Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

“Damned if I know.”

“Anything else?”

“She’s wearing a necklace-some kind of vial filled with a clear fluid. That might be a hint. Then we got about nine different bits of leaves, four or five samples of dirt, half a dozen kinds of grass, some crushed flower petals, and a whole lotta blood.” Mac gestured to a stack of evidence containers. “Help yourself to a sample. And good luck figuring out if it came from her hike through the woods or from him. This new strategy of his definitely puts a wrinkle in things. What’d you do with Kimberly?”

“Feds got her.”

Three heads shot up. Quincy smiled grimly. “I believe there’s been a change of plans.”

“Quincy,” Mac said curtly. “Tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

Quincy didn’t look at him directly. Instead, his gaze went to Rainie. “The FBI case team arrived. No Kaplan, no Watson. In fact, I don’t recognize anyone on the team. They pulled in, spotted Kimberly, and immediately pulled her aside for questioning. I’m supposed to be waiting outside the lodge.”

“Those assholes!” Rainie exploded. “First they want nothing to do with this. Now it’s suddenly their party, and no one else is invited to play. What are they going to do? Start all over at this stage of the game?”

“I imagine they are going to do exactly that. The FBI can launch a pretty good search, you know. They’ll bring in computer operators, stenographers, dog handlers, search-and-rescue teams, topography experts, and recon pilots. Within twenty-four hours, they’ll have a full ops center set up roadside, while planes search the surrounding areas with infrared photography and volunteers stand by to assist. It’s not too shabby.”

“Infrared photography is bullshit this time of year,” Mac said tightly. “We tried it ourselves. Every damn boulder and wandering bear shows up as a hit. Not to mention deer also look roughly like humans in the still photos. We ended up with hundreds of targets and not a single one of them was ever the missing girl. Besides, that assumes the next victim is somewhere in these woods, and I already know she isn’t. The man doesn’t repeat an area, and the whole point of his game is to ramp up the challenge. The other girl is somewhere far from here, and believe it or not, someplace even more dangerous.”

“Judging from what I’ve seen so far, you’re probably correct.” Quincy turned around, looking back up the darkened path. “I give the new federal agents ten minutes before they arrive down here, and that delay is only because Kimberly promised to be unforthcoming with her answers. I know she’s good at that.” He grimaced, then turned back. “All right, for the next ten minutes at least, I’m part of this case and have authority over evidence. So, Ms. Levine, as a botanist, are any of these samples definitely out of place?”

“The rice,” she said immediately.

“I’ll take half.”

“The vial with fluid, maybe. Though that could be a personal possession.”

“Do we have an inventory of what any of the girls were last seen wearing?”

“No,” answered Rainie.

Quincy mulled it over. “I’ll take half the fluid.”

Mac nodded, and immediately produced a glass vial from the evidence processing kit. Quincy noticed his hands were shaking slightly. Maybe fatigue. Maybe rage. Quincy knew from his own experience that it didn’t really matter. Just as long as you got the job done.

“Why take only half the samples?” Levine asked.

“Because if I took the whole sample, something would be missing. The other agents might notice and ask, and then I might feel compelled to hand it over. If, on the other hand, nothing’s obviously missing…”

“They’ll never ask.”

“And I’ll never tell,” Quincy said with a grim smile. “Now, what else?”

Levine gestured helplessly to the pile of bags. “I honestly don’t know. Lighting’s not great, I don’t have a magnifying glass on me. Given the state of half of this stuff, I’d say she picked it up crashing through the underbrush. But without more time for analysis…”

“He generally leaves three to four clues,” Mac said quietly.

“So we’re missing something.”

“Or he’s making it harder,” Rainie commented.

Mac shrugged. “I’d say the stack of false positives makes it hard enough.”

Quincy glanced at his watch. “You have five minutes. Sort through, then go. Oh, and Rainie, love, better turn off your cell phone.”

Mac had finished with the girl’s foot and was moving up the body. He tilted back the girl’s head, cracked open her mouth, then inserted a gloved finger into the abyss. “He’s twice hidden something in a victim’s throat,” he said by way of explanation. He twisted his hand left, then right, then sighed and shook his head.

“I got something.” Rainie looked up sharply. “Can I get some better light? I don’t know if this is just bad dandruff or what.”

Quincy adjusted his flashlight. Rainie parted the girl’s hair. There appeared to be a fine powder dusted over the strands. As Rainie shook the victim’s head, more residue fell onto the plastic bag she had laid beneath it.

Levine moved closer, catching some of the dust on her finger and sniffing experimentally. “I don’t know. Not dandruff. Too gritty. Almost… I don’t know.”

“Take a sample,” Quincy ordered tersely, his gaze returning to the path. There, he heard it again. Not far off anymore. The thump of descending footfalls.

“Rainie…” he murmured tightly.

She hastily scraped a small bit of the powder into a glass vial, corked it, and threw it in her fanny pack. Kathy added some of the rice; Mac had already claimed half of the fluid.

They were scrambling to their feet as Quincy moved toward Levine. “If they ask, you started working the scene under my orders. This is what you found, properly catalogued and waiting for them. As for me, last you knew, I was heading away from the scene. Trust me, you won’t be lying.”

The footsteps pounded closer. Quincy shook the botanist’s hand. “Thank you,” he told Kathy Levine.

“Good luck.”

Quincy headed down the hillside and Rainie and Mac quickly followed suit. Levine watched as the darkness opened up, and then there was no one there at all.

“For the last time, how did you know to come to the park? What led you and Special Agent McCormack straight to Big Meadows and another girl’s body?”

“You’d have to ask Special Agent McCormack about his reasoning. Personally, I was in the mood for a hike.”

“So you just magically discovered the body? Your second corpse in twenty-four hours?”

“I guess I have a gift.”

“Will you be asking for another hardship leave? Do you need more time to grieve, Ms. Quincy, in between finding all these dead bodies?”

Kimberly thinned her lips. They’d been at this for two hours now, she and Agent Tightass, who had introduced himself with a real name, though she’d long forgotten what it was. He’d thrust, she’d parry. He’d punch, she’d dodge. Neither one of them was having much fun, and in fact, given the late hour and lack of sleep, both of them were getting more than a little pissed.

“I want water,” she said now.

“In a minute.”

“I hiked five hours in nearly a hundred-degree heat. Give me water, or when I succumb to dehydration, I’ll sue your ass, end your career, and keep you from ever having that fat government pension to fund your golden years. Are we clear?”

“Your attitude doesn’t speak well for an aspiring agent,” Tightass said curtly.

“Yeah, they didn’t care for it much at the Academy either. Now I want my water.”

Tightass was still scowling, obviously debating whether he should give in, when the door opened and Kimberly’s father strode in. Funny, for the first time in years, she was genuinely happy to see him, and they’d only parted ways hours ago.