by Lisa Gardner
“Hello,” she tried again. “Down here!”
Her voice was slightly louder now. Then she heard a faint pause, and sensed a presence suddenly close.
“Hello, hello, hello!”
“Clock ticking,” a clear voice whispered from above. “Heat kills.”
And the next thing Tina knew, she felt a sharp pain on her hand, as if a pair of fangs had finally found her flesh.
“Ow!” She slapped at her hand, feeling the heat of the flames. “Ow, ow, ow.” She beat at the heat frantically, squashing the match into the mud. Son of a bitch. Now he was trying to burn her out!
That did it. Tina staggered to her feet. She raised her tired arms over her head, balling her hands into fists. Then she screamed at the top of her sandpaper-dry throat. “You come down here and face me, you bastard. Come on. Fight like a man!”
Her legs promptly collapsed beneath her. She lay there in the mud, dazed and panting. She heard more sounds, this time the man running away. Perversely, she missed him; it was the closest to a human connection she’d had in days.
Hey, she thought weakly. She smelled smoke.
Kimberly was blowing frantically on her whistle. Three sharp blasts. Mac was whistling, too. They could see smoke now directly ahead. They raced to the pile of leaves, kicking them open and stomping furiously on the burning embers.
More smoke spiraled from the left, while a sputtering sound came from the right. Kimberly blew futilely on her whistle. Mac, too.
Then they were off to the right and off to the left, dashing through the woods and desperately seeking out the dozens of burning piles.
“We need water.”
“None left.”
“Damp clothing?”
“Only what I’m wearing.” Mac peeled off his soaked shirt and used it to smother a burning stump.
“It’s Ennunzio. No brother. Has a brain tumor. Apparently has gone insane.” Kimberly kicked frantically at yet another pile of smoldering leaves. Snakes? She didn’t have time to worry about them anymore.
A fresh sound of rustling tree limbs came from their right. Kimberly jerked toward the noise, already raising her gun and trying to find a target. A deer raced by, followed swiftly by two more. For the first time, she became aware of the full activity around them. Squirrels scrambling up trees, birds taking to the air. Soon they would probably see otters, raccoons, and foxes, a desperate exodus of all creatures great and small.
“He hates what he loves and loves what he hates,” Kimberly said grimly.
“They have the right idea. Two of us alone can’t stop this. We have to think of bailing out.”
But Kimberly was already running to a fresh batch of curling smoke. “Not yet.”
“Kimberly …”
“Please, Mac, not yet.”
She tore apart a rotting tree limb, stomping on the scattering flames. Mac tended to the next hot spot, then they both heard it at once. Yelling. Distant and rough.
“Hey … Down here! Somebody … Help.”
“Tina,” Kimberly breathed.
They ran toward her voice.
Kimberly nearly found Tina Krahn the hard way. One moment she was running forward, the next her right foot pedaled through open air. She staggered at the edge of the rectangular pit, frantically windmilling her arms until Mac grabbed her by the backpack and yanked her to firmer footing.
“I gotta start looking before I leap,” she muttered.
Drenched in sweat and covered with soot, Mac managed a crooked smile. “And ruin your charm?”
They dropped down on their stomachs and gazed intently into the hole. The pit seemed quite large, maybe a ten-by-fifteen-foot area, at least twenty feet deep. It obviously wasn’t new. Thick, tangled vines covered most of the walls, while beneath Kimberly’s fingertips, she could feel old, half-rotted railroad ties. She didn’t know who had built the pit, but given that slaves had been used to dredge most of the swamp, she had her theories as to why. Don’t want to watch the help too much at night? Well, talk about restricted sleeping quarters …
“Hello!” she called down. “Tina?”
“Are you for real?” a feeble voice called back from the shadows. “You’re not wearing a tuxedo, are you?”
“Noooo,” Kimberly said slowly. She glanced at Mac. They were both thinking about what Kathy Levine had said. Heatstroke victims were often delusional.
The smell of smoke was growing thicker. Kimberly narrowed her eyes, still trying to pick out a human being below. Then she saw her. All the way down in the muck, curled tight against a boulder. The girl was covered head to toe in mud, blending in perfectly with her surroundings. Kimberly could just barely make out the flash of white teeth when Tina spoke.
“Water?” the girl croaked hopefully.
“We’re going to get you out of there.”
“I think I lost my baby,” Tina whispered. “Please, don’t tell my mom.”
Kimberly closed her eyes. The words hurt her, one more casualty in a war they never should have had to fight.
“We’re going to throw you a rope.” Mac’s voice was steady and calm.
“I can’t … No Spiderman. Tired … So tired …”
“You go down,” Mac murmured to Kimberly. “I’ll haul up.”
“We don’t have a litter.”
“Loop the end of the rope to form a swing. It’s the best we can do.”
Kimberly looked at his arms wordlessly. It would take a tremendous amount of strength to pull up a hundred pounds of deadweight, and Mac had been hiking for nearly three days straight, on virtually no sleep. But Mac merely shrugged. In his eyes she saw the truth. The smoke was thickening, the deadly fire taking hold. They didn’t have many options left.
“I’m coming down,” Kimberly called into the pit.
Mac pulled out the vinyl coil, worked a rough belay using a clamp around his waist, then gave her the go-ahead. She rappelled down slow and easy, trying not to recoil at the stench, or to think about what kind of things must be slithering in the muck.
At the bottom, she was startled by her first close-up view of the girl. Tina’s bones stood out starkly. Her skin was shrink-wrapped around her frame in a macabre imitation of a living mummy. Her hair was wild and muddy, her eyes swollen shut. Even beneath the coating of mud, Kimberly could see giant sores oozing blood and pus. Was it her imagination, or did one of those sores just wiggle? The girl hadn’t been lying. In her condition, she was never going to be able to climb up the pit walls on her own.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Tina,” Kimberly said briskly. “My name is Kimberly Quincy, and I’ve come to get you out of here.”
“Water?” Tina whispered hopefully.
“Up top.”
“So thirsty. Where’s the lake?”
“I’m going to loop this rope. You need to sit in it like a swing. And then Special Agent McCormack up there is going to pull you up. If you can use your legs against the wall to assist him, that would be very helpful.”
“Water?”
“All the water you want, Tina. You just have to make it to the top.”
The girl nodded slowly, her head bobbing back and forth almost drunkenly. She seemed dazed and unfocused, on the edge of checking back out. Kimberly moved quickly, wrapping the rope around Tina’s hips and getting it in place.
“Ready?” she called up.
“Ready,” Mac replied, and Kimberly heard a new urgency in his voice. The fire was obviously sweeping closer.
“Tina,” she said intently. “If you want that water, you gotta move. And I mean now.”
She hefted the girl up, felt the slack immediately tighten in the rope. Tina seemed to half get it; her feet kicked weakly at the wall. A groan from up top. A heaving gasp as Mac began to pull.
“Water at the top, Tina. Water at the top.”
Then Tina did something Kimberly didn’t expect. From deep in her haze, she roused her tired limbs, stuck her feet in what appeared to be small gaps between the railroad ties
and actually tried to help.
Up, up, up she went, climbing toward freedom. Up, up, up out of her dark hellhole.
And just for a moment, Kimberly felt something lighten in her chest. She stood there, watching this exhausted girl finally make it to safety and she felt a moment of satisfaction, of sublime peace. She had done good. She had gotten this one right.
Tina disappeared over the edge. Within seconds the rope was back down.
“Move!” Mac barked.
Kimberly grabbed the rope, spotted the toeholds and bolted for the top.
She crested the pit just in time to watch a wall of flames hit the trees and bear down upon them.
CHAPTER 47
Dismal Swamp, Virginia
2:39 P.M.
Temperature: 103 degrees
“We need choppers, we need the manpower, we need help.”
Quincy pulled up at the cluster of cars and spotted the thin columns of smoke darkening the bright blue sky. One, two, three—there had to be nearly a dozen of them. He turned back to the forestry official who was still barking orders into a radio.
“What the hell has happened?”
“Fire,” the man said tersely.
“Where is my daughter?”
“Is she a hiker? Who is she with?”
“Dammit.” Quincy spotted Ray Lee Chee staggering out of a vehicle and made a beeline for him, Rainie hot on his heels. “What happened?”
“Don’t know. Drove into Lake Drummond to start the search. Next thing I know, I’m hearing whistle blasts and smelling smoke.”
“Whistle blasts?”
“Three sharp blows, the international call of distress. Sounded from the northeast quadrant. I was headed in that direction, but man, the smoke got so thick so fast. Brian and I figured we’d better bug out while we still had the chance. We’re not equipped with that kind of gear.”
“And the others?”
“Saw Kathy and Lloyd headed toward their vehicle. Don’t know about Kimberly, Mac, or that doctor dude.”
“How do I get to Lake Drummond?”
Ray just looked at him, then at the clouds of smoke. “Now, sir, you don’t.”
Mac and Kimberly had Tina slung between them, one of her arms over each of their shoulders. The girl was a fighter, trying vainly to help them by moving her feet. But her body had been pushed beyond its limits days ago. The more she tried to run with them, the more she stumbled and careened sluggishly, throwing them all off balance.
The awkward motions were getting them nowhere and the fire was gaining fast.
“I got her,” Mac said tersely.
“It’s too much weight—”
“Shut up and help.” He stopped and hunkered down. Tina wrapped her arms around his neck, Kimberly boosted the muddy girl up onto his back.
“Water,” the girl croaked.
“When we’re out of the woods,” Mac promised. Neither of them had the heart to tell Tina that they had no water left. For that matter, if they didn’t magically find their vehicle in about the next five minutes, all of the water in the world would make no difference.
They were off and running again. Kimberly had no sense of time or place. She was stumbling around trees, battling her way through choking underbrush. Smoke stung her eyes and made her cough. In the good news department, the bugs were gone. In the bad news department, she didn’t know if she was heading north or south, east or west. The swamp had closed in on her and she’d long ago lost any sense of direction.
Mac seemed to know where he was going, however. He had a hard, lean look on his face, pushing himself forward and determined to take both of them with him.
A lumbering shape appeared to their left. Kimberly watched in awe as a full-grown black bear went running by not ten feet away. The big animal didn’t spare them a glance, but kept on trucking. Next came deer, foxes, squirrels, and even some snakes. Everything was clearing out, and normal food-chain rules did not apply in the face of this far greater foe.
They ran, sweat streaming down their arms and legs. They ran faster, Tina beginning to mumble incoherently, her head lolling forward on Mac’s shoulder. They ran harder, the smoke penetrating their lungs, making them all gasp.
They squeezed through a narrow space between two towering trees, rounded a large patch of thickets and came face-to-face with Ennunzio. He was on the ground, propped up against a tree trunk. He seemed unsurprised to see them burst through the roiling smoke.
“You shouldn’t run from the flames,” he murmured, and then Kimberly saw what was at his feet. A coiled nest of brown mottled skin. Two pinpricks of red showed on Ennunzio’s calf where the rattler had bitten him.
“I shot him,” he said, in reply to their unasked question. “But not before he got me. Just as well. Can’t run anymore. Time to wait. Must take your punishment like a man. What do you think my father thought about, each time he heard us scream?”
His gaze went to the muddy shape on Mac’s back. “Oh good, you found her. That’s nice. Out of four girls, I was hoping you’d get at least one right.”
Kimberly took a furious step forward and Ennunzio’s hand immediately twitched by his side. He was holding his gun.
“You shouldn’t run from the flames,” he said sternly. “I tried it thirty years ago, and look what happened to me. Now sit. Stay a while. It only hurts for a short time.”
“You’re dying,” Kimberly told him flatly.
“Aren’t we all?”
“Not today. Look—sit here all you want. Die in your precious fire. But we’re out of here.”
She took another step, and Ennunzio immediately raised the gun.
“Stay,” he said firmly and now she could see the light flaming in his eyes, a feverish, rabid glow. “You must die. It’s the only way to find peace.”
Kimberly pressed her lips into a thin, frustrated line. She shot a glance at Mac. He had a gun somewhere, but with his hands full trying to keep Tina on his back, he was in no position to do anything quickly or stealthily. Kimberly shot her gaze back to Ennunzio. This one was up to her.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Frank or David?”
“Frank. I’ve always been Frank.” Ennunzio’s lips curled weakly. “But do you want to hear something stupid? I tried to pretend in the beginning that it wasn’t me. I tried to pretend the killer was Davey, come back to do all those terrible things, because I was big brother Frank and I’d gotten out and I wasn’t going to be anything like my family. But of course it wasn’t Davey. Davey got beat one too many times. Davey stopped having any hope. Davey, given a choice between running and dying, chose dying. So of course it could only be me, hunting down innocent girls. Once I had the tumor removed, I could see more clearly. I had done bad things. The fire had made me do it, and now I must stop. But then the pain came back and all I could dream of was bodies in the woods.”
The smoke was growing thicker. It made Kimberly blink owlishly and become even more aware of the intense heat growing at her back. “If we fashioned a tourniquet above the bite, you could still live,” Kimberly tried desperately. “You could walk out of this swamp, get yourself some antivenom, and then get yourself some serious psychological help.”
“But I don’t want to live.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because living is hope. Trying is hope. And because I come from a long line of people who have excelled at being earnest.” Ennunzio’s gaze had drifted to Mac. It was the opportunity she’d been waiting for. Choking back a harsh cough, Kimberly swiftly brought up her Glock and leveled it at Ennunzio’s face. “Throw down your weapon, Frank. Let us pass, or you won’t have to worry about your precious fire.”
Ennunzio merely smiled. “Shoot me.”
“Put down your weapon.”
“Shoot me.”
“Shoot your own goddamn self! I wasn’t put on this earth to end your misery. I’m here to save a girl. Now we have her and we’re getting out.” The smoke was so thick now, Kimberly could
barely see.
“No,” Ennunzio said distinctly. “Move, and I’ll shoot. The flames are coming. Now take your punishment like a man.”
“You’re a coward. Always taking your rage out on others, when all along you know who you truly hate the most is yourself.”
“I saved lives.”
“You killed your own family!”
“They wanted me to do it.”
“Bullshit! They wanted help. Ever think who your brother could’ve been? I’m sure he would’ve done better than turn into a serial murderer who preyed on young girls.”
“Davey was weak. Davey needed my protection.”
“Davey needed his family and you took them away from him! It’s always been about you, Ennunzio. Not what your brother needed, not what your mom needed and sure as hell not what the environment needed. You kill because you want to kill. Because killing makes you happy. And maybe that’s why Davey stayed in the house that day. He already knew the truth—that of the whole family, you are the worst of the bunch.”
Kimberly leaned forward. Ennunzio’s face had turned a mottled shade of scarlet while his Glock trembled in his hand. The fire had grown dangerously close. She could smell the acrid odor of singeing hair. Not much time left. For him, for her, for any of them.
Kimberly took a deep breath. She waited, one, two, three. A popping sound came from the woods, an old tree trunk exploding. Ennunzio jerked his head toward the noise. And Kimberly descended upon him with a vengeance. Her foot connected with his hand, the Glock went flying out of his grasp. A second hard kick had him holding his gut. A third whipped his head around.
She was moving in for the kill, when she heard his rough laugh.
“Take it like a man,” he cackled. “By God, boys, don’t you waste your pathetic cries on me. Hold your chin up when I beat you. Square those shoulders. Look me in the eye, and take your punishment like a man.” Ennunzio laughed again, a hollow sound that sent shivers up her spine.
His head came up. He peered straight at Kimberly. “Kill me,” he said, very clearly. “Please. Make it quick.”