Gone (3 page)

“Your wife have a drinking problem, Mr. Quincy?”

“I think you’d have to ask her that.”

“Things don’t sound like they’re going too well.”

It wasn’t a question and the profiler didn’t answer.

“What are we going to find in the woods, Mr. Quincy?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’d you think happened here, on this road in the middle of the night?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Come on, Mr. Quincy. Aren’t you the hotshot profiler, the supposed expert on human nature?”

Quincy finally smiled. It made his face appear bleaker than Kincaid would’ve expected. “Obviously, Sergeant,” he said quietly, “you’ve never met my wife.”

3

Tuesday, 4:45 a.m. PST

Q
UINCY WANTED TO MOVE.
First instinct: plunge into the dark underbrush, scream frantically for his vanished wife. Second instinct: attack Rainie’s car, tear it apart, look for . . . anything. A note. Signs of struggle. The magic clue that would say: Rainie is here. Or maybe, Your wife still loves you.

Of course, Sergeant Kincaid held him at bay. Professional courtesy only went so far when you were the estranged husband of the missing person. Instead, Quincy was forced back outside the crime scene tape, where he paced for a bit, getting wetter, dirtier, angrier.

Finally, he retreated to his car. He sat on the black leather seat, staring at his state-of-the-art dash, with its beautiful, wood-grained details, and hated everything about his vehicle.

Rainie was missing. How could he be sitting in a luxury sedan?

He tried to follow the efforts through his windshield, but the rain beat too hard, obscuring his view. Best he could make out was the occasional wink of a flashlight as the searchers bobbed and weaved in the neighboring woods. Four deputies. That was it. Local kids, according to Kincaid, experienced in searching for lost hunters, and the best they could deploy given the current conditions. Come daylight, of course, they would summon volunteers, get the full search-and-rescue effort grinding. Set up a command post, bring in the dogs, break up the surrounding woods into an elaborate network of grids.

Assuming Rainie was still missing. Assuming that four deputies, stumbling around blind in the middle of the night, didn’t magically find the needle in the haystack.

Rainie was gone. So was her gun.

He should think. That was his forte. No one anticipated the warped human mind quite like Pierce Quincy. No, other people had a talent for, say, juggling. He got this.

He tried to force his scattered thoughts into order. He thought of past abduction cases. He thought of various schemes used to lure unsuspecting women to their deaths. Bundy favored faking an injury, wrapping his arm in a cast in order to entice young college coeds into helping him carry his books. The Virginia Eco-Killer trailed women from bars, planting a nail behind their rear tire. Then it was a simple matter of following their vehicles until the tire went flat. Hey, lady, need some help?

Others went the blitzkrieg-style approach. Ambush the victim, catch her unaware. So many methods, so many ways it could be done. Middle of the night, middle of a deserted, heavily wooded road. It wouldn’t be hard.

But Rainie was armed. Rainie knew better. Rainie had seen the crime scene photos, too.

His train of thought broke down again. He tried to develop a theory, tried to picture what had happened here sometime after two a.m. His mind simply refused. He didn’t know how to be the trained death investigator just yet. He was too busy being the shocked, overwhelmed husband.

Rainie was missing. So was her gun.

And in those two sentences, Quincy discovered his real, genuine fear. The one he couldn’t put into words yet. The one he really, truly couldn’t face.

Rainie was missing. So was her gun.

Quincy closed his eyes. He rested his forehead against the steering wheel. And he wished, as he had wished too often in life, that he didn’t know all the things that a man like him knew best.

Thursday, three weeks ago, 5:45 p.m. PST

“Y
OU
’
RE QUIET THIS EVENING.
”

He could tell the sound of his voice startled her. She looked up abruptly, blinking as she roused herself from her reverie. Then his words must have finally penetrated; she smiled wanly.

“Isn’t that my line?”

He attempted to smile back, entering the great room, but still giving her plenty of space. There had been a time when he would’ve thought nothing of crossing to her on the sofa. He would’ve kissed her cheek, maybe tucked a wayward strand of dark chestnut hair back behind her ear. Or maybe nothing even that intrusive. Maybe he would’ve taken his favorite spot in the wingback chair by the gas fireplace, opening a book, sharing the silence.

But not this time.

“Penny for your thoughts.” There was a hitch in his voice; he hated that.

“Just work,” she said. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, then uncurled from the loveseat. October was normally a warm, balmy month in Oregon. This month, however, had seen record rainfall, and the endless gray days of drizzle created a chill that seeped deep within the bones. Rainie had already dug out her winter clothes. She wore an oversized, cable-knit cream-colored sweater with her favorite pair of broken-down jeans. The jeans emphasized her long, slim legs. The sweater set off the red highlights in her tumbling chestnut hair.

Quincy thought that she looked beautiful.

“I should get going,” Rainie said.

“You’re heading out?”

“I’m meeting Dougie. Thought I told you that last night.”

“You just met with Dougie.”

“That was Tuesday, this is Thursday. Come on, Quince, I told you when this started that it was going to demand a lot of my time.”

“Rainie . . .” He didn’t know how to say it.

“What?” She finally crossed to him, hands on her hips, voice impatient. He could see her feet now. Bare, no socks. A row of ten unpainted toes. He was a doomed man, Quincy thought. He even loved his wife’s toes.

“I don’t think you should go out.”

Her blue eyes widened. She stared at him incredulously. “You don’t think I should go
out
?
What the hell is this? Surely you’re not jealous of Dougie.”

“Actually, I have a lot of issues with Dougie.”

She started to protest again; he raised a silencing hand. “However, I know Dougie’s not the real problem.” And just like that, it was as if he’d struck a match.

Rainie stalked away from him, movements jerky, agitated. She found her socks and lace-up boots beside the sofa, sat down defiantly, and started pulling them on.

“Let it go,” she said firmly.

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can. It’s pretty easy. Just admit once and for all that you can’t fix me.”

“I love you, Rainie.”

“Bullshit! Love is accepting, Quincy. And you’ve never accepted me.”

“I think we should talk.”

She finished pulling up her socks, then grabbed a boot. She was so mad though—or maybe she was sad, he didn’t know anymore, which was half the problem—that her fingers struggled with the laces. “There’s nothing to discuss. We went to the scene, we saw what we saw, and now we’ll work it like we work it. They were just two more murders, for God’s sake. It’s not like we haven’t seen worse.”

She couldn’t get the boot on. Her fingers were too thick, too shaky. She finally jammed her left foot in, left the laces undone, and crammed on the right boot.

“Rainie, please, I’m not trying to pretend to understand how you feel—”

“There you go again! Another line straight out of the shrink’s handbook. Are you my husband, or are you my therapist? Face it, Quincy—you don’t know the difference.”

“I know you need to talk about what happened.”

“No I don’t!”

“Yes, Rainie, you do.”

“For the last time, let it go!”

She moved to barge by him, laces flapping against the rug. He caught her arm. For a moment, her eyes darkened. He could see her contemplating violence. Rainie, backed into a corner, knew only how to fight. Part of him was encouraged to see her cheeks finally flush with color. The other part of him played the only card he had left.

“Rainie, I know you’ve been drinking.”

“That’s a lie—”

“Luke told me about the ticket.”

“Luke is an idiot.”

Quincy just stared at her.

“Okay, look, so I had one drink.”

“You’re an alcoholic. You don’t get to have one drink.”

“Well, forgive me for being human. I stumbled, I caught myself. Surely two beers in fifteen years is no reason to call the police.”

“Where are you going tonight, Rainie?”

“To see Dougie. I already told you that.”

“I spoke with him this afternoon. He didn’t know anything about tonight.”

“He’s a boy, he’s confused—”

“He also didn’t know about Tuesday night.”

She stalled out. Caught, trapped. The look on her face broke Quincy’s heart.

“Rainie,” he whispered, “when did it become so easy to lie?”

The fire finally left her cheeks. She looked at him for a long time, stared at him so hard, he started to have hope. Then her eyes cooled to a soft gray he knew too well. Her lips settled, her jaw set.

“You can’t fix me, Quincy,” she told him quietly, then she pulled her arm from his and headed out the door.

Tuesday, 5:01 a.m. PST

Q
UINCY SAT IN HIS CAR
, peering out into the gloom.

“Oh, Rainie,” he murmured. “What have you done?”

4

Tuesday, 5:10 a.m. PST

S
PECIAL
A
GENT
K
IMBERLY
Q
UINCY
liked to hit the ground running. Five a.m. she was rolling out of bed, years of habit waking her the instant before her alarm. Five forty-five she was completing her six-mile run. Six a.m. she was out of the shower, pulling on sleek black pants and a body-skimming cream-colored silk top. Into the kitchen for OJ, toast, and coffee, then she grabbed her jacket and hit the road.

By six thirty a.m., the morning commute was already starting to thicken. Traffic was slow but not stalled. Kimberly liked to use the forty-five-minute drive to compose her mental list for the day. This morning she had some research she wanted to get done, which meant filling out forms for the research analysts. The bureau provided the most powerful firearms in the world for its agents, but heaven help you if you needed access to a computer.

After filling out the research paperwork, she had stacks of boxes to sort through for her latest case: A bunch of high-class art forgeries had turned up in the Atlanta market. Kimberly’s case team was trying to identify a connection between the pieces by tracing them back through the various art galleries and dealers.

As someone who already had experience working two serial killer cases, Kimberly had once envisioned working in the bureau’s violent crimes task force or, better yet, counterterrorism/counterintelligence unit. But the fact remained that she was a woman, and white-collar crimes remained the launching point of choice for females in the bureau.

In the good-news department, it looked like one of the task forces was serving a felony warrant this afternoon, and Kimberly had been asked to tag along. Extra bodies always came in handy for these operations, and as her supervisor liked to remind her, it was good exposure for a young agent. So that would add a little spice to the day.

Two years after joining the bureau, Kimberly felt she was finally settling into things. She liked Atlanta; the city was younger, hipper, than she would’ve imagined, while still retaining its old-fashioned Southern charm. She loved the warm weather; she loved the outdoor culture of hiking, biking, jogging, swimming. And just possibly, she was madly in love with Mac.

They’d been together two years now. Who woulda thunk? A young, ambitious feebie and a slightly arrogant but very cute state detective. It wasn’t exactly a traditional relationship. She couldn’t even count anymore the number of canceled Friday nights or botched getaway weekends. His cell phone, her cell phone. Seemed like one of them was always being called away.

But it worked for them. They both loved what they did, and they both appreciated the small moments they were able to snatch in between. Speaking of which, they were currently planning on meeting up in Savannah for the weekend. Which meant one of them was bound to be pulled onto a major case at any second.

It kind of made Kimberly curious about the rest of the week.

Now, she parked, entered the office, poured herself a second cup of coffee, and headed for her desk. She had to sashay around the stack of boxes surrounding her chair, then she was ensconced in her little piece of paradise, sipping bad coffee and wielding an FBI agent’s most commonly used weapon—the ballpoint pen.

She made it all the way until eight a.m. without her cell phone ringing. Even then, seeing a familiar number light up the digital display, she wasn’t worried.

“Hey, Dad.”

Connection was bad. First she heard a lot of fuzz, then a crackle, followed by her name. “. . . Kimberly.”

“Dad, I can’t hear you.”

“Rainie. . . . Two o’clock this morning. . . . State police . . .”

“Dad?”

“Kimberly?”

“You have to switch locations. You’re fading out.” More crackle and fuzz. Followed by two clicks. Call was dropped. Kimberly sat there glaring at the phone in annoyance. The phone chimed again. She answered it instantly.

“Hey, Dad.”

No sound. Nothing.

But that wasn’t quite right. She could hear background noises. Something muffled and rhythmic. Crunching sounds. Sputtering. Almost like an automobile.

“Dad?” she asked with a frown.

Heavy breathing. A grunt. A thud.

Then she could hear the breathing again. Closer. Fast. Almost . . . distressed.

“Hello?” she tried again.

More white noise. Kimberly strained her ears but couldn’t identify an individual sound. She finally thought to check the caller ID again. But this time, it wasn’t her father’s number.

“Rainie?” she asked with surprise.

Call was breaking up now. She heard more static, a dead spot, then the heavy breathing.

“Rainie, you’re going to have to speak up,” Kimberly said loudly. “I’m losing you.”

Crackle, fuzz, nothing.

“Rainie? Rainie? Are you there?”

Kimberly stared with frustration at her phone but, according to the display, the call wasn’t dropped. At the last moment, the hazy white noise returned. Then a strange metallic ping. Bang, bang, bang. Pause. Bang, bang, bang. Pause. Bang, bang, bang.

Then the call was gone for good.

Kimberly closed her phone in disgust. It promptly rang again. This time, it was her father.

“Where are you guys?” she asked Quincy. “The reception is terrible.”

“Back roads,” her father said. “Outside of Bakersville.”

“Well, whatever is going on, you’re going to have to start at the beginning. I didn’t understand anything you said, let alone Rainie.”

There was a long stretch of silence.

“You heard from Rainie?” Her father’s voice sounded funny, strained.

“A few seconds ago, she called from her cell—”

“Her cell phone,” Quincy interjected harshly. “Why didn’t we think of the damn phone?”

Kimberly heard lots of noises now. A car door opening, slamming shut. Her father shouting for a sergeant named Kincaid.

“Dad, you’re scaring me.”

“She’s missing.”

“Who’s missing?”

“Rainie.” He was talking fast, curt, obviously on the move. “They found her car. Two o’clock this morning. The engine was still running, lights on. Purse in the passenger’s seat. But there’s no sign of her gun. Or, of course, her cell phone. Now tell me, Kimberly. Tell me every single word she said.”

And then finally, Kimberly understood. The sound of a moving car, the heavy breathing, the metal pings. “She didn’t say anything, Dad. But she was signaling. I think . . . I think she signaled SOS.”

Quincy didn’t say anything more. He didn’t have to. In the silence, Kimberly could picture the thoughts running through her father’s head. Her sister’s funeral. Her mother’s funeral. All the people he had loved who had left him much too soon.

“Mac and I are on the next plane,” she said tightly.

“You don’t have to—”

“We’re on the next plane.” Then Kimberly was out of her chair and running for her supervisor’s office.