Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

Immediately, the space around her blazed with fresh light, illuminating not one, but four coiled rattlers.

“Mac,” Kimberly said clearly. “Get ready to catch.”

She thrust the torch forward. The snakes hissed, then recoiled sharply from the flames, and Kimberly bolted off the first boulder. She bounded down, one, two, three, four, as the crevices came alive with slippery shapes tumbling off the boulders as the snakes sought to escape the flame. The rocks were alive, hissing, curling, rattling. Kimberly plunged through the writhing mess.

“Mac!” she yelled. She came catapulting off the final rock and crashed against his hard frame.

“Gotcha,” he said, grabbing her shoulders and already removing the torch from her shaking hand.

For one moment, she just stood there, shell-shocked and dazed. Then, she collapsed against his chest and he held her more gratefully and desperately than he should.

“Mandy,” Kimberly murmured. She began to cry.

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

11:51 P . M .

Temperature: 91 degrees

PROFESSIONALS ARRIVED AND TOOK OVER THE SCENE. Lanterns were brought in, along with battery-powered lights. Then volunteers, armed with sticks, served as emergency snake wranglers, while men wearing thick boots and heavy-duty pants waded onto the rock pile and removed the victim’s body in a litter.

Kathy Levine stood by as Mac officially reported their latest find to the powers that be. As a national park, Shenandoah fell under FBI jurisdiction; Watson would have his case after all, and Mac and Kimberly would once again be relegated to the role of outsiders.

Kimberly didn’t care. She sat alone on the sidewalk in front of Big Meadows Lodge, watching the emergency vehicles pile up in the parking lot. Ambulances and EMTs with no one to save. A fire department with no blaze to extinguish. Then finally, the ME’s van, the only professional who would get to practice his trade tonight.

It was hot. Kimberly felt moisture roll down her face like tears. Or maybe she was still crying. It was hard to know. She felt empty in a way she’d never felt empty before. As if everything she had ever been had disappeared, been flushed down a drain. Without bones, her body would have no weight. Without skin, she would cease to have form. The wind would come, blow her away like a pile of burnt-out ash, and maybe it would be better that way.

More cars came and went. Exhausted search volunteers returned and headed for a makeshift canteen where they downed buckets of ice water, then sank their teeth into pulpy slices of orange. The EMTs treated them for minor cuts and slight sprains. Most people simply collapsed into the metal folding chairs, physically exhausted by the hike, and emotionally drained by a search that had ended with bitter disappointment.

Tomorrow all of this would be gone. The search-and-rescue volunteers would disperse back to their everyday lives, returning to mundane rituals and routine concerns. They would rejoin their families, hiking parties, fire departments.

And Kimberly? Would she go back to the Academy? Fire shotgun rounds at blank targets and pretend it made her tough? Or play dress-up in Hogan’s Alley, dodging paint shells and matching wits with overpaid actors? She could pass the last round of tests, graduate to become a full-fledged agent, and go through the rest of her life pretending her career made her whole. Why not? It had worked for her father.

She wanted to lay her head down on the hard sidewalk bordering the parking lot. She wanted to melt into the cement until the world ceased to exist. She wanted to go back to a time when she did not know so much about violent death, or what dozens of rattlesnakes could do to the human body.

She had told Mac the truth earlier. She was tired. Six years’ worth of sleepless, bone-weary nights. She wanted to close her eyes and never open them again. She wanted to disappear.

Footsteps grew closer. A shadow fell between her and the ambulance headlights. She looked up, and there was her father, striding across the parking lot in one of his impeccably tailored suits. His lean face was set. His dark eyes inscrutable. He bore down on her fiercely, a hard, dangerous man come to collect his own.

She didn’t have the strength anymore to care.

“I’m fine,” she started.

“Shut up,” Quincy said roughly. He grabbed his daughter’s shoulder. Then he shocked them both by pulling her roughly off the sidewalk and folding her into his embrace. He pressed his cheek against her hair. “My God, I have been so worried about you. When I got the call from Mac… Kimberly, you are killing me.”

And then she shocked them both by bursting once more into tears. “We didn’t make it. I thought for sure this time I would be right. But we were slow and she was dead. Oh God, Daddy, how can I always be too late?”

“Shhh…”

She pulled back until she could gaze into his hard-lined face. For so much of her childhood, he had been a cool, remote figure. She respected him, she admired him. She strove desperately for his praise. But he remained out of reach, a larger-than-life figure who was always rushing out the door to assist other families, and rarely around for his own. Now, it was suddenly, frantically important to her that he understand. “If I’d just known how to move faster. I have no experience in the mountains. How could I grow up around here and not know anything about the woods? I kept tripping and falling, Dad, and then I stumbled into the stinging nettles and God, why couldn’t I have moved faster? ”

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

“Mac was right after all. I wanted to save Mandy and Mom, and since I can’t help them, I honestly thought saving this girl would make a difference. But they’re still dead and she’s still dead, and God, what is the point?”

“Kimberly, what happened to your mother and Mandy wasn’t your fault-”

She wrenched away from him. Screaming now, her words carrying across the parking lot, but she was beyond noticing. “Stop saying that! You always say that! Of course it was my fault. I’m the one who trusted him. I’m the one who told him all about my family. Without me, he never would’ve known how to reach them. Without me, he never would’ve killed them! So stop lying to me, Dad. What happened to Mom and Mandy is exactly my fault. I just let you take the blame because I know it makes you feel better!”

“Stop it! You were only twenty. A young girl. You can’t saddle yourself with this kind of guilt.”

“Why not? You do.”

“Then we’re both idiots, all right? We’re both idiots. What happened to your mom and Mandy… I would’ve died for them, Kimberly. Had I known, if I could’ve stopped it, I would’ve died for them.” His breathing had grown harsh. She was shocked to see the glitter of tears in his eyes.

“I would’ve died, too,” she whispered.

“Then we did the best we could, all we could. He was the enemy, Kimberly. He took their lives. And God help both of us, but sometimes the enemy is simply that good.”

“I want them back.”

“I know.”

“I miss them all the time. Even Mandy.”

“I know.”

“Dad, I don’t know why I’m still alive…”

“Because God took pity on me, Kimberly. Because without you, I think I would’ve gone insane.”

He pulled her back into his arms. She sobbed against his chest, crying harder. And she could feel him crying, too, her father’s tears falling onto her hair. Her stoic father, who didn’t even cry at funerals.

“I wanted to save her so badly,” Kimberly whispered.

“I know. It’s not bad to care. Someday, that will be your strength.”