The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [87]
“Dr. Andrews said he’ll be someone I know,” Kimberly said quietly. “The man . . . the UNSUB, works on identifying what the victim needs or wants. Mandy always wanted someone to take care of her. Mom wanted Mandy. Me . . . I have an instinctive trust of anyone wearing a badge.”
Quincy had been folding one of his daughter’s shirts. Now his hands stilled. He looked down at the blue-and-white-striped top as if he didn’t see it.
“Kimberly . . .”
“It’s not your fault, Dad. It’s not your fault.”
Quincy finally nodded, though both Rainie and Kimberly could tell he didn’t believe her. He finished placing the shirt in the single duffel bag. It was a little after one in the morning. None of them had slept much in the last two days and they were working off a list to keep their minds functioning through a sleep-deprived haze.
“What’s next?” Quincy asked.
“Toiletries,” Kimberly announced. She went into her bathroom, and a moment later, they heard the clatter of the medicine cabinet as she started throwing things into a waterproof bag.
“Did you meet with the private investigator?” Quincy asked Rainie under his breath, his gaze on the open bathroom door.
“Yes. Nothing. You?”
“They don’t know about the note yet. It’s a big crime scene; it will take the technicians several days to process everything. If I’m lucky, they’ll get to the note last.”
“How can it be your handwriting? You didn’t write it!”
“I don’t know, but that’s my handwriting. The loops, the slant, the dot over the I’s . . . He’s obviously been practicing.”
“Isn’t there a way of telling that it’s forgery? Hesitation marks, something like that?”
“Depends on how good he is. Depends on how good the handwriting analyst is. In all honesty, I doubt the forgery is perfect, but I also doubt that will help me in the end. All the UNSUB needs is an initial report that the handwriting appears to be mine. The Bureau will follow up, but by then I will also have been arrested, disarmed and discredited. This UNSUB is not only clever, but efficient. He knows just how half-assed he can be, and still get the job done. In a perverse way, I admire that.”
Kimberly walked back into the bedroom. She tossed the plastic bag into the suitcase. “What’s next?”
They didn’t have any items left on the list. They zipped up the small collection of bags and piled them by the door. In three hours, Rainie would drive them all to JFK airport where they would return her rental car and board the six A.M. flight to Portland. Outside the storm still raged and from time to time Quincy glanced nervously at the window. Rainie knew he didn’t care about thunder and lightning. He was extremely concerned, however, about their flight possibly being delayed.
They huddled around the small kitchen table. Kimberly poured fresh cups of coffee, though they were already twitchy from too much caffeine. The roommate Bobby was gone. Quincy had suggested it might not be safe for him to be in the apartment either. Given the option between being terrified of every sound in his apartment or having unlimited sex at his girlfriend’s place, Bobby had decided to stay at his girlfriend’s. Bobby was a smart guy.
Rainie drank more coffee, her hands wrapped around the steaming mug. She’d gotten a chill running around in wet clothes, and now nothing she did made her warm.
“So what else did Dr. Andrews say?” she asked Kimberly at last.
The young girl shrugged. She was holding up remarkably well, Rainie thought. Pale, jumpy, but functional. Rainie supposed they’d all hit the edge where you either kept moving or completely collapsed. Dying was not preferable to living at this point, so they kept moving.
“He . . . he told me I should tell you something,” Kimberly said abruptly. Her gaze flicked to her father, before becoming locked once more on her coffee mug. “I um . . . a few months ago, I started having what I thought were anxiety