Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

Kimberly’s fingers desperately wanted to fidget. She stuck them into her pockets and wished once more she were carrying her Glock. It was tough to project confidence when you were armed with a red-painted toy.

“I understand you visited my crime scene,” Kaplan said abruptly.

“I stopped by.”

“Gave the boys quite a scare.”

“With all due respect, sir, your boys scare easily.”

Kaplan’s lips finally cracked into a ghostly semblance of a smile. “I told them the same,” he said, and for a moment they were coconspirators. Then the moment passed. “Why are you crowding my case, New Agent Quincy? Hasn’t your father taught you better than that?”

Kimberly’s shoulders immediately went rigid. She caught the motion, then forced herself to breathe easy. “I didn’t apply to the Academy because my interests ran to sewing.”

“So this is an academic study to you?”

“No.”

That made him frown. “I’ll ask one more time: why are you here, New Agent Quincy?”

“Because I found her, sir.”

“Because you found her?”

“Yes, sir. And what I start, I like to finish. My father taught me that.”

“It’s not your case to finish.”

“No, sir. It’s your case to finish. Absolutely. I’m just a student. But I’m hoping you’ll be kind enough to let me watch.”

“Kind? No one calls me kind.”

“Letting a green rookie watch an autopsy and puke her guts out won’t change your image, sir.”

Now he did smile. It changed the contours of his whole face, made him handsome, even approachable. The human in him came out, and Kimberly thought she had hope yet.

“You ever see an autopsy, New Agent Quincy?”

“No, sir.”

“It’s not the blood that will get you. It’s the smell. Or maybe the whine of the buzz saw when it hits the skull. Think you’re up to it?”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be sick, sir.”

“Then by all means, come on back. The things I gotta do to educate the Feebies,” Kaplan muttered. He shook his head. Then he opened the door and let her into the cold, sterile room.

Tina was going to be sick. She was trying desperately to control the reflex. Her stomach was clenching, her throat tightening. Bile surged upward. Bitterly, harshly, she forced it back down.

Her mouth was duct-taped shut. If she started vomiting now, she was terrified she’d drown.

She curled up tighter in a ball. That seemed to alleviate some of the cramping in her lower abdomen. Maybe it bought her another few minutes. And then? She didn’t know anymore.

She lived in a black tomb of darkness. She saw nothing. She heard very little. Her hands were behind her back, but at least not taped too tight. Her ankles seemed bound as well. If she wiggled her feet, she could get the tape to make a squishy sound, and earn herself some extra room.

The tape didn’t really matter, though. She’d figured that out hours before. The real prison wasn’t the duct tape around her limbs. It was the locked plastic container that held her body. It was too dark to be sure, but given the approximate size, the metal gate in the front, and the holes that marked the top-where she could press her cheek-she had a feeling that she’d been thrown into a very large animal carrier. Honest to goodness. She was trapped in a dog crate.

She’d cried a bit in the beginning. Then she’d gotten so angry she’d thrashed against the plastic, hurling herself at the metal door. All she had to show for that tantrum was a bruised shoulder and banged-up knees.

She’d slept after that. Too exhausted by fear and pain to know what to do next. When she’d woken up, the duct tape had been removed from her mouth and a gallon jug of water was in the crate with her, along with an energy bar. She’d been tempted to refuse the offering out of spite-she was no trained monkey! But then she’d thought of her unborn baby, and she’d consumed the water greedily while eating the protein bar.

She thought the water might have been drugged, though. Because no sooner had she drunk it than she fell deeply asleep. When she woke up again, the tape was back over her mouth, and the wrapper from the energy bar had been taken away.

She’d wanted to cry again. Drugs couldn’t be good. Not for her. And not for her unborn child.

Funny, four weeks ago, she hadn’t even been sure she wanted a baby. But then Betsy had brought home the Mayo Clinic book on child development and together they’d looked at all the pictures. Tina knew now that, at six weeks past conception, her baby was already half an inch long. It had a big head with eyes but no eyelids and it had little arms and little legs with paddlelike hands and feet. In another week, her baby would double to being one inch long and the hands and feet would develop tiny webbed fingers and teensy little toes until her baby looked like the world’s cutest lima bean.

In other words, her baby was already a baby. A tiny, precious, something Tina couldn’t wait to hold one day in her arms. And Tina had better enjoy that moment because her mother would be killing her shortly thereafter.

Her mom. Oh God, even the thought of her mother made her want to weep. If anything happened to Tina… Life was too unfair sometimes to a grown woman who had worked so hard in the hope that her daughter would have a better life.

Tina had to be more alert. She had to pay more attention. She wasn’t going to just disappear like this, dammit. She refused to be a stupid statistic. She strained her ears again. Struggled for some hint of what might be going on.

Tina was pretty sure she was in a vehicle. She could feel movement, but it confused her that she couldn’t see. Maybe the crate was in the back of a covered pickup bed, or a blacked-out van. She didn’t think it was night, though without being able to glance at her watch she had no idea how much time had passed. She’d slept for a long while, she thought. The drugs, then the fear, having taken their toll.

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…