The Killing Hour (31 page)

Tina plummeted down into the muck.

No scream this time. The mud swallowed her whole and after all these days, she did not protest.

Kimberly was still talking forty-five minutes later. She talked of water and food and warm sun. She talked of the weather and the baseball season and the birds in the sky. She talked of old friends and new friends and won’t it be nice to meet in person?

She talked of holding on. She talked of never giving up. She talked of miracles and how they could happen if you willed them hard enough.

Then Mac came out of the woods. She took one look at his face and stopped talking.

Seventeen minutes later, they brought the body up.

CHAPTER 40

Lee County, Virginia
7:53
P
.
M
.
Temperature: 98 degrees

THE SUN STARTED TO DESCEND,
surfing bright orange waves of heat. Shadows grew longer, while it remained stifling hot. And in the abandoned sawmill, vehicles started to pile up.

First came more members of the cavers’ search-and-rescue team. They finished hauling out the lifeless body of a young girl with short-cropped brown hair. Her yellow-flowered slip dress had been reduced to tatters by the acidic water. The fingernails on both of her hands were broken and ragged, as if at some point she’d clawed frantically at the hard dolomite walls.

The rest of her was blue and bloated; Josh Shudt and his men had found her body floating in the long tunnel that connected the cavern’s sinkhole entrance to the main chamber. They’d pushed through to the cathedral room after pulling out her body. There, on a ledge, they’d found an empty gallon jug of water and a purse.

According to her driver’s license, the victim’s name was Karen Clarence, and just one week ago she had turned twenty-one.

It didn’t take much to fill in the rest. The UNSUB had delivered the victim, most likely drugged and unconscious, to the main chamber. The stovepipe skylight forty feet above would’ve offered precious little light when the girl awoke. Enough to realize she had a shallow pond of relatively safe rainwater to her left and a stream of highly polluted, toxic water to her right. Maybe she stayed on the ledge for a while. Maybe she tried the small pond and promptly got bitten by its already stressed inhabitants—the white, eyeless crayfish, or the tiny, rice-sized isopods. Maybe she even encountered a ring-necked snake.

Either way, the girl had probably ended up wet. And once you got wet in an environment that’s constantly fifty-five degrees, hypothermia’s only a matter of time.

Shudt told them all a story of a caver who’d lasted two weeks lost in five miles of winding underground caverns. Of course, he’d been wearing proper gear and had a pack full of protein bars. He’d also been lost in a healthy cavern, where the water was not only safe to drink, but according to local lore, brought the drinker good luck.

Karen Clarence hadn’t been so lucky. She’d managed not to brain her skull on a thick stalactite. She’d managed not to bruise a knee or sprain a wrist crawling in the dark amid the stalagmites. But at some point, she’d headed straight into the polluted stream. Water that acidic must have burned her skin, just as it promptly ate holes in her dress. Was she beyond caring at that point? Had the cold set in so deep, the burning liquid felt good against her flesh? Or had she simply been that determined? She would die sitting on the ledge. The shallow pond led nowhere. That left only the stream to guide her back to civilization.

Either way, she immersed herself in the stream, her clothes eroding, her face streaming with tears. She had followed the stream to the narrow tunnel. She had pushed her head and shoulders into that long, skinny space. And then she had died in the darkness there.

Ray Lee Chee showed up shortly after seven. With him came Brian Knowles, Lloyd Armitage, and Kathy Levine. They unloaded two Jeep Cherokees filled with field equipment, camping packs, and bins of books. Their mood in the beginning was giddy, bordering on festive. Then they saw the body.

They put down their field kits. They held a moment of silence for a girl they’d never met. Then, they got to work.

Thirty minutes later Rainie and Quincy arrived, bearing Ennunzio in tow. Nora Ray left the camp shortly thereafter. And Kimberly followed suit.

The nature experts had the clues. The law enforcement professionals had the body. She wasn’t sure what was left for her to do.

She found Nora Ray sitting on a tree stump deeper in the woods. A fern sprouted green shoots nearby and Nora Ray was running her hands through the fronds.

“Long day,” Kimberly said. She leaned against a nearby tree trunk.

“It’s not over yet,” Nora Ray said.

Kimberly smiled thinly. She’d forgotten—this girl was good. “Holding up?”

Nora Ray shrugged. “I guess. I’ve never seen a dead person before. I thought I would be more upset. But mostly I’m just . . . tired.”

“It has the same effect on me.”

Nora Ray finally looked up at her. “Why are you here?”

“In the woods? Anything’s better than the sun.”

“No. On this case, working with Special Agent McCormack. He said you were illegal, or something like that. Did you . . . Are you?”

“Oh. You mean, am I a relative of one of the victims?”

Nora Ray nodded soberly.

“No. Not this time.” Kimberly slid down the tree trunk. The dirt felt cooler against her legs. It made it easier to talk. “Until two days ago, actually, I was a new agent at the FBI Academy. I was seven weeks from graduation, and while my supervisors will tell you I have trouble with authority figures, I think I would’ve made it in the end. I think I would’ve graduated.”

“What happened?”

“I went for a run in the woods and I found a dead body. Betsy Radison. She was the one driving that night.”

“She was the first?”

Kimberly nodded.

“And now we’re finding her friends.”

“One by one,” Kimberly whispered softly.

“It doesn’t seem fair.”

“No, it’s not meant to be fair. It’s meant to be about one man. And our job is to catch him.”

They both drifted off to silence again. There wasn’t much sound in the woods. A faint breeze crinkling the damp, heavy trees. The distant rustle of a squirrel or bird, foraging in a pile of dead leaves.

“My parents must be worried by now,” Nora Ray said abruptly. “My mom . . . Ever since what happened to my sister, she doesn’t like me to be away for more than an hour. I’m supposed to check in by phone every thirty minutes. Then she can yell at me to come home.”

“Parents aren’t meant to outlive their children.”

“And yet it happens all the time. Like you said, life isn’t fair.” Nora Ray jerked impatiently on the fern frond. “I’m twenty-one years old, you know. Frankly, I should be back at college. I should be planning a career, going on dates, drinking too hard some nights and studying diligently on others. I should be doing smart things and stupid things and all sorts of things to figure out my own life. Instead . . . My sister died, and my life went with her. No one in my house does anything anymore. We just . . . exist.”

“Three years isn’t that long. Maybe your family needs longer to make it through the stages of grief.”

“Make it through?” Nora Ray’s voice was incredulous. “We’re not making it through. We haven’t even started the process. Everything’s stagnant. It’s like my life has been cut in half. There’s everything that was before that one night—college classes and a boyfriend and an upcoming party—and now there is everything after. Except
after
doesn’t have any content.
After
is still an empty slate.”

“You have your dreams,” Kimberly said quietly.

Nora Ray immediately appeared troubled. “You think I’m making them up.”

“No. I’m absolutely sure you dream of your sister. But some hold that dreams are the unconscious’s way of working things out. If you’re still dreaming of your sister, then maybe your unconscious has something to work out. Maybe your parents aren’t the only ones who aren’t over her yet.”

“I don’t like this conversation very much,” Nora Ray said.

Kimberly merely shrugged. Nora Ray narrowed her eyes.

“What are you? Some kind of shrink?”

“I’ve studied psychology, but I’m not a shrink.”

“So you’ve studied psychobabble and you’ve attended half of the FBI Academy. What does that make you?”

“Someone who also lost her sister. And her mother, too, for that matter.” Kimberly smiled crookedly in the failing light. “Trump. In the contest of who has gotten dumped on more by life, I believe I just won.”

Nora Ray had the good grace to appear ashamed. Her hand was back on the fern. Now she methodically picked off its fronds. “What happened?”

“Same old story. Bad man believes my father, an FBI profiler, ruined his life. Bad man decides to seek revenge by destroying my father’s family. Bad man targets my older sister first—she is troubled and has never been a great judge of character. He kills her and makes it look like an accident. Then he uses everything she has told him to befriend my mother. Except my mother is smarter than he thinks. In the end, there is nothing accidental about her death. The blood spray goes on for seven rooms. Finally, bad man goes after me. Except my father gets him first. And now I’ve spent the last six years much like you—trying to figure out how to go on merrily living a life that’s already been touched by too much death.”

“Is that why you joined the FBI? So you could help others?”

“No. I joined the FBI so I could be heavily armed, and also help others.”

Nora Ray nodded as if that made perfect sense. “And now you’re going to catch the man who killed my sister. That’s good. The FBI is lucky to have you.”

“The FBI doesn’t have me anymore.”

“But you said you were halfway through training . . .”

“I took a personal leave to pursue this case, Nora Ray. The FBI Academy is not fond of that sort of thing. I’m not sure I’ll ever be allowed back.”

“I don’t understand. You’re going after a killer, you’re trying to save people’s lives. What more can they want from an agent?”

“Objectivity, professionalism, a clear understanding of the big picture, and an ability to make tough decisions. When I left the Academy, I did it to help one life. Staying, on the other hand, and completing my training, would have given me the opportunity to save hundreds. My supervisors are tiresome at times, but they aren’t stupid.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because Betsy Radison looked just like my sister, Mandy.”

“Oh,” Nora Ray said quietly.

“Oh,” Kimberly agreed. She leaned her head back against the rough bark of the tree and sighed deeply. It felt better than she would’ve thought to say the words out loud. It felt good to finally confront the truth.

She had lied to Mac when she’d told him this wasn’t about her family. She had lied to her father when she had told him she could handle things. But mostly, she had lied to herself. Young, passionate Kimberly, fighting valiantly for the underdog in a jurisdiction-mad case gone wrong. It sounded so good, but in fact, her decision to help Mac had had nothing to do with Betsy Radison, or the Eco-Killer or even her supervisor Mark Watson. All along, it had been about herself. Six years of grieving and growing and telling herself she was doing just fine, and all it had taken was one victim who looked slightly like Mandy for her to throw it all away. Her career, her dreams, her future. She hadn’t even put up much of a fight.

Betsy Radison had died, and Kimberly had run back to the heavy burden of her past as if it were the ultimate comfort food. Why not? As long as she kept obsessing about her family’s death, she’d never have to face the future. As long as she kept dwelling on her mother and Mandy, she would never have to define Kimberly. She had wondered what her life would’ve been like if her mother and sister had never died. In truth, her life could still be about whatever she wanted it to be. If she was that strong. If she was that smart. Maybe she could even fall in love. You never knew.

“What happens now?” Nora Ray asked softly.

“Short-term now, or long-term now?”

“Short-term now.”

“Ray and the team from the USGS figure out the clues left with this victim. Then we try to find the fourth girl. And then we try to find the Eco-Killer and light up his ass.”

Nora Ray nodded with satisfaction. “And long-term now?”

“Long-term now, you and I finally realize that none of it has made a difference. Your sister is still dead, my family is still gone, and we still have to get on with the rest of our lives. So we start seriously wading through the grief and seriously wading through the guilt and see if we can’t make something out of this mess. Or we do nothing at all, and let a couple of killers take what little we have left.”

“I don’t like long-term now very much,” Nora Ray said.

“I know,” Kimberly said. “I’m a little worried about it myself.”

CHAPTER 41

Lee County, Virginia
8:53
P
.
M
.
Temperature: 96 degrees

THE BATS CAME OUT.
In the inky hues of fading daylight, they glided gracefully among the trees, dive-bombing clusters of fireflies and scattering the flickering lights. The humidity was still unbearable, but with the sun low in the sky and the bats feasting silently overhead, dusk took on a peaceful, almost soothing feel.

When Kimberly was younger, she and her sister had loved to catch fireflies. They would run around their back lawn with Mason jars, trying desperately to capture the shooting darts of lights. Mandy had been horrible at it, but Kimberly had gotten pretty good. They’d sit around the patio table, trying to feed the fireflies stalks of fresh-cut grass or tender stems of dandelions. Then they’d let the flies go again; their mother didn’t allow bugs in the house.

Now Kimberly sat in the circle they had formed around a Coleman lantern, her knee brushing Mac’s, while Rainie and Quincy talked of contacting the local coroner. Ennunzio and Nora Ray sat across from Kimberly. Ray and his team remained off to one side, still working the body.

“We’ve done the best we can,” Quincy was saying. “Now we need to notify the official case team.”

“It’ll only piss them off,” Mac said.

“Why? Because we’ve moved the body, destroyed chain of custody for the evidence, and made the crime scene perfectly useless for basic investigative procedures?” Quincy regarded the younger man drolly. “Yes, I’m sure they will have a few thoughts on the subject.”

“Saving a life always takes priority over preserving a scene,” Mac insisted stubbornly.

“I’m not questioning what we did,” Quincy said. “I’m simply trying to bring us back to reality. We found the body, we brought in professionals to analyze the clues, and now we need to start thinking about what should happen next. I certainly hope none of you is suggesting that we return the body to the cavern. Or worse, leave it unattended.”

Everyone shifted uncomfortably. Quincy was right; none of them had thought that far ahead.

“You contact the official case team, and we’ll spend the rest of the night in jail,” Kimberly pointed out. “Which pretty much defeats the purpose of coming here in the first place.”

“Agreed. I was thinking you and Mac should continue. Rainie and I will wait here for the proper authorities. Sooner or later, someone must face the music.” His gaze rested on Rainie’s face.

“If it’s all the same,” Ennunzio said, “I’d like to continue on with the others. I want to be around if Special Agent McCormack gets another call.”

Mac glanced at the cell phone clipped to his waist and grimaced. “Fat chance, with the signal strength around here.”

“As we get closer to civilization, however . . .”

“I’m going, too.” Nora Ray was regarding Ennunzio steadily, as if daring the FBI agent to deny her.

“This is outside your responsibility,” Quincy said. “In all honesty, Ms. Watts, the biggest help you could give this team right now is to go home. Your parents must be worried.”

“My parents are worried even when I am home. No. I can help and I’m going to stay.”

The tone of her voice was set and none of them had the energy left to argue. Instead, Kimberly turned to Ennunzio, regarding him curiously. “How did you know about this cave? I understand from Josh Shudt that Orndorff’s Cavern isn’t exactly a common cave for exploration.”

“Not after what the mill did to it,” Ennunzio said, “but twenty, thirty years ago, it used to be beautiful.” He shrugged. “I grew up in this area. Spent my free time running wild among these mountains and caverns. It’s been a long time now, but I like to think it’ll come back to me. And maybe the little bits and pieces I remember can be of help. I hardly know the whole state, but I know this one corner of Virginia fairly well.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have placed the fourth victim?” Quincy spoke up quietly, his eyes on Mac.

The special agent rolled out his shoulders, contemplating the question. “Let’s
see . . . he’s done a Marine base, a national forest, and an underground cavern. So what do we have left? Chesapeake Bay rates high on the geological interest scale. I read about scuba diving in some reservoirs formed by flooding old mining towns—that’s gotta float his boat. Then there are a variety of rivers—last time he liked the Savannah.”

“There are two more major mountain ranges,” Ennunzio considered, but Mac shook his head.

“He’s done forests. He’ll go for something different.”

“What about the coastline?” Nora Ray asked. She was still staring at Ennunzio.

“Beaches around here are more populated than the Georgia coastline,” Mac said. “It’s possible, but I think he’ll look for someplace more remote. We can check with Ray.”

He waved his hand, and after a moment, the USGS man came over. Ray’s face was pale and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. Now that he’d seen an actual body, working a murder case had clearly lost some of its appeal.

“Any luck?” Mac asked him.

“Some. It’s hard to know what to look for on the girl . . . body . . . victim. Body.” He seemed to decide. “It, um, it was in the water for a bit, and who knows what that washed away. Kathy found some kind of crumpled leaf in a dress pocket. She’s trying to extract it now without doing more damage; tissue tears easily when this wet. Also, Josh Shudt went in and checked the ledge for us. Lloyd’s now working on some soil samples he took from the girl’s . . . body’s shoes. I’m trying to go through her purse, since you said he sometimes puts things there.”

“Have you tried the back of the throat?”

“Nothing.”

“I wonder about her stomach,” Mac murmured. “With the first victim, the map, he was very inventive. I’m not sure how he would consider these next ones in line. Maybe we should consider cutting her open.”

Nora Ray got up abruptly and moved away from the lantern light. Mac watched her go, but didn’t apologize.

Ray Lee Chee had turned green. “You didn’t, uh . . . you didn’t mention anything like that before.”

“We need the coroner,” Quincy said.

“You can’t ask a geologist to serve as ME,” Rainie seconded.

“Oh good,” Ray said. “’Cause I think I’m gonna barf.” He didn’t though. He just turned in a dazed little circle, then returned to them even paler, but with his expression set. “Look, we’ve done about as much as we can here. Best bet is to find a hotel, hole up for a few hours with our equipment, and see what we can figure out. I know you’re in a hurry, but if we gotta guarantee that we’re not sending you off on a wild-goose chase, then we need a shot at doing this right.”

“You’re the boss,” Mac said. “Pack up if that’s what you’d like. Rainie and Quincy are going to remain here with the body. The rest of us will follow you.”

Ray nodded gratefully, then returned to his team.

There didn’t seem much more to say, or much more to do.

Quincy was looking up at the sky. “One more girl to go,” he murmured. “And it’s already dark.”

Tina woke up to the sound of someone’s whimper. It took her a moment to realize it was her own.

The world was black, refusing to come into focus. She almost panicked. Her eyes had swollen shut again or worse, she’d gone blind. Then she realized the black wasn’t pitch black, but only the deep, purple shadows of night.

Hours had passed with her lying in the mud. Now she lifted one arm and attempted to move. Her whole body groaned. She could feel muscles tremble with effort. Her left hip ached, her ribs throbbed. For a moment, she didn’t think anything was going to happen, then she finally rolled over in the mud. She got her arms beneath her for leverage, pushed up weakly, and staggered to her feet.

The world promptly spun. She staggered over to the pit wall, dragging her feet through the heavy muck and grasping desperately at the vines for support. She leaned too far left, then lurched too far right, then finally got her hands planted against the wall. Her stomach rolled and cramped. She bent in agony and tried not to think about what must be happening now.

She cried. She cried all alone in her pit, and it was all that she could do.

Things came back to her in bits and pieces. Her glorious attempt at being a human spider. Her not-so-glorious fall. She lifted her arms again. Tried out her legs and inspected for damage. Technically speaking at least, she was still in one piece.

She tried to take a step. Her right leg buckled and she immediately sank back into the mud. Gritting her teeth, she tried again, only to get the same results. Her legs were too weak. Her body had simply had enough.

So she lay with her head in the cool, soothing muck. She watched the slime ooze and pop inches from her face. And she decided maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad after all.

If she could just get water . . . Her mouth, her throat, her shriveled stomach. Her parched, festering skin.

She stared at the mud a minute longer, then she staggered up onto her hands and knees.

She shouldn’t . . . It would kill her. But did that matter anymore?

Spreading her fingers, she flattened them into the muck. The small indent instantly filled with putrid, stinking water.

Tina put down her head and drank like a dog.