USGS man came over. Ray’s face was pale and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. Now that he’d seen an actual body, working a murder case had clearly lost some of its appeal.
“Any luck?” Mac asked him.
“Some. It’s hard to know what to look for on the girl … body … victim. Body.” He seemed to decide. “It, um, it was in the water for a bit, and who knows what that washed away. Kathy found some kind of crumpled leaf in a dress pocket. She’s trying to extract it now without doing more damage; tissue tears easily when this wet. Also, Josh Shudt went in and checked the ledge for us. Lloyd’s now working on some soil samples he took from the girl’s … body’s shoes. I’m trying to go through her purse, since you said he sometimes puts things there.”
“Have you tried the back of the throat?”
“Nothing.”
“I wonder about her stomach,” Mac murmured. “With the first victim, the map, he was very inventive. I’m not sure how he would consider these next ones in line. Maybe we should consider cutting her open.”
Nora Ray got up abruptly and moved away from the lantern light. Mac watched her go, but didn’t apologize.
Ray Lee Chee had turned green. “You didn’t, uh … you didn’t mention anything like that before.”
“We need the coroner,” Quincy said.
“You can’t ask a geologist to serve as ME,” Rainie seconded.
“Oh good,” Ray said. “’Cause I think I’m gonna barf.” He didn’t though. He just turned in a dazed little circle, then returned to them even paler, but with his expression set. “Look, we’ve done about as much as we can here. Best bet is to find a hotel, hole up for a few hours with our equipment, and see what we can figure out. I know you’re in a hurry, but if we gotta guarantee that we’re not sending you off on a wild-goose chase, then we need a shot at doing this right.”
“You’re the boss,” Mac said. “Pack up if that’s what you’d like. Rainie and Quincy are going to remain here with the body. The rest of us will follow you.”
Ray nodded gratefully, then returned to his team.
There didn’t seem much more to say, or much more to do.
Quincy was looking up at the sky. “One more girl to go,” he murmured. “And it’s already dark.”
Tina woke up to the sound of someone’s whimper. It took her a moment to realize it was her own.
The world was black, refusing to come into focus. She almost panicked. Her eyes had swollen shut again or worse, she’d gone bl
ind. Then she realized the black wasn’t pitch black, but only the deep, purple shadows of night.
Hours had passed with her lying in the mud. Now she lifted one arm and attempted to move. Her whole body groaned. She could feel muscles tremble with effort. Her left hip ached, her ribs throbbed. For a moment, she didn’t think anything was going to happen, then she finally rolled over in the mud. She got her arms beneath her for leverage, pushed up weakly, and staggered to her feet.
The world promptly spun. She staggered over to the pit wall, dragging her feet through the heavy muck and grasping desperately at the vines for support. She leaned too far left, then lurched too far right, then finally got her hands planted against the wall. Her stomach rolled and cramped. She bent in agony and tried not to think about what must be happening now.
She cried. She cried all alone in her pit, and it was all that she could do.
Things came back to her in bits and pieces. Her glorious attempt at being a human spider. Her not-so-glorious fall. She lifted her arms again. Tried out her legs and inspected for damage. Technically speaking at least, she was still in one piece.
She tried to take a step. Her right leg buckled and she immediately sank back into the mud. Gritting her teeth, she tried again, only to get the same results. Her legs were too weak. Her body had simply had enough.
So she lay with her head in the cool, soothing muck. She watched the slime ooze and pop inches from her face. And she decided maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad after all.
If she could just get water … Her mouth, her throat, her shriveled stomach. Her parched, festering skin.
She stared at the mud a minute longer, then she staggered up onto her hands and knees.
She shouldn’t … It would kill her. But did that matter anymore?
Spreading her fingers, she flattened them into the muck. The small indent instantly filled with putrid, stinking water.
Tina put down her head and drank like a dog.
CHAPTER 42
Wytheville, Virginia
10:04 P.M.
Temperature: 94 degrees
Kimberly checked them into the tiny, roadside motel. Ray and his team got their rooms. Kimberly booked another for Nora Ray, plus one for Dr. Ennunzio. Then she reserved one room for her and Mac to share.
She couldn’t meet his eyes when she returned to the car. She distributed keys, deliberately omitting him, which earned her a curious glance. Then she was busy unloading bags from the trunk. They needed a game plan. Ray would ring Mac or Kimberly’s room when the team had a theory. They, in turn, would rouse the others. In the meantime, Mac had his cell phone on and seemed to be receiving a faint signal. Kimberly also turned hers on, in case her father needed her.
Nothing left to do now but grab a shower and snatch a few hours’ sleep. Soon enough, they would all be up again.
Kimberly watched Nora Ray disappear behind the plain white door of the single-story structure. Then she watched as Dr. Ennunzio crossed the parking lot to his wing of the motel. She waited until he was gone from view before finally turning toward Mac.
“Here,” she said. “I got us a room.”
If he was surprised, he didn’t say anything. He simply took the key from her trembling hand. Then he picked up their bags and carried them through the doorway.
Inside she almost lost her courage again. The room was too beige, too generic, too worn. It could’ve been any room in any motel in any part of the country, and for some reason that nearly broke her heart. Just once she wanted something more out of life than desperate attempts at happiness. They should go to a bed-and-breakfast. One of those places with rose-patterned wallpaper and red quilted comforters and a giant four-poster bed. Where you could sink deep into the mattress and sleep well past noon and forget the real world ever existed.
They didn’t have that kind of luxury. She supposed she wouldn’t have known what to do with it if she had.
Mac set their bags down at the foot of the bed. “Why don’t you shower first,” he suggested quietly. She nodded and disappeared gratefully into the solitude of the tiny bath.
She showered. First, hot and steamy to relax her tired muscles, then cool and crisp to eradicate all memories of the heat. She didn’t cry this time. She didn’t stand there with haunted images of her mother or sister. The worst of her grief had passed, and in some ways, she felt the most composed she’d been in weeks.
They had tried again. They had failed again. And soon, maybe in a day, maybe in an hour, they would try yet again. That’s the way life worked. She could either quit now, or forge ahead, and for whatever reason, she wasn’t the quitting type. So that was it, then. She had chosen her path. She would keep trying, and keep trying, even if some days it broke her heart.
She took her time drying off. She searched her small toiletry bag for the bottle of perfume she didn’t own. She wondered if she should do something with her hair, or put makeup on her wan face. She wished she possessed even a bottle of lotion to smooth over her sun-battered skin.
But she wasn’t that kind of girl. She didn’t travel with those kinds of things.
She walked back into the bedroom with a threadbare white towel wrapped self-consciously around her breasts. Mac still didn’t say anything. He merely grabbed his shaving kit and disappeared into the bathroom.
She put on a plain gray FBI T-shirt and waited as he showered.
It was pitch black outside now. Still hot, she imagined. Was that easier on a missing person than being someplace cold and dark? Or by now, was the girl delirious with her need for something cool and soothing against her overheated skin? It must seem like a ridiculous joke for the air to remain so hot, long after the sun had retreated from the sky.
Nora Ray had survived out there. She’d protected herself from the sun; she’d found a way to keep cool as endless day slipped into day. How small she must have felt, as she dug deeper into the marsh and waited for someone to find her in the vast line of a coastal horizon. She’d never given up hope, however. She’d never succumbed to panic. And in the end, she’d survived.
Only to lose sight of the victory in her grief for her sister. She had won the battle, then lost the war. It was such an easy thing to do.
The shower shut off. Kimberly heard the rake of metal as the shower curtain was pulled back. Her breathing grew uneven. She took a seat in the broken-down chair next to the TV. Her hands trembled on her thighs.
The sound of running water in the sink. A toothbrush sudsing across teeth. Now some fresh splashes. He was probably shaving.
Kimberly got up, paced the room. She had had final exams easier than this. She had held her first loaded firearm with less trepidation. Oh, how could this be so hard?
Then the door opened. Mac was standing there, freshly showered, freshly shaven, with just a towel wrapped around his lean, tanned waist.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said softly. “Come here often?”
She crossed to him, placed her hands on his bare shoulders and it wasn’t so difficult after all.
Nora Ray didn’t sleep. Alone at last in the motel room, she plopped down in an old chair and contemplated her traveling bag. She knew what she needed to do. Funny, now that the moment was at hand, she was stalling. She was nervous.
She hadn’t thought it would feel like this. She’d expected to be stronger, more triumphant. Instead, she was terrified.
She got up out of the chair, idly inspecting the room. The lumpy double bed. The cheap TV cabinet, covered in fresh nicks and ancient water rings. The TV itself, so old and small no one would even consider it worth stealing. She counted the cigarette burns in the carpet.
Three years was such a long time. She could be wrong, but she didn’t think so. You didn’t forget your last moments with your sister. Nor one man’s voice saying, “You need some help, ladies?”
So now here she was. And now here he was. What was she going to do?
She crossed to her bag, unzipped the canvas top, reached in and pulled out the plastic Ziploc ba
g that passed as her toiletry kit. She hadn’t lied to Mac. There wasn’t much a young girl could get past airport security.
But there was something. In fact, she had learned it straight from him.
She pulled out the bottle of eyedrops. Then from the inside of her hiking boot, she found the long needle slipped between the sides of the rubber sole. It took her only a moment longer to retrieve the plastic syringe from her bottle of shampoo.
She assembled the needle first. And then, very carefully, she squeezed out the liquid from the bottle of Visine. Once the tiny bottle had contained genuine eyedrops, but she had replaced the contents just last week.
Now, it held ketamine. Fast acting. Powerful, and in the proper dosage, quite deadly.
The man was dreaming. He thrashed from side to side. Waved his hands and kicked his feet. He hated this dream, fought to bring himself back to waking. But the dream memory was stronger, sucking him back into the abyss.
He was at a funeral. The sun burned starkly overhead, an unbearably hot day in an unbearably hot graveyard, while the priest droned on and on at a service no one else had bothered to attend. His mother gripped his hand too tightly. Her only black dress—long-sleeved and woolen—was too heavy for this weather. She rocked from side to side, panting pitifully, while he and his younger brother fought to keep her standing.
It was finally done. The priest shut up. The coffin sank down. The sweaty gravedigger moved in, looking relieved to get his task under way.
They went home, and the man was grateful.
He used the last of the coal to light their oven when they returned to the cabin. The air was too stuffy for the heat, but without electricity, it was the only way to get supper on the table. Tomorrow he’d have to find wood to feed the stove. And tomorrow after that, he’d have to think of something else. That was okay. This was now, and he just wanted to get food on the table and see some color in his mother’s cheeks.
