The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [85]
Kimberly walked out the door. The air was black as pitch outside and just about as heavy. Nine-thirty P.M. She thought there was going to be a storm.
Quantico, Virginia
Quincy left Quantico shortly after ten P.M., as the first fat drops of rain hit his windshield. He peered up at clouds so thick they obliterated the moon. The wind was whipping. It was going to be a good, old-fashioned thunderstorm. He turned toward I-95 as the first bolt of lightning lit up the sky.
Not much longer, he kept telling himself. Not much longer.
Everett didn’t like Quincy’s decision to leave town. He demanded full accountability—where Quincy would be staying and who he would be with at all times. It did not give Quincy the level of security that he would’ve liked, but he couldn’t very well tell the Special Agent in Charge that he didn’t trust him, not when the man was going out of his way to help Quincy salvage his family and career. Both of them gave up what they had to. Neither of them was happy. It was the usual sort of compromise.
Quincy had packed up his laptop. He’d put a box of old case files in his trunk. He still had his FBI-issued 10mm, which he planned on keeping until the bitter end. He did not feel ready, but he was as prepared as he was ever going to get.
Not much longer.
Wind howling fiercer now. Trees starting to bend. He had to slow the car, but he did not get off the road. Ten-thirty P.M. His daughter needed him.
Not much longer.
He stared in his rearview mirror at the approaching headlights and he felt an incredible sense of doom.
Motel 6, Virginia
Ten forty-five P.M. Rainie dashed from her car to the entrance of her motel. The rain was coming down in sheets and the four-second sprint left her soaked. The night manager looked up as she bolted through the door, spraying raindrops and bits of tree leaves that had gotten stuck in her hair.
“Ugly night,” he commented.
“F-ugly night,” she amended. She stalked down the hall, shivering as the blast from the motel’s air conditioner cut her to the bone. She needed to grab her things and check out. A hot shower could wait. Dinner could wait. All attention was focused on making it to New York. T minus seven.
In her room, the message waiting light was blinking. She glanced at it apprehensively. Then she sighed, sat down, and prepared to take notes.
Six calls. Not bad considering hardly anyone knew this number. Four were hang ups. The fifth was Carl Mitz. “I’m still trying to reach Lorraine Conner. We need to talk.” She gave anxious Carl the credit for the hang ups as well, though she could be wrong. The sixth call surprised her the most. It was from her former fellow Bakersville officer, Luke Hayes.
“Rainie, some lawyer is calling all over town with all sorts of questions about you and your mom. Name is Carl Mitz. I thought you should know.”
Rainie glanced at her watch. She didn’t have time for this now. Mr. Mitz, on the other hand, didn’t seem inclined to back off. Asking questions about her and her mother. All these years later, and the memory still gave her a chill.
She called Luke at his home, but got his machine. “It’s Rainie,” she informed the digital recorder. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’m out of town, but I’ll be back in the morning. Do me a favor, Luke. Set up a meeting with Mitz. Just you and him. Then let me know when and where so I can crash the party. The man has spent the last three days hunting me down like vermin. It’s time he and I had a chat.”
She hung up the phone. Rain ran off her short hair and splattered onto her T-shirt. She caught her reflection across the room, and was startled by the broad, pale lines of her face, the deep shadows hollowing out her rain-dampened cheeks. Her lips appeared bloodless. Her chestnut hair was spiky and wild. She looked like a punk rocker, she thought. Or maybe a vampire’s latest victim. She gazed at her own reflection, felt no kinship with that beat-up woman, and was nearly struck dumb by sheer exhaustion.