The killing hour

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.”