“You’re very relaxed about all this,” she said brusquely.

“The case? Not really.” His fingers stopped moving. They rested at the base of her neck, his fingers bracing her collarbone and her skittering pulse. He was gazing at her with an intense look. A man about to kiss a woman? A cop obsessed with a difficult case? She was no good at this sort of thing. The Quincy women had a long history of being unlucky at love. In fact, the last man her mother and Mandy thought they had loved had killed them both. That was female intuition for you.

She wished suddenly that she didn’t think of her family so much. She wished suddenly that she really were an island, that she could be born again without any attachments, without any past. What would her life have become if her family hadn’t been murdered? Who would’ve Kimberly Quincy been then?

Kinder, softer, gentler? The kind of woman capable of kissing a handsome man under the stars? Maybe a woman actually capable of falling in love?

She turned her head away. Pulled her body away from his touch. It didn’t matter anymore. She suddenly hurt too much to look him in the eye.

“You’re going to work this, aren’t you?” she asked, giving him her back.

“I did a little reading on Virginia this afternoon,” he said conversationally, as if she hadn’t just jerked away. “Did you know this state has over forty thousand square acres of beaches, mountains, rivers, lakes, bays, swamps, reservoirs, and caverns? We’re talking several major mountain ranges offering over a thousand miles of hiking trails. Two million acres of public land. Then we have the Chesapeake Bay, which is the largest coastal estuary in the United States. Plus, four thousand caverns and several reservoirs that have been formed by flooding complete towns. You want rare and ecologically sensitive? Virginia has rare and ecologically sensitive. You want dangerous? Virginia has dangerous. In short, Virginia is perfect for Eco-Killer, and hell yes, I’m definitely gonna pursue a few things.”

“You don’t have jurisdiction.”

“All’s fair in love and war. I called my supervisor. We both believe this is the first solid lead we’ve had in months. If I take off from the National Academy to do a little sidebar exploration, he’s not gonna cry any rivers. Besides, your father and NCIS are moving too slow. By the time they realize what we already know, the second girl will be long dead. I don’t want that, Kimberly. After all these years, I’m tired of being too late.”

“What will you do?”

“First thing tomorrow morning, I’m meeting with a botanist from the U.S. Geological Survey team. Then I’ll take it from there.”

“Why are you meeting a botanist? You don’t have the leaf anymore.”

“I don’t have the original,” he said quietly. “But I might have scanned a copy.”

She turned sharply. “You copied evidence.”

“Yep.”

“What else?”

“Gonna run to Daddy?”

“You know me better than that!”

“I’m trying to.”

“You really are obsessed with this, you know. You could be wrong. This case could have no bearing on the Eco-Killer or those girls in Georgia. You missed your man the first time. Now you see what you want to see.”

“It’s possible.” He shrugged. “Does it matter? A girl is dead. A man did it. Whether he’s my guy or someone else’s guy, finding the son of a bitch will make the world a better place. Frankly, that’s good enough for me.”

Kimberly scowled. It was hard to argue with that kind of logic. She said abruptly, “I want to go with you.”

“Watson will have your hide.” Mac sat up, brushing the grass from his hands. “He’ll kick you out so far so fast, it’ll be days before you feel the bruise on your butt.”

“I can take personal leave. I’ll talk to one of the counselors. Plead emotional distress from finding a dead body.”

“Ah honey, you tell them you got emotional distress from finding a corpse, and they’ll kick you out for sure. This is the FBI Academy. You can’t handle a corpse, you’re in the wrong line of work.”

“It’s not his call. The counselor says yes, I get to go, simple as that.”

“And once he learns what you’re really doing?”

“I’m on leave. What I do in my personal time is my business. Watson has no authority over me.”

“You haven’t been in the FBI very long, have you, Kimberly?”

Kimberly’s chin came up. She understood his point. She agreed with his point, which was why her heart was pounding so hard in her chest. Pursuing this case would earn her her first political enemy. Let alone a less-than-stellar start to her career. She’d waited twenty-six years to become an FBI agent. Funny, how easy it seemed to throw it all away now.

“Kimberly,” Mac said abruptly as if reading her thoughts, “you know that this won’t bring your mother or sister back, don’t you? That no matter how many murderers you hunt down, none of it changes the fact that your family is still dead, and you still didn’t save them in time?”

“I’ve been to their graves, Mac. I know how dead they are.”

“And you’re just a rookie,” he continued relentlessly. “You know nothing about this guy, you’re not even fully trained. Your efforts probably won’t make one iota of difference. Think about that before you throw away your career.”

“I want to go.”

“Why?”

She finally smiled at him, though she knew the look must appear strained on her face. There was the million-dollar question. And honestly, there were so many answers she could give. That Watson had been right this morning, and nine weeks later she had no friendships or allegiances among her own classmates. In fact, the closest she’d come to feeling any loyalty was for a dead body she’d found in the woods.

Or that she did feel survivor’s guilt, and she was tired of holidays spent in fields of white crosses. Or that she had a morbid need to chase after death, having once felt its fingers brush across the nape of her neck. Or that she was her father’s daughter after all. No good with the living, desperately attached to the dead, particularly when the body bore such a startling resemblance to Mandy.

So many possible answers. She surprised herself then, by going with the one that was closest to the truth. “Because I want to.”

Mac stared at her a heartbeat longer, then suddenly, finally, nodded in the dark. “All right. Six A.M. Meet me in the front of Jefferson. Bring hiking gear.

“And Kimberly,” he added as they both rose. “Don’t forget your Glock.”

Albany, Georgia

1:36 A . M .

Temperature: 85 degrees

NORA RAY’S MOTHER WAS STILL WATCHING TV. She slumped on their old brown sofa, wearing the same faded pink bathrobe she’d worn for the past three years. Her short dark hair stood up around her face, gray showing at the roots, where it would remain until Nora Ray’s grandmother visited again and forcefully took her daughter in hand. Otherwise, Abigail Watts rarely moved from the sofa. She sat perfectly hunched, mouth slightly agape, eyes fixed straight ahead. Some people turned to booze, Nora Ray thought. Her mother had Nick@Nite.

Nora Ray still remembered the days when her mother had been beautiful. Abigail had risen at six every morning, fixing her hair in hot rollers and doing her makeup while her hair set. By the time Nora Ray and Mary Lynn made it downstairs for breakfast, their mother would be bustling around the kitchen in a nice floral dress, pouring coffee for their father, setting out cereal for them, and prattling away cheerfully until seven-oh-five on the dot, at which point she would grab her purse and head to work. She had been a secretary at a law firm back then. Not great money, but she’d enjoyed the job and the two partners who ran the place. Plus, it gave her an aura of prestige in the tiny blue-collar neighborhood where they lived. Working at a law firm… Now, that was respectable work.