Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [55]
“I don’t think she’s going to make it,” Rainie said flatly. “She looks too haggard around the eyes. Like a dog that’s been beat too many times.”
“The training pushes you. It’s meant to test your level of endurance.”
“Oh, bullshit! You think Kimberly lacks endurance? My God, she held up even after a madman killed Bethie. She remained functional and alert when that same madman came after her. I was with her, remember. Kimberly has plenty of endurance. She doesn’t need a bunch of numbnuts in suits to prove otherwise.”
“I don’t think Watson would care to be labeled a numbnut.”
“Oh, now you’re just pissing me off.”
“Apparently.” Quincy threw up his hands. He’d discarded his suit jacket after their meeting with Watson and Kaplan. Sequestered in his room, he’d even gone so far as to roll up the cuffs of his white dress shirt and loosen his tie. He still looked like an FBI agent, and Rainie had the overwhelming compulsion to fight with him, if only to mess him up a little. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Stop being an agent.”
“I am not an agent!”
“Oh, for the love of God. There is no agent more agent than you. I swear you have pin-striped ties encrypted into your DNA. When you die, the coffin is going to read Property of the FBI.”
“Did you just think that up off the top of your head?”
“Yep, I’m on a roll. No changing the subject. Kimberly’s in trouble. You’ve seen her, and you’ve seen how Watson is treating her. It’s only a matter of time before things come to a head.”
“Rainie . . . Not that you’re going to want to hear this, but Watson is an experienced Academy supervisor. Maybe he has a point.”
“What? Are you fucking mad?”
Quincy sighed deeply. “She disobeyed orders. Even if she had good reasons, she still disobeyed orders. Kimberly is a new agent. This is the life she chose, and the whole beginning of her career is going to be defined by doing what she’s told. If she can’t do that, maybe the FBI isn’t the right organization for her.”
“She found a body. When you were training here, how many bodies did you find? Uh huh. That’s what I thought. She has the right to be a little rattled.”
“Rainie, look at these crime-scene photos. You tell me. Who does this girl look like?”
Rainie grudgingly turned her gaze to the photos, currently spread out on the foot of the bed. “Mandy,” she said without hesitation.
Quincy nodded somberly. “Of course she looks like Mandy. It’s the first thing I noticed and the first thing you noticed. Yet Kimberly hasn’t mentioned anything about it.”
“If she so much as whispers that the victim reminds her of her dead sister, they’ll cart her out of here in a straitjacket for sure.”
“And yet the victim must remind her of her sister. Isn’t that the whole point?”
Rainie scowled. He was leading her down some psychobabble trail. She could feel the trap closing in. “You’re working the case,” she countered.
“I’ve worked over three hundred homicides. I’ve had a bit more time to develop objectivity about these things.”
“But you saw the resemblance.”
“I did.”
“Does it bother you, Quincy?”
“What? That a victim should look so much like Mandy, or that Mandy is still gone, and I never did a damn thing to help her?” His question was harsh. Rainie took that as an invitation to slide off the bed. He stiffened when she first touched his shoulders. She expected that. After all these years, they each still had their barriers and self-defenses. It didn’t used to bother her so much. But lately it had been making her sad.
“You hurt for her,” she whispered.
“For Kimberly? Of course I do. She’s picked a hard path. It’s just sometimes . . .” He blew out a breath.
“Go on.”
“Kimberly wants to be tough. She wants to be strong. I understand that. After everything that happened to her, a desire for some level of invincibility is natural. And yet . . . does shooting a gun make you omnipotent, Rainie? Does pushing yourself to run six miles every day mean you’ll never be a victim? Does engaging in every kind of physical combat imaginable mean you’ll never lose?” He didn’t wait for her answer; none