Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [51]
Quincy nodded thoughtfully. “Sometimes they try. Bundy broke out of jail twice and both times he swore he’d stop attacking women. He’d quit, live a quiet life and get away scot-free. Except he couldn’t. He underestimated the physiological and emotional need he had to kill. In fact, the more he tried not to kill, the worse the compulsion became. Until he attacked five girls in a single night.”
“I think this guy tried to stop,” Mac said, watching as Rainie and Kaplan closed their eyes. “Except the compulsion, like you said, just grew and grew and grew. Until he had to start again . . .
“It’s not the old game,” Mac told them grimly. “We won the old game. So now it’s a new game. One where the victim’s limbs will no longer serve as compass points. One where the map contains a live, lethal rattlesnake. And one where the body is left outside the FBI Academy because what point is there to inventing a game if you can’t get the best to come out to play?
“In the year two thousand, this man killed three girls in twelve weeks. If this is the same man, if this is a new game, then whatever he’s doing now, I promise you, it’s going to be much, much worse. So sorry if I offend you ladies and gentlemen, but I can’t just stand around talking about this anymore. You don’t get to talk this case. You don’t get to write up detective activity reports or create timelines of events. From the second that first body is found, the clock starts ticking. Now, if you want to have any chance at finding the second victim alive, then believe you me, get off your butts and get to work. ’Cause there’s another girl out there, and I just hope to hell it’s not already too late.”
CHAPTER 14
Virginia
7:52 P.M.
Temperature: 92 degrees
HE WAS GETTING TIRED NOW. He’d been awake for close to forty-eight hours, and driving for a solid sixteen. The sun, bright and strong for most of the day, had helped keep him going. Daylight, however, was at long last beginning to fade. Behind him, the horizon was streaked with the vivid pinks and bright oranges of a dying sun. Ahead of him, in the thick wilderness into which he drove, the sun had already lost the war.
Darkness crowded under the thick canopy of trees. Shadows grew and lengthened, forming deep wells of black that swallowed up the world beyond sixty feet. Trees took on twisted, unnatural shapes, with leaves few and far between. Now, the landscape was interrupted only by double-wide trailers that squatted in the middle of fields, surrounded by the shells of burnt-out cars and old electrical appliances.
The man didn’t have to worry about anyone noticing his approach.
Kids didn’t play on these lawns. People didn’t sit out on these front porches. Here and there he saw lone bloodhounds, scrawny dogs with drooping faces and jutting hipbones, sitting dispirited on broken-down steps. Otherwise, only the steady line of road-killed possums marked his way.
Life still existed around here. Not everyone could afford to move. And some people simply got used to the smell that constantly permeated the air. A cross between rotten eggs and burning garbage. A heavy, acrid smell that made old folks gag while bringing tears to the eyes of strangers. A smell that made even the locals wonder if the high rate of cancer among their neighbors was really so random after all.
This place was still Virginia. But technically, most of the state would like to forget this place ever existed. Virginia was supposed to be beautiful, famous for its green mountain ranges and wonderful sandy beaches. Virginia is for lovers, the tourism board liked to declare. It wasn’t supposed to look like this.
The man took the right-hand fork in the road, leaving pavement behind and traveling on dirt. The van jostled and bounced noisily, the steering wheel jerking beneath his hands. He held it without much visible effort, though his muscles were tired and he still had several more rigorous hours to go. He would have some coffee after this. Take a minute to stretch out his arms and legs. Then there would