Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [164]
She shrugged, wishing the sight of him didn’t make her want to throw her arms around his waist or bury her head against his shoulder. Wishing the sight of him didn’t make her feel so damn giddy. Life was still life, and these days, hers carried a lot of obligations.
“Some of the students aren’t wild about my presence,” she admitted at last. She had resumed her studies nearly a month ago. Some of the powers-that-be weren’t wild about it, but Rainie had been right: everybody blamed a failure, nobody argued with a hero. Kimberly and Mac’s dramatic rescue of Tina Krahn had been front-page news for nearly a week. When she’d called Mark Watson about returning to the Academy, he’d even gotten her her own room.
“Not easy being recycled?”
“No. I’m the outsider who showed up halfway through the school year. Worse, I’m an outsider with a reputation half want to challenge and the other half don’t want to believe.”
“Are they mean to you?” he asked soberly, thumb beneath her chin.
“Someone actually short-sheeted my bed. Oh my God, the horrors. I should write home to Daddy.”
“Uh oh, what did you do in retaliation?” Mac asked immediately.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Oh dear.”
She resumed walking. After a moment, he fell in step beside her. “I’m going to make it, Mac,” she said seriously. “Five weeks to go, and I’m going to make it. And if some people don’t like me, that’s okay. Because others do, and I’m good at this job. With more experience, I’m going to be even better at the job. Why, someday I might even follow a direct order. Think of what the Bureau will do then.”
“You’ll be like a whole new secret weapon,” Mac said with awe.
“Exactly.” She nodded her head with pride. Then, not being stupid, she regarded him intently. “So why are you here, Mac? And don’t tell me you missed my smile. I know you’re a little too busy for social calls these days.”
“It’s always something, isn’t it?”
“At the moment.”
He sighed, looked as if he wished he could say something clever, then must’ve decided to get on with it. “They found Ennunzio’s body.”
“Good.” It had taken weeks to completely annihilate the swamp fire. In the good-news department, crews had contained the blaze fairly quickly, limiting damage. In the bad-news department, the smoldering peat continued to flare up for nearly a month, requiring constant vigilance on the part of the U.S. Forestry Service.
During that time, volunteers worked the site, tending the woods and seeking some sign of Ennunzio’s body. As week had grown into week, they had all started getting a little nervous, especially Kimberly.
“He made it farther than any of us would’ve guessed,” Mac was saying now. “True to his natural ambivalence, he must have decided at the last minute that he wanted to live. He actually hiked a good mile with his bitten leg. Who even knows what got him in the end? The venom pumped into his heart, or the smoke, or the flames?”
“They do a postmortem?”
“Completed it yesterday. Kimberly, he didn’t have a tumor.”
She halted, blinked her eyes a few times, then had to run a hand through her hair. “Well, that figures, doesn’t it,” she murmured. “Guy’s such a fuck-up, he’s gotta blame his actions on everything but himself. His mother, his brother, and a medical condition he doesn’t even have. Doesn’t that take the cake?”
“For the record, he did have a tumor once,” Mac said. “Doctors confirmed his operation two years ago to remove the mass. According to them, a tumor could affect someone’s propensity for violence. I understand there was even a mass murderer in Texas who claimed his actions were caused by a tumor.”
“Charles Whitman,” Kimberly murmured. “Stabbed his mother to death, then murdered his wife, then climbed a clock tower at the University of Texas and opened fire on the population below. In the end, he killed eighteen people and wounded thirty others before being shot and killed himself. He left a note, didn’t he? Said he wanted an autopsy performed because he was sure there was something physically wrong with him.”
“Exactly. The autopsy revealed a small