Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [35]
“In other words, we collected the rock sample, the feather, the flower and we knew they were worthless to us. So we sent them out to real experts who might be able to make something of them. And then we waited nine months.”
Kimberly closed her eyes. “Oh no,” she said.
“Nobody knew,” he said quietly. “You have to understand, nobody ever expected the likes of this man.”
“He abandoned the second girl in the gorge, didn’t he?”
“With a gallon jug of water. Wearing high heels. In nearly a hundred-degree heat.”
“But if you had interpreted the clues in time . . .”
“You mean, if we’d identified the white flower as persistent trillium, a rare herb found growing only in a five-point-three-square-mile area in all of Georgia—an area inside the Tallulah Gorge? Or if we’d realized the feather belonged to the peregrine falcon, which also makes its home in the gorge? Or if we’d understood that the granite in the rocks found ground into her shoes matched samples taken from the cliffs, or that the business card found in her purse belonged to a customer service representative from Georgia Power, the company that just so happens to own and manage the gorge? Sure, if we’d known that stuff, then maybe we could’ve found her. But most of those reports didn’t come in for months, and poor Deanna Wilson was dead and buried by then.”
Kimberly hung her head. She was thinking of a poor young girl lost and bewildered in the middle of a hostile forest. Trying to hike her way out over uneven terrain in party heels and a little black dress. The burning, scorching heat. She wondered if the girl had drunk the water quickly, convinced someone would find her soon. Or if she had rationed it from the start, already fearing the worst.
“And the second pair of girls?” she asked quietly.
Mac shrugged. His eyes were dark and somber. “We still didn’t know any better. The minute the first body appeared outside of the gorge, that’s the connection everyone made. We have someone who kidnaps girls and likes to hide ’em in the gorge. Given the extreme heat, the Rabun County Sheriff’s Office did the logical thing and threw all resources at searching the state park. It took another week to realize she wasn’t there, and even then, it was hard to be sure.”
“What were the clues?”
“Josie Anders had white lint on her red top, dried mud on her shoes, four kernels in her purse, and a phone number scribbled on a cocktail napkin wadded up in her front pocket.”
“The lint and kernels have something to do with cotton?” Kimberly guessed.
“Upon further examination, the lint proved to be linters, made from raw cottonseed. The kernels were cotton kernels. The mud turned out to be high in organic matter. And the phone number belonged to Lyle Burke, a sixty-five-year-old retired electrician, living in Savannah, who’d never heard of the two girls, let alone Roxie’s Bar, which was where they were last seen alive.”
“Burke County,” Kimberly said.
Mac nodded. “Cotton’s not a fair clue in a state like Georgia. There’s only ninety-seven counties that grow the stuff. But by throwing in the phone number . . . I think in his own way, the man considered it sporting. Now we had only eight hundred square miles to search. If we’d been paying attention—” He shrugged, his hand knotting and unknotting in a frustrated motion.
“When did you start putting it together?” Kimberly asked.
“Two months after Kasey Cooper was found in the cotton field. The last of the evidence reports came in, and we made the connections after the fact. Gee, we’ve had four girls disappear in pairs. In both instances, one girl is found right away, next to a major road. And in both instances, the second girl isn’t found for a long time, and when she is found, it’s in a remote and dangerous area. The first girls, however, have evidence that ties them to the second location. Gee, maybe if we figure out those clues sooner, we can find the second girls in time. Good golly, Miss Molly, that might make some sense.” Mac blew out a breath of air. He sounded disgusted, but then he got on with it.
“We assembled a task