Before It's Too Late

by Sara Driscoll

  Ahead, Hawk started to zigzag between the rows of stones, and Meg focused sharply on his body language. Up to now, he’d been running in a fairly straight line in search of scent. But now as his pattern changed and he wove back and forth, Meg knew he’d found part of a scent cone and was trying to distinguish the outer limits of the cone and the strengthening concentration as they closed in on the source. She praised him quietly, but hung back to let him work without distraction. Time was dripping away and every second could mean the difference between life and death.

  As Hawk crossed Eisenhower Drive, his search became more focused, his body tense, his movements more sure and directed. In the peripheral light of her flashlight, Meg noticed the sharpness of the engraving in the headstones and, slowing down, shone the light on several nearby stones, noting the recent death dates. Meg pulled the radio off her belt. “Brian?”

  A moment’s pause, then, “I’m here. Found something?”

  “I think so. Hawk’s caught a scent. Where are you?”

  “Lacey circled us behind Arlington House, but there’s nothing here. Maybe this isn’t the Washington House the guy meant. Where are you?”

  “Heading into section sixty, due east of the Memorial Amphitheater. From the look of things here, this is where the recent burials are. I’ve seen several from this year and last. Just wanted to give you a heads-up. I may need you.”

  “I’ll be there. We’ll stay on this until you say otherwise. I know where you are and can be there within a few minutes.”

  “Thanks. Over and out.”

  Hawk ran faster now, his nose skimming the ground, and Meg had to scramble a bit to catch up. Then, all of a sudden, he angled to the right, straight toward a fresh grave. Clearly, it was from a funeral earlier that day; even in the diffuse light of the flashlight beam, the grass was pressed down on both sides of the grave as if trampled by many feet. While dirt filled the grave to the grass line, it had yet to be turfed over. Out of respect, Meg started to circle around the grave, not wishing to disturb whoever had been freshly laid to rest. But she jerked to a halt when Hawk gave a single sharp bark and launched himself directly at the grave, landing at one end, his front paws already furiously digging.

  She’s in the grave? Buried alive?

  Meg frantically scanned the area, her gaze coming to rest on a landscaping truck, twenty feet away, parked at the side of the road. The groundskeeping team had likely run out of time to close the grave completely before dark and had left everything in place to finish up tomorrow. She sprinted across the grass, darting between headstones, her gaze locked on the shovels standing upright in the truck bed. Snatching a shovel, she raced back to the grave, pulling her radio free.

  “Brian, come in.” She didn’t even give him a full second before she barked his name again. “Brian!”

  “I’m here. What’s going on?” he gasped with a panting breath. “Lacey, hold.”

  “Get down here. I think Hawk’s found her. He zeroed in on a fresh grave here in section sixty. He’s digging, trying to get her out.”

  “She’s in the grave? Holy sh—” He cut off his own profanity and she could hear the sound of his footfalls speeding up. “Lacey, come! I’ll be there as soon as I can. Keep your flashlight on hand to guide me in.”

  “Will do.” Meg cut the transmission, dropping her radio and flashlight onto the damp grass and dug in with her shovel as fast as she could, tossing spadefuls of earth out on the grass. Beside her, Hawk kept his head down, digging faster, a cloud of dirt flying out from between his back legs. Every once in a while, he’d tip his nose down as if to reconfirm the scent and then would be back at it, if possible with even greater urgency.

  Meg’s head shot up when she heard Brian’s call and turned to see light bobbling about fifty feet away. She picked up her flashlight and waved it at him. “Over here.” Brian jogged closer and she jabbed an index finger in the direction of the truck. “Grab a shovel.”

  Brian tore off toward the pickup as Lacey jumped in to join Hawk, immediately starting to dig. Returning, Brian dropped his flashlight on the grass, light spilling into the slowly deepening hole. For a full five minutes, there were no words, just the scrabble of paws and the repetitive stab of shovels.

  Thump.

  Meg and Brian froze as his shovel made contact with something solid with a hollow echo.

  “Finally,” he muttered. “Lacey, time to get out, girl.”

  “Hawk, out.” Meg motioned for him to jump out. “You’re awesome, but this job is for us.” She patted a grimy hand on the grass at the edge of the four-foot hole. “Good boy,” she praised as he leapt out, Lacey on his heels. She met Brian’s eyes. “Let’s finish this.”

  The relatively unpacked dirt allowed them to work quickly, revealing the top of the dark wood coffin. Brian cleared the hinges on one side, while Meg worked on the other, digging back far enough for them to perch on a narrow band of dirt to open the box.

  They tossed their shovels on the grass, crowding together at the side of the coffin.

  The silence around them and at their feet made Meg’s stomach clench nervously.

  Together they bent down, curling fingers under the rim of the coffin lid to heft the heavy lid upward. Hinges protested slightly, the dirt-caked hardware jamming briefly, but then they yielded and the lid lifted smoothly.

  The wash of illumination from the flashlights at the edge of the grass fell over the inside of the coffin where a woman lay limp. Meg dropped to her knees into the dirt, pushing aside clothing and torn strips of a satiny material, searching frantically for a pulse. Her shaking fingers slid across flesh that was still warm, smearing splotches of blood as she pushed in further.

  Nothing.

  “Let me try.” Brian shouldered in beside her, his hands sliding in under hers.

  Meg pulled back, horrified, taking in the contents of the coffin, as Brian desperately looked for signs of life.

  There were two bodies in the coffin. A soldier buried in full dress blues, complete with shiny brass buttons and devices, light blue cord, and a starched white shirt. Above the shirt was nearly translucent skin on one side of the face and catastrophic burns on the other. Here was a man, clearly lost in the fury of battle, meant to finally rest in peace in his solitary grave, surrounded by countless row upon row of his fellow soldiers.

  Solitary no more.

  The woman from the picture Craig had showed them lay on top of him, jammed into the small space below the lid. She wore black yoga pants, sneakers, and a hooded sweatshirt—exactly what you might wear on a cool spring evening while walking your dog. Exactly how Meg herself dressed to walk Hawk more times than she could count.

  “Goddamn it.” Brian sat back on his haunches beside Meg, his shoulders drooping, his head bent. “She’s gone.”

  “She’s still warm.” Meg’s words were hoarse, forced through a throat thick with emotion.

  “Not fully. I’m no expert, but we didn’t just miss her. We were close, but not that close. Maybe a half hour ago. Possibly less.”

  Meg shifted back to sit on the edge of the grass. “He buried her alive. She was a pawn in his game. A disposable pawn.”

  Brian pushed to his feet, stepping clear of the grave. “I’m going to call Craig. And the Evidence Response Team.”

  “We need to bring Lauren and Scott back in.”

  Brian’s hand dropped to land briefly on Meg’s shoulder. “Craig will know what to do. Climb out of there. Nothing more we can do for her now, and the crime scene team will already be put out that we disturbed the scene as much as we did.”

  Meg clambered to her feet to stand beside the grave as Brian moved away, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the woman. The black-and-white driver’s license photo had given her some idea, but now the shock hit her full force: pale skin; dull, staring blue eyes; long, straight black hair. Black Irish, just like Meg and her sister, Cara.

  It was like looking down at her own corpse.

  The combined light of the
ir flashlights told a tale of terror in horrifying detail: from the woman’s fingertips, nails cruelly ripped off, the ends of her fingers worn to stumps and studded with splinters of wood, bloodied flesh torn away to reveal the ghostly glint of bone; to the crimson droplets splattered over face and clothes; to the ragged gouges in the lining of the coffin, right through to the wooden lid.

  They’d come too late. She’d died while they wasted precious time.

  A soft whine drew her gaze down to the black Labrador at her side, restlessly shifting his weight. Hawk, still in his dirt-caked navy-and-yellow FBI vest, looked up at her with sad eyes. He’d come to find life, but all they’d found was death. For a search-and-rescue dog, nothing was more devastating.

  She crouched down beside him, slinging an arm around him to tip her head against his. “I know, bud, I know. You tried so hard and did everything right. We let you down too. I’m sorry.” Her gaze slid across the open slice of earth to fall over tumbled black hair and deathly-white skin. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Footsteps sounded behind her. “Craig’s bringing Lauren and Scott back in. And agents and Evidence Response are on their way.”

  She turned to find Brian standing behind her. Even in the dim light, his green eyes seemed even more luminous than usual, highlighted by the paleness of his skin beneath his untidy dark hair. He held out his hand, as filthy as hers, and met her eyes. They’d worked, side by side, as part of the FBI’s Human Scent Evidence Team for so long, tracking suspects and rescuing the lost, that words weren’t needed. They could read each other like open books, and Meg knew instinctively Brian was suffering as much as she.

  She slid her hand into his, fingers clamping tight, and let him pull her to her feet. But once upright, he didn’t release her hand. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood with their dogs, trying vainly to fathom the unfathomable.

  Meg finally broke the silence with the question that had haunted her for hours, but now only grew more complex and horrifying. “Why me?”

  “I don’t know.” Brian rubbed his free hand over his forehead, unmindful of the dark smudge his fingers left behind.

  “I don’t just mean the coded message. Look at her.”

  His gaze flicked sideways at her, then down into the grave, but he remained silent.

  “Am I crazy? Am I the only one seeing it?” she pushed.

  Suddenly he turned on her, the anger from a night gone badly wrong glinting in his eyes and in the punch of his words. “You need me to say it? That he not only sent you a message to find her, but she looks like you as well? That he sent you in search of your own death?”

  Meg expected his words to compound the darkness crowding her, but instead, to her surprise, the gloom lightened fractionally. I’m not crazy. She gripped his hand tighter. “I knew you’d be with me on this.”

  Solidarity met her grip, strength for strength. “Always.” Anger washed away under the weight of the same guilt and exhaustion she felt, and his voice was calmer now. “This scares me. Assuming it’s a guy, what the hell is he trying to prove?”

  “I don’t know. But we have to find out before he takes someone else.”

  “You think he intends to take more?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but I have a bad feeling. He goes to all this trouble, leads us on this kind of wild-goose chase, and plans on only killing once? No. He’ll strike again, and intuition tells me he won’t wait long.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, Meg and Brian stood under the spreading boughs of a nearby massive white oak in the diffuse wash of spotlights when they heard a familiar voice call out to them. They turned to find Lauren, blond and statuesque, striding toward them; Rocco was trotting at her side. Not far behind slouched the tall, lanky form of Scott, with Theo heeling beside him.

  “Craig filled us in, but neither of us could just go home. We needed to come, to see the end of this.”

  Meg’s gaze traveled across the thirty feet separating them from the grave, now surrounded by Evidence Response Team members in white Kevlar suits, brilliantly lit by a half-dozen portable spotlights. “We’re staying out of their way while they’re collecting evidence and the body.”

  “Craig told us some of it. She was buried in a soldier’s grave?”

  “Arlington’s executive director came in when he heard what was happening and he stopped by and shared some information with us. The US Army officer in the grave, Lieutenant Henry Ranger, was buried this afternoon in a ceremony with full honors. He was one of twenty-three burials today and the groundskeeping team filled the grave, but it got dark before they could seal the grave with turf. They left the truck to come back first thing tomorrow morning to finish up.”

  “And in the meantime, someone got into the cemetery with the victim. How? The gates would have been locked.”

  “They were. But the cemetery is bounded by a three-foot fieldstone wall. The front sections of the cemetery have four feet of wrought-iron spikes for additional security, but the back sections of the cemetery are just the original wall. You can’t drive in, but you can get close, park off the street, and hop right over the wall. Our perp would have done it with the victim tossed over his shoulder or in some sort of bag to disguise her. If she was unconscious and still, no one might have thought twice about it. And assuming he went in after sundown, no one would have seen him.”

  “The cemetery is closed at dusk,” Brian added, “but they know sometimes people are in there when it’s closed. They rarely have any problems because of it, and if Emergency Services finds them and asks them to leave, they usually do without any fuss. But this time, nobody saw anything.”

  “So he came in with the victim,” Scott said, “found an open grave by chance, dug it up, put her in, and closed it again?”

  “If he scouted out the area at all, then he would get a feel for how funerals work here.” Meg looked out into the darkness away from the blinding spotlights. “He’d know where the majority of recent burials are, and he’d know this section is where most of the War on Terror burials are located. He’d know how they handle closing the graves and how often graves are unfinished at the end of the day. He could just look like a mourner coming later in the day and leaving just at closing time, but he’d be scoping out his surroundings and making plans. If he took her from somewhere nearby, he could have confirmed the open grave before the cemetery closed tonight, and then doubled back later with the victim.”

  “Convenient of the grounds staff to leave that truck right there overnight.” Lauren studied the truck and the landscaping equipment protruding from the back. “Although you have to think, he must have had a backup plan.”

  “Any folding shovel would have done the job, but why use something like that when you have professional landscaping tools right there? It wouldn’t have taken him that long if he worked fast. And I suspect we’re looking at someone with a certain amount of strength to be able to kidnap victims and carry them around like this.”

  “It took you and me, what . . . around seven or eight minutes in total?” When Meg nodded, Brian continued. “One guy, relatively strong, maybe fifteen minutes max to dig it out and less to put it back. I never noticed traces of dirt on the grass around the grave, but you were already into digging when I got there, and no one cared where the dirt went except out. Did you notice?”

  “No. Hawk and I were so focused on digging, we didn’t have time to take in our surroundings in detail.” She sighed, discouragement riding heavily on the mournful sound. “Maybe we’d have more information if we had.” She sagged back against the tree trunk. “I just can’t help but feel we could have done better. But how? If we’d found the dog earlier? Solved the riddle faster? Figured out its meaning right from the start? How could we have stopped this?”

  “We couldn’t.” Meg looked up sharply, but Lauren kept her voice level and calm. Lauren was always the least emotional of the group, but Meg could sense she was shaken nonetheless. “We worked as fast as we could with limited informatio
n. And when that information was inconclusive, we split up to better our chances.”

  “If we’d gone for Arlington right off the bat, we might have gotten here in time.”

  “You can second-guess yourself through every step we took tonight, but that’s not going to bring her back.”

  “Lauren’s right,” Scott agreed. “Everyone did the best they could. The only thing we can do now is figure out how to do better the next time.”

  “Because there will be a next time.” Brian’s tone was grim as his eyes traveled back toward the grave where death, old and new, lay. “Whoever he is, he’s not even close to being done.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Regroup: The reassembly of an army into organized units after an attack or battlefield retreat.

  Monday, May 22, 11:56 PM

  Jennings residence

  Arlington, Virginia

  Meg pulled her SUV into the double driveway, but then sat blinking in confusion at the unfamiliar pickup truck parked in her spot. Glancing at the house, she found it fully lit, instead of dark as expected. It wasn’t that late; maybe her sister had a visitor. If so, she’d politely say hello and then disappear.

  She was not in the mood for company.

  She was also exhausted, discouraged, and filthy. And before she could take care of herself, she needed to deal with her equally filthy dog, who needed a bath and an extra meal, in that order. Grabbing her SAR bag, Meg slid out of the driver’s seat, stumbling slightly as she reached for the back door. She pulled it open to find Hawk already on his feet and ready to jump down.

  “You’ve had enough of tonight too, haven’t you?” Meg patted her thigh. “Come.”

  Hawk leapt from the compartment to land at her feet, tipping his head up to her for praise and an affectionate scratch.

  “Come on, let’s clean up and go to bed.”