Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

“You’re in my dream.”

“Do we know you?” the brunette asked.

“I think we knew the same man.”

“Will we get to ride the horse?” the brunette asked.

“I don’t know.”

“She’s very good,” said the blonde.

“There’s never been anything my sister couldn’t ride,” Nora Ray replied proudly.

“I have a sister,” said the brunette. “Will she dream of me?”

“Every night.”

“That’s very sad.”

“I know.”

“I wish there’s something we could do.”

“You’re dead,” Nora Ray said. “You can’t do anything at all. Now, I think it’s up to me.”

Then her sister was gone, the pasture had vanished, and she was spiraling away from the pond long before she was ready. She woke up wide-eyed in her bed, her heart beating too fast and her hands knotted around her comforter.

Nora Ray sat up slowly. She poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on her nightstand. She took a long drink and felt the cool liquid slide down her throat. Sometimes, she could still feel the salt building like rime around her mouth, coating her chin, covering her lips. She could remember the deep, unquenchable thirst that ran cell-deep, as the sun pounded and the salt built and she went mad with thirst. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

She finished her glass of water now. Let the moisture linger on her lips, like dew on a rose. Then she left her room.

Her mother slept on the couch, her head crooked awkwardly to the side, while on the TV Lucille Ball crawled into a vat of grapes and gamely stomped away. In the neighboring bedroom, Nora Ray glimpsed her father, slumbering alone on the queen-sized bed.

The house was silent. It filled Nora Ray with a loneliness that threatened to cut her heart in two. Three years later, and no one had healed. Nothing was better. She could still remember the harsh grit of salt, leaching the last moisture from her body. She could remember her rage and confusion as the crabs nibbled on her toes. She could remember her simple desire to survive this hell and return to her family. If she could just see them again, slide into her parents’ loving embrace…

Except her family had never returned to her. She had survived. They had not.

And now, two more girls in the pastureland of her dream. She knew what that meant. The heat had arrived on Sunday, and the shadowy man from her nightmares had resumed his lethal game.

The clock glowed nearly two A.M. She decided she didn’t care. She picked up the phone and dialed the number she knew by heart. A moment later, she said, “I need to reach Special Agent McCormack. No, I don’t want to leave a message. I need to see him. Quick.”

Tina didn’t dream. Her exhausted body had given out, and now she was collapsed in the mud in a sleep that bordered on unconsciousness. One arm still touched the boulder, a link to relative safety. The rest of her belonged to the muck. It oozed between her fingers, coated her hair, slithered up her throat.

Things came and went in the sucking muck. Some had no interest in prey quite that large. Some had no interest in a meal that wasn’t already dead. Then, up above, a dark shadow lumbered along the path, stopping at the edge of the pit. A giant head peered down, dark eyes gleaming in the night. It smelled warm-blooded flesh, a fine, delectable meal that was just its size.

More sniffing. Two giant paws raked one side of the hole. The depth was too great, the terrain not manageable. The bear grunted, lumbered on. If the creature ever came up, it’d try again. Until then, there were other fine things to eat in the dark.

The man didn’t sleep. Two A.M., he packed his bags. He had to move quickly now. He could feel the darkness gathering at the edges of his mind. Time was becoming more fluid, moments slipping through his fingers and disappearing into the abyss.

Pressure was growing in the back of his skull. He could feel it, a true physical presence at the top of his spine, with another tendril starting to press against the inner canal of his left ear. A tumor, he was pretty sure. He’d had one before, years ago when he’d had his first “episode” of vanishing time. Had it been only minutes he’d lost in the beginning? He couldn’t even remember that anymore.

Time grew fluid, black holes took over his life. One tumor was removed. Another came back to eat his brain. It was probably the size of a grapefruit by now. Or maybe even a watermelon. Maybe his brain wasn’t even his brain anymore, but a giant malignant mass of constantly dividing cells. He didn’t doubt it. That would explain the bad dreams, the restless nights. It would explain why the fire came to him so often now, and made him do things he knew he shouldn’t.

He found himself thinking of his mother more. Her pale face, her thin, hunched shoulders. He thought of his father, too, and the way he always strode through their tiny cabin in the woods.

“A man’s gotta be tough, boys, a man’s gotta be strong. Don’t you listen to no government types, they just want to turn us into mealy-mouthed dependents who can’t live without a federal handout. Not us boys. We got the land. We will always be strong, as long as we got the land.”

Strong enough to beat his wife, abuse his kids and wring the neck of the family cat. Strong enough, and isolated enough, to live as he goddamned pleased, without even a neighbor to hear the screams.

The black storm clouds built, rolled, and roared. Now he was sitting tied to a chair, while his father took a strap to his brother, his mother washed the dishes, and his father told them both that next it would be their turn. Now he and his brother were huddled under the front porch, planning their big escape, while above their heads their mother wept and their father told her to go inside and wipe that goddamn blood off of her face. Now it was late at night and he and his brother were sneaking out the front door; at the last minute they turned, and saw their mother standing pale and silent in the moonlight. Go, her eyes told them. Run away while you still can. Her bruised cheeks were streaked with wordless tears. They crept back inside. And she clutched them to her breast as if they were the only hope she had left.

And he knew then that he hated his mother as much as he had ever loved her. And he knew then that she felt the same about him and his brother. They were the crabs stuck together in the bottom of a bucket, and pulling one another down so no one ever made it to freedom.

The man swayed on his feet. He felt the dark roll in, felt himself totter on the edge of the abyss… Time was slipping through his fingers.

The man turned. He drove his fist forcefully into the wall, and let the pain bring him back. The room came into focus. The dark spots cleared from his eyes. Better.

The man crossed to his dresser. He got out his gun.

He prepared for what must happen next.

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

2:43 A . M .

Temperature: 88 degrees

RAINIE AND MAC WERE STILL WORKING THE VICTIM’S BODY when Quincy materialized before them. His gaze went from them to Kathy Levine, then back to them.

“She’s one of us,” Rainie said, as if he’d asked a question.

“Definitely?”

“Well, she risked ordering a search team based solely on Mac’s hunch, and now she’s picking rice out of a corpse’s pocket. You tell us.”

Quincy raised a brow and glanced at Levine again. “Rice?”

“Uncooked white,” she said briskly. “Long grain. Then again, I’m a botanist, not a chef, so you may want a second opinion.”

Quincy switched his attention to Mac, who was carefully going over the girl’s left foot. “Why rice?”