“Why are you meeting a botanist? You don’t have the leaf anymore.”
“I don’t have the original,” he said quietly. “But I might have scanned a copy.”
She turned sharply. “You copied evidence.”
“Yep.”
“What else?”
“Gonna run to Daddy?”
“You know me better than that!”
“I’m trying to.”
“You really are obsessed with this, you know. You could be wrong. This case could have no bearing on the Eco-Killer or those girls in Georgia. You missed your man the first time. Now you see what you want to see.”
“It’s possible.” He shrugged. “Does it matter? A girl is dead. A man did it. Whether he’s my guy or someone else’s guy, finding the son of a bitch will make the world a better place. Frankly, that’s good enough for me.”
Kimberly scowled. It was hard to argue with that kind of logic. She said abruptly, “I want to go with you.”
“Watson will have your hide.” Mac sat up, brushing the grass from his hands. “He’ll kick you out so far so fast, it’ll be days before you feel the bruise on your butt.”
“I can take personal leave. I’ll talk to one of the counselors. Plead emotional distress from finding a dead body.”
“Ah honey, you tell them you got emotional distress from finding a corpse, and they’ll kick you out for sure. This is the FBI Academy. You can’t handle a corpse, you’re in the wrong line of work.”
“It’s not his call. The counselor says yes, I get to go, simple as that.”
“And once he learns what you’re really doing?”
“I’m on leave. What I do in my personal time is my business. Watson has no authority over me.”
“You haven’t been in the FBI very long, have you, Kimberly?”
Kimberly’s chin came up. She understood his point. She agreed with his point, which was why her heart was pounding so hard in her chest. Pursuing this case would earn her her first political enemy. Let alone a less-than-stellar start to her career. She’d waited twenty-six years to become an FBI agent. Funny, how easy it seemed to throw it all away now.
“Kimberly,” Mac said abruptly as if reading her thoughts, “you know that this won’t bring your mother or sister back, don’t you? That no matter how many murderers you hunt down, none of it changes the fact that your family is still dead, and you still didn’t save them in time?”
“I’ve been to their graves, Mac. I know how dead they are.”
“And you’re just a rookie,” he continued relentlessly. “You know nothing about this guy, you’re not even fully trained. Your efforts probably won’t make one iota of difference. Think about that before you throw away your career.”
“I want to go.”
“Why?”
She finally smiled at him, though she knew the look must appear strained on her face. There was the million-dollar question. And honestly, there were so many answers she could give. That Watson had been right this morning, and nine weeks later she had no friendships or allegiances among her own classmates. In fact, the closest she’d come to feeling any loyalty was for a dead body she’d found in the woods.
Or that she did feel survivor’s guilt, and she was tired of holidays spent in fields of white crosses. Or that she had a morbid need to chase after death, having once felt its fingers brush across the nape of her neck. Or that she was her father’s daughter after all. No good with the living, desperately attached to the dead, particularly when the body bore such a startling resemblance to Mandy.
So many possible answers. She surprised herself then, by going with the one that was closest to the truth. “Because I want to.”
Mac stared at her a heartbeat longer, then suddenly, finally, nodded in the dark. “All right. Six A.M. Meet me in the front of Jefferson. Bring hiking gear.
“And Kimberly,” he added as they both rose. “Don’t forget your Glock.”
CHAPTER 17
Albany, Georgia
1:36 A.M.
Temperature: 85 degrees
NORA RAY’S MOTHER WAS STILL WATCHING TV. She slumped on their old brown sofa, wearing the same faded pink bathrobe she’d worn for the past three years. Her short dark hair stood up around her face, gray showing at the roots, where it would remain until Nora Ray’s grandmother visited again and forcefully took her daughter in hand. Otherwise, Abigail Watts rarely moved from the sofa. She sat perfectly hunched, mouth slightly agape, eyes fixed straight ahead. Some people turned to booze, Nora Ray thought. Her mother had
[email protected].
Nora Ray still remembered the days when her mother had been beautiful. Abigail had risen at six every morning, fixing her hair in hot rollers and doing her makeup while her hair set. By the time Nora Ray and Mary Lynn made it downstairs for breakfast, their mother would be bustling around the kitchen in a nice floral dress, pouring coffee for their father, setting out cereal for them, and prattling away cheerfully until seven-oh-five on the dot, at which point she would grab her purse and head to work. She had been a secretary at a law firm back then. Not great money, but she’d enjoyed the job and the two partners who ran the place. Plus, it gave her an aura of prestige in the tiny blue-collar neighborhood where they lived. Working at a law firm . . . Now, that was respectable work.
Nora Ray’s mother hadn’t been to the office now in years. Nora Ray didn’t even know if she’d ever officially quit. More likely she’d walked out one day after getting a call from the police, and she’d never been back since.
The lawyers had been nice about it. They’d volunteered their services for a trial that never happened in a case where the perpetrator was never caught. They kept Abigail on the payroll for a while. Then they put her on a leave of absence. And now? Nora Ray couldn’t believe her mom still had a job after three years. No one was that nice. No one’s life stayed frozen for that long a period of time.
Except, of course, for Nora Ray’s family. They lived in a time warp. Mary Lynn’s room, painted sunshine yellow and lined with blue ribbons and horse trophies, remained exactly the same day after day. The last pair of dirty jeans she’d tossed in the corner were still waiting for an eighteen-year-old girl to come home and throw them in the wash. Her hairbrush, filled with long strands of brunette hair, sat on top of her dresser. A tube of pink lip gloss was half-opened next to the brush. Ditto the tube of mascara.
And still taped to the mirror above the dresser was the letter from Albany State University. We are proud to inform you that Mary Lynn Watts has been formally accepted into the freshman class of 2000 . . .
Mary Lynn had wanted to study veterinary sciences. Someday she could work full-time saving the horses she loved so much. Nora Ray was going to become a lawyer. Then they would buy farms side by side in the country, where they could ride horses together every morning before reporting to their high-paying and no doubt highly rewarding jobs. That’s what they had talked about that summer. Giggled about, really. Especially that last night, when it had been so friggin’ hot, they had decided to head out for ice cream.
In the beginning, right after Nora Ray came home and Mary Lynn didn’t, things had been different. People stopped by, for one thing. The women brought casseroles and cookies and pies. The men showed up with lawn mowers and hammers, wordlessly attending to small details around the house. Their little home had hummed with activity, everyone trying to be solicitous, everyone wanting to make sure that Nora Ray and her family were all right.
Her mother had still showered and put on clothes in those days. Bereft of a daughter, she at least clung to the skeletal fabric of everyday life. She got up, put her hair in rollers, and started the pot of coffee.
Her father had been the worst back then. Roaming from room to room while constantly flexing his big, work-callused hands, a dazed look in his eyes. He was the man who was supposed to be able to fix anything. He’d built their deck one summer. He did odd jobs around the neighborhood to help pay for Mary Lynn’s horse camp. He painted their house like clo
ckwork every three years and kept it the neatest one on the block.
Big Joe could do anything. Everyone said that. Until that day in July.
Eventually people stopped coming by so much. Food no longer magically appeared in the kitchen. Their lawn was no longer mowed every Sunday. Nora Ray’s mom stopped getting dressed. And her father returned to his job at Home Depot, coming home every night to join her mother on the couch, where they would sit like zombies in front of a score of mindless comedies, the TV spraying their faces with brightly colored images deep into the night.
While weeds took over their lawn. And their front porch sagged with neglect. And Nora Ray learned how to cook her mother’s casseroles while her own dreams of law school drifted further and further away.
People in the neighborhood whispered about them now. That sad family in the sad little house on the corner. Did you hear what happened to their daughter? Well, let me tell you . . .
Sometimes Nora Ray thought she should walk around with a scarlet letter attached to her clothes, like the woman in that book she’d read her senior year of high school. Yes, we’re the family that lost a daughter. Yes, we’re the ones who actually fell victim to violent crime. Yes, it could happen to you, too, so you’re right, you should turn away when we walk too close and whisper behind our backs. Maybe murder is contagious, you know. It’s found our house. Soon, it’ll find yours.
She never said these things out loud, however. She couldn’t. She was the last functioning member of her family. She had to hold it together. She had to pretend that one daughter could be enough.
Her mother’s head was starting to bob now, in that way it did right before sleep. Her father had already called it a night. He had work in the morning and that made him somewhat more normal, in this strange little pattern they called their lives.
Abigail finally succumbed. Her head fell back. Her shoulders sank into the deep comfort of their overstuffed sofa, bought during happier times and meant for happier days.
And Nora Ray finally stepped into the room. She didn’t turn off the TV. She knew better by now; the sudden absence of TV voices awakened her mother faster than any shrieking alarm. Instead, she merely took the remote from the pocket of her mother’s faded bathrobe and slowly turned down the volume.
Her mother started to snore. Soft little wheezes of a woman who hadn’t moved in months, yet remained exhausted beyond her years.
Nora Ray clenched her hands by her sides. She wanted to stroke her mother’s face. She wanted to tell her everything would be all right. She wanted to plead for her real mother to come back to her because sometimes she didn’t want to be the strong one. Sometimes, she wanted to be the one who curled up and cried.
She set the remote on the coffee table. Then she tiptoed back to her room, where the air-conditioning was permanently cranked to a frosty fifty-eight and a full pitcher of water sat by her bed at all times.
Nora Ray buried herself under the thick comfort of her bedcovers, but she still didn’t fall immediately asleep.
She was thinking of Mary Lynn again. She was thinking of their last night, driving back from T.G.I. Friday’s, and Mary Lynn chatting away merrily in the driver’s seat.
“Uh oh,” her sister was saying. “I think we just got a flat. Oh, wait. Good news. Some guy’s pulled in behind us. Isn’t that neat, Nora Ray? The world is just filled with good people.”
The man was tired. Very, very tired. Shortly after two A.M. he completed his last chore and wearily called it a night. He returned the van to where it belonged, and though his muscles truly ached now, he took the time to wash the vehicle, inside and out, by the comforting glow of lantern light. He even crawled under the van and hosed down the undercarriage. Dirt could tell stories. Didn’t he know.
Next he pulled out the dog carrier. He sponged it down with ammonia, the sharp, pungent scent stinging his senses back into hyperalertness, while also destroying any evidence of fingerprints.
Finally, he took inventory. He should wash down the aquarium, too, though what could it prove? That he once had a pet snake? No crime in that. Still, you didn’t want to leave things to chance.
You didn’t want to be one of those dumb fucks his father talked about, who couldn’t find their assholes with a flashlight and their own two hands.
The world was spinning. He felt the gathering storm clouds in the back of his brain. When he got tired, the spells grew worse. The black holes grew to tremendous size, swallowing not just hours and minutes, but sometimes consuming entire days. He couldn’t afford that now. He had to be sharp. He had to be alert.
He thought of his mother again and the sad look she wore every time she watched the sun die in the sky. Did she know the planet was dying? Did she understand even back then that anything that was beautiful could not belong long on this earth?
Or was she simply afraid to go back inside, where his father would be waiting with his quick temper and hamlike fists?
The man did not like these thoughts. He didn’t want to play this game anymore. He jerked the aquarium from the inside of the van. He dumped its grass and twig matting into the woods. Then he dumped in half of a bottle of ammonia and went to work with his bare hands. He could feel the harsh chemical burn his skin.
Later the runoff from this little exercise would seep into a stream, and kill off algae, bacteria, and cute little fishes. Because he was no better, you know. No matter what he did, he was still a man who drove a car and bought a refrigerator and probably once kissed a girl who used a can of aerosol spray on her hair. Because that’s what men did. Men killed. Men destroyed. Men beat their wives, abused their kids, and took a planet and warped it into their own twisted image.
His eyes were running now. Snot poured from his nose and his chest heaved until his breath came out in savage gasps. The harsh scent of ammonia, he thought. But he knew better. He was once again thinking of his mother’s pale, lonely face.
He and his brother should have gone back inside with her. They could’ve walked through the door first, judged the mood, and if it came to it, taken their punishment like M-E-N. They didn’t, though. Their father was home, and they ran away into the woods, where they lived like gods on pokeweed salad, wild raspberries, and tender fiddleheads.
They turned to the land for shelter, and tried not to think about what was happening back in one tiny cabin in the woods. At least that’s what they’d done when they could.
The man turned off the hose. The van was washed, the aquarium cleansed, the whole project sanitized within an inch of its life. Forty-eight hours later, it was over.
He was tired again. Bone-deep weary in a way that people who had never killed could never appreciate. But it was over. Now, at long last, he was done.
He took his kill kit away with him. Later, he tucked it beneath his mattress before finally crawling into bed.
His head touched the pillow. He thought of what he had just done. High heels, blond hair, blue eyes, green dress, bound hands, dark hair, brown eyes, long legs, scratching nails, flashing white teeth.
The man closed his eyes. He slept the best he had in years.
CHAPTER 18
Quantico, Virginia
5:36 A.M.
Temperature: 84 degrees
QUINCY JERKED AWAKE TO THE SOUND of the phone ringing. Instinct bred of so many other calls in the middle of so many other nights led him to reach automatically toward the nightstand. Then the ringing penetrated a second time, shrill and insistent, and he remembered that he was at the FBI Academy, staying in a dorm room, where the lone phone sat on the desk halfway across the room.
He moved quietly and quickly, but it was no longer necessary. Even as he cut off the third ring, Rainie was sitting up sleepily in the bed. Her long chestnut hair was tousled around her pale face, drawing attention to the striking angles of her cheeks and the long, bare column of her neck. God, she was lovely first thing in the morning. For that matter, she was lovely at the end of a long day. All these years later, day in, day out, s
he never failed to take his breath away.
He looked at her, and then, as happened too often these days, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He turned away, cradling the phone between his shoulder and his ear.
“Pierce Quincy.”
And then a moment later, “Are you sure? That’s not what I meant— Kimberly . . . Well, if that’s what you want to do. Kimberly . . .” Big sigh again. The beginning of a headache already building in his temples. “You’re a grown adult, Kimberly. I respect that.”
It didn’t do him any good. His last surviving daughter had ended yesterday angry with him and had apparently started today even madder. She slammed down the phone. He returned his own receiver much more gently, trying not to notice how his hands shook. He had been trying to mend the bridge with his mercurial daughter for six years now. He hadn’t made much progress yet.
In the beginning, Quincy had thought Kimberly simply needed time. After the intense episode of what happened to their family, of course she harbored a great deal of rage. He had been an FBI agent, a trained professional, and still he’d done nothing to save Bethie and Amanda. If Kimberly hated him, he couldn’t blame her. For a long time, he had hated himself, too.
Now, however, as year advanced into year, and the raw ache of loss and failure began to subside, he wondered if it wasn’t something more insidious than that. He and his daughter had gone through a harrowing experience. They had joined forces to outwit a psychopath as he’d hunted them down one by one. That kind of experience changed people. Changed relationships.
And it built associations. Perhaps Kimberly simply couldn’t view him as a father anymore. A parent should be a safe harbor, a source of shelter amid turbulent times. Quincy was none of those things in his daughter’s eyes. In fact, his presence was probably a constant reminder that violence often struck close to home. That real monsters didn’t live under the bed. They could be very attractive, fully functioning members of society, and once they targeted you, not even a smart, strong, professionally trained father could make any difference.