The Killing Hour by Lisa Gardner Read Free Book Online Page A

around in her purse until she found a fresh cigarette. He held up a light and she smiled her gratitude, though the lines were a bit tighter around her eyes. For a minute, neither one of them said a word.
    The bar was hopping tonight, flesh pressed against flesh, with more people still pouring through the doors. Half of them, of course, were their fellow National Academy classmates—detectives, sheriffs, and even some military police enrolled in Quantico’s eleven-week course. Still, Mac wouldn’t have expected the bar to be this busy on a Tuesday night. People were fleeing their homes, probably trying to escape the heat.
    He and Genny had arrived three hours ago, early enough to stake out hard-to-find seats. Generally the National Academy students didn’t leave Quantico much. People hung out in the Boardroom after hours, drinking beer, swapping war stories, and by one or two in the morning, praying that their livers wouldn’t fail them now. The big joke was that the program had to end week eleven, because no one’s kidneys could survive week twelve.
    People were restless tonight, though. The unbearable heat and humidity had started moving in on Sunday, and reportedly were working their way to a Friday crescendo. Walking outside was like slogging through a pile of wet towels. In five minutes your T-shirt was plastered to your torso. In ten minutes, your shorts were glued to your thighs. Inside seemed little better, with the Academy’s archaic air-conditioning system groaning mightily just to cool things to eighty-five.
    People started bailing from Quantico shortly after six, desperate for any sort of distraction. Genny and Mac had followed shortly thereafter.
    They’d met the first week of training, eight weeks ago. Southerners had to stick together, Genny had teased him, especially in a class overrun with fast-talking Yanks. Her gaze, however, had been on his broad chest when she’d said this. Mac had merely grinned.
    At the age of thirty-six, he’d figured out by now that he was a good-looking guy—six two, black hair, blue eyes, and deeply tanned skin from a lifetime spent running, cycling, fishing, hunting, hiking, canoeing, etc. You name it, he did it and he had a younger sister and nine cousins who accompanied him all the way. You could get into a lot of trouble in a state as diverse as Georgia, and the McCormacks prided themselves on learning each lesson the hard way.
    The end result was a leanly muscled physique that seemed to appeal to women of all ages. Mac did his best to bear this hardship stoically. It helped a great deal that he was fond of women. A little
too
fond, according to his exasperated mother, who was dead-set on gaining a daughter-in-law and oodles of grandkids. Maybe someday, he supposed. At the moment, however, Mac was completely wedded to his job, and days like this, boy, didn’t he know it.
    His gaze returned to the doorway. Two young girls walked in, followed by another two. All were chatting happily. He wondered if they would leave that way. Together, alone, with newly met lovers, without. Which way would be safer? Man, he hated nights like this.
    “You gotta let it go,” Genny said.
    “Let what go?”
    “Whatever’s putting lines on that handsome face.”
    Mac tore his gaze away from the door for the second time. He regarded Genny wryly, then picked up his beer and spun it between his fingers. “You ever have one of those cases?”
    “The kind that gets beneath your skin, jumps into your brain and haunts your dreams, until five, six, ten, twenty years later you still sometimes wake up screaming? No, sugar, I wouldn’t know a thing about that.” She stubbed out her cigarette, then reached in her purse for another.
    “Sugar,” Mac mocked gently, “you’re lying through your teeth.” He held up a lighter again and watched how her blue eyes appraised him even as she leaned toward his hands and accepted the flame.
    She sat back. She inhaled. She exhaled. She said abruptly,