The Killing Hour

  Special Agent Harkoos scowled. “I don’t like you,” he said, but his voice had lost its vehemence. Quincy had spoken the truth, and it was hard to argue with headlines. “You have behaved in an unorthodox manner which has put prosecuting this case in jeopardy,” Harkoos grumbled. “Don’t think I’m going to forget that.”

  “Call in the rescue teams, find that girl, get the headlines,” Quincy repeated.

  “The Dismal Swamp, huh? Is it as bad as its name sounds?”

  “Most likely, yes.”

  “Shit.” Harkoos dug out his cell phone. “Your people had better be right.”

  “My people,” Quincy said tersely, “haven’t been wrong yet.”

  Quincy had no sooner left the building to rejoin Rainie and Nora Ray at the car when his cell phone rang. It was Kaplan, calling from Quantico.

  “Do you have Ennunzio in custody?” the special agent demanded to know.

  “It’s not him,” Quincy said. “Try his brother.”

  “Brother?”

  “According to Ennunzio, his older brother murdered their mom thirty years ago. Burned her to death. Ennunzio hasn’t seen him since, but his brother once left a note at their parents’ grave, bearing the same message as the notes now sent by the Eco-Killer.”

  “Quincy, according to Ennunzio’s personnel records, he doesn’t have a brother.”

  Quincy drew up short, frowning now as he stood beside Rainie. “Maybe he doesn’t consider him family anymore. It’s been thirty years. Their last time together was hardly a Kodak moment.”

  There was a pause. “I don’t like this,” Kaplan said. “Something’s wrong. Look, I was calling because I just got off the phone with Ennunzio’s secretary. Turns out, two years ago, he took a three-month leave of absence to have major surgery. The doctors removed a tumor in his brain. According to his secretary, Ennunzio started complaining of headaches again six months ago. She’s been really worried about him.”

  “A tumor . . .”

  “Now, you’re the expert, but brain tumors can impact behavior, correct? Particularly ones growing in the right place . . .”

  “The limbic system,” Quincy murmured, closing his eyes and thinking fast. “In cases of brain trauma or tumors, you often see a marked change in behavior in the subject—increased irascibility, we call it. Normally mild-mannered people become violent, aggressive, use foul language.”

  “Maybe even go on a murder spree?”

  “There have been some instances of mass murder,” Quincy replied. “But something this cold and calculated . . . Then again, a tumor might trigger psychotic episodes, paving the way. Special Agent, are you at a computer? Can you look up the name David Ennunzio for me? Search birth and death records, Lee County, Virginia.”

  Rainie was watching him curiously now. Nora Ray as well. “Isn’t David Dr. Ennunzio’s first name?” Rainie whispered.

  “That’s what we all assumed.”

  “Assumed?” Her eyes widened and he knew she was getting it, too. Why should you never assume something when working an investigation? Because it made an ass out of you and me. Kaplan was already back on the line.

  “According to the obits, David Joseph Ennunzio died July 14, 1972, at the age of thirteen. He was killed in a house fire along with his mother. They are survived by . . . Christ! Franklin George Ennunzio. Dr. Frank Ennunzio. Quincy, Ennunzio doesn’t have a brother.”

  “He had a brother but he killed him. He killed his brother, his mother—hell, maybe he killed his father, too. Then he spent all these years covering it up and trying to forget. Until something else went even more wrong in his head.”

  “You have to get him in custody now!” Kaplan shouted.

  And Quincy whispered, “I can’t. He’s in the Dismal Swamp. With my daughter.”

  The man knew what he must do. He was letting himself think again, remembering the old days and old ways. It hurt his head. Brought on raging bolts of pain. He staggered as he walked and clutched his temples.

  But remembering brought him clarity, too. He thought of his mother, the look on her face as she lay so passively on the bed and watched him splatter lamp oil on the floor of their wooden shack. He thought of his younger brother, and how he’d cowered in the corner instead of bolting for safety.

  No fighting from either of them. No protest. His father had beaten the resistance out of them over all those long, bloody years. Now, death came and they simply waited.

  He had been weak thirty years ago. He had tossed the match, then outrun the flames. He had thought he would stay. He’d been so sure death was what he wanted, too. Then, at the last moment, he couldn’t do it. He’d broken from the fire’s mesmerizing spell. He had dashed out the door. He had heard his mother’s raw, angry screams. He had heard his brother’s last pitiful cries. Then he had run for the woods and begged the wilderness to save him.

  Mother Nature was not that kind. He had been hungry and hot. He had spent weeks dazed and desperate with thirst. So finally he had emerged, walking into town, waiting to see what would happen next.

  People had been kind. They fawned over him, hugged him, and fussed over this lone survivor of a tragic fate. How big and strong he must have been to survive in the woods all this time, they told him. What an amazing miracle he’d made it out of the house in time. God must surely favor him to show him such compassion.

  They made him a hero; he was much too tired to protest.

  But fire still found him in his dreams. He ignored it for years, wanting to be the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes in a new and improved life. He worked hard and studied hard. He swore to himself he would do good. He would be good. As a child he had committed a horrible act. Now, as an adult, he would do better.

  Maybe for a while it had worked. He’d been a good agent. He’d saved lives, worked important cases, advanced critical research. But then the pain started and the flames grew more mesmerizing in his dreams and he let the fire talk to him. He let it convince him to do things.

  He had killed. Then he had begged the police to stop him. He had kidnapped girls. Then he’d left clues for someone else to save them. He hated himself; he serviced himself. He had sought redemption through work; he committed bigger sins in his personal life. In the end, he had been everything his family had raised him to be.

  Everything of beauty betrayed you. Everything of beauty lied. All you could trust was the flame.

  He ran around now, in the dark recesses of the swamp. He listened to the deer dash out of his way, the stealthy foxes race for cover. Somewhere in the leaves came an ominous rattle. He didn’t care anymore.

  His head throbbed, his body begged for rest. While his hands played with matches, raking them across the sulfur strips and letting them fall with hissing crackles into the bog.

  Some matches were immediately squelched by muddy water. Others found dry patches of leaves. Still others found the nice, slow-burning peat.

  He ran by the pit. He thought he heard a sound far below.

  He dropped in another match just for her.

  Everything of beauty must die. Everything, everyone, and him.

  Mac and Kimberly were running now. They could hear frantic crashes in the underbrush, the pounding of footsteps that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Someone was here. Ennunzio? His brother? The swamp had suddenly come alive, and Kimberly had her Glock out, holding it desperately with sweat-slicked hands.

  “To the right,” Mac said, low under his breath.

  But almost immediately the sound came again, this time from their left.

  “Woods are distorting it,” Kimberly panted.

  “We can’t lose our bearings.”

  “Too late.”

  Kimberly’s cell phone vibrated on her hip. She snatched it with her left hand, still holding her gun in her right, and trying to look everywhere at once. The trees swirled darkly around her, the woods closing in.

  “Where’s Ennunzio?” her father said in her ear.

  “I don’
t know.”

  “There is no brother, Kimberly. He died thirty years ago in the fire. It’s Ennunzio. It sounds as if he may have a brain tumor and has now experienced a psychotic break. You must consider him armed and dangerous.”

  “Dad,” Kimberly said softly. “I smell fire.”

  Tina’s head came up sharply. Her eyes were swollen shut again; she couldn’t see, but her hearing was just fine. Noise. Lots of noise. Footsteps and panting and crackling underbrush. It was as if the swamp overhead had suddenly exploded with activity. Rescuers!

  “Hello?” she tried weakly. Her voice came out as nothing more than a croak.

  She swallowed, tried again, and got little better results.

  Desperate now, she attempted to pull herself up. Her arms trembled violently, too exhausted to bear her weight. But then she heard a fresh pounding of footsteps and adrenaline surged through her veins. She heaved herself half upright, groping around vainly in the mud. Something squished between her fingers, something plopped by her hand.

  She gave up on caution, and brought a big handful of muck to her mouth, sucking greedily at the mud. Moisture for her parched throat, lips. So close, so close, so close.

  “Hello,” she tried again. “Down here!”

  Her voice was slightly louder now. Then she heard a faint pause, and sensed a presence suddenly close.

  “Hello, hello, hello!”

  “Clock ticking,” a clear voice whispered from above. “Heat kills.”

  And the next thing Tina knew, she felt a sharp pain on her hand, as if a pair of fangs had finally found her flesh.

  “Ow!” She slapped at her hand, feeling the heat of the flames. “Ow, ow, ow.” She beat at the heat frantically, squashing the match into the mud. Son of a bitch. Now he was trying to burn her out!

  That did it. Tina staggered to her feet. She raised her tired arms over her head, balling her hands into fists. Then she screamed at the top of her sandpaper-dry throat. “You come down here and face me, you bastard. Come on. Fight like a man!”

  Her legs promptly collapsed beneath her. She lay there in the mud, dazed and panting. She heard more sounds, this time the man running away. Perversely, she missed him; it was the closest to a human connection she’d had in days.

  Hey, she thought weakly. She smelled smoke.

  Kimberly was blowing frantically on her whistle. Three sharp blasts. Mac was whistling, too. They could see smoke now directly ahead. They raced to the pile of leaves, kicking them open and stomping furiously on the burning embers.

  More smoke spiraled from the left, while a sputtering sound came from the right. Kimberly blew futilely on her whistle. Mac, too.

  Then they were off to the right and off to the left, dashing through the woods and desperately seeking out the dozens of burning piles.

  “We need water.”

  “None left.”

  “Damp clothing?”

  “Only what I’m wearing.” Mac peeled off his soaked shirt and used it to smother a burning stump.

  “It’s Ennunzio. No brother. Has a brain tumor. Apparently has gone insane.” Kimberly kicked frantically at yet another pile of smoldering leaves. Snakes? She didn’t have time to worry about them anymore.

  A fresh sound of rustling tree limbs came from their right. Kimberly jerked toward the noise, already raising her gun and trying to find a target. A deer raced by, followed swiftly by two more. For the first time, she became aware of the full activity around them. Squirrels scrambling up trees, birds taking to the air. Soon they would probably see otters, raccoons, and foxes, a desperate exodus of all creatures great and small.

  “He hates what he loves and loves what he hates,” Kimberly said grimly.

  “They have the right idea. Two of us alone can’t stop this. We have to think of bailing out.”

  But Kimberly was already running to a fresh batch of curling smoke. “Not yet.”

  “Kimberly . . .”

  “Please, Mac, not yet.”

  She tore apart a rotting tree limb, stomping on the scattering flames. Mac tended to the next hot spot, then they both heard it at once. Yelling. Distant and rough.

  “Hey . . . Down here! Somebody . . . Help.”

  “Tina,” Kimberly breathed.

  They ran toward her voice.

  Kimberly nearly found Tina Krahn the hard way. One moment she was running forward, the next her right foot pedaled through open air. She staggered at the edge of the rectangular pit, frantically windmilling her arms until Mac grabbed her by the backpack and yanked her to firmer footing.

  “I gotta start looking before I leap,” she muttered.

  Drenched in sweat and covered with soot, Mac managed a crooked smile. “And ruin your charm?”

  They dropped down on their stomachs and gazed intently into the hole. The pit seemed quite large, maybe a ten-by-fifteen-foot area, at least twenty feet deep. It obviously wasn’t new. Thick, tangled vines covered most of the walls, while beneath Kimberly’s fingertips, she could feel old, half-rotted railroad ties. She didn’t know who had built the pit, but given that slaves had been used to dredge most of the swamp, she had her theories as to why. Don’t want to watch the help too much at night? Well, talk about restricted sleeping quarters . . .

  “Hello!” she called down. “Tina?”

  “Are you for real?” a feeble voice called back from the shadows. “You’re not wearing a tuxedo, are you?”

  “Noooo,” Kimberly said slowly. She glanced at Mac. They were both thinking about what Kathy Levine had said. Heatstroke victims were often delusional.

  The smell of smoke was growing thicker. Kimberly narrowed her eyes, still trying to pick out a human being below. Then she saw her. All the way down in the muck, curled tight against a boulder. The girl was covered head to toe in mud, blending in perfectly with her surroundings. Kimberly could just barely make out the flash of white teeth when Tina spoke.

  “Water?” the girl croaked hopefully.

  “We’re going to get you out of there.”

  “I think I lost my baby,” Tina whispered. “Please, don’t tell my mom.”

  Kimberly closed her eyes. The words hurt her, one more casualty in a war they never should have had to fight.

  “We’re going to throw you a rope.” Mac’s voice was steady and calm.

  “I can’t . . . No Spiderman. Tired . . . So tired . . .”

  “You go down,” Mac murmured to Kimberly. “I’ll haul up.”

  “We don’t have a litter.”

  “Loop the end of the rope to form a swing. It’s the best we can do.”

  Kimberly looked at his arms wordlessly. It would take a tremendous amount of strength to pull up a hundred pounds of deadweight, and Mac had been hiking for nearly three days straight, on virtually no sleep. But Mac merely shrugged. In his eyes she saw the truth. The smoke was thickening, the deadly fire taking hold. They didn’t have many options left.

  “I’m coming down,” Kimberly called into the pit.

  Mac pulled out the vinyl coil, worked a rough belay using a clamp around his waist, then gave her the go-ahead. She rappelled down slow and easy, trying not to recoil at the stench, or to think about what kind of things must be slithering in the muck.

  At the bottom, she was startled by her first close-up view of the girl. Tina’s bones stood out starkly. Her skin was shrink-wrapped around her frame in a macabre imitation of a living mummy. Her hair was wild and muddy, her eyes swollen shut. Even beneath the coating of mud, Kimberly could see giant sores oozing blood and pus. Was it her imagination, or did one of those sores just wiggle? The girl hadn’t been lying. In her condition, she was never going to be able to climb up the pit walls on her own.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Tina,” Kimberly said briskly. “My name is Kimberly Quincy, and I’ve come to get you out of here.”

  “Water?” Tina whispered hopefully.

  “Up top.”

  “So thirsty. Where’s the lake?”

  “I’m going to
loop this rope. You need to sit in it like a swing. And then Special Agent McCormack up there is going to pull you up. If you can use your legs against the wall to assist him, that would be very helpful.”

  “Water?”

  “All the water you want, Tina. You just have to make it to the top.”

  The girl nodded slowly, her head bobbing back and forth almost drunkenly. She seemed dazed and unfocused, on the edge of checking back out. Kimberly moved quickly, wrapping the rope around Tina’s hips and getting it in place.

  “Ready?” she called up.

  “Ready,” Mac replied, and Kimberly heard a new urgency in his voice. The fire was obviously sweeping closer.

  “Tina,” she said intently. “If you want that water, you gotta move. And I mean now.”

  She hefted the girl up, felt the slack immediately tighten in the rope. Tina seemed to half get it; her feet kicked weakly at the wall. A groan from up top. A heaving gasp as Mac began to pull.

  “Water at the top, Tina. Water at the top.”

  Then Tina did something Kimberly didn’t expect. From deep in her haze, she roused her tired limbs, stuck her feet in what appeared to be small gaps between the railroad ties and actually tried to help.

  Up, up, up she went, climbing toward freedom. Up, up, up out of her dark hellhole.

  And just for a moment, Kimberly felt something lighten in her chest. She stood there, watching this exhausted girl finally make it to safety and she felt a moment of satisfaction, of sublime peace. She had done good. She had gotten this one right.

  Tina disappeared over the edge. Within seconds the rope was back down.

  “Move!” Mac barked.

  Kimberly grabbed the rope, spotted the toeholds and bolted for the top.

  She crested the pit just in time to watch a wall of flames hit the trees and bear down upon them.

  CHAPTER 47

  Dismal Swamp, Virginia

  2:39 P.M.