• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 538 0

washed the dishes, and his father told them both that next it would be their turn. Now he and his brother were huddled under the front porch, planning their big escape, while above their heads their mother wept and their father told her to go inside and wipe that goddamn blood off of her face. Now it was late at night and he and his brother were sneaking out the front door; at the last minute they turned, and saw their mother standing pale and silent in the moonlight. Go, her eyes told them. Run away while you still can. Her bruised cheeks were streaked with wordless tears. They crept back inside. And she clutched them to her breast as if they were the only hope she had left.

And he knew then that he hated his mother as much as he had ever loved her. And he knew then that she felt the same about him and his brother. They were the crabs stuck together in the bottom of a bucket, and pulling one another down so no one ever made it to freedom.

The man swayed on his feet. He felt the dark roll in, felt himself totter on the edge of the abyss . . . Time was slipping through his fingers.

The man turned. He drove his fist forcefully into the wall, and let the pain bring him back. The room came into focus. The dark spots cleared from his eyes. Better.

The man crossed to his dresser. He got out his gun.

He prepared for what must happen next.

CHAPTER 30

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

2:43 A.M.

Temperature: 88 degrees

RAINIE AND MAC WERE STILL WORKING THE VICTIM’S BODY when Quincy materialized before them. His gaze went from them to Kathy Levine, then back to them.

“She’s one of us,” Rainie said, as if he’d asked a question.

“Definitely?”

“Well, she risked ordering a search team based solely on Mac’s hunch, and now she’s picking rice out of a corpse’s pocket. You tell us.”

Quincy raised a brow and glanced at Levine again. “Rice?”

“Uncooked white,” she said briskly. “Long grain. Then again, I’m a botanist, not a chef, so you may want a second opinion.”

Quincy switched his attention to Mac, who was carefully going over the girl’s left foot. “Why rice?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Anything else?”

“She’s wearing a necklace—some kind of vial filled with a clear fluid. That might be a hint. Then we got about nine different bits of leaves, four or five samples of dirt, half a dozen kinds of grass, some crushed flower petals, and a whole lotta blood.” Mac gestured to a stack of evidence containers. “Help yourself to a sample. And good luck figuring out if it came from her hike through the woods or from him. This new strategy of his definitely puts a wrinkle in things. What’d you do with Kimberly?”

“Feds got her.”

Three heads shot up. Quincy smiled grimly. “I believe there’s been a change of plans.”

“Quincy,” Mac said curtly. “Tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

Quincy didn’t look at him directly. Instead, his gaze went to Rainie. “The FBI case team arrived. No Kaplan, no Watson. In fact, I don’t recognize anyone on the team. They pulled in, spotted Kimberly, and immediately pulled her aside for questioning. I’m supposed to be waiting outside the lodge.”

“Those assholes!” Rainie exploded. “First they want nothing to do with this. Now it’s suddenly their party, and no one else is invited to play. What are they going to do? Start all over at this stage of the game?”

“I imagine they are going to do exactly that. The FBI can launch a pretty good search, you know. They’ll bring in computer operators, stenographers, dog handlers, search-and-rescue teams, topography experts, and recon pilots. Within twenty-four hours, they’ll have a full ops center set up roadside, while planes search the surrounding areas with infrared photography and volunteers stand by to assist. It’s not too shabby.”

“Infrared photography is bullshit this time of year,” Mac said tightly. “We tried it ourselves. Every damn boulder and wandering bear shows up as a hit. Not to mention deer also look roughly like humans in the still photos. We ended up with hundreds of targets and not a single one of them was ever the missing girl. Besides,