by Lisa Gardner
“Gotta do something because Harold’s going from bad to worse and it’s not like an ambulance is gonna come crashing through those woods.”
“I’ll do it,” Sal said, already struggling to his feet.
“Oh, shut up and sit down. You’ve earned enough glory for one afternoon. Time to share the wealth.”
Sal tried to appear offended, but as testimony to his level of pain, stayed seated. “You’re not going to…”
“Nope, I’m playing the role of Florence Nightingale. Which means Dad or Rainie can go for the John Wayne number.”
“We’ll both go,” Rainie decided. “With any luck, the guy is indecisive and two targets will slow him down.”
Kimberly arched a brow to show what she thought of that logic, but didn’t argue. She rolled up her rain jacket as a pillow and placed it under Harold’s feet, then put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Rachel’s head obediently appeared from around the tree. Kimberly communicated their game plan in a series of silent hand motions. Rachel nodded, and bit by bit, the plan was communicated down the line.
When Rachel reappeared, Kimberly counted down from five on one hand. As she folded her fingers into a fist, Quincy and Rainie dashed out and the agents in the forest once again opened fire.
Five, six, seven, eight. Rainie and Quincy arrived at the packs. Grabbed one for each hand. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Scrambled for the safety of the boulder, shoulders hunched, legs bent, trying to form a smaller target.
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…
Rainie and Quincy careened around the boulder, dropped to the ground, and the woods once again fell silent.
Kimberly resumed breathing just in time to realize that Sal had passed out cold. So she ripped open an antiseptic towelette from the first-aid kit and placed it against his bloody side.
Sal awoke with a scream, and from somewhere far away Kimberly could swear she heard a man laugh.
“I gotta get moving,” Sal was muttering over and over again. “Gotta get down the mountain. Owe it to my mother…Isn’t fair.”
Rachel had made it behind the boulder. She had taken over Harold’s care, bathing the agent’s wound in saline solution before covering it with sterile gauze. She glanced up now, and frowned at Sal’s sweat-slicked face.
“Shock?” she murmured to Kimberly.
“No,” Sal answered the senior team leader, wincing through clenched teeth. “Just…being practical. Losing one son…hard enough.”
He had himself to sitting now, back against the boulder, breathing hard.
“Stop moving,” Kimberly barked at him, voice low. “You’re a terrible patient.”
“Think he’s…still around?”
“Let’s put it this way—when the choppers show up with their big guns, I’ll feel better about things.”
She kept her tone light, but both she and Rachel exchanged glances. The radio had continued crackling until Rachel had finally turned it down, fearing it would draw the shooter to them. Ten minutes had gone by without fresh activity, but it was hard to know if that was a good sign or not. Had the shooter given up, or was he circling through the woods, due to pop up at any time, right behind them?
Quincy had taken over Kimberly’s Glock .40 and between him and Rainie were doing their best to keep watch. But there was no mistaking the vulnerability that came from knowing they were on the shooter’s home turf, not their own.
Out on the tarp, the decomposed body had finally stopped moving. Even the spiders had fled and now only the partially mummified corpse remained, a silent reminder of just what Dinchara could do.
Kimberly returned her attention to Sal, bringing a small bottle of water to his lips. He looked worse than she would expect from such a wound, but Rachel was right, that could be the shock of the incident, followed by the adrenaline dump of remaining in perilous circumstances.
“Your mother still alive?” she asked Sal now, wanting to keep him talking while she mopped at his forehead and inspected his side.
“Yes.” She pressed the jagged flesh a little too hard and he sucked in a breath. “Hey—”
“Sorry, grass. Your father?”
“Don’t…know.” She removed a fresh piece of dirt, he gritted his teeth. “She kicked him out…years ago. Finally…got wise…it wasn’t her fault.”
“What wasn’t her fault?”
“My brother’s disappearance.”
“He ran away?”
Sal shook his head. “Abducted. He was only nine. Too young…for life on the street.”
Kimberly regarded him. She had a vague memory of talking to Sal about his family once before. “Then again,” she countered softly, “you implied once that your father was pretty quick with his fists…”
Sal shook his head again, shifting restlessly as he struggled to ease the pain in his side. “Got worse…afterward. Old man couldn’t find his son…drank more.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, well, these things…happen. Been a long time now. You feel the scar…don’t think about the wound underneath. Then little things will tug it open. Line from a movie. Picture of a boy on an old Huffy bike. That damn photo of Aaron Johnson in Ginny’s purse.”
“Why the photo of Aaron Johnson?”
“You kiddin’? The dark hair, pointy face, sunken eyes? Could be a family photo, don’t you think?”
Kimberly shrugged. She had never truly contemplated the picture of Aaron Johnson alive. She was too busy seeing him dead on her hotel room floor.
“You wanna hear something funny?” Sal was saying, looking a little better now, some of the color returning to his face. “My brother’s abduction—that’s why I became a cop. The lead detective, Ron Mercer, seemed tough, you know? Cool, calm, and collected. Figured if I could be as tough as a cop, bad things wouldn’t happen anymore.” He smiled, winced through the pain, and added with an ironic smile, “Oops.”
Quincy had hunkered down beside them, an intent look on his face. “Sal, are you sure you don’t know what happened to your brother?”
“Thirty years later, yeah, my mom and me are pretty sure we know my brother’s fate.”
“No,” said Quincy softly. “I don’t think that you do.”
Then, finally, blessedly, they all heard the wash of rotors beating overhead as the first of the choppers crested Blood Mountain.
Tense moments followed. The SWAT chopper trying to drop down a litter, then several armed guards, from lines overhead. Duff and the rest of them looking sharp as they sought to fend off an attack that could come from any direction.
Then, when it seemed that the shooter had forsaken his hunt, everyone rushing to get Harold onto the litter and off the mountain. Then waiting thirty minutes more for the next chopper, bearing a litter for Sal, who agreed only reluctantly to be strapped in. Kimberly was loaded up with him, an unspoken courtesy to a pregnant agent that left her feeling relieved and guilt-stricken all at once.
Her father and Rainie made the third chopper, as person by person, each federal agent and county law enforcement officer was plucked from the clearing and flown down to the command post.
Kimberly’s first sight was Mac, standing on the perimeter, his face pale and concerned. Then, when he caught sight of her, a grin transformed his face, and even thirty yards away, she could feel the impact of that smile straight in her heart.
She looked down once at Sal, still strapped into the litter. He raised his hand in parting.
“Go to him,” he mouthed.
And she did. She ran without hesitation, leaping into her husband’s arms, feeling his arms close around her and their baby, and he whispered in her ear that he loved her, and for the moment, at least, it was enough.
Night finally closed around them, and from far away came the sound of sirens as the ambulance whisked Harold away.
Rita made it to the kitchen. She was breathing hard, panting really, like a dog she’d once seen trying to pick itself off the road after being struck by a speeding truck. That anima
l had made it five feet before dropping dead.
She had to make it four more.
She had a target in mind. The telephone. She could claim a break-in, fire, rape, it didn’t matter. If she could just knock the phone down and dial 911…She was an old woman. They would come for her.
And maybe they could save the boy.
No noise above her. Just the occasional creak of an old floorboard, groaning under stealthy footsteps. The girl stalking, Rita figured, the boy tucked away someplace safe. She hoped he’d picked a good spot, one that would buy time.
She made it six painful inches, squirming on her belly, her good leg kicking her awkwardly forward, her injured side useless. She could feel the weight of the Colt digging into her thigh. At the rate she was going, she’d probably shoot herself. But her fingers had long since turned blue, deprived of blood by the girl’s efficient bindings. Nothing she could do with the gun now.
So she wriggled, inch by inch, eye on the prize.
She’d just reached the edge of the kitchen counter, phone dangling tantalizing above her. If she could just find a chair, maybe prop herself up on her elbows, then whack at it with her bound hands…
“What the hell do you think you’re doin’?” the male voice boomed behind her.
Rita startled, turning awkwardly toward the noise. She wanted to believe it was a neighbor coming to help her. She already figured she wasn’t gonna get that lucky.
The man stood before her, holding a flashlight. And as he pushed up the brim of his red baseball cap, she spotted his forehead, covered with row after row of glowing yellow eyes.
FORTY-THREE
“Social spiders work together in construction teams to build enormous spider cities. [They] also feed in groups so that they can catch and share a larger prey.”
FROM Freaky Facts About Spiders,
BY CHRISTINE MORLEY, 2007
“YOU WERE STANDING NEXT TO HAROLD WHEN THE first shot was fired,” Quincy was saying to Sal. “If Harold hadn’t jumped to his feet, the bullet would’ve hit you, not him.”
Sal was sitting in the back of an ambulance, holding up the hem of his shirt as he grudgingly received treatment from an EMT. He’d already refused a ride to the hospital. Quincy, Rainie, Kimberly, and Mac remained with him, awaiting the EMT’s official verdict as the young man inspected the damage.
Sal scowled at the man probing his side with a pair of tweezers. “Ow!”
“Told ya you should go to the hospital,” the EMT said mildly and went back to work, tweezing fibers from the wound.
“Ginny said Dinchara wanted the envelopes of driver’s licenses to be delivered specifically to you. Why you, Sal? Haven’t you wondered about that?”
“Missing persons…it’s my hobby. I already…said that.”
Kimberly’s turn to frown at the GBI special agent. “Dinchara targeted you because of your ‘hobby’? Now who’s being stubborn?”
“Makes about as much sense as leaving his trophies on the windshield of my car. Come on, guy really wants to bait me, there are easier ways to get things done.”
“Expediency isn’t what drives serial killers,” Quincy said firmly. “Their rituals are based on emotional need and are often quite elaborate. In this case, we have a man who in his everyday life feels powerless. His fantasy life, therefore, is all about being in control. He thrives on secrecy and manipulation. He is the spider, weaving a web to catch a prey. An approach like this—inciting your involvement by baiting a trap—would fill his emotional need, his image of himself as a superpredator, even if it is impractical at other levels. If you can understand the emotional drive, then you can catch the killer.”
“You must kill the one you love,” Kimberly murmured. She looked at Sal. “Maybe, all these years later, he still loves you. And maybe, all these years later, he wants to graduate.”
Sal had finally stilled in the back of the ambulance. “My brother is dead!” he said harshly, but they could tell from his voice that he was no longer sure.
With night blanketing the mountain, Rachel declared the crime scene off limits. They would not approach the summit again until a tactical unit had secured the area and placed snipers for ongoing protection. The team should rest. Rachel was off to the hospital; she’d phone the moment she had news on Harold.
Quincy and Rainie retired to the hotel for another night. Mac and Kimberly offered Sal a ride as he was obviously in no shape to drive. Sal climbed into the back behind Kimberly. He sat in silence, his side covered in white gauze, his bloody shirt untucked at his waist.
Every law enforcement agent in the country had now been notified with the few vital statistics they knew about Dinchara. His actions had earned him immediate placement in the FBI’s top ten most wanted list, and even now the powers that be were preparing a press release for the major news networks.
By morning, Dahlonega and the surrounding area would be swarming with every state officer and National Guard unit available. If today had been a horror movie, then tomorrow would be a circus. Times like this, Kimberly simply hoped no one would get hurt.
Personally, Kimberly doubted Dinchara would try to flee the country. She pictured him more as an Eric Rudolph sort—the Olympic Park bomber who had holed up for five years in the Great Smoky Mountains, living on a diet of wild game and acorns. By all accounts, Dinchara had the same outdoor expertise and loner instincts.
Plus, there was still Ginny Jones and the missing boy to consider. Which made her wonder…
Her cell phone rang. She glanced at the screen, registered the local number, flipped it open. “Special Agent Quincy.”
“Deputy Roy here. We spoke earlier regarding the Jones girl.”
“Oh yes. The Jones girl your department managed to release even after she was an accessory in the attempted murder of a federal agent. I remember.”
Roy chuckled. “Thought you would. Now, technically speaking, it’s the judge you should yell at—”
“I mean to get to that the first moment I’m back in town.”
“I’m sure you will. Listen, Rick and I feel real bad about how that all worked out, especially given what happened on Blood Mountain.”
“Especially.”
“So we did some thinking, and it occurred to Rick that he saw Ginny Jones hugging the man standing next to a vehicle. So he went to the courthouse this afternoon and collected the security video of the parking lot.”
“Yes?”
“And sure enough, the man walks away, but you can see Ginny get into the vehicle. It’s a blue Nissan hatchback, with Georgia plates reading…”
Kimberly grabbed a pen, frantically writing down the information. “Nice work, Officers!”
“’Course we’re issuing an APB, as well. But thought you’d like to hear the news directly. We do more than eat fried okra and shoot possums round here, you know.”
“You shoot possums?”
“Never mind.”
“Thank you. I mean that, Officer. Thank you very much.”
Kimberly hung up the phone. She regarded Mac, then Sal in the rearview mirror.
“Hey,” she said. “I have an idea.”
“We’ve been operating under the assumption that the younger child didn’t accompany Dinchara and Aaron on the hikes, correct?” Kimberly was explaining excitedly, as she directed Mac to Dinchara’s old neighborhood. “Based mostly on the waitress from the Smith House saying that she only ever saw Dinchara with a teenager. Also, a young boy would slow them down when packing supplies up a trail that steep.”
“Okay,” Mac agreed, though it was his first time hearing any of this.
“Well, what if he didn’t leave the boy alone? What if Dinchara had a babysitter to watch the kid? Someone he trusted to ensure the kid didn’t run away?”
“Like Ginny Jones,” Sal filled in from the back.
“Exactly! And maybe that’s why he was willing to spend ten grand springing Ginny from county jail. Because he wanted to come after us—or really, you, Sal—meani
ng he needed someone to take over childcare.”
“I can follow that logic right up to the moment we turn into his old neighborhood,” Mac murmured, following the direction of Kimberly’s pointing finger onto the rolling rural road of said neighborhood.
“All the way up at the top of the hill,” she instructed him. “’Bout three miles in, last home on the right.”
“Or look for the big pile of smoking rubble,” Mac filled in drily. “Which would be my point: You said the home burned to the ground. So the kid can’t be there.”
“No, but according to the neighbors, neither was Ginny Jones. None of them reported seeing a girl at the house, but she obviously spent a lot of time with Aaron and Dinchara. Which makes me wonder. What if she has a home locally, too?”
“But she works in Sandy Springs,” Sal protested. “We saw her apartment.”
“A cheap one-bedroom,” Kimberly granted, “convenient for the nights she works as a prostitute. But remember what Ginny said—Dinchara’s other line of work is Internet porn, and she and Aaron both filmed movies for him. So there must be times she’s up here, assisting with that business. So why haven’t any of the neighbors seen her? We know she hangs out with Aaron, we believe she babysits the younger kid. She’s gotta have her own place. It’s the only answer. Someplace close would be my guess. Where Dinchara could keep an eye on her. Such as right there. STOP. Wait. Next driveway, then stop.”
Mac lurched the car forward another two hundred yards, to the next property, then pulled over. “What are we looking for?”
“Blue Nissan hatchback. Like the one sitting outside that house with the big covered porch. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have found Ginny Jones.”
By mutual agreement, Kimberly would wait in the car. Mac and Sal would proceed. She would call for backup. She could tell her very note of cheerful acceptance had Mac suspicious. He kissed her, hard. She grabbed his shoulders and kissed him back.
Sal turned away.