“And what would that be?” Watson asked.

“Call McCormack! Get him back in on this thing. He knows this guy better than we do. And, since there’s probably another girl out there, maybe we ought to get some experts looking once more at the body, let alone those little details like the rattlesnake, leaf, and rock. Come on. As the ad says, the clock is ticking, and we’ve already wasted the entire day.”

“I sent them to the lab,” Kaplan said quietly.

“You did what?” Rainie asked incredulously.

“I sent the rock, the leaf, and, well, the various snake bits to the Norfolk crime lab.”

“And what the hell is a crime lab going to do with them? Dust them for prints?”

“It’s not a bad idea-”

“It’s a fucking horrible idea! Weren’t you listening to McCormack before? We’ve got to find the girl!”

“Hey!” Quincy’s hand was up again, his voice loud and commanding across the table. Not that it did much good. Rainie was already half out of her chair, her hands fisted. And Kaplan appeared just as eager for a battle. It had been a long day. Hot, tiring, wearing. The kind of conditions that led to an increase in bar brawls, let alone a deterioration of cooperation in multi-jurisdictional homicide cases.

“We need to proceed along two tracks,” Quincy continued firmly. “So shut up, sit down, and pay attention. Rainie’s correct-we need to move quickly.”

Rainie slowly sank back down into her chair. Kaplan, too, grudgingly gave him his attention.

“One, let’s assume that perhaps this man is the Eco-Killer. Ep, ep, ep!” Kaplan was already opening his mouth to protest. Quincy gave him the same withering look he’d once used on junior agents, and the NCIS agent shut right up. “While we cannot be one hundred percent certain of this, the fact remains that we have a homicide that fits a pattern previously seen in Georgia. Given the similarities, we need to consider that another woman has also been abducted. If so, according to what happened in Georgia, we need to start approaching the evidence we’ve found on the body as pieces of a geographic puzzle.” He looked at Kaplan.

“I can arrange for some experts in botany, biology, and geology to look at what we have,” the special agent said grudgingly.

“Quickly,” Rainie spoke up.

Kaplan gave her a look. “Yes, ma’am.”

Rainie merely smiled at him.

Quincy took a deep breath. “Two,” he said, “we need to explore some broader avenues. While I’ve read summaries of the Georgia case notes, it seems clear to me that they’ve never come close to knowing much about the killer. They generated a profile and a list of suppositions, none of which has ever been proven either way. I think we should start clean-slate, generating our own impressions based on this crime. For example, why plant the body on Quantico grounds? That seems clearly like a man who is making a statement against authority. He feels so invincible, he can operate even within the heart of America’s elite law enforcement agency. Then we have the UNSUB’s various letters to the editor, as well as his phone calls to Special Agent McCormack. Again this raises several questions. Is this an UNSUB seeking to reassert his feelings of power and control? Or is this a conflicted man, who is reaching out to law enforcement in the dim hope that he will be caught? Also, is the anonymous caller really our UNSUB, or someone else entirely?

“And there is a third motive we should also contemplate. That this killer’s game is not targeted at either the Marines or the FBI, but rather, at Special Agent McCormack specifically.”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Kaplan grumbled.

Quincy gave the man his cool, hard stare. “Assume for a moment that the anonymous caller is the UNSUB. Through his comments, he brought Special Agent McCormack to Virginia. It stands to reason, then, that the UNSUB already had a plan of attack in mind for this area. And furthermore, as part of this plan, he knew of Special Agent McCormack’s whereabouts and thus made sure to start the game here. The ad in the Quantico Sentry would fit this pattern. As of Friday, the paper would be distributed all over the base. Surely McCormack would get the hint.”

Rainie appeared troubled. “That’s getting out there,” she said quietly.

“True. Killers rarely target a specific member of law enforcement. But stranger things have happened, and as the lead officer, McCormack was the most visible member of the Georgia task force. If the UNSUB were going to identify with a specific target, McCormack would be the logical one.”

“So we have two options,” Rainie murmured. “A garden-variety psychopath trying to mess with McCormack’s head. Or a more troubled, guilt-stricken nut who’s still murdering girls, but showing signs of remorse. Why doesn’t either one of these theories help me sleep better at night?”

“Because either way, the man is deadly.” Quincy turned toward Kaplan. “I assume you sent out the ad to the Quantico Sentry to be analyzed?”

“Tried,” Kaplan said. “Not much to work with. Stamp and envelope are both self-adhesive, so no saliva. Latent found no prints on the paper, and the ad was typeset, so no handwriting.”

“What about form of payment?”

“Cash. You’re not supposed to send it through the mail, but apparently our killer is a trusting soul.”

“Postmark?”

“Stafford.”

“The town next door?”

“Yeah, sent yesterday. Local job all the way. Guy’s in the area to murder a woman, might as well send his note, too.”

Quincy raised a brow. “He’s smart. Done his homework. Well, stationery is a good place to start. Dr. Ennunzio said that Georgia had sent him one original letter to the editor. I’d like you to turn over this ad to him as well. Perhaps that gives him two data points to consider.”

Kaplan had to think about it. “He can have it for a week,” he conceded at last. “Then I want it back at my lab.”

“Your cooperation is duly noted,” Quincy assured him.

There was a knock on the door. Quincy thinned his lips, frustrated by the intrusion when they were finally getting somewhere, but Kaplan was already climbing to his feet. “Probably one of my agents,” he said by way of explanation. “I told him I’d be around here.”

He opened the classroom door, and sure enough, a younger buzz-cut man entered the room. The agent was holding a piece of paper and his body practically thrummed with excitement.

“I thought you’d want to see this right away,” the younger officer said immediately.

Kaplan took the paper, glanced at it, then looked up sharply. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, sir. Got it confirmed fifteen minutes ago.”

“What?” Rainie was asking. Even Watson strained in his chair. Kaplan turned back to them slowly.

“We got an ID on the girl,” he said, and his gaze went to Quincy. “It’s not just like Georgia after all. Sweet Jesus, this is much, much worse.”

“Water break.”

“Soon.”

“Kimberly, water break.”

“I want to see what’s around the next corner-”

“Honey, stop and drink some water, or I will tackle you.”

Kimberly scowled at him. Mac’s face remained resolute. He’d halted ten feet back, at a boulder jutting out from the stream they were following down the steep slope.

After three hours of hard hiking, half of her body was covered in a bright red rash-poison ivy, stinging nettles, take your pick. Her T-shirt was sweated through. Her shorts were drenched. Even her socks squished as she walked. Then there was the sodden skullcap that now passed as her hair.

In contrast, Mac stood with one knee bent comfortably on a large boulder. His damp gray nylon shirt molded his impressive chest. His short dark hair was slicked back to better highlight his bronzed, chiseled face. He wasn’t breathing hard. He didn’t have a scratch on him. Three hours of brutal trekking later, the man looked like a damn L.L.Bean cover model.