The killing hour

CHAPTER 22

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

1:44 P . M .

Temperature: 97 degrees

KATHY LEVINE WAS A PETITE, NO-NONSENSE WOMAN with short-cropped red hair and a dash of freckles across her nose. She greeted Mac and Kimberly briskly as they entered the glass-and-beam expanse of Big Meadows Lodge and beckoned them immediately toward a back office.

“Ray said you had a picture of a leaf. Not a real leaf, mind you, but a picture.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mac dutifully provided the scanned image. Kathy plopped it down on the desk in front of her and snapped on a bright overhead light. It barely made a dent in a room already lit by an entire wall of sunshine.

“It could be a gray birch,” the botanist said at last. “It would be better if you had the real leaf.”

“Are you a dendrologist?” Kimberly asked curiously.

“No, but I know what’s in my park.” The woman snapped off the light and regarded them both frankly. “Are you two familiar with refugia?”

“Refugee what?” Mac said.

“That’s what I thought. Refugia is a term for plants that exist as glacial relics in a climate where they no longer belong. Essentially, millions of years ago, this whole area was ice. But then the ice melted and certain plants got left behind. In most cases, those plants moved high up in the mountains, seeking the cool conditions they need to survive. Balsam fir and red cedar are both examples of refugia found in this park. And so is gray birch.”

“Ray said it was only found in one area.” Mac spoke up intently.

“Yes. Right outside the door. Let me get a map.” The botanist climbed out of her chair and rifled the bookshelf along the wall. Then, she proceeded to unfold the largest map Kimberly had ever seen. It was labeled Geologic Map of Shenandoah County, and it was filled with enough streaks of bright purple, deep fuchsia, and neon orange to hurt a person’s eyes.

“This is the geologic map which includes this section of the park. We are here.” Levine plopped the massive spread of paper on the jumbled surface of the desk, and promptly tapped a lime-green spot near the bottom of the page. “Now, gray birch grows thickest in the swampy plateau across from the Big Meadows camp, but can also be found here and there in this whole one-mile area. So basically, if you’re looking for the only gray birch in Virginia, you’re standing in the middle of it.”

“Wonderful,” Mac murmured. “Now if only we were sure we were looking for gray birch. How populated is this area this time of year?”

“You mean campers? We have thirty or so people signed in at the moment. Generally it would be more, but the heat has chased a lot away. Also we get a fair number of day hikers and the like. Of course, in this weather, we’re probably getting mostly drive-throughs-people coming to the park, but never leaving the air-conditioned comfort of their cars.”

“Do guests have to sign in?”

“No.”

“Do you have park rangers or any kind of monitors working the area?”

“We have enough personnel if trouble should come up, but we don’t go looking for it, if that’s what you mean.”

“So a person could come and go, and you’d never know he’d been here?”

“I would imagine most people come and go, and we never know they were here.”

“Damn.”

“You want to tell me what this is about?” Levine nodded toward Kimberly. “I can already tell she’s armed. You might as well fill in the rest.”

Mac seemed to consider it. He looked at Kimberly, but she didn’t know what to tell him. He might be out of his jurisdiction, but at least he was still a special agent. As of six A.M. this morning she had become no one at all.

“We’re working a case,” Mac told Levine tersely. “We have reason to believe this leaf may tie into the disappearance of a local girl. Find where the leaf came from, and we’ll find her.”

“You’re saying this girl may be somewhere in my park? Lost? In this kind of heat?”

“It’s a possibility.”

Levine crossed her arms over her chest while regarding both of them intently. “You know,” she said at last, “right about now, I think I’d like to see some ID.”

Mac reached into his back pocket and pulled out his credentials. Kimberly just stood there. She had nothing to show, nothing to say. For the first time, the enormity of what she had done struck her. For all of her life, she’d wanted to be one thing. And now?

She turned away from both of them. Through the windows, the bright sunlight burned her eyes. She closed them tightly, trying to focus on the feel of heat on her face. A girl was out there. A girl needed her.

And her mother was still dead and her sister was still dead. And Mac was right after all. Nothing she did would change anything, so what was she really trying to prove? That she could self-destruct as completely as Mandy?

Or that just once, she wanted to get something right. Just once, she wanted to find the girl, save the day. Because anything had to be better than this six-year ache.

“This says Georgia Bureau of Investigation,” Levine was saying to Mac.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“If my memory serves, we’re still in Virginia.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ray didn’t ask you nearly enough questions now, did he?”

“Ray was very helpful in our investigation. We appreciate his efforts and are happy you were able to talk to us.”

Levine wasn’t fooled. She drew a bead on Kimberly. “I’m guessing you have no ID at all.”

Kimberly turned back around. She kept her voice even. “No, I don’t.”

“Look, it’s gotta be a good hundred degrees in the shade right now, and while I’m not a big fan of doing field work in this kind of heat, that’s my lot in life. So you both had better start talking fast, because I’m not amused to be yanked from my federally required duties to talk to two wanna-be cops who seem to be way out of their jurisdiction.”

“I am pursuing a case,” Mac said crisply. “The killer started in Georgia, where he attacked eight girls. You wanna see photos, I can give you all your stomach can take. I have reason to believe he’s now operating in Virginia. The FBI is involved, but by the time they figure out who did what to whom, this girl will probably have fed ten bears for a week. I, on the other hand, have been working this case for years. I know this man. And I have legitimate reason to believe that he has kidnapped a young woman and abandoned her all alone in the middle of your park. Yes, it’s hot outside. Yes, she is lost. And no, I don’t plan on standing idly by and waiting for a bunch of Feds to complete all the required paperwork. I plan on finding this girl, Ms. Levine, and Ms. Quincy has agreed to assist. So that’s why we’re here and that’s what we’re doing. And if that offends you, well, too bad. Because this girl probably is in your park, and boy oh boy, does she need some help.”

Kathy Levine appeared troubled. “Do you have references?” she asked at last.

“I can give you the name of my supervisor in Georgia.”

“He knows about this case?”

“He sent me here to pursue it.”

“If I cooperate with you, what does that mean?”

“I have no jurisdiction, ma’am. Officially speaking, I can’t ask you to do anything.”

“But you think the girl might be here. For how long?”

“He would’ve abandoned her yesterday.”

“It was nearly a hundred degrees yesterday,” Levine said curtly.

“I know.”

“Does she have gear?”

“He kidnaps women from bars. The best she has is her purse and her party clothes.”

Levine blinked twice. “Sweet Jesus. And he’s done this before?”

“Eight girls. So far, only one has survived. Today, I’d like to make that two.”

“We have a search-and-rescue team for the park,” Levine said briskly. “If… if you had strong reason to believe there was, say, a lost hiker in the Big Meadows area, and if you reported that lost hiker, I would have authority to call the team.”

Mac stilled. The offer was both unexpected and desperately needed. A search-and-rescue team. Multiple people. Trained experts. In other words, the first genuine chance at success they’d had all day.

“Are you sure?” Mac asked sharply. “It could be a wild-goose chase. I could be wrong.”

“Are you wrong often?”

“Not about this.”

“Well, then…”

“I’d like to report a lost hiker,” Mac said immediately.

And Kathy Levine said, “Let me make a call.”