“She never stood a chance,” Kimberly murmured, her gaze returning to the girl’s body. “Look at her in her shorts and silk blouse. She was dressed to have fun in a bar, not fend her way in a wilderness. It’s beyond cruel.”

“We’re going to find him.”

“Not until another girl is dead.”

Mac closed his eyes. “Kimberly, the world’s not as bad as you think.”

“Of course not, Mac. It’s worse.”

He swallowed. He was losing her. He could feel Kimberly slide deeper into fatalism, a woman who had escaped death once and didn’t expect to get that lucky again. He wanted to yell at her to buck up. And then he wanted to take her into his arms, and promise her everything would be all right.

She was right: when men tried to protect the people they cared about, they inevitably resorted to lies.

“Do you see the snakes?” he asked shortly.

“There’s not enough light. They blend into the boulders.”

“I don’t hear them.”

“No, they’ve fallen silent. Maybe they’re tired. They’ve had a busy day.”

Mac edged closer. He wasn’t sure how near the old landslide he could get. He didn’t hear any fresh rounds of rattling. He crept to within five feet, then took out his flashlight, flaring it over the pile of boulders. It was difficult to tell. Some rocks seemed clear. Others had bulging outlines that could very well be more rattlers.

“Do you think you can jump to me?” he asked Kimberly.

She was at least twenty feet away, at an awkward angle in the rock pile. Maybe if she bounded quickly from boulder to boulder…

“I’m tired,” Kimberly whispered.

“I know, honey. I’m tired, too. But we need to get you off those rocks. I’ve sort of grown attached to your sunny smile and gentle disposition. Surely you wouldn’t want to disappoint me now.”

No answer.

“Kimberly,” he said more sharply. “I need you to pay attention. You’re strong, you’re bright. Now, focus on how we’re going to get out of this.”

Her gaze went off in the distance. He saw her shoulders tremble. He didn’t know what she thought about but, finally, she turned back to him. “Fire,” she told him quietly.

“Fire?”

“Snakes do hate fire, right? Or have I watched too many Indiana Jones movies? If I make a torch, maybe I can use it to scare them away.”

Mac moved fast. He wasn’t an expert on snakes, but it sounded like a plan to him. He used his flashlight and quickly found a decent-sized fallen limb. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

He lofted the branch into the air with an easy underhand. A moment later, he heard the small thump as she caught it in her hands. They both held their breath. A slight buzzing rattle, low and to the right.

“Stay still,” Mac warned.

Kimberly dutifully froze and after several long minutes, the sound faded away.

“You need to get into your pack for the other supplies,” Mac instructed. “If you have an extra pair of wool socks, wrap one around the end of the branch. Then you’ll notice a small film canister in your front pocket. I added that. It contains three cotton balls dipped in Vaseline. They make an excellent fire starter. Just tuck them into the folds of the sock and hit ’em with a match.”

He held the flashlight, illuminating her in its beam of light as she went to work. Her movements were slow and subdued, trying not to call attention to herself.

“I can’t find my extra socks,” she called back at last. “What about a T-shirt?”

“That’ll do.”

She had to set her pack down. Mac briefly lit up the ground beside her. It appeared free of snakes. She gingerly lowered her pack. Another hiss as the snakes sensed the disturbance and voiced their disapproval. She stilled again, straightening at the waist, and now Mac could see the fresh sheen of sweat on her brow.

“You’re almost done,” he told her.

“Sure.” Her hands were shaking. She fumbled the stick briefly, nearly dropped it, and a fresh rattle, close and loud, reverberated through the dark. Mac watched Kimberly squeeze her eyes shut. He wondered if she was now remembering another truth about that day in the hotel room-that when the man had held a gun to her head, her first thought had been that she didn’t want to die.

Come on, Kimberly, he willed her. Come back to me.

She got the T-shirt wrapped around the end of the stick. Then she tucked in the cotton balls. Then she found the matches. Her trembling hand held aloft the first small wooden match. The raspy sound of the tip scratching against the box. The match flared to life, she touched it to the cotton balls, and a torch was born in the night.

Immediately, the space around her blazed with fresh light, illuminating not one, but four coiled rattlers.

“Mac,” Kimberly said clearly. “Get ready to catch.”

She thrust the torch forward. The snakes hissed, then recoiled sharply from the flames, and Kimberly bolted off the first boulder. She bounded down, one, two, three, four, as the crevices came alive with slippery shapes tumbling off the boulders as the snakes sought to escape the flame. The rocks were alive, hissing, curling, rattling. Kimberly plunged through the writhing mess.

“Mac!” she yelled. She came catapulting off the final rock and crashed against his hard frame.

“Gotcha,” he said, grabbing her shoulders and already removing the torch from her shaking hand.

For one moment, she just stood there, shell-shocked and dazed. Then, she collapsed against his chest and he held her more gratefully and desperately than he should.

“Mandy,” Kimberly murmured. She began to cry.

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

11:51 P . M .

Temperature: 91 degrees

PROFESSIONALS ARRIVED AND TOOK OVER THE SCENE. Lanterns were brought in, along with battery-powered lights. Then volunteers, armed with sticks, served as emergency snake wranglers, while men wearing thick boots and heavy-duty pants waded onto the rock pile and removed the victim’s body in a litter.

Kathy Levine stood by as Mac officially reported their latest find to the powers that be. As a national park, Shenandoah fell under FBI jurisdiction; Watson would have his case after all, and Mac and Kimberly would once again be relegated to the role of outsiders.

Kimberly didn’t care. She sat alone on the sidewalk in front of Big Meadows Lodge, watching the emergency vehicles pile up in the parking lot. Ambulances and EMTs with no one to save. A fire department with no blaze to extinguish. Then finally, the ME’s van, the only professional who would get to practice his trade tonight.

It was hot. Kimberly felt moisture roll down her face like tears. Or maybe she was still crying. It was hard to know. She felt empty in a way she’d never felt empty before. As if everything she had ever been had disappeared, been flushed down a drain. Without bones, her body would have no weight. Without skin, she would cease to have form. The wind would come, blow her away like a pile of burnt-out ash, and maybe it would be better that way.

More cars came and went. Exhausted search volunteers returned and headed for a makeshift canteen where they downed buckets of ice water, then sank their teeth into pulpy slices of orange. The EMTs treated them for minor cuts and slight sprains. Most people simply collapsed into the metal folding chairs, physically exhausted by the hike, and emotionally drained by a search that had ended with bitter disappointment.

Tomorrow all of this would be gone. The search-and-rescue volunteers would disperse back to their everyday lives, returning to mundane rituals and routine concerns. They would rejoin their families, hiking parties, fire departments.

And Kimberly? Would she go back to the Academy? Fire shotgun rounds at blank targets and pretend it made her tough? Or play dress-up in Hogan’s Alley, dodging paint shells and matching wits with overpaid actors? She could pass the last round of tests, graduate to become a full-fledged agent, and go through the rest of her life pretending her career made her whole. Why not? It had worked for her father.