Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

She turned toward him, finding herself surprisingly serious. “I think so. I was always proud of him. Even when he had to leave in the middle of birthday parties or missed them altogether. His job sounded so larger-than-life to me. Like something a superhero would do. People got hurt. And my father went to save the day. I missed him, I’m sure I had tantrums, but mostly I remember feeling proud. My daddy was cool. For my sister, however, it was another story.”

“Older or younger?”

“Mandy was older. She was also… different. High-strung. Sensitive. A little wild. I think my first memory of her is her being yelled at for breaking something. She struggled with our parents. I mean, really, truly struggled. They were so by-the-book and she was so color-outside-the-lines. And life was harder for her in other ways. She took things to heart too much. One harsh word and she was wounded for days. One wrong look and she’d be devastated. She had nightmares, was prone to crying jags and had genuine fits. My father’s job terrified her. My parents’ divorce shattered her. And adulthood didn’t get much easier.”

“She sounds intense.”

“She was.” For a moment, Kimberly was silent. “You know what gets to me, though? You know what’s truly ironic?”

“What?”

“She needed us. She was exactly the kind of person that my father and I have sworn our lives to protect. She wasn’t tough. She made bad choices. She drank too much, she dated the wrong men, she believed anyone’s pack of lies. God, she desperately needed someone to save her from herself. And we didn’t do it. I spent so much of my childhood resenting her. Crying, complaining Mandy who was always upset about something. Now, I just wonder why we didn’t take better care of her. She was in our own family. How could we fail her so completely?”

Mac didn’t say anything. He touched her cheek again. Gently. With his thumb. She felt the slow rasp of his work-roughened skin all the way down to her jaw line. It made her shiver. Then it made her want to close her eyes, and arch her back like a cat.

“Another blade of grass?” she whispered.

“No,” he said softly.

She turned toward him then, knowing her eyes said too much, knowing she needed more armor, but helpless to find it now.

“They don’t believe you,” she said softly.

“I know.” His fingers traced along her jaw, lingered at the curve of her ear.

“My father’s good. Very good. But like all investigators, he’s meticulous. He’s going to start at the very beginning and have to work his way toward your conclusion. Maybe on another case it wouldn’t matter. But if you’re right, and there’s another girl already out there…”

“Clock’s ticking,” Mac murmured. The rough pads of his fingers returned along her jaw, then feathered down her neck. She could feel her chest rising and falling faster. As if she were running once more through the woods. Was she running toward something this time, or was she still running away?

“You’re very relaxed about all this,” she said brusquely.

“The case? Not really.” His fingers stopped moving. They rested at the base of her neck, his fingers bracing her collarbone and her skittering pulse. He was gazing at her with an intense look. A man about to kiss a woman? A cop obsessed with a difficult case? She was no good at this sort of thing. The Quincy women had a long history of being unlucky at love. In fact, the last man her mother and Mandy thought they had loved had killed them both. That was female intuition for you.

She wished suddenly that she didn’t think of her family so much. She wished suddenly that she really were an island, that she could be born again without any attachments, without any past. What would her life have become if her family hadn’t been murdered? Who would’ve Kimberly Quincy been then?

Kinder, softer, gentler? The kind of woman capable of kissing a handsome man under the stars? Maybe a woman actually capable of falling in love?

She turned her head away. Pulled her body away from his touch. It didn’t matter anymore. She suddenly hurt too much to look him in the eye.

“You’re going to work this, aren’t you?” she asked, giving him her back.

“I did a little reading on Virginia this afternoon,” he said conversationally, as if she hadn’t just jerked away. “Did you know this state has over forty thousand square acres of beaches, mountains, rivers, lakes, bays, swamps, reservoirs, and caverns? We’re talking several major mountain ranges offering over a thousand miles of hiking trails. Two million acres of public land. Then we have the Chesapeake Bay, which is the largest coastal estuary in the United States. Plus, four thousand caverns and several reservoirs that have been formed by flooding complete towns. You want rare and ecologically sensitive? Virginia has rare and ecologically sensitive. You want dangerous? Virginia has dangerous. In short, Virginia is perfect for Eco-Killer, and hell yes, I’m definitely gonna pursue a few things.”

“You don’t have jurisdiction.”

“All’s fair in love and war. I called my supervisor. We both believe this is the first solid lead we’ve had in months. If I take off from the National Academy to do a little sidebar exploration, he’s not gonna cry any rivers. Besides, your father and NCIS are moving too slow. By the time they realize what we already know, the second girl will be long dead. I don’t want that, Kimberly. After all these years, I’m tired of being too late.”

“What will you do?”

“First thing tomorrow morning, I’m meeting with a botanist from the U.S. Geological Survey team. Then I’ll take it from there.”

“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.