The killing hour

CHAPTER 34

Richmond, Virginia

10:34 A . M .

Temperature: 94 degrees

KIMBERLY’S FIRST GLIMPSE OF NORA RAY WATTS was not what she had expected. In her mind, she had pictured a young, deeply traumatized girl. Head bowed, shoulders hunched. She would wear nondescript clothes, trying desperately to blend in, while her furtive gaze would dash around the crowded airport, already seeking the source of some unnamed threat.

They’d handle the girl with kid gloves. Buy her a Coke, pick her brain for what she claimed to know about the Eco-Killer, then send her back to the relative safety of Atlanta. That’s how these things were done, and frankly, they didn’t have time to dick around.

Nora Ray Watts, however, had another plan in mind.

She strode down the middle of the airport terminal, with an old flowered bag slung over her shoulder. Her head was up, her shoulders square. She wore a pair of slim-fitting jeans, a wispy blue shirt over a white tank top, and a pair of heavy-duty hiking boots. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she hadn’t a shred of makeup on her face. She headed straight for them, and the other travelers immediately gave way.

Kimberly had two impressions at once. A young girl, grown up too fast, and a remote woman who now existed as an island in the sea of humanity. Then Kimberly wondered, with almost a sense of panic, if that’s what people saw when they peered into her own face.

Nora Ray walked up and Kimberly looked away.

“Special Agent McCormack,” she said gravely and shook Mac’s outstretched hand.

He introduced Kimberly, and Nora Ray took her hand as well. The girl’s grip was firm, but quick. Someone who didn’t like touching.

“How was the flight?” Mac asked.

“Fine.”

“How are your parents?”

“Fine.”

“Uh huh. And what kind of story did you feed them about today?”

Nora Ray brought her chin up. “I told them I was going to spend a few days with an old college classmate in Atlanta. My father was happy I was going to see a friend. My mother was busy watching Family Ties.”

“Lying’s not good for the soul, little girl.”

“No. And neither is fear. Shall we?”

She headed toward the food court, while Mac arched a brow.

“She’s not your typical victim,” Kimberly murmured as they fell in step behind the girl. Mac merely shrugged.

“She has a good family. Least she did before this.”

In the food court, Mac and Kimberly got large cups of bitter coffee. Nora Ray purchased a soda and a banana muffin, which she then proceeded to pick at with her fingers as they sat at a small plastic table.

Mac didn’t ask anything right away. Kimberly, too, took her time. Sipping the foul-tasting brew, looking around the Richmond airport as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Nothing better to do than sit around in air-conditioned glory. Nothing more urgent today than getting that perfect cup of coffee. If only her heart hadn’t been beating so hard in her chest. If only they all hadn’t been so unbearably aware of the fleeting nature of time.

“I want to help,” Nora Ray said abruptly. She’d finished destroying her muffin, and now she looked at them with a nervous, shaky expression. Closer to the young girl again, not so much the remote woman.

“My boss tells me you know something about the current situation,” Mac said neutrally.

“He’s at it again. Taking girls. Two are dead, aren’t they?”

“How do you know that, honey?”

“Because I do.”

“He call you?”

“No.”

“Send you letters?”

“No.” She stiffened her spine. Her voice grew stubborn. “You answer my question first. Are two more girls dead? Is he doing it again?”

Mac was silent, letting the moment drag out. Nora Ray’s fingers returned to the bits of her muffin. She kneaded them back together, then tore them apart into a fresh round of small, doughy balls. But the girl was good. She outlasted both of them.

“Yeah,” Mac said tersely. “Yeah, he’s killing again.”

The fire left her all at once. Nora Ray’s shoulders slumped, her hands fell heavily on the table. “I knew it,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to know, I wanted to believe it was only a dream. But in my heart… In my heart I always knew. Poor girls. They never stood a chance.”

Mac leaned forward. He folded his arms on the table and studied her intently. “Nora Ray, you have to start talking. How do you know these things?”

“You won’t laugh?”

“After the last thirty-six hours, I don’t have the strength left in me to smile.”

Nora Ray’s gaze flickered to Kimberly.

“I’m even more tired than he is,” Kimberly told her. “So your secret’s safe with us.”

“I dreamt them.”

“You dreamt them?”

“I dream of my sister all the time, you know. I never tell people. It would only upset them. But for years I’ve watched Mary Lynn. She’s happy, I think. Wherever she is, there are fields and horses and plenty of sunshine. She doesn’t see me; I don’t know if I exist in her place. But I get to see her, from time to time, and I think she’s doing all right. But then, a few days ago, another girl appeared. And last night, a second girl joined her on the fence. I think they’re still figuring out that they’re dead.”

Mac’s expression had gone blank. He rubbed one large hand over his face, then did it again and again. He doesn’t know what to do, Kimberly realized. He doesn’t know what to say. However either one of them had imagined this conversation going, this wasn’t it.

“Are these girls aware of you?” Kimberly asked at last. “Do they talk to you?”

“Yes. One of them has a younger sister. She wanted to know if her sister would also dream about her at night.”

“Can you describe the girls?”

Nora Ray rattled off two descriptions. They weren’t exactly right, but neither were they wrong. A blonde, a brunette. People who claimed to have psychic ability often relied on generic descriptions to get your own imagination to fill in the blanks. Kimberly was feeling tired again.

“Do you see the man?” Mac asked Nora Ray sharply.

“No.”

“You just dream of the girls?”

“Yes.”

Mac spread his hands. “Nora Ray, I don’t see how that helps us.”

“I don’t either,” she admitted, her tone suddenly sodden and on the edge of tears. “But it’s something, isn’t it? I have a connection. Some kind of… I don’t know what! But I’m seeing these girls. I know they died! I know they’re hurt and confused and angry as hell at this man for what he did to them. Maybe I can use that. Maybe I can ask them more questions, get information on the killer, find out where he lives. I don’t know. But it’s something! I know it’s something!”

Her voice broke off raggedly. Her hands were now compulsively mashing muffin bits into the tabletop. She squished the soft dough harder and harder with her thumbs. It appeared to be her last link to sanity.

Kimberly looked at Mac. He seemed sorry to have agreed to this meeting. She couldn’t blame him.

“I appreciate you coming out and telling me this,” he said at last, his tone grave.

“You’re not sending me home.”

“Nora Ray-”

“No. I can help! I don’t know how yet. But I can help. If you’re still looking, then I’m staying.”

“Nora Ray, you’re a civilian. Now, I’m in the middle of a formal police investigation. It’s demanding and time-consuming and while I’m sure you mean well, your presence in fact will only slow me down, and-if you’ll pardon my French-fuck things up. So go home. I’ll call you when we’ve learned something.”

“He’s going to strike again. That last summer, he struck twice. He’ll do the same now.”

“Nora Ray, honey…” Mac spread his hands. He seemed to be searching for some way to get through to the girl, to make her understand the futility of her efforts. “The killer’s already struck twice in a manner of speaking. This time, instead of taking two girls, he ambushed four. Now two are dead, two are missing, and so help me God, I can’t keep sitting here and having this conversation. We are in the middle of serious business. Go home, Nora Ray. I’ll be in touch.”

Mac rose from the table. Kimberly took that as her cue to join him. But once again, Nora Ray did not conform to type. She also got up from the table, and this time her brown eyes held a bright, feverish light.

“That’s it, then,” the young girl breathed. “We’re going to find the missing girls. That’s why I’m seeing the first two in my dreams. I was meant to come. I was meant to help.”

“Nora Ray-”

The girl cut him off with a firm shake of her head. “No. I’m twenty-one, I’m an adult. I’ve made my choice. I’m going with you, whether I have to follow you in a taxi or latch on to your trunk. You’re in a hurry, so just nod yes and we can all get on with this. Three heads are better than two. You’ll see.”

“Get on that plane or I will call your parents.”

“No. You look me in the eye and tell me that I’m wrong. Go on: Tell me you’re one hundred percent certain I can’t help. Because this man’s been killing a long time, Special Agent McCormack. This man, he’s been killing for years, and you still haven’t stopped him. Given all that, maybe dreams aren’t such a bad place to start.”

Mac visibly faltered. As guilt trips went, the girl was good. And there was a nugget of truth to what she said. More than a few reputable police departments had brought in psychics and seers over the years. Detectives got to a point in a case where everything logical had been done. Timelines had been analyzed and overanalyzed. Evidence traced and retraced. And cops grew frustrated and trails grew cold and next thing they knew, the mad hatter on the other end of the phone saying I’ve had a vision was the best lead they’d gotten all year.

Kimberly found she was suddenly very into the idea of dreams and she’d only been working the case thirty-six hours. She couldn’t imagine how Mac must feel after five brutal years. And now here they were. Two girls dead. Two girls missing. Clock ticking…

“You know the kind of terrain this man picks,” Mac said at last.

Nora Ray hefted the pack by her side, then kicked out one hiking boot. “I came prepared.”

“It’s dangerous.”

She merely smiled. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

“You were lucky three years ago.”

“I know. I’ve practiced since then. Read survival books, studied nature, got in shape. You’d be amazed how much I know now. I might even be helpful to you.”

“This isn’t your battle to fight.”

“It’s my only battle to fight. My sister’s never coming home, Special Agent McCormack. My family has fallen apart. I’ve spent three years shut inside a dead house, waiting for the day I’d magically stop being afraid. Well, you know what? It’s never going to happen on its own. So I might as well be here.”

“It’s not a vendetta. We find him and you try to touch a hair on his head…”

“I’m a twenty-one-year-old girl, traveling with a pack that’s been cleared by airport security. What do you think I’m going to do?”

Mac still looked very uncomfortable. He glanced at Kimberly. She shrugged. “You do attract a certain kind of woman,” she told him.

“I’m changing my cologne,” he said seriously.

“And until then?”

He sighed. Stared down the terminal. “Fine,” he said suddenly, shortly. “What the hell. I’m illegal on this case. Kimberly’s illegal on this case. What’s one more member of unsanctioned personnel? Goddamn strangest investigation I’ve ever led. Know anything about rice?” he asked Nora Ray sharply.

“No.”

“What about pollen?”

“It makes you go ah-choo.”

He shook his head. “Grab your bag. We’ve got a lot more ground to cover and it’s already getting late.”

Nora Ray fell in step beside Kimberly as both of them scrambled to keep up with Mac’s long, angry strides.

“Feel better?” Kimberly asked Nora Ray at last.

“No,” the young girl answered. “Mostly, I feel afraid.”