by Lisa Gardner
Kimberly walked over. She picked up his gun. Then she threw it deep into the heart of the oncoming flames.
“No more excuses, Ennunzio. You want to die, you go do it yourself.”
She turned back toward Mac and Tina. The fire was so close now, she could feel its heat on her face. But mostly she was aware of Mac, his calm blue eyes, his big strong body. His absolute faith that she could handle Ennunzio. And now his readiness to take her and Tina Krahn straight out of here.
Life was filled with choices, Kimberly thought. Living, dying, fighting, running, hoping, dreading, loving, hating. Existing in the past or living in the present. Kimberly looked at Mac, then looked at Tina, and she had no problem with her choices anymore.
“Let’s go,” she said crisply.
They started running. Ennunzio howled behind them. Or maybe he simply laughed. But the fire was moving fast now. The flames would no longer be denied.
The wall of fire descended, and one way or another, Ennunzio had his peace at last.
They found the car ten minutes later. Tina was piled into the backseat, Mac and Kimberly plunked down in the front. Then Mac had the keys out and the engine running and they were tearing down the flat, grassy road, dodging fleeing animals.
Kimberly heard a roar that sounded like an inferno, while overhead the skies filled with rescue choppers and forestry planes. The cavalry coming, bringing in professionals to fight the blaze and save what could be saved.
They tore out of the swamp, coming to a screeching halt in a parking lot now filled with vehicles.
Mac jumped out first. “Medical attention, quick, over here.”
Then EMTs were working on Tina with water and cooling packs, while Quincy and Rainie were running across the parking lot toward Kimberly, and Mac was beating them both to the punch by taking her into his arms. She rested her head against his chest. He put his arms around her, and things finally felt safe.
Nora Ray appeared out of the crowd, moving toward Tina’s side.
“Betsy?” Tina murmured weakly. “Viv? Karen?”
“They’re happy that you’re alive,” Nora Ray said quietly, squatting down next to Tina’s prostrate form.
“Are they okay?”
“They’re happy that you’re alive.”
Tina understood then. She closed her eyes. “I want my mother,” she said, and then she started to cry.
“You’ll be okay,” Nora Ray said. “You have to take it from me. A bad thing happened, but you survived it. You won.”
“How do you know?”
“Because three years ago, the same man kidnapped me.”
Tina finally stopped crying. She looked at Nora Ray through bloodshot eyes. “Do you know where they’re going to take me?”
“I don’t know, but I can stay with you if you’d like.”
“Buddy system?” Tina whispered.
Nora Ray finally smiled. She squeezed Tina’s hand and said, “Always.”
EPILOGUE
Quantico, Virginia
10:13 A.M.
Temperature: 88 degrees
She was running, tearing through the woods at breakneck speed. Dangling leaves snatched at her hair, low branches tore at her face. She leapt fallen tree trunks, then threw herself full throttle at the fifteen-foot wall. Her hands found the rope, her feet scrabbled for footing. Up, up, up she went, heart pounding, lungs heaving, and throat gasping.
She crested the top, had an absolutely stellar view of the lush, green Virginia woods, then flipped herself down the other side. Tires coming up. Bing, bing, bing, she punched one foot through the center of each rubber mass. Then she was hunched over like a turtle, scrambling down a narrow metal pipe. Now out the other end, racing down the homestretch. Sun on her face. Wind in her hair.
Kimberly careened over the finish line, just as Mac clicked off the stopwatch and said, “Ah, honey, you call that a time? Hell, I know guys that go twice as fast.”
Kimberly launched herself at his chest. He saw the attack coming and tried to brace his feet. She’d learned a new move in combat training just last week, however, and had him flat on his back in no time.
She was still breathing hard, sweat glistening across her face and dampening her navy blue FBI Academy T-shirt. For a change, however, she wore a smile.
“Where’s the knife?” Mac murmured with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
“Don’t you wish.”
“Pretty please. I can insult you more, if you’d like.”
“No way can you do that course twice as fast.”
“Well, I might have been exaggerating.” His hands were now on her bare legs, tracing lines from her ankles up to the hem of her nylon shorts. “But I’m at least two seconds faster.”
“Upper body strength,” Kimberly spat out. “Men have more and it comes in handy at the wall.”
“Yep, ain’t life unfair?” He rolled with a surprise move of his own, and now she was the one on the dirt and he was the one looming above. Trapped, she did the sensible thing; she lunged up, grabbed his shoulders and nailed him with a long, lingering kiss.
“Miss me?” he gasped three seconds later.
“No. Not much.”
Other voices were coming from the woods now. More students, taking advantage of this beautiful Saturday to train. Mac got up grudgingly. Kimberly vaulted up with more energy, hastily wiping dirt and leaves from her hair. The students were almost in view now, about to top the wall. Mac and Kimberly bolted for the shelter of the neighboring woods.
“How’s it going?” Mac asked as they drifted into the lush, green shade.
“Hanging in there.”
He stopped, took her arm, and made her face him. “No, Kimberly. I mean for real. How is it going?”
She shrugged, wishing the sight of him didn’t make her want to throw her arms around his waist or bury her head against his shoulder. Wishing the sight of him didn’t make her feel so damn giddy. Life was still life, and these days, hers carried a lot of obligations.
“Some of the students aren’t wild about my presence,” she admitted at last. She had resumed her studies nearly a month ago. Some of the powers-that-be weren’t wild about it, but Rainie had been right: everybody blamed a failure, nobody argued with a hero. Kimberly and Mac’s dramatic rescue of Tina Krahn had been front-page news for nearly a week. When she’d called Mark Watson about returning to the Academy, he’d even gotten her her own room.
“Not easy being recycled?”
“No. I’m the outsider who showed up halfway through the school year. Worse, I’m an outsider with a reputation half want to challenge and the other half don’t want to believe.”
“Are they mean to you?” he asked soberly, thumb beneath her chin.
“Someone actually short-sheeted my bed. Oh my God, the horrors. I should write home to Daddy.”
“Uh oh, what did you do in retaliation?” Mac asked immediately.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Oh dear.”
She resumed walking. After a moment, he fell in step beside her. “I’m going to make it, Mac,” she said seriously. “Five weeks to go, and I’m going to make it. And if some people don’t like me, that’s okay. Because others do, and I’m good at this job. With more experience, I’m going to be even better at the job. Why, someday I might even follow a direct order. Think of what the Bureau will do then.”
“You’ll be like a whole new secret weapon,” Mac said with awe.
“Exactly.” She nodded her head with pride. Then, not being stupid, she regarded him intently. “So why are you here, Mac? And don’t tell me you missed my smile. I know you’re a little too busy for social calls these days.”
“It’s always something, isn’t it?”
“At the moment.”
He sighed, looked as if he wished he could say something clever, then must’ve decided to get on with it. “They found Ennunzio’s body.”
“Good.” It had taken weeks to completely annihilate the swamp fire. In t
he good-news department, crews had contained the blaze fairly quickly, limiting damage. In the bad-news department, the smoldering peat continued to flare up for nearly a month, requiring constant vigilance on the part of the U.S. Forestry Service.
During that time, volunteers worked the site, tending the woods and seeking some sign of Ennunzio’s body. As week had grown into week, they had all started getting a little nervous, especially Kimberly.
“He made it farther than any of us would’ve guessed,” Mac was saying now. “True to his natural ambivalence, he must have decided at the last minute that he wanted to live. He actually hiked a good mile with his bitten leg. Who even knows what got him in the end? The venom pumped into his heart, or the smoke, or the flames?”
“They do a postmortem?”
“Completed it yesterday. Kimberly, he didn’t have a tumor.”
She halted, blinked her eyes a few times, then had to run a hand through her hair. “Well, that figures, doesn’t it,” she murmured. “Guy’s such a fuck-up, he’s gotta blame his actions on everything but himself. His mother, his brother, and a medical condition he doesn’t even have. Doesn’t that take the cake?”
“For the record, he did have a tumor once,” Mac said. “Doctors confirmed his operation two years ago to remove the mass. According to them, a tumor could affect someone’s propensity for violence. I understand there was even a mass murderer in Texas who claimed his actions were caused by a tumor.”
“Charles Whitman,” Kimberly murmured. “Stabbed his mother to death, then murdered his wife, then climbed a clock tower at the University of Texas and opened fire on the population below. In the end, he killed eighteen people and wounded thirty others before being shot and killed himself. He left a note, didn’t he? Said he wanted an autopsy performed because he was sure there was something physically wrong with him.”
“Exactly. The autopsy revealed a small tumor in his hypothalamus, which some experts say could have contributed to his rampage, while others claim it could not. Who knows? Maybe Ennunzio liked that story. Maybe it made an impression upon him, especially when he found out he had a tumor himself. But there was no tumor this time, so once again, he was just giving himself an excuse.”
“You had him nailed in the beginning,” Kimberly said. “Why does the Eco-Killer target and murder young women? Because he wants to. Sometimes, it really is as simple as that.”
“The guy did feel some level of guilt,” Mac said with a shrug. “Hence leaving us clues to find the second girl. Hence contacting the police as an anonymous tipster and getting us all into the game. Hence his personal involvement as an FBI agent, keeping us on track. When he analyzed the letters, he described the author as someone who felt compelled to kill, but who also wanted to be stopped. Maybe that was his way of trying to explain himself to us.”
Kimberly, however, vehemently shook her head. “Did he really want to help, Mac, or did he just want more people to hurt? This is the guy who started out hating his father, but actually killed his mother and brother. He targeted young women, but also set up hazardous conditions for the search-and-rescue volunteers. I don’t think he placed those anonymous phone calls because he wanted you to catch him. He was seeking to involve more people in his game. He obviously didn’t mind collateral damage. And if he could have, he would’ve killed us in the swamp that day.”
“You’re probably right.”
“I’m glad he’s dead.”
“Honey, I’m not so sad about it myself.”
“Any sign of the girls’ cars?” she asked.
“Funny you should mention it; we think we’ve found one.”
“Where at?”
“In the Tallulah Gorge, camouflaged with netting, green paint, and a whole lotta leaves. We’re revisiting the other sites now, to see if we’ll find the victims’ vehicles nearby. We also discovered Ennunzio’s home base—he has a cabin in the woods not far from here. Very rustic, like an old hunting shack. In it, we found a cot, gallons of water, boxes of crackers, a tranquilizer gun, and tons of drugs. He really could’ve kept doing this for a very long time.”
“Then I’m doubly glad he’s dead. And Tina?”
“At home in Minnesota with her mom,” Mac reported immediately. “I understand from Nora Ray that Tina had just discovered she was pregnant before the kidnapping. Unfortunately, she lost the baby and is taking it rather hard. But I hear her mother’s been a pillar of strength and Tina’s gonna spend the rest of the summer recuperating at home, then see what she wants to do. She lost her three best friends; I’m not sure exactly how you recover from something like that. She and Nora Ray seem to have grown close, however. Maybe they can help each other out. Nora Ray’s talking of visiting her in a few weeks. Minnesota has cooler summers. Nora Ray likes that. Okay, your turn. How’re your father and Rainie?”
“They’re in Oregon. They’re planning on doing absolutely nothing but stroll on beaches and play a little golf until my graduation in five weeks. I give my father two days, and he’ll be working the first local homicide case he can find. The Oregon cops will never know what hit them.”
“Have dead body, will travel?” Mac teased her.
“Something like that.”
“And you?” His finger traced a slow, gentle line down her cheek. Then both his hands settled on her waist. “What are you going to do in five weeks?”
“I’m a new agent,” Kimberly said quietly. Her hands had come up, resting on the hard curve of his arms. “We don’t have much say in things. You get assigned where you get assigned.”
“Can you list preferences?”
“We can. I said Atlanta might be nice. No reason, of course.”
“No reason?” Mac’s hands stroked up her sides, his thumbs feathering across her breasts.
“Okay, I have a little bit of a reason.”
“When will you know?”
“Yesterday.”
“You mean …”
She smiled, feeling a little bit ridiculous now, and ducked her head. “Yeah, I got lucky. Atlanta’s a big field office and they needed a fair amount of agents. I guess I’m going to have to learn to talk with a drawl, and drink a lot of Coke.”
“I want you to meet my family,” Mac said immediately. He was holding her tighter now. She hadn’t been 100 percent sure of what he would think. They had both been so busy lately, and you never knew …
But he was grinning. His blue eyes danced. He bobbed his head and nailed her with a second kiss. “Oh, this will be fun!”
“I’m bringing my knife,” she warned weakly.
“My sister will be thrilled.”
“I’m not trying to rush you. I know we’ll both be very busy.”
“Shut up and kiss me again.”
“Mac …”
“You’re beautiful, Kimberly, and I love you.”
She barely knew what to say anymore. She took his hand. She whispered the words. She pressed her lips against his.
Then they walked together through the woods, with the wind sighing in the trees and the sun shining softly overhead.
Acknowledgments
A little bit of research went into the making of this novel. In the absolutely, highly recommended, great-way-to-spend-a-weekend department, I was privileged to once again visit the FBI Academy and learn more about life amid an active Marine base. I have done my best to re-create the facilities and culture of the Academy. In regard to some of the anecdotes and traditions, however, buyer beware. The Academy is a living, breathing institution, undergoing constant change depending on the year, the class, and Bureau needs. As fast as one agent told me a story of a hallowed tradition during his Academy days, another agent would confess he’d never heard of such a thing. Being a crafty writer, I sifted through the various anecdotes, selected the ones I liked best and delivered them here as the gospel truth. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
As much as I enjoy interviewing FBI agents, I confess I was totally blown away by the nice men and women I met
via the U.S. Geological Survey team of Richmond, Virginia. I needed some experts on the great outdoors and boy, did I hit the mother lode. Not only were the team members very patient when explaining to me the intricacies of properly analyzing water samples, but they came up with a dynamite list of cool places to kill people. They also gave my husband and me a personal tour of their recommended crime scenes, which had us on good behavior for weeks.
Following is the rather extensive list of nice folks who took time away from their very busy lives just to answer my phone calls. These people gave me correct information with the best of intentions. What happened to it after that is entirely my fault.
FIRST, THE EARTH EXPERTS:
Jim Campbell, Subdistrict Chief, U.S. Geological Survey
David Nelms, Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey
George E. Harlow, Jr., P.G., Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey
Randall C. Orndorff, Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey
William C. Burton, Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey
Wil Orndorff, Karst Protection Coordinator, Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation
Wendy Cass, Park Botanist, Shenandoah National Park
Ron Litwin, Palynologist, U.S. Geological Survey
SECOND, THE DRUG EXPERTS:
Margaret Charpentier
Celia MacDonnell
THIRD, THE PROCEDURE EXPERTS:
Special Agent Nidia Gamba, FBI, New York
Dr. Gregory K. Moffatt, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Atlanta Christian College
Jimmy Davis, Chief of Police, Snell Police Department, GA
FOURTH, THE SUPPORTING CAST:
Melinda Carr, Diana Chadwick, Barbara Ruddy, and Kathleen Walsh for their invaluable proofreading assistance
My husband, Anthony, who didn’t have to make any chocolate this time, but was required to unpack an entire house while I tended to deadline. Love, let’s never move again.