She wanted to lay her head down on the hard sidewalk bordering the parking lot. She wanted to melt into the cement until the world ceased to exist. She wanted to go back to a time when she did not know so much about violent death, or what dozens of rattlesnakes could do to the human body.

She had told Mac the truth earlier. She was tired. Six years’ worth of sleepless, bone-weary nights. She wanted to close her eyes and never open them again. She wanted to disappear.

Footsteps grew closer. A shadow fell between her and the ambulance headlights. She looked up, and there was her father, striding across the parking lot in one of his impeccably tailored suits. His lean face was set. His dark eyes inscrutable. He bore down on her fiercely, a hard, dangerous man come to collect his own.

She didn’t have the strength anymore to care.

“I’m fine,” she started.

“Shut up,” Quincy said roughly. He grabbed his daughter’s shoulder. Then he shocked them both by pulling her roughly off the sidewalk and folding her into his embrace. He pressed his cheek against her hair. “My God, I have been so worried about you. When I got the call from Mac… Kimberly, you are killing me.”

And then she shocked them both by bursting once more into tears. “We didn’t make it. I thought for sure this time I would be right. But we were slow and she was dead. Oh God, Daddy, how can I always be too late?”

“Shhh…”

She pulled back until she could gaze into his hard-lined face. For so much of her childhood, he had been a cool, remote figure. She respected him, she admired him. She strove desperately for his praise. But he remained out of reach, a larger-than-life figure who was always rushing out the door to assist other families, and rarely around for his own. Now, it was suddenly, frantically important to her that he understand. “If I’d just known how to move faster. I have no experience in the mountains. How could I grow up around here and not know anything about the woods? I kept tripping and falling, Dad, and then I stumbled into the stinging nettles and God, why couldn’t I have moved faster?”

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

“Mac was right after all. I wanted to save Mandy and Mom, and since I can’t help them, I honestly thought saving this girl would make a difference. But they’re still dead and she’s still dead, and God, what is the point?”

“Kimberly, what happened to your mother and Mandy wasn’t your fault-”

She wrenched away from him. Screaming now, her words carrying across the parking lot, but she was beyond noticing. “Stop saying that! You always say that! Of course it was my fault. I’m the one who trusted him. I’m the one who told him all about my family. Without me, he never would’ve known how to reach them. Without me, he never would’ve killed them! So stop lying to me, Dad. What happened to Mom and Mandy is exactly my fault. I just let you take the blame because I know it makes you feel better!”

“Stop it! You were only twenty. A young girl. You can’t saddle yourself with this kind of guilt.”

“Why not? You do.”

“Then we’re both idiots, all right? We’re both idiots. What happened to your mom and Mandy… I would’ve died for them, Kimberly. Had I known, if I could’ve stopped it, I would’ve died for them.” His breathing had grown harsh. She was shocked to see the glitter of tears in his eyes.

“I would’ve died, too,” she whispered.

“Then we did the best we could, all we could. He was the enemy, Kimberly. He took their lives. And God help both of us, but sometimes the enemy is simply that good.”

“I want them back.”

“I know.”

“I miss them all the time. Even Mandy.”

“I know.”

“Dad, I don’t know why I’m still alive…”

“Because God took pity on me, Kimberly. Because without you, I think I would’ve gone insane.”

He pulled her back into his arms. She sobbed against his chest, crying harder. And she could feel him crying, too, her father’s tears falling onto her hair. Her stoic father, who didn’t even cry at funerals.

“I wanted to save her so badly,” Kimberly whispered.

“I know. It’s not bad to care. Someday, that will be your strength.”

“But it hurts. And now I have nothing left. The game is over, and the wrong person has won, and I don’t know how to simply go home and wait for the next match. It’s life and death. It shouldn’t be this cavalier.”

“It’s not over, Kimberly.”

“Of course it is. We didn’t find the second girl. Now all we can do is wait.”

“No. Not this time.” Her father took a deep breath, then gently pulled away. He looked at her in the dark, breathless night, and his face was as sad as she’d ever seen it. “Kimberly,” he said quietly. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, but this time, there weren’t just two girls. This time, the man took four.”

Rainie was huffing badly by the time she made it down to the crime scene. Lanterns marked the trail, so the footing wasn’t bad, but geez Louise, it was a ways down the mountain. And for the record, while it was now after midnight and the moon ruled the sky, apparently no one had bothered to tell the heat. She’d soaked through both her T-shirt and hiking shorts, ruining her third outfit of the day.

She hated this weather. She hated this place. She wanted to go home, and not to the high-rise co-op she shared with Quincy in downtown Manhattan, but home to Bakersville, Oregon. Where the fir trees grew to staggering heights, and a fresh ocean breeze blew off the water. Where people knew each other by first names, and even if it made it hard to escape the past, it also gave you an anchor in the present. Bakersville, where she’d had a town, a community, a place that felt like home…

The pang of longing struck hard and deep. As it had been doing so often these days. A ghost pain for the past. And it filled her with a restlessness she was having a harder and harder time trying to hide. Quincy could sense it, too. She caught him watching her sometimes with a question in his eyes. She wished she could give him an answer, but how could she, when she didn’t have one herself?

Sometimes she ached for things she couldn’t name. And sometimes, when she thought of how much she loved Quincy, it simply hurt her more.

She found Mac standing with a cluster of three people over by the body. The first guy appeared to be the Medical Examiner. Second guy had the look of an assistant. Third person was a woman with short red hair and lots of freckles. She was built like a firecracker, with the muscled legs and broad shoulders of a serious hiker. Not the ME’s office. Probably leader of the search-and-rescue operations.

Thirty seconds later, Mac made the introductions, and Rainie was pleased to find out she was right. ME turned out to be Howard Weiss, his assistant was Dan Lansing, and the redhead was Kathy Levine, who had indeed organized the search.

Levine was still talking to the ME, so the three of them broke away, leaving Mac and Rainie standing over the partially wrapped body.

“Where’s Quincy?” Mac asked.

“He said he needed to have a fatherly chat with Kimberly. I took one look at his face and decided not to argue.”

“They fight a lot?”

“Only because they’re too much alike.” She shrugged. “Someday they’ll figure that out.”

“What about Kaplan and Watson? Are they gonna join the party, or are they not allowed off the base?”

“Not known yet. Watson has a full-time job at the Academy, so while the FBI is definitely assembling a team, it probably won’t involve him personally. Kaplan, on the other hand, is lead investigator on the Quantico homicide. So he has plenty of time, but lacks jurisdiction. Given that he’s a resourceful man, I figure in another hour or two, he’ll crack that nut and show up with full NCIS entourage. Oh, aren’t we the luckiest duckies in the whole wide world?”