Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [130]
Quincy and Rainie followed Ennunzio to the stairwell, where he swiped his security badge over the scanner, then led them up to the great outdoors.
“What the hell is going on?” the linguist asked the minute they were across the street from the building. Now their conversation was muffled by the steady sounds of gunfire.
“I’m not sure.” Quincy held up his dead cell phone. “I’ve been a little out of touch.”
Ennunzio shook his head. He looked decidedly frayed around the edges and not happy with how things had turned out. “I thought you guys were doing good. I thought by talking to you, I was assisting a major investigation. Not killing my own career.”
“We are doing good. And I have every intention of catching this man.”
“Things are heating up,” Rainie told him. “We found another victim late last night. Everything matches the Eco-Killer’s MO. Except this time he kidnapped four girls at once. Which means two more are out there, and if we’re going to break this thing, we need to move fast.”
“Damn,” Ennunzio said tiredly. “After meeting with you guys, I was hoping . . . Well, what do you need from me?”
“Any luck with the newspaper ad?” Quincy asked.
“I sent the paper out to the lab, so I don’t have results yet. Given that the ad was delivered already typeset inside an envelope with a computer-generated label, there’s no handwriting to analyze. Perhaps we’ll get lucky with paper choice and ink. As for the text, I don’t have anything new to say. Author is most likely male and of above-average intelligence. I repeat the theory that we might be dealing with someone who is somehow mentally incapacitated. Maybe suffering from paranoia or otherwise impaired. Ritual is obviously extremely important to him. The process of killing is as satisfying as the killing itself. You know the rest of that as well as I do.” Ennunzio looked at Quincy. “He’ll never stop unless someone makes him.”
Quincy nodded his head. The news discouraged him more than it should and abruptly he was tired of everything. Worrying about Kimberly. Worrying about Rainie. And wondering what it meant when talk of babies scared him more than talk of psychopaths.
“Special Agent McCormack received another call,” Quincy said. “He was going to write down the conversation, but with everything that’s happened, I don’t think he’s had the time.”
“When was he contacted?”
“Late last night. When he was at the crime scene.”
Ennunzio immediately looked troubled. “I don’t like that.”
“The UNSUB has a keen knack for timing.”
“You think he’s watching.”
“As you said, he likes the process. For him, it’s as important as the kill itself. We have a new theory.” Quincy was watching Ennunzio’s face very closely. “The UNSUB most likely uses a cargo van as his kill vehicle. We understand from Special Agent Kaplan that there is an unusually high number of vans coming and going off the base these days—they belong to various contractors doing construction work on the property.”
Ennunzio squeezed his eyes shut. He was already nodding. “That would fit.”
“Kaplan is now examining the list of workers for anyone with a previous address in Georgia. That may give us a name, but I think it’s too late.”
Ennunzio opened his eyes, staring at them both sharply.
“The UNSUB wanted Quantico, the UNSUB got Quantico, and now he doesn’t need it anymore,” Quincy continued. “The action is out in the field, and I think that’s where we’re going to have to go if we’re to have any chance of finding him. So, Doctor, what do you know that you’re not telling us yet?”
The forensic linguist appeared genuinely startled, then wary, then carefully composed. “I don’t know why