Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [151]
“And uses nature, which both saved him and betrayed him,” Rainie filled in. She turned troubled eyes toward Nora Ray. “And how did you end up in here? I thought you never knew who attacked you and your sister.”
“Voice,” Nora Ray said. “I remember . . . I recognized his voice. From when the man came walking up to our window and asked if we needed help.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No.”
“So the man you heard that night could’ve been Dr. Ennunzio, or it could’ve been his brother, or, in all honesty, it could’ve been anyone who sounds like either of them. Don’t you think you should’ve mentioned this to one of us, before you came charging in with a syringe?”
Nora Ray stared at Rainie with hard eyes. “She wasn’t your sister.”
Rainie sighed. “So what are you going to do now, Nora Ray?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you believe Dr. Ennunzio’s story?”
“Do you?” asked the girl.
“I’m thinking about it. If we turn you loose, are you going to attack Dr. Ennunzio again?”
“I don’t know.” Her overbright gaze swung to Ennunzio. “So maybe it was your brother instead of you. You should still be ashamed of yourself! You’re an FBI agent, you’re supposed to be protecting people. Instead, you knew something about a killer and you said nothing.”
“I had nothing to add, not a name, not a location—”
“You knew his past!”
“I didn’t know his present. All I could do was watch and wait. And I swear, the minute I saw my brother’s note suddenly resurface in a Virginia paper, I mailed a copy to the GBI. I wanted Special Agent McCormack involved. I did everything in my power to get the police’s attention. Surely that must count for something—”
“Three girls are dead,” Nora Ray spat out. “You tell me how valuable your efforts have been.”
“If I could’ve been sure . . .” Ennunzio murmured.
“Coward,” Nora Ray countered savagely and Ennunzio finally shut up.
Quincy took a deep breath. He regarded Rainie, Mac, and Kimberly. “So where does this leave us?”
“Still short one killer and still short one victim,” Mac said. “Now we’ve got motive, but that’s only going to help us at trial. Bottom line is that it’s the middle of the night, scary hot, and another girl’s still out there. So cough it up, Ennunzio. He’s your brother. Start thinking like him.”
The forensic linguist, however, merely shook his head. “I understood some of the clues in the beginning, only because I’ve also spent a lot of time outdoors. But the evidence you’re seeing now—water samples, sediment, pollen. That’s way over my head. You need the experts.”
“Doesn’t your brother have any favorite places?”
“We grew up dirt poor in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The only favorite places we knew were the ones we could walk to.”
“You knew the cave.”
“Because I used to be into caving. And of all the places Frank’s chosen, that’s been the most local.”
“So we should look at the Appalachian Mountains, stay in the area,” Rainie spoke up.
Both Mac and Ennunzio, however, were shaking their heads.
“My brother’s methodology may be influenced by the past,” Ennunzio told them, “perhaps even triggered by the trauma of heat spells, but the places themselves aren’t tied to our family. I didn’t even know he lived in Georgia.”
“Ennunzio’s right,” Mac said. “Whatever hang-ups got this guy started, he’s moved beyond them now. He’s sticking to his game plan, and that means diversity. Wherever we are now, the last girl will be the farthest point away.”
“We need Ray’s team,” Kimberly said.
“I’ll go check on them,” Mac said.
But in the end, he didn’t have to. Ray met him halfway across the parking lot, already on his way to Mac’s room.
“We have a winner,” the USGS worker said excitedly. “Lloyd’s soil samples turned out to contain three kinds of pollen from three types of trees—bald cypress, tupelo gum, and red maple—while the crushed plant matter is actually a sorely abused log fern. The shoes were also covered in peat moss. Which could only mean . . .”
“We’re going to DisneyLand?”
“Better. The Dismal Swamp.”
Four A.M., the group made their decision to divide