Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [36]
“What happened?” Kimberly asked.
“The year two thousand,” he said bluntly. “The year we’d thought we’d gotten smart. Instead, everything went to hell in a hand basket. Two more kidnappings, three girls dead.” Mac glanced at his watch. He shook away the rest of what he was going to say, and startled them both by taking her hand instead. “But that was then. This is now. If this is the Eco-Killer, Kimberly, we don’t have much time. The clock is ticking. Now here is what I need you to do next.”
CHAPTER 10
Quantico, Virginia
2:03 P.M.
Temperature: 98 degrees
SPECIAL AGENT MAC MCCORMACK was going to get her kicked out of the FBI Academy. Kimberly thought about it dispassionately as she drove through Quantico’s winding roads on her way to the main highway. She’d showered after talking to Mac. She’d changed into the appropriate uniform of khaki cargo pants and a navy blue FBI Academy shirt. Then she’d tucked her good ol’ Crayola gun into a holster on the waistband of her pants and attached handcuffs to her belt. As long as she was going to trade in on the cachet of being a new agent, she might as well look the part.
She could’ve told Mac no. She thought about that, too, as she drove. She didn’t really know the man. Good looks and compelling blue eyes aside, he had no claim on her. She wasn’t even sure she believed his story yet. Oh sure, this Eco-Killer guy had probably ravaged the state of Georgia. But that was three years ago. In a state hundreds of miles away. Why would some Georgian nut suddenly turn up in Virginia? Better yet, why would a Georgian nut leave a dead body on the FBI’s doorstep?
It didn’t make sense to her. Mac saw what he needed to see. He wasn’t the first cop to be obsessed by a case and he wouldn’t be the last.
None of which explained why Kimberly had just blown off her afternoon classes, a violation that could get her written up. Or why she was now driving to a county ME’s office, after her supervisor had explicitly told her to stay away from the case. That little act of insubordination could get her kicked out.
And yet from the minute Mac had made his request, she’d agreed. She wanted to speak to the ME. She wanted to con her way into the autopsy of a poor young girl she’d never met.
She wanted . . . She wanted to know what happened. She wanted to know the girl’s name and the dreams she’d once had. She wanted to know if she’d suffered, or if it’d been quick. She wanted to know what mistakes the unidentified subject might have made, so she could use those mistakes to track him down and find justice for a young girl who deserved better than to be abandoned like garbage in the woods.
In short, Kimberly was projecting. As a former psych student, she recognized the signs. As a young woman who’d lost her sister and mother to violent deaths, she couldn’t stop if she tried.
She had found the victim. She’d stood alone with her in the dark shadows of the woods. She couldn’t walk away from her now if she tried.
Kimberly followed the address she’d received from the Marine base. She’d asked about the NCIS investigator while there, only to discover he’d already left to observe the victim’s autopsy at the morgue.
In the good news department, Special Agent Kaplan’s presence at the autopsy gave Kimberly a better excuse for insinuating herself into the procedure. She’d just come to talk to him, but hey, as long as she was there . . .
In the bad news department, an experienced special agent was probably going to be a bit savvier about a new agent trying to horn in on his investigation than an overworked ME.
That’s why Mac had volunteered her for this mission after all. No one was going to let another cop