The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [38]
“Sir, listen to me—”
“Agent, how long has it been since you’ve slept?”
Quincy fell silent. He knew he had bags beneath his eyes, he knew he had lost weight. When Mandy had died, he had told himself that he was too smart to let it eat away at him. He’d lied.
The other agents were still staring at them. He could read their judgments on their faces. Quincy’s losing it. Quincy’s strung too tight. Told you he shouldn’t have returned to work so soon after the funeral. . . .
The FBI and animals in the wild, he thought: all culled the weak from their herd.
“I’ll . . . I’ll find a hotel,” he said brusquely. “I just need to pack a few things.”
“Excellent. Glenda, you and Albert will be in charge of setting up surveillance of Quincy’s house.”
Glenda nodded. “I’ll send you daily reports,” she offered Quincy, her tone even, but her eyes kind.
“I’d appreciate that,” he said stiffly.
“We’re on top of things,” Everett concluded firmly, and nodded at the group. “You’ll see, Quincy. It’ll be all right.”
Quincy simply shook his head. He walked back to his office in silence. He watched the play of stale fluorescent light over industrial-cream cinder block. He wondered again what kind of man chose a job that denied him daylight.
When he was inside his office, he closed the door. Then he called the one person who might be able to help him now, who might still be able to protect Mandy’s grave.
He called Bethie, but somewhere in Philadelphia the phone merely rang and rang and rang.
10
Greenwich Village, New York City
Kimberly left her apartment walking fast. She’d gotten up early—Wednesday was her weekly shooting lesson—and lately she’d come to really need her time on the firing range. She’d donned jeans and a casual T-shirt, stuck her fine long hair into a ponytail, then headed out to catch the commuter train to Jersey. Just like clockwork, she told herself. Wednesday morning just like any other Wednesday morning. Breathe deep. Inhale the smog.
It wasn’t like any other Wednesday morning. For starters, she no longer had to show up for work. She had been so pale and jumpy yesterday afternoon, Dr. Andrews had grumpily ordered her to take the rest of the week off, her first vacation since Mandy’s funeral. She could take her time today. Stop and smell the roses. Ease up a little, as her professor had instructed her to do.
Her footsteps remained compulsively quick, more of a run than a walk. She glanced over her shoulder more than any normal person should. And even though she absolutely, positively knew better, she was carrying her Glock .40 fully loaded and with the first round already chambered. Don’t be this freaky, she kept telling herself.
She was doing it anyway.
Funny thing was, she didn’t even feel that bad at the moment. No hairs standing up at the nape of her neck. No cold chills creeping down her spine. No sense of doom, which almost always preceded the anxiety attacks. The weather was balmy. The streets possessed enough people so that she was not isolated, while also being few enough people for her to maintain a large safety zone around herself. And even if someone did try to attack her, she found herself thinking, she was fully trained in self-defense as well as heavily armed. Kimberly Quincy a victim? Not likely.
Yet she was grateful to arrive at Penn Station. She took a seat on the commuter train, scrutinized her fellow passengers, and finally concluded that none of them appeared the slightest bit interested in her. People read magazines. People watched the scenery go by. People ignored her in favor of their own lives. Who would’ve thought?
“You’re a fucking psycho,” she murmured, which finally did earn her a look from the guy sitting next to her. She thought of telling him that she was carrying a loaded gun, but given that he was heading into Jersey, he was probably carrying one, too. As Dr. Andrews liked to say, normality was a relative