She felt isolated. The pitch black was too sterile, devoid of even the soft whisper of someone else’s breath, let alone whimpers of fear. Whatever else was back here, she was pretty sure she was the only living thing. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe she was the only person he’d kidnapped then. He’d taken just her.
But somehow, she doubted that and it made her want to weep.
She didn’t know why he was doing this. Was he a pervert who kidnapped college girls to take them to his sick hideaway, where he would do unspeakable things? She was still fully clothed, however. Down to her three-inch sandals. He’d also left her her purse. She didn’t think a pervert would do such a thing.
Maybe he was a slave trader. She’d heard stories. A white girl could fetch a lot of money overseas. Maybe she’d end up in a harem, or working in some sleazy bar in Bangkok. Well, wouldn’t they be in for a big surprise when their pretty young thing suddenly grew big and fat. That would teach them to snatch first and talk later.
Her child born into slavery, prostitution, porn . . .
The bile rose up in her throat again. She grimly fought it back.
I can’t be sick, she tried telling her tummy. You have to give me a break. We’re in this together. I’ll figure out a way to get out of the crate. You have to hold down all food and water. We don’t have much to work with here, you know. We have to make these calories count.
Which was very important actually, because as perverse as it sounded, the less Tina had to eat, the worse her nausea became. Basically, food made her sick and lack of food made her sicker.
Belatedly, Tina was aware that the motion was decelerating. She strained her ears and detected the slight squeak of brakes. The vehicle had stopped.
Immediately her body tensed. Her hands fumbled behind her. They found her black shoulder bag, gripping it tight like a weapon. Not that it would do her any good with her hands bound behind her back. But she had to do something. Anything was better than simply waiting for what would happen next. . . .
A door suddenly rolled back. Bright sunlight penetrated the vehicle, making her blink owlishly, and in the next instant, she was aware of an intense wall of heat. Oh God, it was boiling outside. She shrank back, but couldn’t avoid the scorching air.
A man stood in the open doorway. His features were a black shroud haloed by the sunlight behind him. His arm came up and a cellophane package fell between the plastic bars. Then another and another.
“Do you have water?” he asked.
She tried to speak, then remembered the tape over her mouth. She did have water, but she wanted more, so she shook her head.
“You should ration your supplies more carefully,” the man scolded.
She wanted to spit at him. She shrugged instead.
“I’ll give you another jug. But that’s it. Understood?”
What did he mean by “that’s it”? That’s it before he set her free? Or that’s it before he raped her, killed her, or sold her to a bunch of sick twisted men?
Her stomach was roiling again. She closed her eyes to savagely fight it back.
Next thing she felt was a prick on the arm. A damn needle. The drugs, oh no . . .
Her muscles melted as if trained. She slumped against the side of the dog crate, the world already fading away. The kennel door opened. A jug of water materialized in her crate. A hand casually ripped the tape from her mouth. Her lips stung. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
“Eat, drink,” the man said quietly. “By nightfall, you’re going to need your strength.”
The kennel door snapped shut. The van door rolled closed. No more sunlight. No more heat.
Tina slid down to the floor of the dog crate. Her legs came up. Her body curled up protectively around her belly. Then the drugs won this battle and swept her far away.
CHAPTER 11
Quantico, Virginia
3:14 P.M.
Temperature: 98 degrees
THEY HADN’T GOTTEN VERY FAR WITH THE POSTMORTEM. Kimberly wasn’t surprised. Most autopsies were scheduled for days after the recovery of the body, not hours. Either things were slow at the moment, or an NCIS investigation carried some hefty weight.
Special Agent Kaplan introduced her to the medical examiner, Dr. Corben, and then to his assistant, Gina Nitsche.
“Your first post?” Nitsche asked, wheeling in the body with quick efficiency.
Kimberly nodded.
“If you’re gonna puke, don’t ask, just leave,” Nitsche said cheerfully. “I got enough to clean up after this.” She continued talking briskly, while unzipping the body bag and folding back the plastic. “I’m called a diener. Technically speaking, Dr. Corben is the prosector. He’ll handle all the protocol and I’ll do what I’m told. Usual procedure is that the body arrives a day or two earlier and is logged in, in a separate area. We inventory clothes and possessions, take the weight, give the body an official tag with an ID number. Given time constraints, however,” Nitsche shot Kaplan a look, “this time we’re doing it all as we go. Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, there’s a box of gloves on the side table. The cupboard has extra caps and gowns. Help yourself.”
Kimberly glanced toward the cupboard uncertainly, and Nitsche, as if she were reading her mind, added, “You know, ’cause sometimes they splatter.”
Kimberly went to the cupboard and found herself a cap to cover her short feathery hair and a gown to cover her clothes. She noticed that Special Agent Kaplan followed her over and also snagged a set of protective gear. He’d brought his own pair of gloves. She borrowed her pair from the ME’s supply.
Nitsche had finished unwrapping the body now. First she’d pulled back the external layer of heavy-duty plastic. Next, she’d unfolded a plain white sheet. Finally, she unpeeled the internal layer of plastic, much like a dry cleaning bag, which was what came into contact with the corpse’s skin. Nitsche folded each layer down around the base of the gurney. Then she methodically inventoried the dead girl’s clothing and jewelry, while Dr. Corben prepped the autopsy table.
“I inventoried her purse before coming in,” Nitsche said conversationally. “Poor thing had brochures from a travel agency for Hawaii. I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii. Do you think she was going with a boyfriend? Because if she was going with a boyfriend, well then, he’s available again, and God knows I need someone to take me away from here. All right. We’re ready.”
She wheeled the gurney over to the cutting table. She and Dr. Corben had obviously done this many times before. He moved to the head. She moved to the feet. On the count of three, they slid the now naked corpse from the gurney onto the metal slab. Then Nitsche wheeled the gurney away.
“Testing, testing,” Dr. Corben said into his recording equipment. Satisfied that it was working, he got down to business.
First, the ME catalogued the victim’s naked body. He described her sex, age, height, weight, and hair and eye color. He commented that she appeared in good health (other than the fact that she was dead? Kimberly thought). He also listed the presence of a tattoo, shape of a rose, approximately one inch in size, on the deceased’s upper left breast.
Victim and deceased. Dr. Corben used those words a lot. Kimberly began to think this was the heart of her problem. She never thought in terms of victim or deceased. Instead, she thought in terms such as young, pretty, blond, girl. If she was supposed to be a dispassionate, world-weary death investigator, she hadn’t achieved it yet.
Dr. Corben had moved on to perceived injuries. He described the large bruise on the girl’s—the victim’s—upper left hip, his gloved hand poking and prodding at the waxy skin. “Victim has presence of large ecchymosis, approximately four inches in diameter, on the upper left thigh. Center area is red and swollen, approximately one and a half inches around puncture site. It’s an abnormal amount of bruising for an intramuscular injection. Perhaps the result of inexperience or a large-bore needle.”
Special Agent Kaplan frowned at that and made a gesture with his hand.
Dr. Corben snapped off the minirecorder in his hand. “What do you mean, a large-bore needle?” Kaplan asked.
“Different needle gauges have different thicknesses. For example, in the medical community, when we give injections we use an eighteen-gauge needle, which slides very easily into a vein. Administered correctly, it can be done with relatively little bruising. Now, this injection site has a great deal of bruising. And not just of the muscle area. This center spot where it’s red and swollen—that’s where the needle punctured the skin. The size of the aggravation leads me to believe that either it was a needle wielded with a fair amount of force, really, truly stabbed into the thigh, or it was an abnormally large needle.”
Kaplan narrowed his eyes, considering the possibilities. “Why would someone use a bigger needle?”
“Different-sized needles are used for a variety of different procedures.” Dr. Corben’s brow furrowed. “Sometimes to inject large amounts of a substance at a faster rate, you need a larger-bore needle. Or when mixing substances, you would use a larger needle. Now, here’s something interesting. The second injection site, the arm. Note the relatively small amount of aggravation we see here. Just the slightest swollen spot. That’s more like what we would typically see—consistent with a standard eighteen-gauge needle. Granted, the limited amount of bruising is also due to the fact she died shortly thereafter. But either way, this injection is clearly more skillfully done. Either it’s two different needles, or it’s two very different approaches toward intramuscular injections.”
“So first she’s injected in the hip,” Kaplan mused slowly. “Forcefully and/or with a very large needle. Then, later, she’s injected in the arm. But more controlled, more carefully. How much time occurred between the two?”
Dr. Corben frowned. He resumed studying the first bruise with his fingers. “Given the large size, it had time to develop. But notice the coloring is all purple and dark blues? None of the green and yellow tinges that happen later. I’d say twelve to twenty-four hours between the hip puncture and the injection into the arm.”
“Ambush,” Kimberly murmured.
Special Agent Kaplan turned on her. He had the hard stare again. “Come again?”
“Ambush.” She forced herself to speak up louder. “The first bruise . . . If it could be caused by more force, then maybe it’s from an ambush. How he gains initial control. Later, when she’s already subdued, he can take more time for the final injection.”
She was thinking of what Mac had said about the Georgia murders. How the girls found first always had bruises on their hips, plus a fatal injection mark on their upper left arms. She’d never heard of such an MO before. What were the odds that two different killers were using it in two different states?
Dr. Corben had the recorder back on. He rolled the body onto its back, noted the absence of bruises and contusions, then finished his initial exam by narrating the condition of the mouth. Nitsche handed him some kind of standardized form, and he quickly and efficiently sketched each one of the external injuries he’d noted in the protocol.
They moved on to her hands. They had been bagged at the scene. Now Nitsche pulled off the paper bags and both prosecutor and diener leaned close. Dr. Corben scraped beneath each nail. Nitsche collected the samples. Next Dr. Corben swabbed around each nail bed with a Q-tip, testing for traces of blood. He looked up at Kaplan and shook his head. “No signs of defensive wounds,” he reported. “No skin, no blood.”
Kaplan sighed and resumed leaning against the wall. “Not my lucky day,” he murmured.
As the victim’s hands had now been examined for evidence, Nitsche brought over an inkpad for fingerprinting. The body, however, had achieved full rigor since being found and the stiff fingers refused to cooperate.
Dr. Corben moved up to assist her. He worked the first joint of the girl’s index finger until with a faint popping sound, the rigor broke. Nitsche started inking, and Dr. Corben methodically worked his way through both hands, each popping sound echoing faintly in the cold tile room and bringing up bile in the back of Kimberly’s throat.
I will not be sick, she promised herself. And then—Oh God, this is only the external exam.
Fingerprinting done, Dr. Corben moved down the body to between the girl’s—the deceased’s—legs. While the condition of her clothing had been inconsistent with rape, he still had to examine the body itself.
“No bruising of the inner thighs, no lacerations of the labia majora or labia minora,” Dr. Corben reported. He combed the pubic hair and Nitsche collected the loose strands in another bag. Then he picked up three swabs.
Now Kimberly had to look away. The young girl was dead. Far beyond insult or injury. But Kimberly couldn’t watch. Her fingers were knotted, her breathing shallow. She was once more aware of the strong smell of the room, and the feel of sweat on her back. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Kaplan was now intently studying the floor.
“From the external exam,” Dr. Corben concluded shortly, “there is no evidence of sexual assault. Now then, let’s get her cleaned up.”
Kimberly’s eyes flew open. Nitsche had just moved into position and she and Dr. Corben were now hosing down the body. Kimberly’s bewilderment must have shown on her face, because Dr. Corben spoke up above the spray of water: “After concluding the external exam, we wash the body before making the first incision. You don’t want factors from the outside—dirt, fiber, debris—contaminating the internal organs and confusing your findings. The outside had its stories to tell. Now, it’s the inside’s turn.”
Dr. Corben matter-of-factly turned off the hose, passed out plastic goggles, and picked up a scalpel.
Kimberly went green. She was trying hard. She had seen crime-scene photos, dammit. She wasn’t a novice to violent death.
But she felt herself sway on her feet anyway. She told herself to hold it together, but then she looked at the young girl’s face, and that did it completely.
“Oh my God,” she gasped, “what is in her mouth?”
It was there, unmistakable now, the shadow of the thing Dr. Corben had sensed earlier. First the girl’s left cheek bulged, pale and waxy. Then with dazzling speed, her right cheek went, until it looked like she was puffing up her mouth while staring at them with her dead brown eyes.
Kaplan was fumbling with his holster. Kimberly was fumbling, too. He brought out a gun. She brought out a red plastic toy. Shit, damn. She dropped down to her ankle, without ever taking her gaze off the girl’s face.
“Stand back,” Kaplan said.
Dr. Corben and his attendant needed no urging. Nitsche’s gaze was wide and fascinated. Dr. Corben had that pale tight look from earlier in the day. “It could be gases from decomp,” he tried vainly. “She was out in intense heat.”
“The body just achieved full rigor. It’s not that far along,” Kaplan muttered tightly.
The cheeks bulged again. Moved from side to side.
“I think . . .” Kimberly’s voice came out too faintly. She licked her lips, tried again. “I think there’s something in there. In her mouth. That’s why he stitched it shut.”
“Holy shit!” Nitsche said with awe.
“Mother of God,” Kaplan murmured.
Kimberly stared at Dr. Corben. His right hand was shaking badly. She was pretty sure nothing like this had ever happened in one of his postmortems before. The look on his face said he’d retire before letting it happen again. “Sir,” she said as calmly as she could, “you have the scalpel. You need . . . You need to cut the stitching.”
“I will not!”
“Whatever’s in there has gotta come out. It’s better on our terms than its.”
Kaplan was nodding slowly. “She has a point. We need to do the autopsy. So whatever’s there, needs to go.”
Dr. Corben looked at them both wildly. He definitely was thinking of an argument. He definitely wanted to argue. But then his scientific mind seemed to reassert itself. He glanced at the body again, watched the horrible distortion of
its face, and slowly, very slowly, nodded.
“Eye gear on,” he said at last. “Masks, gloves. Whatever it is, I want us to be prepared.” And then, almost as an afterthought, “Gina, stand next to the special agent.”
Nitsche moved hastily behind Kaplan’s large build. Kimberly straightened up and worked on her own composure. Knees slightly bent, legs ready to move. She put on her goggles, her Crayola long since discarded on the floor, and her favorite hunting knife now in her hand.
Dr. Corben moved gingerly. He got just close enough to be able to touch the girl’s stitched-up mouth with his scalpel, without his body being in the line of fire for Kaplan’s gun.
“On the count of three,” Dr. Corben said tightly. “One. Two. Three.”
The scalpel went slash, slash. Dr. Corben fell back from the body, his feet already scrambling. And a dark, mottled shape exploded from its unwanted prison and hurtled halfway across the tiled floor.
One moment Kimberly was alone in her corner of the room. The next, she saw the unmistakable, brown-splotched shape of a coiled rattler. The viper reared up with an ominous hiss.
Kaplan’s Glock exploded in the tiny room, and Kimberly hurled her knife.
CHAPTER 12
Quantico, Virginia
5:14 P.M.
Temperature: 97 degrees
MAC WAS STANDING OUTSIDE A CLASSROOM asking Genny if she happened to know of a good botanist in the state of Virginia, when the blurred form of a blue-clad figure came roaring down the hall. The next instant, he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder, just had time to look up in surprise, and promptly got whacked again by his favorite new agent.
“You did not say anything about snakes!” Kimberly Quincy swung a solid right; he barely dodged left. “You did not say anything about leaving live vipers in their mouths!” She followed with a jab to the ribs; he fell back three steps. For a tiny thing, she really could hit.