Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

“But it hurts. And now I have nothing left. The game is over, and the wrong person has won, and I don’t know how to simply go home and wait for the next match. It’s life and death. It shouldn’t be this cavalier.”

“It’s not over, Kimberly.”

“Of course it is. We didn’t find the second girl. Now all we can do is wait.”

“No. Not this time.” Her father took a deep breath, then gently pulled away. He looked at her in the dark, breathless night, and his face was as sad as she’d ever seen it. “Kimberly,” he said quietly. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, but this time, there weren’t just two girls. This time, the man took four.”

Rainie was huffing badly by the time she made it down to the crime scene. Lanterns marked the trail, so the footing wasn’t bad, but geez Louise, it was a ways down the mountain. And for the record, while it was now after midnight and the moon ruled the sky, apparently no one had bothered to tell the heat. She’d soaked through both her T-shirt and hiking shorts, ruining her third outfit of the day.

She hated this weather. She hated this place. She wanted to go home, and not to the high-rise co-op she shared with Quincy in downtown Manhattan, but home to Bakersville, Oregon. Where the fir trees grew to staggering heights, and a fresh ocean breeze blew off the water. Where people knew each other by first names, and even if it made it hard to escape the past, it also gave you an anchor in the present. Bakersville, where she’d had a town, a community, a place that felt like home…

The pang of longing struck hard and deep. As it had been doing so often these days. A ghost pain for the past. And it filled her with a restlessness she was having a harder and harder time trying to hide. Quincy could sense it, too. She caught him watching her sometimes with a question in his eyes. She wished she could give him an answer, but how could she, when she didn’t have one herself?

Sometimes she ached for things she couldn’t name. And sometimes, when she thought of how much she loved Quincy, it simply hurt her more.

She found Mac standing with a cluster of three people over by the body. The first guy appeared to be the Medical Examiner. Second guy had the look of an assistant. Third person was a woman with short red hair and lots of freckles. She was built like a firecracker, with the muscled legs and broad shoulders of a serious hiker. Not the ME’s office. Probably leader of the search-and-rescue operations.

Thirty seconds later, Mac made the introductions, and Rainie was pleased to find out she was right. ME turned out to be Howard Weiss, his assistant was Dan Lansing, and the redhead was Kathy Levine, who had indeed organized the search.

Levine was still talking to the ME, so the three of them broke away, leaving Mac and Rainie standing over the partially wrapped body.

“Where’s Quincy?” Mac asked.

“He said he needed to have a fatherly chat with Kimberly. I took one look at his face and decided not to argue.”

“They fight a lot?”

“Only because they’re too much alike.” She shrugged. “Someday they’ll figure that out.”

“What about Kaplan and Watson? Are they gonna join the party, or are they not allowed off the base?”

“Not known yet. Watson has a full-time job at the Academy, so while the FBI is definitely assembling a team, it probably won’t involve him personally. Kaplan, on the other hand, is lead investigator on the Quantico homicide. So he has plenty of time, but lacks jurisdiction. Given that he’s a resourceful man, I figure in another hour or two, he’ll crack that nut and show up with full NCIS entourage. Oh, aren’t we the luckiest duckies in the whole wide world?”

She peered down into the black plastic body bag, the contents clearly lit by one of the generator-powered lights. “Whoa.”

“Nearly two dozen puncture wounds,” Mac said. “And countin’. Poor girl must’ve wandered right into the thick of things. After that, she never stood a chance.”

“Her purse? The gallon of water?”

“No sign yet. We don’t know where she was abandoned, though. In daylight, we can find her trail and backtrack. Probably discover her things along the way.”

“Seems strange she’d drop the water.”

He shrugged. “In this heat, a gallon of water is good for about two to four hours. She’s been out here for at least twenty-four, so…”

“So even when the guy plays nice, he’s still a total bastard.” Rainie straightened. “Well, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

Mac was silent for a moment. She could see fresh lines on his forehead, a gaunt set to his jaw. He’d been pushing himself hard and he looked it. Still, he didn’t blink an eye. “If it’s all the same, I think I’d like to start with the good news tonight.”

“We might have a name.” Rainie dug out her spiral notepad from her fanny pack and started flipping through. She glanced once more at the body. “Brunette, twenty years old, brown eyes, distinguishable by a birthmark on her upper left breast.” She bent down, then paused, with a meaningful glance at Mac. He was already looking away. She approved. Some people handled bodies as if they were nothing more than dolls. Rainie had never liked that. This was a girl. She’d had a family, a life, people who deeply loved her. There was no need to disrespect her any more than necessary.

Gently, she lifted the top of the girl’s blouse. She had to move her head to let in the light. Then she could see it clearly, the top edge just peeking out from beneath the edge of the girl’s black satin bra-a dark brown clover-shaped birthmark.

“Yeah,” Rainie said quietly. “It’s Vivienne Benson. She was a student at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, spending the summer working for her uncle. He called her landlady yesterday when she didn’t show up for work. Landlady went up to the apartment, found it empty, and the dog howling to be let out of its crate. She took pity on the poor beast, then called the police. According to her, it’s not like Vivienne, or her roommate, Karen Clarence, to stay out all night. Particularly because of their dog, whom apparently they love madly.”

“Karen is a blonde?”

“Actually, Karen’s a brunette.”

Mac immediately frowned. “The body we found at Quantico had blond hair.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not Karen Clarence?”

“No. Betsy Radison. Her brother made the ID just a few hours ago.”

“Rainie, honey, I’m a little tired right now. Can you take pity on an exhausted GBI agent and start your story over in English?”

“I’d be delighted. Turns out the landlady is a real font of information. She was sitting out two nights ago, when Vivienne and Karen came downstairs to wait for their ride. According to her, Viv and Karen were picked up by two other friends from college, and the four of them were going to a bar in Stafford.”

“The four of them?”

“Enter Betsy Radison and Tina Krahn, also living in Fredericksburg and taking some summer courses. All four girls went out Tuesday night in Betsy’s Saab convertible. None has been seen since. Fredericksburg P.D. went into Betsy and Tina’s apartment late tonight. All they could find were a dozen messages from Tina Krahn’s mother on the answering machine. Apparently she didn’t like her last conversation with her daughter. She’s been frantically trying to reach Tina ever since.”

“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.”