“I gotta sit down,” Mac said. He moved away from Vivienne Benson’s body, found a tree stump and collapsed on the rough shape as if he’d abruptly lost all the strength in his legs. He ran a hand through his damp hair, then did it again and again. “He ambushed four girls at once,” he said at last, trying out the words, feeling his way into the horrible concept. “Betsy Radison, he dumped at Quantico, Vivienne Benson he abandoned here. Which leaves us with Karen Clarence and Tina Krahn, who he may have taken . . . Goddamn . . . The gray birch leaf. I thought that was too easy for him. But of course. It wasn’t an end. Just a strange beginning.”
“Like Quincy said, serial killers have a tendency to escalate the violence of their crime.”
“Did you find a letter to the editor?” he asked sharply.
“No letter. An ad in the Quantico Sentry.”
“The Marines’ newspaper?” Mac frowned. “The one distributed all over the base?”
“Yeah. We have the original of what was sent in, but it didn’t give up much in the way of forensic evidence. Quincy had it turned over to Ennunzio to analyze the text.”
“You got to meet with the forensic linguist? Hell, you have been busy.”
“We try,” Rainie said modestly. “You’re going to see him again soon, too. Quincy’s requested that Ennunzio join the case team. The two of them are working on a theory that your caller isn’t an anonymous tipster, but the man himself. We’re just not entirely sure why.”
“He doesn’t gloat. If I’m getting calls from the Eco-Killer, don’t you think he’d want to take the credit?”
“Well, maybe and maybe not. One theory is that he feels guilty about what he’s doing, so this is his roundabout way of getting you to stop him. Second theory, he’s mentally incapacitated—hence his love of repeating the same message over and over again. Third, you’re part of this game now, too, and he’s luring you into the wild, just like he does with the girls. Look at the body, Mac. Can you be a hundred percent certain that wouldn’t have been you?”
“It wasn’t almost me,” Mac said quietly. “It was almost Kimberly.”
Rainie’s expression became very gentle. “Yeah, and then he wins, too, right, Mac? Either way, he wins.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m getting too old for this shit, Rainie,” he said. And then almost on cue, his phone rang.
CHAPTER 29
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
1:22 A.M.
Temperature: 89 degrees
“SPECIAL AGENT MCCORMACK.”
“Heat kills.”
“Shut the fuck up. You really think this is a game? We found your latest victim dead from two dozen rattlesnake bites. Does that make you feel good? Is feeding young girls to pit vipers how you get your jollies? You’re nothing but a sick son of a bitch and I’m not talking to you anymore!”
Mac flipped his phone shut. He was mad. Madder than he’d ever been in his life. His heart thundered. He could hear the roar of blood in his ears. He wanted to do more than yell into a tiny phone. He wanted to find the man, and beat him into a bloody pulp.
Rainie was staring at him in mild shock. “While I am impressed, was that really a good idea?”
“Wait.” His phone immediately rang again. He gave her a look. “Contacting the authorities is about exercising control, right? He’s not gonna let it end on my terms. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make him work for it.”
He flipped his phone open. “Now what?” he said. Good cop was definitely gone for the night.
“I’m only trying to help,” the distorted voice echoed peevishly.
“You’re a liar and a killer. And guess what, we know for a fact that makes you a bed wetter, too. So stop wasting my time, you little prick.”
“I’m not a killer!”
“I got two bodies that say otherwise.”
“He struck again? I thought . . . I thought you might have more time.”
“Hey, buddy, stop the lies. I know you’re him. You want to gloat? Is that what this is about? You drugged two young girls and then killed them. Yeah, you are just the biggest badass in town.”
Rainie’s eyes went wide. She shook her head furiously. She was right, of course. If the guy did want to boost his ego, it wasn’t a good idea to egg him on.
“I am not the killer!” the voice protested shrilly, and then in the next instant, the voice grew an edge of its own. “I’m trying to help. You can either listen and learn, or continue this game on your own.”
“Who are you?”
“He’s getting angrier.”
“No shit. Where are you calling from?”
“He’s going to strike again. Soon. Maybe already.”
Mac took a gamble. “He’s already struck again. This time he didn’t take two girls. This time, he took four. So what about it?”
A pause, as if the caller was genuinely surprised. “I didn’t realize . . . I didn’t think . . .”
“Why is he now in Virginia?”
“He grew up here.”
“He’s from Virginia?” Mac’s voice picked up. He swapped concerned glances with Rainie.
“His first sixteen years,” the caller replied.
“When did he move to Georgia?”
“I don’t know. It’s been . . . years. You have to understand. I don’t think he really wants to hurt the victims. He wants them to figure it out. If they would just remain calm, be smart, show some strength—”
“For Christ’s sake, they’re only kids.”
“So was he once.”
Mac shook his head. The killer as a victim. He didn’t want to hear this shit. “Listen, I have two dead girls and two more at risk. Give me his name, buddy. End this thing. You have it in your power. You can be the hero. Just give me his damn name.”
“I can’t.”
“Then send it in the mail!”
“Did the first body lead you to the second?”
“Give me his goddamn name!”
“Then the second body will lead you to the third. Move quickly. I don’t . . . I’m not even sure what he’ll do next.”
The signal went dead. Mac swore and hurled his phone into the brush. It spooked a scavenging raccoon and didn’t do a thing to calm his temper. He wanted to run back up the mountainside. He wanted to plunge into an ice-cold stream. He wanted to throw back his head and howl at the moon. Then he wanted to swear every obscenity he’d ever learned as a child and collapse into a pile and weep.
He’d been working too long on this case to keep seeing so much death.
“Damn,” he said at last. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“He didn’t give you a name.”
“He swears he’s not the killer. He swears he’s just trying to help.”
Rainie looked at the body. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“No kidding.” Mac sighed, straightening his shoulders and moving resolutely toward the body. “All four girls disappeared at once, from the same car?”
“That’s what we’re assuming.”
“Then we don’t have much time.” He hunkered down, already pulling the black plastic body bag away from the girl.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for clues. Because if the first girl led us to the second, then the second will lead us to the third.”
“Ahh, shit,” Rainie said.
“Yeah. You know what? Go find Kathy Levine. We’re gonna need some help here. And a boatload of coffee.”
“No rest for the weary?”
“Not tonight.”
Nora Ray was dreaming again. She was in the happy place, the land of fantasy where her parents smiled and her dead dog danced, and she floated in a pool of cool, silky water, feeling it lap peacefully against her skin. She loved this place, longed to come here often.
She could listen to her parents laugh. Watch the pure blue sky, which never contained a red-hot sun. Feel the crystalline cleanness of pure water against her limbs.
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She turned her head. She saw the door open. And without hesitation, she left the pool behind.
Mary Lynn was riding her horse. She drove Snowfall through miles of green pasture, racing through fields of wild daisies, and jumping fallen logs. She sat forward in the saddle, her body tight and compact like a jockey’s, her hands light and steady on the reins. The horse soared. She soared with it. It was as if they were one.
Nora Ray crossed to the fence. Two other girls sat on the top rail. One blonde. One brunette.
“Do you know where we are?” the blonde asked Nora Ray.
“You’re in my dream.”
“Do we know you?” the brunette asked.
“I think we knew the same man.”
“Will we get to ride the horse?” the brunette asked.
“I don’t know.”
“She’s very good,” said the blonde.
“There’s never been anything my sister couldn’t ride,” Nora Ray replied proudly.
“I have a sister,” said the brunette. “Will she dream of me?”
“Every night.”
“That’s very sad.”
“I know.”
“I wish there’s something we could do.”
“You’re dead,” Nora Ray said. “You can’t do anything at all. Now, I think it’s up to me.”
Then her sister was gone, the pasture had vanished, and she was spiraling away from the pond long before she was ready. She woke up wide-eyed in her bed, her heart beating too fast and her hands knotted around her comforter.
Nora Ray sat up slowly. She poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on her nightstand. She took a long drink and felt the cool liquid slide down her throat. Sometimes, she could still feel the salt building like rime around her mouth, coating her chin, covering her lips. She could remember the deep, unquenchable thirst that ran cell-deep, as the sun pounded and the salt built and she went mad with thirst. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
She finished her glass of water now. Let the moisture linger on her lips, like dew on a rose. Then she left her room.
Her mother slept on the couch, her head crooked awkwardly to the side, while on the TV Lucille Ball crawled into a vat of grapes and gamely stomped away. In the neighboring bedroom, Nora Ray glimpsed her father, slumbering alone on the queen-sized bed.
The house was silent. It filled Nora Ray with a loneliness that threatened to cut her heart in two. Three years later, and no one had healed. Nothing was better. She could still remember the harsh grit of salt, leaching the last moisture from her body. She could remember her rage and confusion as the crabs nibbled on her toes. She could remember her simple desire to survive this hell and return to her family. If she could just see them again, slide into her parents’ loving embrace . . .
Except her family had never returned to her. She had survived. They had not.
And now, two more girls in the pastureland of her dream. She knew what that meant. The heat had arrived on Sunday, and the shadowy man from her nightmares had resumed his lethal game.
The clock glowed nearly two A.M. She decided she didn’t care. She picked up the phone and dialed the number she knew by heart. A moment later, she said, “I need to reach Special Agent McCormack. No, I don’t want to leave a message. I need to see him. Quick.”
Tina didn’t dream. Her exhausted body had given out, and now she was collapsed in the mud in a sleep that bordered on unconsciousness. One arm still touched the boulder, a link to relative safety. The rest of her belonged to the muck. It oozed between her fingers, coated her hair, slithered up her throat.
Things came and went in the sucking muck. Some had no interest in prey quite that large. Some had no interest in a meal that wasn’t already dead. Then, up above, a dark shadow lumbered along the path, stopping at the edge of the pit. A giant head peered down, dark eyes gleaming in the night. It smelled warm-blooded flesh, a fine, delectable meal that was just its size.
More sniffing. Two giant paws raked one side of the hole. The depth was too great, the terrain not manageable. The bear grunted, lumbered on. If the creature ever came up, it’d try again. Until then, there were other fine things to eat in the dark.
The man didn’t sleep. Two A.M., he packed his bags. He had to move quickly now. He could feel the darkness gathering at the edges of his mind. Time was becoming more fluid, moments slipping through his fingers and disappearing into the abyss.
Pressure was growing in the back of his skull. He could feel it, a true physical presence at the top of his spine, with another tendril starting to press against the inner canal of his left ear. A tumor, he was pretty sure. He’d had one before, years ago when he’d had his first “episode” of vanishing time. Had it been only minutes he’d lost in the beginning? He couldn’t even remember that anymore.
Time grew fluid, black holes took over his life. One tumor was removed. Another came back to eat his brain. It was probably the size of a grapefruit by now. Or maybe even a watermelon. Maybe his brain wasn’t even his brain anymore, but a giant malignant mass of constantly dividing cells. He didn’t doubt it. That would explain the bad dreams, the restless nights. It would explain why the fire came to him so often now, and made him do things he knew he shouldn’t.
He found himself thinking of his mother more. Her pale face, her thin, hunched shoulders. He thought of his father, too, and the way he always strode through their tiny cabin in the woods.
“A man’s gotta be tough, boys, a man’s gotta be strong. Don’t you listen to no government types, they just want to turn us into mealy-mouthed dependents who can’t live without a federal handout. Not us boys. We got the land. We will always be strong, as long as we got the land.”
Strong enough to beat his wife, abuse his kids and wring the neck of the family cat. Strong enough, and isolated enough, to live as he goddamned pleased, without even a neighbor to hear the screams.
The black storm clouds built, rolled, and roared. Now he was sitting tied to a chair, while his father took a strap to his brother, his mother washed the dishes, and his father told them both that next it would be their turn. Now he and his brother were huddled under the front porch, planning their big escape, while above their heads their mother wept and their father told her to go inside and wipe that goddamn blood off of her face. Now it was late at night and he and his brother were sneaking out the front door; at the last minute they turned, and saw their mother standing pale and silent in the moonlight. Go, her eyes told them. Run away while you still can. Her bruised cheeks were streaked with wordless tears. They crept back inside. And she clutched them to her breast as if they were the only hope she had left.
And he knew then that he hated his mother as much as he had ever loved her. And he knew then that she felt the same about him and his brother. They were the crabs stuck together in the bottom of a bucket, and pulling one another down so no one ever made it to freedom.
The man swayed on his feet. He felt the dark roll in, felt himself totter on the edge of the abyss . . . Time was slipping through his fingers.
The man turned. He drove his fist forcefully into the wall, and let the pain bring him back. The room came into focus. The dark spots cleared from his eyes. Better.
The man crossed to his dresser. He got out his gun.
He prepared for what must happen next.
CHAPTER 30
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
2:43 A.M.
Temperature: 88 degrees
RAINIE AND MAC WERE STILL WORKING THE VICTIM’S BODY when Quincy materialized before them. His gaze went from them to Kathy Levine, then back to them.
“She’s one of us,” Rainie said, as if he’d asked a question.
“Definitely?”
“Well, she risked ordering a search team based solely on Mac’s hunch, and now she’s picking rice out of a corpse’s pocket. You tell us.”
Quincy raised a brow and glanced at Levine again. “Rice?”
“Uncooked white,” she
said briskly. “Long grain. Then again, I’m a botanist, not a chef, so you may want a second opinion.”
Quincy switched his attention to Mac, who was carefully going over the girl’s left foot. “Why rice?”
“Damned if I know.”
“Anything else?”
“She’s wearing a necklace—some kind of vial filled with a clear fluid. That might be a hint. Then we got about nine different bits of leaves, four or five samples of dirt, half a dozen kinds of grass, some crushed flower petals, and a whole lotta blood.” Mac gestured to a stack of evidence containers. “Help yourself to a sample. And good luck figuring out if it came from her hike through the woods or from him. This new strategy of his definitely puts a wrinkle in things. What’d you do with Kimberly?”
“Feds got her.”
Three heads shot up. Quincy smiled grimly. “I believe there’s been a change of plans.”
“Quincy,” Mac said curtly. “Tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
Quincy didn’t look at him directly. Instead, his gaze went to Rainie. “The FBI case team arrived. No Kaplan, no Watson. In fact, I don’t recognize anyone on the team. They pulled in, spotted Kimberly, and immediately pulled her aside for questioning. I’m supposed to be waiting outside the lodge.”
“Those assholes!” Rainie exploded. “First they want nothing to do with this. Now it’s suddenly their party, and no one else is invited to play. What are they going to do? Start all over at this stage of the game?”
“I imagine they are going to do exactly that. The FBI can launch a pretty good search, you know. They’ll bring in computer operators, stenographers, dog handlers, search-and-rescue teams, topography experts, and recon pilots. Within twenty-four hours, they’ll have a full ops center set up roadside, while planes search the surrounding areas with infrared photography and volunteers stand by to assist. It’s not too shabby.”
“Infrared photography is bullshit this time of year,” Mac said tightly. “We tried it ourselves. Every damn boulder and wandering bear shows up as a hit. Not to mention deer also look roughly like humans in the still photos. We ended up with hundreds of targets and not a single one of them was ever the missing girl. Besides, that assumes the next victim is somewhere in these woods, and I already know she isn’t. The man doesn’t repeat an area, and the whole point of his game is to ramp up the challenge. The other girl is somewhere far from here, and believe it or not, someplace even more dangerous.”