Say Goodbye (3 page)

“Crap,” Rachel said.

It was definitely a leg, sheared off above the knee with the top of the femur bone glinting white against the blue tarp. From the size of it, probably male, clad in blue denim.

“You’re sure all three remains were intact?” Kimberly asked. She hadn’t gotten to do any evidence collection this time out. She liked to think it didn’t irk her, but it did. Especially now, when it seemed something obvious had been overlooked. “I mean, the cockpit was badly burned, the condition of the bodies couldn’t have been great.”

“Actually, the cockpit had separated from the main fuselage. It was scorched, but not annihilated; didn’t get splashed with enough jet fuel to burn that hot.”

“It’s not a pilot,” Harold said. “Pilots don’t wear blue jeans.”

“Farmer? Hired hand?” Kimberly asked. “Maybe when the plane hit the tractor…?” But she knew she was wrong the minute she said it. The farmer in question had already come by to study the wreckage and mourn his equipment. If he’d been missing a hired hand, they would’ve heard about it by now.

“I don’t get it.” Rachel was backing up, studying the woods around them. “We’re in the trees where the plane first hit. Look there.” She pointed at the sharp white tips of shattered trees just twenty feet south of them. “First impact with the wingtip. The right wing is yanked down, the plane bobbles, but the pilot corrects. In fact, he overcorrects because one hundred yards over there”—she swiveled, pointing at a target too far away to be seen—“we have the deep gouge in the earth at the edges of the farmer’s field from the left wingtip coming down, digging in…”

“Sending it into the fatal spin,” Kimberly finished for her. “Meaning, at this moment, in this place…”

“Plane shouldn’t be spinning yet, nor crew members’ legs falling out of the air. Think about it: We’re a mile from the cockpit. Even if the damn plane blew up—which we know it didn’t—how’d we get a leg clear back here?”

Harold was walking a little circle, studying the ground. So Kimberly did the next logical thing: She moved back, angled up her head, and studied the trees.

As luck would have it, she found it first. Just fifteen feet away, nearly eye level, so she was proud of the fact that she didn’t scream. The smell had warned her—rusty, pungent. Then she spotted the first bit of fluorescent orange. Then another, and another. Until finally…

The head was gone. So was the left arm and leg, leaving behind a strange, hunched-over shape, still dangling from the limbs of a tree.

“I don’t think we’re going home tomorrow,” Kimberly said, as Rachel and Harold joined her.

“A hunter?” Rachel asked incredulously. “But deer season ended months ago….”

“Deer season ended beginning of January,” Harold supplied helpfully. “But small game goes until the end of February. Then there are feral boars, bears, alligators. Hey, it’s Georgia. You can always shoot something.”

“Poor son of a bitch,” Kimberly murmured. “Can you imagine? Sitting up in a tree, looking out for…”

“Possum, grouse, quail, rabbit, squirrel,” Harold filled in.

“Only to lose his head to a seven-twenty-seven. What are the odds?”

“When your time comes, your time comes,” Harold agreed.

Rachel still looked seriously pissed off. One final sigh, however, and she pulled it together. “All right, we got about an hour of daylight left. Let’s not waste it.”

Turned out, the NTSB wasn’t so interested in a leg in the woods. A dead hunter amounted to collateral damage in the aviation world; the FBI could have it.

Rachel made a few calls, ordering up a fresh crime scene van and enough experienced agents and law enforcement volunteers to conduct a line search. Fifteen minutes later, a crowd of county deputies and FBI agents were dutifully gathered in the woods. Harold passed out thin probes to each volunteer, then briefed them all on the importance of looking up and down. As the line monitor, he would do his best to keep everyone in a row, which often got tricky in this kind of terrain.

According to the local sheriff, one Ronald “Ronnie” Danvers had been reported missing just this morning. Twenty years old, Ronnie had set out to go hunting three days ago. When he didn’t return home, his girlfriend assumed he’d gone to visit some friends. This morning, when she called over to bawl him out, she finally realized her mistake.

“It took her three days to realize he was missing?” Fellow agent Tony Coble wanted to know. “Feel that love.”

“Sounds like they’d been having some problems,” Harold reported. “Girlfriend’s pregnant and apparently moody.”

Harold absolutely did not look at Kimberly when he said that. So, of course, everyone else did.

“Hey, I am not moody,” Kimberly said. “I’ve always been a bitch.” The cramp in her left side had finally eased, leaving behind an entirely different sensation, like a little hiccup beneath her lowest rib. The sensation was still new and miraculous to her. Her hand remained curved around her lower abdomen, a singularly motherly gesture, but she couldn’t help herself.

The rest of her team was grinning at her. They’d already posted a stork on the wall above her desk. Last week, she’d returned from lunch to discover her in-box filled with pacifiers. G-men were supposed to be tough; lately, all she had to do was sigh heavily and someone was rushing to fetch her a glass of water, a chair, a dill pickle. Bunch of softies. Heaven help her, she loved each and every one of them, even know-it-all Harold.

“Here’s the deal.” Rachel spoke up. “We thought we’d have the luxury of going home tonight, or for those of us who never go home, at least visit the office to tend our current cases; that ain’t gonna happen. We have one hour, maybe two. We gotta map this scene, then collect the evidence and get it back to command central, where we can document it under the outdoor floodlights. In other words, you can thank me once again for showing y’all a good time.”

The volunteers groaned.

Rachel simply smiled. “All right, people. Find me Ronnie’s head.”

THREE

“The brown recluse spins a medium-sized irregular web with a maze of threads extending in all directions without definite pattern or plan.”

FROM
Biology of the Brown Recluse Spider,
BY JULIA MAXINE HITE, WILLIAM J. GLADNEY, J. L. LANCASTER, JR., AND W. H. WHITCOMB, DEPARTMENT OF ENTOMOLOGY, DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS, FAYETTEVILLE, MAY
1966

KIMBERLY ARRIVED HOME SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT. She moved through the darkened house with the ease of someone used to late hours and dim lighting. Bag, coat, and shoes deposited on the bench in the hall. Brief pause in the kitchen for a glass of water, glance at the answering machine.

Mac had left the lamp burning on the built-in desk. In the small pool of illumination he’d piled mail, topped with a purple Post-it bearing the hand-scrawled message:?

An empty pizza box indicated he’d been home for dinner. She checked the fridge for leftovers, found half a cheese pizza, and weighed her options. Lowfat vanilla yogurt, cold cheese pizza. It wasn’t much of a debate.

She chewed the first slice of pizza while standing in the middle of the kitchen, going through the mail. She discovered the Pottery Barn Kids catalogue and ate the second slice while eyeballing all items made with pink gingham.

Kimberly was convinced she was going to have a girl. For one thing, she didn’t know anything about little boys, so a baby girl made more sense. For another, she had lost her mother and older sister ten years ago to a psychopath. In her opinion, God owed her something, and clearly, it was a daughter.

Mac was holding out for a boy, of course, whom he was planning on naming in honor of Dale Murphy of the Atlanta Braves and outfitting entirely in Major League Baseball uniforms.

Kimberly thought her little girl (
Abigail
,
Eva
,
Ella???
) could out-pitch Mac’s little boy, no problem. And round and round they went. Winner to be determined sometime around June 22.

Kimberly and Mac had met nearly five years ago at the FBI Academy. She’d been in New Agent Training, he’d been attending the National Academy as a Special Agent with the GBI—Georgia Bureau of Investigation. First time they’d run into each other, she’d gone after him with a knife. He’d responded by trying to steal a kiss. That had pretty much summed up their relationship ever since.

They’d been married a year now. Long enough to have worked out the kinks in basic logistics—who was responsible for taking out the trash, bringing home the groceries, mowing the lawn—while still newlywed enough to forgive small faults and inevitable oversights.

Mac was the romantic. He brought her flowers, remembered her favorite song, kissed her on the back of her neck just because. She was the type-A workaholic. Every day an agenda, every hour a task that needed completing. She worked too hard, compartmentalized too little, and probably would have a nervous breakdown before the age of forty, except that Mac would never allow it. He was her rock; while, most likely, she was his ticket to sainthood.

No doubt about it: Mac would make an excellent mother.

Kimberly sighed, poured another glass of water. Her first trimester had gone well. Some tiredness, but nothing she couldn’t push through. Some nausea, but nothing that couldn’t be remedied by eating pudding. A normal woman would’ve gained thirty pounds; fortunately, with her athletic build and high-strung metabolism, Kimberly had barely gained ten, and was only now, at the twenty-two-week mark, beginning to show.

She was healthy, her baby was healthy, and her handsome, dark-haired husband was over the moon.

Which was probably why, on nights like tonight, Kimberly wondered what the hell they’d done.

They were hardly a traditional couple in a traditional marriage. They’d met over a crime scene and dated while trying to stop a serial killer. In the past few years, the most consecutive days they’d spent together was in Oregon working another case—the abduction of Kimberly’s stepmother.

They didn’t do Friday nights out. They rarely even had Sunday morning snuggles. Her pager would go off. His pager would go off. One of them would be gone, and the other simply understood it would be his or her turn next. They both loved their jobs, they both gave each other space, and that made things work.

Last Kimberly knew, however, babies definitely required Friday night caring and Sunday morning snuggles and lots and lots of time in between.

What would give? Her job? His job? Or maybe they could do it with help from Mac’s mother? Then again, what was the point of having a child if you were only going to hand it over for someone else to raise?

Lately, Kimberly had started to have nightmares, terribly vivid dreams where Mac was killed in an auto accident, or shot on the job, or mowed down on his way to the Chick-fil-A for sandwiches. The dreams always ended with her holding the phone,
We’re terribly sorry to inform you of your husband’s death,
while down the hall came the high-pitched wail of a newborn.

She’d wake up, drenched in sweat and shaking from terror. She, a woman who’d once stood in a hotel room with a killer’s gun pressed against her temple like a lover’s kiss.

She was strong, she was intelligent, she was tough. And she absolutely, positively knew she could not do this alone.

On those nights, she would turn away from her husband’s warm, solid form. She would curl in a ball, her hand cradling her belly. She would stare at the dusky wall across the room, and she would miss her mother.

Kimberly finished the catalogue, set down her water glass, ducked into the guest bath, where she quietly brushed her teeth. Her hair still smelled like jet fuel, her clothes and skin reeked of an oily barbecue. She tossed her clothes into the laundry room, then padded naked down the hall to the master bedroom.

Mac had left the bedside lamp on. Used to each other’s rhythms by now, he didn’t stir as she started the shower, then rummaged the drawers for her pajamas.

When she finally slid clean and fresh beneath the sheets, Mac rolled toward her, raising one arm in groggy welcome.

“Okay?” he whispered.

“Found Ronnie’s head.”

“Nice.”

She scooted into the warm spoon of his body, spreading his hand over her side, where the baby’s kicks now registered like the flutter of butterfly wings, filling up the well of her heart.

Voices were talking:

“Come on, Sal. Surely you can do better than that. It’s three in the morning, for God’s sake. Chances are the girl has never even met Kimberly. She just wants a get-out-of-jail-free card. You know how these things are.”

At the sound of her name, Kimberly pulled herself further from the dregs of sleep. She opened her eyes to discover Mac standing across the bedroom, talking on his cell phone. The second he noticed her eyes were open, he flushed guiltily.

Then, very pointedly, he turned around, giving her his back as he continued to argue: “What specific information has she given you to warrant an FBI agent’s personal visit? Sure. Yeah. That and a quarter will buy you a cup of coffee. ’Sides, that’d be our ball game, not the FBI’s.”

Now Kimberly was fully awake. And increasingly angry.

Mac was running his hand through his hair. “Mano a mano, do you think she’s for real or just some kid caught in a pinch? Well, I know that’s not your call to make. Do it anyway!”

But apparently, Sal wasn’t willing to play that game. Mac sighed. Mussed his hair again. Then reluctantly turned to face his wife, cell phone held against his shoulder, resigned expression on his face.

Before she could launch into her tirade, he went with a preemptive strike: “It’s GBI Special Agent Salvadore Martignetti. Couple of officers arrested a prostitute in Sandy Springs who claims she’s your informant. She doesn’t have your card or seem to know anything about you, but she’s sticking to her story. The officers serve with Sal on VICMO, so they contacted him and he gave me a buzz.”

VICMO stood for the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Program. Its goal was to bring together officers from all over the state in an attempt to identify larger patterns of crime. In reality, it was some bureaucrat’s attempt at getting the dozens upon dozens of law enforcement agencies to play nice together.

“Hey, if Sal has information for me, he should be dialing me direct. Isn’t that the point of all these cross-jurisdictional teams? We’re all one big happy family, loading each other’s numbers into our speed dials?”

Mac gave her a look. “Don’t start. The girl says her name is Delilah Rose. Mean anything?”

“Other than an obvious alias?”

“You don’t have to go. For Christ’s sake, you just got home three hours ago, and no doubt you’re back at the crash scene by six.”

“What’s she offering?”

“Won’t give ’em any details. Says it’s for your ears only.”

“But Sal has an opinion.”

Mac shrugged. “Sounds like she’s claiming to have information on another missing prostitute.”

Kimberly arched a brow. “And that would be
GBI’s ball game,
as you graciously put it?” she asked drily.

“Last time I read the statutes.”

“Not if the act involved crossing state lines.” Kimberly threw back the covers and climbed out of bed.

“Kimberly…”

“I’m gonna talk to a girl, Mac, not hoe the cotton fields. Trust me, even a pregnant woman can do this.”

After all these years, Mac knew when he’d lost the war. He returned to the cell phone. “Sal? You heard? Yeah, she’ll pay the girl a visit. Do me a favor? Make sure the station has plenty of bottled water.”

“Oh please,” Kimberly tossed over her shoulder, “why don’t you just ask him to stock pickles as well?”

Sal must have heard that, too. “No, no, no,” Mac was already correcting. “But if you want the inside skinny, she’ll do anything you want for vanilla pudding. I keep snack packs stashed in my car. It’s probably the only reason I’m still alive. Oh, and don’t forget plastic spoons, otherwise it gets ugly. Yeah, thanks, buddy. Bye.”

By the time Kimberly exited the bathroom, she’d splashed cold water on her face and was fully awake. Mac had returned to their queen-size bed, but was sitting up, watching her with dark eyes. She pulled a fresh pair of slacks from the closet. He still didn’t say a word.

The argument was already three months old, and not due to be resolved anytime soon. Kimberly pulled a tough caseload, even by FBI standards. In the post-9/11 world, the Criminal side of the house had been gutted to get National Security up and running. Atlanta’s Violent Crimes unit went from sixteen agents to only nine, with fifty-hour workweeks becoming seventy-hour marathons. Days routinely started at nine a.m. and went to all hours of the night.

If that wasn’t enough, Kimberly had joined the ERT as an “extracurricular,” providing another forty to fifty call outs a year, for such high-stress situations as plane crashes, bank robberies, hostage situations, kidnappings, and the occasional cult leader showdown. Agents received free training for their extracurriculars, but no extra income. Agents served because they were called to serve, the work its own reward.

Kimberly had been only four weeks pregnant when Mac started to question why she needed quite so much work to provide her with a sense of reward. Perhaps she could rejoin White Collar Crimes or, better yet, transfer to Health Care Fraud with Rachel Childs. Rachel worked only five cases a year. True, they were document-intensive cases, but they also had a longer lead time, opening up flexibility for, in Rachel’s case, managing the ERT, or in Kimberly’s case, having a baby.

Health Care Fraud was valuable work. Indeed, as Mac liked to say when he really got going, fraud was the heart and soul of the Bureau.

Kimberly suggested that she join Counterterrorism and spend six months working in Afghanistan. That shut him up for a day or two.

In the FBI, everything boiled down to “the needs of the Bureau.” Why weren’t new agents allowed to pick their first field office, and in fact, the new agent from Chicago was most likely to be sent to Arkansas, even though the Chicago office needed the most recruits? Because from the beginning, the powers that be wanted to make sure everyone understood one simple mandate: The needs of the Bureau came first. You were serving the U.S. government, protecting the American people, and that was given as much weight and gravitas in the FBI as in any branch of the armed forces.

The Bureau needed Kimberly in Violent Crimes. She was good at the work, experienced in the field. Besides, to ask for a transfer now would be insulting to her male teammates, most of whom had children, too.

She had on her shirt now, then a basic black jacket she could no longer button, but looked okay hanging open. She inspected her reflection in the mirror. Head-on, you’d never guess she was pregnant. But once she turned to the side…

Another flutter. Her palm pressed against the curve of her waist. Her own rueful smile, because as much as she loved her job, heaven help her, she already loved this, too.

She crossed to the bed and kissed Mac on the cheek.

“I’m right, you’re wrong,” she informed him.

“You haven’t heard a word I said.”

“Oh yes, I did.”

He cupped the back of her head, pulled her down for a more serious kiss. They both understood the importance of never leaving the house angry.

“Things are different now,” he said quietly.

“I know things are different, Mac. I’m the one wearing pants with an elastic waist.”

“I worry.”

“Well, you shouldn’t. According to last week’s exam, mommy and baby are doing great.” She sighed, relenting a fraction. “Eight to twelve more weeks, Mac. That’s all I’m asking for—this last little window before I become as big as a house, and then I have to obey your every command because I won’t be able to put on my own shoes.”

She gave him a final kiss, feeling his resistance in the set of his jaw. She straightened and headed for the door.

She heard his last words, too. The line he never spoke, probably never would speak, but remained in the air between them.