Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [106]
“I can’t.”
“Then send it in the mail!”
“Did the first body lead you to the second?”
“Give me his goddamn name!”
“Then the second body will lead you to the third. Move quickly. I don’t . . . I’m not even sure what he’ll do next.”
The signal went dead. Mac swore and hurled his phone into the brush. It spooked a scavenging raccoon and didn’t do a thing to calm his temper. He wanted to run back up the mountainside. He wanted to plunge into an ice-cold stream. He wanted to throw back his head and howl at the moon. Then he wanted to swear every obscenity he’d ever learned as a child and collapse into a pile and weep.
He’d been working too long on this case to keep seeing so much death.
“Damn,” he said at last. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“He didn’t give you a name.”
“He swears he’s not the killer. He swears he’s just trying to help.”
Rainie looked at the body. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“No kidding.” Mac sighed, straightening his shoulders and moving resolutely toward the body. “All four girls disappeared at once, from the same car?”
“That’s what we’re assuming.”
“Then we don’t have much time.” He hunkered down, already pulling the black plastic body bag away from the girl.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for clues. Because if the first girl led us to the second, then the second will lead us to the third.”
“Ahh, shit,” Rainie said.
“Yeah. You know what? Go find Kathy Levine. We’re gonna need some help here. And a boatload of coffee.”
“No rest for the weary?”
“Not tonight.”
Nora Ray was dreaming again. She was in the happy place, the land of fantasy where her parents smiled and her dead dog danced, and she floated in a pool of cool, silky water, feeling it lap peacefully against her skin. She loved this place, longed to come here often.
She could listen to her parents laugh. Watch the pure blue sky, which never contained a red-hot sun. Feel the crystalline cleanness of pure water against her limbs.
She turned her head. She saw the door open. And without hesitation, she left the pool behind.
Mary Lynn was riding her horse. She drove Snowfall through miles of green pasture, racing through fields of wild daisies, and jumping fallen logs. She sat forward in the saddle, her body tight and compact like a jockey’s, her hands light and steady on the reins. The horse soared. She soared with it. It was as if they were one.
Nora Ray crossed to the fence. Two other girls sat on the top rail. One blonde. One brunette.
“Do you know where we are?” the blonde asked Nora Ray.
“You’re in my dream.”
“Do we know you?” the brunette asked.
“I think we knew the same man.”
“Will we get to ride the horse?” the brunette asked.
“I don’t know.”
“She’s very good,” said the blonde.
“There’s never been anything my sister couldn’t ride,” Nora Ray replied proudly.
“I have a sister,” said the brunette. “Will she dream of me?”
“Every night.”
“That’s very sad.”
“I know.”
“I wish there’s something we could do.”
“You’re dead,” Nora Ray said. “You can’t do anything at all. Now, I think it’s up to me.”
Then her sister was gone, the pasture had vanished, and she was spiraling away from the pond long before she was ready. She woke up wide-eyed in her bed, her heart beating too fast and her hands knotted around her comforter.
Nora Ray sat up slowly. She poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on her nightstand. She took a long drink and felt the cool liquid slide down her throat. Sometimes, she could still feel the salt building like rime around her mouth, coating her chin, covering her lips. She could remember the deep, unquenchable thirst that ran cell-deep, as the sun pounded and the salt built and she went mad with thirst. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
She finished her glass of water now. Let the moisture linger on her lips, like dew on a rose. Then she left her room.
Her mother slept on the couch,