Before It's Too Late

by Sara Driscoll

  Hawk’s whine pulled her attention sharply from her own struggles and she focused the beam of her flashlight on his hindquarters, easily fifteen feet ahead. But instead of just her dog, the beam of light fell across the pale flesh of a limp hand, the fingers dragging in the loose stones of the mine floor.

  “McCord—”

  “I see her. Sweet Christ, quickly.”

  They leapt forward over rubble and broken timbers until they reached a cavern with a slightly higher ceiling. In his rush to move forward, McCord carelessly rammed his head against a rocky outcrop overhead. Grinding out a curse, he moved toward the woman who lay underneath a crushing load—a stack of heavy rocks was carefully balanced on the piece of wood positioned over her chest.

  Even from the door of the mine shaft, Meg recognized what she was looking at: a Wiccan victim, slowly suffocated by “pressing”—the addition of more and more weight onto a body until the lungs couldn’t draw air any longer and the victim died. Just like Giles Corey, one of the last of the Salem victims of 1692, killed for the crime of witchcraft. A family trip to the Salem Witch Museum when Meg was thirteen had taught her everything she needed to know about 1692. The panoramic reenactments were still vivid in her mind, all these years later.

  She circled the woman to help from the far side, even as McCord was reaching for the first boulder, pulling it off, and tossing it carelessly aside. He held his narrow flashlight clamped between his teeth, freeing his hands for the heavy lifting, his breath coming hard around the metal cylinder lighting their work. Meg set her flashlight down nearby and reached for a rock. Hawk gave another whine and snuffled around the woman’s face, pushing under her long, dark hair to her face, as if searching for life the only way he knew how.

  “Cat? We found you. We’re here to help.” Keep talking to her. If she’s still alive, she needs to know she’s not alone. Meg hoisted another rock, which had to be at least twenty pounds—how much weight could a body take before compression asphyxiation stilled her last breath and stole her life?—and dropped it on the ground. “Cat, we have your dog. He’s waiting for you. Stay with us. Don’t leave him.”

  McCord yanked the flashlight from his teeth. “I’ve got this. Check her.” He went back to clearing rocks.

  Meg dropped to her knees beside the woman’s shoulders. She had a brief flash of cooling flesh and an absent pulse from two nights ago, but she swallowed the fear rising with the image. Her fingertips found the spot in the hollow of Cat’s throat and pressed.

  And felt life flutter under her fingertips.

  “She’s still alive. Hurry.”

  McCord simply grunted and continued hefting rocks, and then he dragged the board off the woman’s limp form to reveal a slight figure, dressed in dark-wash jeans and a pretty floral blouse, with a mystic crystal on a chain at her throat. With strength fueled by fury, he tossed the sheet of wood yards down the shaft, where it landed with a clatter. He crouched opposite Meg and reached out to touch the woman, but he froze with his hand an inch away from her shoulder. “How badly is she hurt?”

  “Can’t tell, but it could be bad. Don’t move her. We’ve got to get an ambulance team in here.” She looked to Hawk, who stood still at Cat’s head, his nose down by her cheek as if trying to give comfort without touching her. “Hawk, lead me out of here. Outside, Hawk, outside.” She glanced back at McCord. “I need to go out to get a signal. Stay with her?”

  “Of course. Go.”

  Meg followed Hawk back through the same mine shaft, moving from utter darkness to gloom, to dim light, and then into the weak sunlight falling through the mouth of the mine. She rushed up the incline, back into sunlight that made her squint after the darkness below, and punched in the numbers for 911, giving not only her FBI designation, but their location and the status of the victim. Then she made a quick call to Craig to update him, and asked him to pass the message on to Brian and Lauren.

  She climbed back down to McCord, who sat beside Catriona, talking quietly to her.

  “Is she awake?”

  “Barely. I don’t know if she’s been drugged or is hurt, but she’s very confused. I’ve been talking to her to keep her calm.”

  Meg knelt down beside the woman and shone her flashlight toward her own face so she could be seen. “Cat, I’m Meg Jennings from the FBI. We’ve got you, and he won’t hurt you again.”

  “Lachlan . . .” Her voice was a hoarse whisper that broke on the single word.

  “Is that your dog?” The tiniest of nods was her response. “We’ve got Lachlan. He’s safe and we’ll get him to you as soon as we can. For now, just rest.” Meg looked up at McCord. “I need to get back out there to meet the paramedics. Nine-one-one estimated they’d be about fifteen minutes out, max.”

  “We’re fine here.”

  “Brian and Lauren should be almost here too.”

  “We can have a party.”

  The laugh that bubbled was buoyed on relief. “Leave the balloons and the seven-layer dip to me.” She dropped a hand onto his shoulder. “Seriously, McCord, thanks for coming. I was wrong to try to get in your way. You’ve been a big help.”

  McCord nodded at Hawk, who stood still while Cat reached out to touch his fur. “Nah, he was the big help. I just came to be the muscle.”

  “Whatever, I’ll take it. But don’t tell Brian and Lauren about your part in figuring this out. They don’t know you’re involved. Hawk, stay with Cat. Stay. I’ll be back.”

  When she stepped back into sunlight, she heard her name being called. “Over here!”

  Brian, Lauren, and the dogs came into view as she climbed the hill out of the mine shaft. “Craig said you found her!” Brian called. “She’s okay?”

  “She’s hurt, but she’s alive, and paramedics are on the way. I think she’s going to make it.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Lauren said. “What was it this time?” Her gaze shifted over Meg’s shoulder to the mouth of the mine. “A mine cave-in?”

  “He’s consistent on asphyxiation as his way to kill. Keep in mind she’s Wiccan, and practices the art of witchcraft.”

  “Surely, you don’t believe that stuff.” Lauren’s tone was rich with cynicism.

  “I don’t have to. It only matters that she does. He tried to kill her like one of the last of the Salem witches.”

  “He hanged her?”

  “No, but that might be another method to watch for. One of the people accused of witchcraft, an old man in his eighties, was killed by pressing. They covered his chest with a board and then piled on rocks on top and kept adding more and more weight until his lungs couldn’t expand and he asphyxiated.”

  Brian grimaced. “That’s awful. And slow. Really slow.”

  “Depending on how fast you add the weight, like days kind of slow.”

  “And that’s what he did to her in there?”

  “Yes. Whether he meant to leave her alive, or whether we arrived too soon, we’ll never know, but he picked a method of death to match the victim.”

  “He’s clearly put some serious time and thought into his research ahead of time. It must have been hard work getting her out from under all that weight.”

  Here we go. Make it good. “Actually, I wanted to mention something to you guys. Hawk and I didn’t come on our own.”

  “What do you mean, you didn’t come on your own?” Lauren asked, her gaze narrowing. “Who’s with you?”

  “Clay McCord.”

  “The reporter? Are you out of your mind?”

  Meg held up both hands in a placating gesture. “He was at my place when I got there, doing a lesson with my sister and his puppy, Cody. They were there when the call came through. He’d been at the media briefing earlier, so he knew something important was going down. I couldn’t get him to stay behind.” Partly true. We’ll just ignore that he was in the SUV with me when Craig called to give me the search location. “He said he was either coming with me or he’d simply follow me here. So I swore him to secrecy. You remember how he helped wit
h the Mannew case. He’ll keep these details on the down low, or he’ll never get a scrap of information from us again. He knows which side his bread is buttered on.” She looked from Brian’s questioning expression to Lauren’s suspicious stare. “Look, in the end it was a good thing. He helped save her life. I needed the extra set of strong hands. And he’s in there with her now, keeping her calm and from being terrified.”

  “Or trying to scoop a story,” Lauren muttered.

  The rising wail of a siren sounded in the distance, and both Lacey and Rocco pricked their ears toward the sound.

  “Here they come,” Meg said. “Brian, can you go flag them down and bring them over to speed things up?”

  “Will do. Lacey, stay.” Tossing his SAR pack beside the fence, Brian jogged toward the path and then disappeared into the trees.

  “I’m just going to go check on Cat,” Meg said, turning away from Lauren. “I’ll be back to take them in.”

  She felt Lauren’s pointed gaze on her back with every step toward the mine.

  Wednesday, May 24, 1:27 PM

  Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area

  Owings Mills, Maryland

  “Easy. Watch your head. That’s it. Slowly now, slowly.”

  Brian, Meg, and Lauren stood at the edge of the fence, their dogs sitting at their feet and staying out of the way, watching as two paramedics, with McCord supplying an extra set of hands, eased the backboard through the narrow mouth of the mine and out into sunlight. They trudged up the hill with their precious burden and settled her carefully on the stretcher.

  The three FBI handlers approached, being careful to stay within the victim’s field of vision; she’d had enough surprises for one day. Meg took her hand and leaned in a little closer. “Cat, you’re in safe hands now. The paramedics are going to take you to the hospital in Randallstown.” The woman nodded. “Is it okay if Hawk and I stop by to check in with you later?” Another nod. Meg gave her hand a squeeze, then laid it carefully along her side on the gurney. “We’ll see you later.”

  Thank you. No sound came out, but the woman’s lips moved in an unmistakable message of gratitude.

  Meg simply smiled and stepped back as the paramedics speed-walked the gurney back along the path to the waiting ambulance.

  Brian held out his hand to McCord. “Brian Foster. Meg’s told us a little about you and how you helped in the Mannew case.”

  McCord first shook hands with Brian, and then Lauren, who did not match Brian’s easy smile, but instead fixed him with a flat stare. “I’m happy I was able to lend a hand today.” He glanced over at Meg with a sheepish grin. “I admit I didn’t give Meg any choice when I insisted I come, but I swore to her I won’t report on any of this until she clears it.” He shrugged. “It works for me.”

  “You’re in it for the story, then?” Lauren said pointedly.

  “I’m a reporter, the story is always the endgame. But sometimes it can’t be the priority. Helping Meg save a life was the priority. I know you’re law enforcement, and you guys consider reporters to be the enemy. But sometimes our motives aren’t as nefarious as you assume them to be.” He seemed satisfied with the slight softening of Lauren’s expression because he turned back to the victim’s ordeal. “It’s amazing she survived. How did that not kill her?”

  “It would have,” Meg said. “Compression asphyxiation works by mechanically limiting the air and the oxygen you can inhale. As the weight stresses the rib cage, ribs break, compressing the lungs yet even more. Oxygen deprivation sets in. When it gets high enough, the victim passes out.”

  “She was unconscious when we got here.”

  “Exactly.”

  “With enough deprivation, the brain dies. We got the weight off her in time. Once her lungs had room to expand, even if she has broken ribs, her oxygen levels came back up and she regained consciousness.”

  “She’s going to be okay.” Brian’s words were hopeful, but the expression on his face considerably darker. “I assume her appearance wasn’t lost on you.”

  Meg had seen it in the flashlight’s beam, but she had pushed it away. Leave it to Brian to insist on bringing it back into the light. She loved him and knew it was his love for her that kept him nipping at her heels like a persistent puppy, but part of her wished he’d just let it go. Of course the Brian she knew would never let it go. “She looked like me. Again.”

  “Wait.” McCord grabbed her arm. “What do you mean ‘again’? This has happened before?”

  Brian answered McCord’s question before Meg could force herself to do so. “The first victim looked like Meg. Scarily similar, in fact. The second wasn’t quite as close a match, but it was there.”

  “I noticed Cat’s coloring, but I didn’t connect it.” McCord pinned her with a narrowed gaze. “You mean he’s killing you, over and over?”

  “That’s my theory,” Brian said. When Meg turned on him with a cold stare, he simply shrugged. “I’m not letting it go. Get used to it. If you’re not going to take it seriously, I will.”

  “I am taking it seriously,” Meg shot back. “But all that’s for the BAU to work out. It doesn’t get in the way of what we do. It can’t get in the way, or we risk losing a victim.”

  McCord held up a placating hand. “Okay, I get that part of it. But you have to keep everyone in the loop, so we can help you.”

  “That’s what I keep saying,” Brian said in a singsong under his breath, earning another acidic glare from Meg.

  “You need to tell your sister,” McCord added. “You can’t just keep something like this away from your family.”

  “I didn’t tell you guys earlier because I was disturbed by it and what it might mean. We’ve hardly had time to get our feet under us with this case and that was layered on top of it all. Also, time was of the essence and it wasn’t worth getting into a big, emotional discussion about it. Cat was already missing, so what she looked like wasn’t relevant.”

  “It is now,” Lauren said. “He didn’t win this time, we did. And I don’t know if that will piss him off or excite him, because now he knows we’re up to the challenge, which will make the game more fun. Either way, someone else will be in his sights. Including you.”

  Meg understood Lauren was opting to be proactive, not reactive. But the frustration and fury building in her was reaching a fever pitch and she was honestly waiting for steam to start shooting out of her ears like a cartoon Wile E. Coyote. She paced two steps away and gave herself five seconds to look past the mine to the hills and forests beyond. The beauty beyond the horror. Feeling marginally steadier, she turned back. “It’s too soon.”

  “What?”

  “It’s too soon. He’s taken three victims over only a handful of days. I may be his last target, but he’s not going to come for me just yet. Where’s the fun in that? Why make a move like that now, when he can torture me more? No, I’m not his target—at least not yet.”

  “But someone else is,” Brian said. “I think we need to talk to Craig about getting out a bulletin so people know what’s going on. Women who fit the description need to be careful.”

  “There’s something else to consider,” McCord said. “Something started this maniac down this path, so let’s say it was the Mannew case from last month. You had enough media attention at the time to focus on you, for whatever reason. So he’s had a month to get this organized. There’s a specific victimology being followed. It’s not just a crime of opportunity. This required advanced planning. He’s picking them off in short order, and the only way to do that is to have them already selected, to know their schedules and where to find them. On top of that, he’s had to choose death sites for them that are not only related to them, but which also have a Civil War connection.”

  “A Civil War connection?” Brian asked. “That’s a thing in this case?”

  “It’s beginning to appear so,” Meg said.

  “My point is”—McCord continued—“I think he’s already chosen his victims, researched them, and pl
anned where they’ll die. This shows a scary amount of organization. That has to say something to your FBI profilers.”

  “I’m sure it does. We’ve got one watching the case, and I’m sure Craig is already making contact with him. Speaking of which, we’d better check in with Craig again.”

  “Agreed. Rocco, come.” Lauren shortened her leash and headed for the gate and away from the mine, Brian and Lacey behind her.

  McCord fell into step with Meg as they followed. “I know you don’t like the issue of the victims, but you need to tell Cara,” he said gently. “You don’t want to scare her, but she needs to know.”

  “I know.”

  “No, I don’t think you’re seeing the whole picture. You’re missing a crucial point.”

  “How so?”

  “She looks like you. Besides some mysterious doppelganger out there, no one looks more like you than Cara.”

  Meg stopped dead, Hawk automatically following her lead, but McCord took another few steps before he realized he’d lost his companion.

  “I’ve been so fixated on the puzzle, the game, that I didn’t see what was right in front of me.” Meg’s hand rose to the necklace she wore around her throat, her fist closing over the pendant, a glass sculpture of electric blue and dusky black, intertwined with the soft powdery gray of all she had left of Deuce—a memory pendant made from his ashes. “What if—”

  “Don’t.” McCord strode back to her, grasping her forearm and giving her a little shake, forcing her to release the pendant. “Cara’s smart and she’s brave. And with an alarm already raised about your parents, she has to be already on her guard. Tell her about her specific risk and she’ll be ready for it.”

  “Okay.”

  They hurried after Brian and Lauren, Meg’s hand already in her pocket, curling around her cell phone. She’d call from the car, just to hear Cara’s voice. Surely, the maniac wouldn’t act again this soon, because he wouldn’t yet know he’d lost this round. But once he did know, how much time did they have?