Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

“He’s contacted her,” Mac murmured.

“It’s possible.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. Writing his letters isn’t enough anymore. Calling me is probably just frustrating him. Hell, I hope so. So now he’s contacting a past victim… Son of a bitch!”

“What do you want to do?”

“I can’t go back to Atlanta. I don’t have time.”

“I told Nora Ray you were out of town.”

“And?”

“And she said she would come to you. In all honesty, Mac, I think that’s what she wants.”

Mac blinked his eyes, dumbfounded. After everything Nora Ray had been through. To drag her back into this mess. A civilian. A victim. “No,” he said gruffly.

His supervisor was quiet.

“No way,” Mac said again. “She doesn’t deserve this. He messed with her life once already. Now it’s time for her to be free of him, to heal and be with her family. Hell, to forget this ever happened.”

“I don’t think that’s working for her.”

“I can’t protect her, Lee! I don’t know where this guy is, I don’t know where he’s gonna strike next. It’s a long story, but I’ve been working with a former FBI profiler, and he thinks the killer may be keeping tabs on us.”

“I’ll tell her that.”

“Damn right!”

“And if she still wants to come?”

“She’s a fool!”

“Mac, if she knows something, if she has a lead…”

Mac hung his head. He raked his hand through his hair. God, there were times he hated his job. “I can meet her at the airport in Richmond,” he said at last. “Sooner versus later. Day’s young and a lot can happen yet.”

“I’ll be in touch. And Mac-good luck fishing.”

Mac flipped his phone shut. He rested his forehead against the cool silver shape. What a mess. He should go back to bed. Or at the very least, crawl back into a shower. When he got up the second time, maybe this day would make more sense.

But the fuzz was already clearing. He was thinking of water and rice, and obscure clues that had to lead to real and terrible places. They had been lucky to sleep at all last night. God knows when they’d sleep again.

He rose and crossed to the bed. Kimberly’s arms were wrapped around her waist, her body held tightly together, as if she were protecting herself even when asleep. He sat down on the edge of the mattress. He touched the curve of her jaw with his thumb, then feathered back her short, dusty-blond hair. She didn’t stir.

She looked more vulnerable in sleep, her fine features delicate and even a trace fragile. He didn’t let the image fool him. A guy could spend years just working on learning the curve of her smile. And still, one day, she’d walk out the door and never look back. Probably think she’d done him a favor.

In her world, guys like him didn’t fall for girls like her. Funny, ’cause in his world, he was already long gone.

He stroked his fingers down her arm and her eyes finally fluttered open.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered.

“Did someone else die?”

“Not if we keep moving.”

Kimberly sat up and, without another word, headed for the bathroom. He lay down on the bed and placed his hand on the spot still warm from the heat of her body. He could hear the sound of running water now, the rattle of old, rusty pipes. He thought again of yesterday, and the sight of Kimberly surrounded by dozens of rattlesnakes.

“I’m going to take better care of you,” he vowed in the quiet of the room.

But he already wondered where the day would lead, and if that promise could be kept.

Richmond, Virginia

8:08 A . M .

Temperature: 88 degrees

“SURE AS HELL LOOKS LIKE WATER TO ME.”

Kimberly sighed with relief, while Mac visibly sagged against the wall of the tiny office. Neither of them had realized just how tensely they’d been awaiting that news until USGS hydrologist Brian Knowles had delivered it.

“Could it be holy water?” Kimberly asked.

Knowles shot her a look. “I don’t exactly have a test for that. I’m just a mere government employee, you know, not the Pope.”

“But can you help them out?” Ray Lee Chee prodded him. He’d personally brought Mac and Kimberly to Knowles’s office just ten minutes earlier. Now he was perched on the edge of a gunmetal-gray filing cabinet, swinging his feet rhythmically.

Mac spoke up. “We’d like to be able to test the sample. Ideally, we need to trace it to a source such as a specific pond or stream or watering hole. Can you do that?”

Knowles yawned, rolled out one sleepy shoulder and seemed to consider it. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, a good-looking guy with a thick head of woolly brown hair and the world’s rattiest jeans. Like Ray Lee Chee, he appeared remarkably fit. Unlike the geographer, however, mornings weren’t his thing. Brian Knowles looked as tired as Kimberly felt.

“Well,” he said shortly, “we can test a water sample for all sorts of things: pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, turbidity, salinity, nitrogen, ammonia, arsenic, bacteria… Then there’s water hardness, tests for various inorganic constituents such as iron, manganese, and sulfates, as well as tests for various water pollutants. So testing, yeah, we can do that.”

“Good, good,” Mac said encouragingly.

“Just one hitch, though.” Knowles spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “We’re not out in the field, and you can’t do squat with six drops of water.”

Mac raised a startled brow. He glanced at Kimberly, who shrugged. “At least we brought you water,” she commented. “We only gave Ray a picture of a leaf.”

“Damn right. And I did good,” Ray boasted. “So don’t you ruin our track record now, Knowles. We keep this up, and maybe we can get our own TV show. You know, Law and Order: U.S. Geological Survey Unit . Think of the chicks, Brian. Think of the chicks.”

Knowles, however, didn’t appear convinced. He leaned back in his desk chair and locked his hands behind his head. “Look, I’m just being practical here. To get accurate results from any sort of water test, you need to be at the source, looking at the sample in situ . The minute you bottled up this water, a couple of things happened. One, you changed the temperature. Two, you removed it from its oxygen source, rendering a test for diffused oxygen useless. Three, the pH is going up from off-gas. Four, you may have contaminated the sample from the container itself, and five… Well, hell, I can’t think of five at the moment, but let’s just agree it’s not good. Whatever I do to this sucker, the results are about as meaningful as a sixth toe-gives you something to look at, but doesn’t do a damn thing.”

“But we don’t have a source,” Mac reminded him curtly. “That’s the whole damn point. This sample is what we’ve been given, the source is what we gotta find. Come on, surely there’s something you can do.”

Mac stared at the man with mute appeal. After another moment, Knowles caved with a sigh. “It won’t be accurate,” he warned.

“At this point, we’ll take an educated guess.”

“I don’t know if I’d even call it that.” But Knowles was fingering the glass tube bearing their precious sample. “You’re sure you don’t have more? I’d prefer about forty milliliters.”

“The best I could do would be six more drops.”

Knowles blinked. “Damn, whoever gave you this was definitely feeling stingy.”

“He likes a challenge.”

“No kidding. I don’t suppose you’re gonna tell me anything more about this case.”

“Nope.”

“Ah well, never hurts to ask.” Knowles sighed again, sat up in his chair and stared intently at the sample. “Okay. It’s possible to test for salinity. We just need enough water to cover the end of the probe. I could do pH, which also uses a meter. Of course, the probe on the pH meter can deposit a tiny amount of potassium chloride in a sample, raising the electrical conductivity and screwing the salinity test… So we do salinity first, I guess, then examine pH. As for mineral testing… Hell, I don’t know if any of our test equipment is even calibrated for a sample this small. Bacteria tests… You have to run the water through a sieve, not sure that would do much here. Same with testing for plant matter.” He looked up. “Salinity and pH it is then, though I’m telling you now, the sample size is too limited, the methodology flawed, and all the results will be too relative to draw any sort of accurate conclusions. Other than that, what the hell, I’m game. I’ve never worked a murder case before.”