The Third Victim Part 39

Mostly, Quincy remembered Candy's last words, after five days of endless agony.

"Please don't be sad, Mom and Dad. It'll all be over soon and I know I'm going to a better place. G.o.d loves me and will take care of me.

I'm going to be fine. I love you. I love even this bad, bad man. My heart is true."

Quincy woke up with tears on his cheeks.

He lay in his bed for a long time, thinking of the strength of a thirteen-year-old girl, thinking of G.o.d and faith and the things he'd left behind after too many years on the job.

A day after the last phone call they found Candy Wallace's body, naked, bruised, and mutilated. Three weeks after that they arrested the man who did it, an unemployed handyman who had once worked on the air-conditioning unit at the Wallaces' home. He said Candy had insisted on telling him that G.o.d loved him, so he'd cut out her tongue.

Quincy had thought that there was nothing they could do to this man that would ever be enough.

He'd flown back to Virginia feeling isolated and worn to the bone.

He'd entered his home but walked away from his family, because he'd never learned to go from a crime scene to the people he loved. At times like this, he couldn't look at his daughters without seeing all the horrors that could befall them. The handymen, the drifters, the charming law students. He couldn't look at his family without seeing pain and suffering and death.

Now Quincy got out of bed. He called the hospital to learn that Amanda's condition hadn't changed. His ex-wife was asleep in the room if he wanted to speak with her. Quincy told the nurse not to wake her.

His other daughter, Kimberly, was not at the hospital. She had probably returned to school. Like him, she seemed to have accepted that her sister was gone, a defection to Quincy's camp that Bethie couldn't bear.

Of course, things between his ex-wife and their younger daughter had been tense ever since last year, when Kimberly had announced she was studying sociology at New York University. Someday she wanted to be a profiler with the FBI. Just like her dad.

Quincy pulled on an old pair of running shorts and a gray FBI T-shirt.

He hit the street, inhaling sharply at the cold sting of morning. Then he was off and running, still thinking of a young girl's dying screams and unfailing love. Still thinking of his own daughter, and the tragedy he hadn't protected her from after all those years of trying to make the world a safe place.

And then he was thinking of Rainie and her shadowed gray eyes and strong, stubborn chin. The way she took her punches. The way she still got up for the fight.

Once he'd made the mistake of thinking that isolation was protection, that focusing solely on his work would make a difference for people, for his family. He had listened to a young girl die, but he had not heard what she was saying.

Quincy was old, but he was learning.

He ran for a long time, with the mountain air cool and clean against his cheeks. He greeted a beautiful morning in a lush, coastal valley and he understood why Rainie Conner still lived here, perfectly.

Shortly before one, Quincy showed up in the tiny task-force center in the attic of city hall. He hadn't expected Rainie to be back yet from the autopsies scheduled in Portland, but she was already sitting at her sawhorse desk when he arrived. She didn't look up right away, scribbling intently on some piece of paper.

He took a moment to study her. Her face was paler than yesterday, the shadows deeper under her eyes. Another sleepless night, he presumed, coupled with a brutal morning. Autopsies were never easy, particularly when they were of children.

Judging from her focused movements, however, Rainie still had no intention of slowing down.

She reminded him of someone else. It took him a moment to place the name. Tess. Tess Williams. Another case, years ago, but with a better ending. Tess had made the mistake of marrying the perfect man, the kind other women always said was too good to be true. In Jim Beckett's case, they were right. The handsome, dedicated police officer had had a small sideline activity. He pulled over beautiful blondes for speeding, and then he murdered them. Tess had been the first person to figure out her husband's evil doings, and she'd slowly gathered the evidence against him while still sharing his bed.

Jim Beckett did not go down without a fight. He cut a long, b.l.o.o.d.y swath through the task-force team, including putting some fresh scars on Quincy's own chest. But Tess proved to be tougher than anyone had suspected. When Beckett hunted her down after he escaped from prison, Tess made sure the Ma.s.sachusetts taxpayers never had to pay for his room and board again.

Quincy hadn't thought of her in years. He tried to do the math on how old her daughter Samantha would be now. Ten years old? It had been a bit. He wondered how she and Tess were doing.

He never followed up on the people in his cases. Even in the ones that went well, he was still a reminder of a dark time. Somehow, it didn't seem appropriate to be sending out Christmas cards.

"Are you going to stand there mooning all afternoon?" Rainie asked from her desk, still staring down at her paper.

"Just admiring the view."

She looked up long enough to shoot him a hard glance.

"Oh, please."

"The autopsies went that well, I see."

"Everything I ever feared, plus ten. For heaven's sake, either get in the room or shut the door. I can't stand people loitering in the doorway."

Quincy took his time entering, eyeing her more cautiously. She was more ragged than he'd expected. When she spoke, her voice carried the edge of someone teetering on the brink of a dark place. He would bet she hadn't let herself cry. That was a bad sign. Sometimes you had to cry after autopsies. It was the only way to release the pain.

"Writing up the report?" he asked neutrally.

"Nope. Writing up a list. What do you think of the mysterious man in black?"

"Pardon?" The man in black, the figure various kids reported seeing at the school. Fact or fiction?"

"I don't know."

"What if he exists? Could a stranger be involved in shooting up a school?"

"You would be amazed at the things a stranger can do," Quincy said slowly, 'even one met over the Internet. Witness all the young kids currently being lured from chat rooms into real-life meetings with pedophiles."

"Fine." She scribbled furiously.

"Man in black. Connection to Danny through the Internet, then tries to cover tracks by erasing the hard drives of the machines. Except then we're back to Melissa Avalon. Why one precise gunshot to her head? I hate that f.u.c.king wound." Rainie caught herself, blew out a breath of air, and briskly started writing again.

"We can work on that angle later. Next up, school counselor Richard Mann."

"What about Richard Mann?"

"He's young, thirty-three according to his file, though he doesn't look a day older than fifteen if you ask me. If we go back to a.s.suming that Melissa Avalon was the intended target, he could have motive. Maybe he had a thing for Melissa Avalon and didn't like learning about her private staff meetings with VanderZanden. Plus, as a counselor, he'd know what b.u.t.tons to push to drive Danny over the edge. That takes care of means."

Quincy finally got it.

"You're working on a list of other possible suspects."

"Yes, the fed can be taught."

Quincy arched a brow. She wasn't just edgy this afternoon, she was brutally cutting.

"May I ask who you have listed?"

"Charlie Kenyon, Princ.i.p.al VanderZanden, the mysterious man in black, and now Richard Mann."

"I thought the princ.i.p.al had an alibi."

"At first glance, but you never really know until you start applying pressure."