Once Shunned Read online

  And now Riley couldn’t help but wonder …

  What if April had gone to jail instead, just like the people here?

  Would she ever have gotten better?

  Were these people likely to get better in jail or prison?

  Riley tried to put such thoughts out of her mind as she and Bill headed out of the house and walked toward their borrowed car.

  Now she kept hearing Jim’s protest in her mind …

  “I’m not a narc …”

  On one hand, he’d pretty obviously meant that he wouldn’t inform on Bruno to an FBI agent.

  But Riley suspected that he’d meant something else as well.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  As they walked toward the FBI headquarters in New Haven, Riley reviewed the shooting gallery episode in her mind. Her thoughts were interrupted by Bill’s deep sigh of despair.

  “It’s started,” he grumbled.

  Riley looked up and immediately saw what he was talking about.

  A small group of reporters, some with TV cameras, were gathered around the building’s front entrance. Their hopes of keeping the media away from this case were about to get wrecked.

  As Riley and Bill pushed past them, the reporters called out questions.

  “Are you FBI agents?”

  “Are you investigating the murder this morning at Wickenburg Reef?”

  “Is it true that the fisherman’s death was connected to an earlier murder in Wilburton?”

  “Have you got a suspect for both murders?”

  Riley and Bill kept saying “No comment” and managed to get inside the building without answering any questions. Then they asked a receptionist for directions to the interrogation room. As they continued on their way through the building, Bill said …

  “It doesn’t sound like they know about the ice pick angle.”

  “Not yet,” Riley said. “But they’ve found out that those last two murders have something in common. The weapon used is liable to leak pretty soon. Let’s hope we can keep the cause of Vincent Cranston’s death quiet for a while longer.”

  Bill chuckled a little and added, “At least none of them seemed to recognize you.”

  Riley understood what he meant. She’d gotten quite a bit of unwanted publicity for her brilliant work on some cases. Some crime reporters knew a lot about her. She hoped all of that wasn’t going to turn out to be a liability while they were working on this case.

  When Bill and Riley arrived outside the interrogation room, they found Jenn and Agent Sturman looking through a two-way mirror at Bruno Young. Riley’s recent assailant was manacled and sitting at a table.

  Bill asked Jenn and Agent Sturman …

  “Has he lawyered up yet?”

  Agent Sturman scoffed. “Not yet. He’s an arrogant bastard. Says he doesn’t need a lawyer because he didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Riley said, “Well, he did assault a law enforcement officer.”

  Sturman nodded and said, “Yeah, I got there just in time to see him lunge at you with that ice pick. You subdued him before I could come to your aid. You’ve got some moves there, Agent Paige.”

  Riley wondered—had Sturman also seen the rage in her eyes when he’d called out to her? Did he know how close Riley had come to doing Bruno some serious bodily harm—perhaps even killing him?

  If he does know, he’s not making an issue of it, she realized.

  She felt a renewed rush of relief that Sturman had saved her from her own violent impulses.

  Bill asked Sturman and Jenn, “What have you been able to find out about Bruno Young since you brought him here?”

  Sturman said, “It’s like his wife said—he’d been paroled from Danbury Prison a couple of months ago. The charge was heroin delivery. He served just eighteen months on a much longer sentence. He got out for good behavior, but the terms of his parole are as strict as hell. Just hanging around a place like that shooting gallery is enough to send him back to prison.”

  Jenn nodded and said, “And of course he wouldn’t be allowed to own a firearm. But an ice pick is another matter.”

  Bill said, “Now we need to know what he’s been doing with it.”

  “Maybe we can get him to tell us,” Sturman said. “Should all four of us go in and interrogate him? Maybe we can intimidate him with numbers.”

  Riley thought about it for a moment. She knew it would take some pretty sharp interrogation skills to get the truth out of Bruno, if it were even possible to do so. And he could still demand a lawyer at any moment. Too many interrogators would likely make a mess of things. She didn’t want everybody piling on with this one.

  She said, “Agent Jeffreys and I will go in and talk to him. Agent Roston, Agent Sturman, you two stay out here and watch and listen. Keep track of whatever gets said.”

  When Riley and Bill walked into the room, Bruno looked up at Riley and snarled …

  “You again! You’re the one who should be in cuffs right now, not me.”

  “Why do you say that?” Bill asked.

  Bruno said to Bill, “Because she attacked me, that’s why. It was police brutality.”

  Riley knew, of course, that he couldn’t make that case. She hadn’t injured him in any way, and besides, Agent Sturman had seen enough of the incident to testify otherwise.

  Bill and Riley produced their badges and formally introduced themselves.

  Bruno shrugged and yawned, trying to act bored.

  “So what do you want to know?” he asked.

  Riley said, “First of all, what were you doing hanging around that shooting gallery?”

  Bruno drummed his fingers on the table.

  “It was therapy,” he said.

  “Therapy?” Bill scoffed.

  “Yeah, therapy. You probably know I’m a recovering heroin addict. Lately I’ve been dealing with really bad cravings. I figured it would help if I went back to my old stomping grounds, reminded myself what my life was like in the old days. Believe me, it worked. It’s enough to keep me sober, let me tell you.”

  Riley felt a tingle of excitement. He was lying, and she knew it. The trick now was to keep the lies coming until he tripped himself up.

  That shouldn’t be hard, she thought.

  She said to Bruno, “You know that you broke parole by going back to that place.”

  Bill added, “We could send you back to Danbury for that alone.”

  Bruno scoffed. “So—I’m getting questioned by the FBI because of a measly parole violation? I don’t think so. You’ve got bigger fish to fry. What do you really want from me? Just come out with it.”

  Riley knew better than to get too direct, at least not yet. And she knew that Bill did too.

  She asked, “What were you doing with that ice pick?”

  Bruno shrugged again and said, “Nothing. I just found it lying around on the floor.”

  “And then you attacked me with it,” Riley said.

  “That was self-defense,” Bruno said.

  Bill leaned across the table toward him and said, “Now we know you’re lying, Bruno. That ice pick was why we were looking for you in the first place. We know that you bought it a couple of weeks ago.”

  For the first time during the interview, Bruno began to look uneasy.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  Riley said, “Tell me about the other guy who was in that room.”

  “Just some junkie,” Bruno said. “I never saw him before in my life.”

  “I heard you call him by name,” Riley said. “‘Shut up, Jim,’ you said.”

  “OK, so he’d just introduced himself,” Bruno said. “Big deal. Why do you care if I know him? And while we’re at it, why do you care whether I had an ice pick or not? It’s not against the law.”

  Riley said, “According to Jim, you’d been threatening him with that ice pick for a couple of weeks.”

  Bruno let out a forced-sounding sarcastic chuckle.

  “And you believe him?” he
said. “He’s a lying junkie.”

  Riley’s curiosity was growing with every lie.

  And the lies are coming on hard and fast.

  She knew the man’s type. Like many addicts she’d encountered, recovering or otherwise, Bruno Young was a thoroughgoing bullshit artist. Lying was his default reaction to even the most mundane queries …

  But what’s he trying to hide?

  Riley’s mind clicked away as Bill kept asking him questions and getting one lie after another in response. She found herself remembering something Jim had said to her back in that room, about how mean Bruno had gotten since he’d gotten out of prison …

  “It’s like I don’t know him anymore. We used to be pals.”

  She asked him, “Why have you been threatening Jim?”

  “I haven’t been threatening him,” Bruno said, his voice starting to crack under the strain. “I told you, he was lying.”

  Riley flashed back again to something else Jim had said …

  “I’m not a narc.”

  She’d been harboring a vague gut feeling ever since she’d heard Jim say that.

  Now that gut feeling was starting to really make sense.

  She said to Bruno, “Tell me, Bruno—what’s the absolute worst thing you could ever say about another person? The worst thing you could call him?”

  “Huh?” Bruno said.

  “I think you know what I mean,” Riley said. “What’s the absolute lowest kind of human being, as far as you’re concerned?”

  Bruno’s face twisted into an expression of violent disgust.

  He said, “A goddamn narc.”

  Riley struck her fist against the table and said …

  “And that’s what Jim is, isn’t he?”

  Bruno snapped back at her, “You’re damned right, he’s a narc. He narced me out to the cops, got me sent to prison.”

  Bill chimed in …

  “And how did that happen, Bruno?”

  Bruno suddenly seemed eager to tell the story.

  “He called me in the middle of the night, said he’d run out of smack, wondered if I had any to spare. How was I to know he’d made a deal with the police? He’d gotten busted himself, was looking at a lot of prison time. But the cops offered him a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card if he’d turn narc, rat out his friends. And I walked right into the trap. The cops were waiting for me right there at his door.”

  He was trembling with rage now.

  He said, “Heroin delivery, they called it! Until that night, I’d done nothing but use the stuff. I minded my own business, kept my own stash. I wasn’t a pusher, never sold a gram of it to a living soul. But Jim sounded so desperate that night, and I felt bad for him, so I was willing to share some, that was all. I was just trying to be a good friend. And look where it got me.”

  Bruno sneered and added, “And yeah, the ice pick was mine. I bought it. All I wanted to do was scare him with it, make him regret what he’d done to me.”

  Bill said, “But that wasn’t all you did with that ice pick, was it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bruno growled.

  “Oh, I think you do,” Bill said. “And you may as well tell us the truth. Even if you scrubbed that thing real good, we can still get DNA samples off it.”

  Bruno’s eyes widened with alarm.

  “What the hell are you getting at?” he said.

  Bill leaned in close to him and said, “Where were you around dawn this morning?”

  “I don’t need to tell you that,” Bruno said.

  “What about a week ago?” Bill said. “Where were you when Robin Scoville was killed?”

  “Robin who?” Bruno said

  “You know exactly who I’m talking about.”

  Bruno looked panic-stricken now.

  “I want to see a lawyer,” he said.

  “Why?” Bill demanded. “I thought you hadn’t done anything wrong.”

  “I won’t say another word without a lawyer,” Bruno said

  Bill was about to keep pushing him, but Riley gave him a nudge. When Bill looked at her, she shook her head, silently telling him …

  We’ve got to quit now.

  Bill let out a growl of disgust. Then he and Riley went back out of the room to rejoin Jenn and Agent Sturman.

  Bill grumbled to Sturman, “Looks like you’d better call in a public defender.”

  Sturman said, “He’s our man, isn’t he?”

  “We’ll have to get forensics to check out that ice pick to be certain,” Bill said.

  Nevertheless, Riley sensed from Bill’s tone that he felt pretty sure of Bruno’s guilt.

  But now that the interview had been cut short …

  I’m not so sure, Riley thought.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  While Riley was hard at work in Connecticut, her ex-husband, Ryan Paige, was getting into the car after his flight. He found himself wondering …

  Am I sure I want to do this?

  Is this really a good idea?

  Even as he asked himself those questions, he realized how odd it was for him to be so hesitant. Not too long ago, he’d never have doubted his own decisions. But now a lot had changed in his life.

  For several long minutes, Ryan sat in the Mercedes he’d just rented at the Tweed– New Haven Airport and tried to think things through.

  His life as he’d known it—his high-paying career as a lawyer, his prestige and reputation, the countless beautiful young women he’d been involved with—all that was over now.

  His stupid little affair with an associate named Kyanne had provoked a sexual harassment suit and gotten him kicked out of his own law partnership.

  His last attempt to reconcile with Riley had been worse than humiliating.

  He sat up straighter in the driver’s seat and shook of his indecision.

  What else could he do? He started the car, grateful that some of his credit cards were still functional.

  Now it was time to start picking up the pieces of his life.

  But how could he do that without Riley?

  What other choice did he have except try to put things back together with her?

  Ryan set his turn-by-turn navigation to the FBI headquarters in New Haven. As he drove through the city following the spoken instructions, he remembered waking up this morning in that vast, empty house he’d once shared with Riley and April.

  He’d burst into tears at the thought of being so alone. Then he’d pulled himself together, downed a cup of coffee, and summoned up his courage to give Riley a call. The phone had been answered by Jilly, that girl from Arizona Riley had adopted earlier this year.

  When Jilly had said that her mother wasn’t home, Ryan had pushed the girl to tell her where Riley was. Jilly had reluctantly told him that Riley was in Connecticut, but she hadn’t explained what she was doing there.

  Not that Ryan had needed an explanation.

  She’s surely working on a case.

  If he was right about that, someone at the FBI headquarters in New Haven could tell him how and where to find her. Then he could he could go meet with her and …

  And what?

  Did he really expect her to meet him with open arms? Did he really think she’d be glad to see him? No, of course not. He’d been crying and drunk the last time she’d seen him—hardly the young man she’d fallen in love with many years ago. He knew he’d been strong and attractive back then. Well, he didn’t think he’d lost all his charm. Not completely. And maybe she’d be impressed by his romantic gesture.

  Even so, Ryan knew that it was ridiculous for him to imagine that this would be easy. Nor did he deserve for it to be that easy, after all the heartbreak and disappointment he’d caused Riley for so many years.

  It was only fair that it would take some work to win her back.

  And that was what he was going to do.

  Ryan parked in front of the FBI building and got out of his car. As he walked toward the front entrance, he noticed a bunch of peop
le clustered there, some of them wielding TV cameras.

  Reporters, he realized.

  He figured something important must be going on.

  Did it have anything to do with Riley?

  He wouldn’t be surprised.

  He knew that Riley often worked on high-profile cases that attracted the media. If so, was this a good time to be stepping back into her life?

  Maybe not, but on the other hand …

  Maybe she could use my support.

  Then again, for all he knew, maybe that boyfriend of hers—that restaurant owner, Blaine—was here already.

  But how likely was that, really? Ryan couldn’t remember ever having traveled with Riley to be with her when she was working on a case. Would things be different with Blaine? Would Riley encourage him to come along?

  Ryan doubted it—which gave him new cause to hope. Now might be his perfect chance to prove that he was more interested in her work than he’d ever been.

  More so than that boyfriend of hers, even.

  Besides, he’d gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that he looked his very best. His hair, still remarkably full for a man his age, was perfectly combed, and he was wearing his finest three-piece suit. He did still have a decent wardrobe, after all.

  As he neared the building, Ryan was surprised and somewhat alarmed when the reporters suddenly clustered around him and started to badger him with questions.

  “Are you an FBI agent?”

  “Are you investigating the murder this morning at Wickenburg Reef?”

  “Was the fisherman’s death connected to an earlier murder?”

  Ryan stammered …

  “I—I’m sorry, I … don’t know anything about …”

  But the questions just kept coming, and Ryan couldn’t push the rest of the way through the reporters to the front door.

  Finally, not knowing what else to say, he called out …

  “I’m sure the situation is in good hands.”

  “How do you know?” one reporter yelled.