Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [57]
“The anonymous tips are what make it interesting,” Quincy agreed. He sighed again, then rubbed his temple. “Seems at the end of the day, we have six reasons why the cases shouldn’t be related, and half a dozen reasons why they should. Now we need a tiebreaker.” He looked at her. “You know what? We need to know the victim’s ID. Right now, we have one body, which may or may not bear resemblance to another case. If, however, we had concrete evidence that two girls had been kidnapped . . .”
“Then it would definitely point to the Eco-Killer,” Rainie filled in.
“Then I would definitely pay more attention to the Georgia case.”
“Has Kaplan checked missing persons reports?”
“He has someone going through old files. No new cases, however, have opened up in the last twenty-four hours. At least not for a young woman.”
“How sad,” Rainie murmured. “To be kidnapped and murdered, and have no one even realize that you’re gone yet.”
“Most colleges are on break,” Quincy said with a shrug. “If our victim is a student, the lack of a regular schedule might make it take longer for anyone to notice that she’s disappeared.”
“Maybe that’s why there’s no ID,” Rainie said after a moment. “If we don’t know who she is, we can’t know for sure that she—or a companion—is missing. The Eco-Killer has bought himself some time.”
Quincy eyed her speculatively. “But doesn’t that work both ways?”
“He either is the Eco-Killer and doesn’t want us to know it yet,” she said slowly.
“Or someone has done their homework,” Quincy concluded quietly. “Someone has committed murder, and now is seeking to cover his tracks by sending us off on a wild-goose chase.”
“Where do you want to start?” she asked.
“We start where we always start. Close to home. Right here.” His arms finally went around her waist. He drew her up against his chest. “Come on, Rainie,” he murmured in her ear. “Tell me the truth. Haven’t you always wanted to tear apart the FBI Academy?”
“You have no idea.”
And then, a moment later: “I’m trying,” he whispered.
“I know,” she said, and closed her eyes against the fresh sting of tears.
CHAPTER 16
Quantico, Virginia
9:46 P.M.
Temperature: 91 degrees
KIMBERLY SAT ALONE IN HER DORM ROOM. Lucy had returned briefly, dumping one pile of books on the cluttered desk before scooping up the next.
“Wow, you look worse than you did this morning,” she said by way of greeting.
“Been working on it all day,” Kimberly assured her.
“Finding a corpse must be hard on a girl.”
“So you heard.”
“Everyone’s heard, my dear. It’s the hottest topic around. This your first corpse?”
“You mean other than my mother and sister?”
Lucy stilled in front of the desk. The silence grew long. “Well, I’m off to study group,” she said finally. She turned, her expression gentle. “Want to come along, Kimberly? You know we don’t mind.”
“No,” Kimberly said flatly.
And then Lucy was gone.
She should sleep. Supervisor Watson was right. Her nerves were frayed, the adrenaline rush gone and leaving her feeling empty. She wanted to tip over on the narrow bed. Slip into the blessed numbness of sleep.
She’d dream about Mandy. She’d dream about her mother. She wasn’t sure which dream would hurt her worse.
She could find her father over at the Jefferson Dormitory. He would talk to her, he always did. But she knew already the look she’d see on his face. Slightly distracted, slightly puzzled. A man who had just started a terribly important assignment, and even as he listened to his daughter lament, the other half of his brain would be reshuffling crime-scene photos, murder books, investigator logs. Her father loved her. But she and Mandy had come to understand early on that he mostly belonged to the dead.
She couldn’t stand the empty room. She couldn’t stand the sound of footsteps in the hall. People meeting friends, sharing laughs, swapping stories, having a good time. Only Kimberly sat alone, the island she