Once Chosen (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 17) Page 12

  But still …

  She asked Wightman, “Do you know where Brad Cribbins lives now?”

  Wightman shrugged. “Yeah, he lives with his dad over on the far side of town, but—”

  “I want to pay him a visit,” Riley said.

  Wightman scratched his head.

  “Well, like I said, he had an alibi when Yvonne Swenson disappeared, so I don’t understand why—”

  To Riley’s surprise, Ann Marie interrupted the sheriff.

  “If Agent Paige says she wants to see him, you can be sure she’s got a good reason. In case you don’t know, she’s kind of a law enforcement legend. She really knows what she’s doing.”

  Riley saw that Madge had a big smile on her face as she stared hard at the sheriff.

  Finally, Wightman sighed and got up from the couch.

  “OK, then,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

  As Riley and her partner got up to leave, Ann Marie winked at her.

  She’s trying to get on my good side, Riley realized.

  And at least for the moment, Ann Marie was succeeding pretty well.

  Riley paused to thank Madge, who was using the lighted end of the cigarette she was smoking to light yet another one.

  “Glad to help out,” Madge said. “I’m glad to see you two girls on the job. Wightman’s badge is bigger than his you-know-what. Now go and kick some ass, you hear?”

  As they continued out the door, Wightman told Riley and Ann Marie that he’d drive ahead and lead them to where Brad Cribbins lived. Riley and her partner got into their vehicle and started to follow the sheriff.

  Riley said, “Thanks for speaking up for me back there.”

  “Glad to help out,” Ann Marie said. “But I’m not sure I understand what we’re doing or why. Sheriff Wightman said the guy had an alibi. Don’t you believe him?”

  “Well, I believe Wightman believes what he told us,” Riley said. “But in my experience, killers can be awfully clever about cooking up alibis. For one thing, they often have loyal pals who will stand up for them. The sheriff might have been wrong. I’ve seen it happen more than a few times.”

  She took a long breath and added, “And I’ve really got a hunch about this guy we’re going to see.”

  “Well! This should be interesting!” Ann Marie said enthusiastically.

  It had better be more than interesting, Riley thought.

  With Halloween coming up tomorrow, they didn’t have any time to lose. She remembered what Ann Marie had said about her just now.

  “She really knows what she’s doing.”

  Riley sure didn’t want to prove the kid wrong.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  As Riley drove behind Sheriff Wightman’s vehicle, she noticed that her partner in the passenger seat was busily jotting down notes. Ann Marie seemed completely focused on whatever she was writing.

  “What are you working on?” Riley asked.

  “Just doing a bit of math,” Ann Marie said.

  Math? Riley wondered. They were following Wightman toward the neighborhood where Brad Cribbins lived. What could math have to do with that?

  Riley almost asked why, but decided to let it go. Ann Marie just kept scribbling.

  After a moment, Ann Marie tapped her eraser on her notepad and stared ahead thoughtfully.

  She said, “If Brad Cribbins got expelled from high school two years ago, that would make him—what?—nineteen or twenty now?”

  “I imagine so,” Riley said, starting to sense what Ann Marie might be getting at. “Unless he got held back a grade or two. Then he might be older.”

  Ann Marie said, “According to Sheriff Wightman, Deena McHugh disappeared four years ago. Brad might have been fifteen or sixteen then. And Henry Studdard disappeared eight years ago. Henry was thirteen then, and Brad would have been …”

  Riley nodded and finished her thought.

  “Just a kid himself. I know. But we know that Brad Cribbins has a criminal record all the way back to when he was nine years old, and he’s always been a fighter. He might have been capable of a lot more than vandalism and stealing bikes and cars. Even though it’s rare, children have been known to commit murder.”

  As Riley continued driving, it occurred to her that Ann Marie’s query was really quite sensible. Brad Cribbins’s age might well turn out to be a factor in determining just how viable he was as a suspect. Her scribbling wasn’t irrelevant after all.

  She’s smarter than she seems, Riley thought. Maybe just not the kind of smarts that lends itself to BAU field work.

  Riley couldn’t forget how the rookie had frozen during her confrontation with the hunter yesterday. If the man had actually been dangerous, Riley and her partner might both have been hurt or even killed. Ann Marie was going to have to start doing a lot better than that if she hoped to stay on this job.

  Again Riley wondered about the murder case Ann Marie had helped solve—the one that had gotten her recruited into FBI training. Riley figured she ought to ask Ann Marie to tell her that story.

  As they approached the edge of town, Riley observed a marked change in their surroundings. The houses here were small bungalows, not unlike the duplex where Madge Torrance lived. But unlike those in more upscale areas, these buildings were set close together, with tiny front yards and only a dozen feet or so in between the houses. And these little homes were all in serious need of paint and repairs.

  Ann Marie commented, “This looks like a whole different town.”

  It does indeed, Riley thought.

  Not that she was surprised that even an upscale town like Winneway had its seamier side. She’d found similar neighborhoods just about everywhere she had visited.

  Even though it had never been affluent, this had probably once been a comfortable little suburb. Even in their rundown state, the houses retained a bit of character. But poverty had overtaken this community, just as had so many others that hadn’t benefited from upticks in the national economy. The cars and clutter in the streets and yards indicated that many of the houses probably had a lot more people living in them than they had been designed for.

  Sheriff Wightman’s vehicle pulled up to the curb, and Riley parked right behind him. The little house they had come to wasn’t the most rundown on the block, but it definitely needed repair and paint.

  Riley and her colleagues got out of their cars and climbed up a steep row of concrete steps onto a small front stoop. Sheriff Wightman knocked on the door.

  A moment later, an enormous man with a hairy belly protruding from under his T-shirt opened the door. Riley could smell the beer on his breath more than a yard away.

  Sneering, he said, “Well, well, well. Sheriff Wightman. To what do I owe this honor?”

  Wightman introduced Fred Cribbins to Riley and Ann Marie, who showed him their badges.

  “We’re here to see your son,” Wightman said.

  “He ain’t here,” Cribbins said.

  “When do you expect him back?” Wightman asked.

  “Who said he’s coming back?” Cribbins said. “Who said he even lives here?”

  Wightman grunted and said, “Fred, don’t play games with me. You and that boy of yours have had your share of run-ins with the law. I don’t need to tell you what ‘obstructing an investigation’ means. I also don’t need to tell you it’s against the law.”

  Cribbins smiled and chuckled sarcastically.

  “Hey, there’s no need to get snippy about it. Come on inside, let’s discuss this like civilized folks.”

  He opened the screen door. Ann Marie stepped inside first, followed by Riley and Sheriff Wightman. Then Cribbins turned his head and spoke in a louder voice that was obviously directed toward somebody else in the house.

  “After all, it’s not every day I get the pleasure of a visit from the FBI.”

  Riley felt a surge of adrenaline as she realized what was happening.

  Sure enough, she heard a clatter of footsteps from somewhere farther inside the house, and t
hen the sound of a door opening.

  Before anybody else had time to react, Ann Marie was in motion, dashing past Cribbins and back through the house, after the unseen occupant who was apparently leaving. Riley started after her, but Cribbins blocked her way.

  The towering, obese man presented a vast and formidable obstacle, and at the moment the sheriff didn’t seem inclined to take him on. But the sounds from behind him told her that Ann Marie had just followed someone out a back door.

  Cribbins said to her, “Hey, little lady, don’t be rude when I’m trying to show some hospitality. Where are you and that girl rushing off to? Why don’t you and my pal the sheriff sit down and make yourself comfortable and let me fetch y’all some cold brewskis?”

  Riley knew she had no time to play this game. A physical confrontation would just slow her down. She lurched sharply to one side and then pushed past the slower, hulking man and hurried on through the house.

  Cribbins and Wightman can just deal with each other, she thought.

  As she passed through an archway into a dirty kitchen, she could hear the two men arguing back in the living room. And now she could see the back door standing open.

  She rushed to the door and looked outside. A chilly breeze was blowing a few pieces of litter about an overgrown backyard, but nothing else in sight was moving. Beyond the uncut grass was a narrow alley.

  From where she stood, Riley could see no sign at all of Ann Marie or the man she was pursuing.

  Where did they go?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As Riley stood listening in the doorway, she heard Ann Marie’s voice call out. The sound was coming from somewhere beyond the yard—off to the left, she thought.

  Ann Marie yelled again, “Halt! FBI!”

  It was obvious that the guy they had come to interview was on the run. And Riley’s young partner was in pursuit.

  Riley dashed out of the house and across the little back yard. When she reached the alley, she could see Ann Marie running hard away from her. It was easy to guess that Brad Cribbins must be somewhere ahead of the rookie, but Riley couldn’t see him. She thought for a moment of calling out to her partner, but she didn’t want to stop the chase. They’d surely lose their suspect if he got out of Ann Marie’s sight.

  Riley broke into a run herself. As she charged frantically down the alley, she didn’t know whether to hope Ann Marie could catch up with the young man, or to hope that she couldn’t. After yesterday’s debacle with the hunter, Riley didn’t know how Ann Marie might fare in a one-on-one confrontation with a possibly violent criminal.

  The way this guy had slipped out of the house when he heard the FBI was there meant that he was likely to be the killer they were looking for.

  Riley sped up her pace. She wanted to catch up with that young man before Ann Marie did. But she wasn’t actually gaining on the rookie, and there didn’t seem to be much chance of getting ahead of her.

  Suddenly Ann Marie veered sharply to the left and dashed between two small sheds, apparently still on the young man’s tail. Riley followed after her and found herself in another cluttered back yard. Now she was closer to Ann Marie, who seemed to have tripped over a toy truck in the next yard over. Although the rookie was stumbling, she didn’t fall.

  A couple of back yards beyond them, Brad Cribbins had paused to look back. It was the first glimpse Riley had gotten of him, and what she saw wasn’t encouraging. He was a big man like his father, but very lean and muscular. Riley didn’t look forward to tangling with him. And she doubted that Ann Marie was up to the task at all.

  When he spotted Riley, he gave a laugh, then turned and ran again. Ann Marie was already charging after him, and Riley followed. Soon they were wending wildly through neighboring back yards, trailing Brad among beat-up shacks, garages, old cars, garbage cans, and random junk.

  He knows this neighborhood well, Riley realized.

  He was also extremely agile, leaping and dodging to evade various obstructions. But Riley could see that Ann Marie was showing remarkable agility herself and actually closing some of the distance between them.

  If only I can keep up, she thought.

  At forty-one she knew she must be marginally slower than the two young people up ahead of her. But she also knew she had exceptional endurance, and figured she could outlast either of them if the chase continued for very long. The demands of her work and the required obstacle-course scores at Quantico had kept her in remarkably good shape.

  Even so, Riley’s spirits sank as she saw Brad Cribbins hurdle a five-foot-high wooden fence. He obviously kept up some kind of fitness routine himself.

  We’re going to lose him, she thought.

  But Ann Marie put a hand on the top board and leaped over the fence right after him, almost as deftly as he had. On the other side she landed well and pounded away after the suspect.

  Without slowing down, Riley followed. She grabbed the top boards with both hands and vaulted, clearing the fence but landing in a painful squat on a concrete surface on the far side. She could feel her muscles strain as she rose to her feet.

  Now Ann Marie had turned out of a back yard and was running between two houses toward the front yards. Riley regained her stride and followed in time to see the rookie darting toward the street.

  Again, Brad was nowhere in sight. He must have already crossed the street and disappeared. There seemed to be two likely places where he might have gone between houses on the other side.

  Heedless of an approaching car, Ann Marie dashed into the street. The car screeched to a stop just short of hitting her, and the driver honked his horn indignantly. Ann Marie froze in front of the vehicle for a startled moment, then continued on after the suspect.

  Her knees still aching a bit from the hard landing, Riley also dashed toward the street. She saw Ann Marie waver for just a second or two, trying to decide which route Brad had taken. Then the rookie made a blind choice and continued on between two of the houses.

  Riley got across the street during a break in traffic. She was catching up with Ann Marie, but she was afraid that they both had fallen hopelessly behind the man they were pursuing. She decided to split from the rookie’s direction and follow the runner’s other possible route between two of the houses. Moving fast again now, she crossed an open back yard and entered another alley.

  For a moment, she stood face to face with Brad Cribbins. He was about ten feet away from her, catching his breath and watching to see if he was still under pursuit. The young man’s eyes widened with alarm, and he whirled and dashed away from her.

  “Halt!” Riley yelled.

  She wasn’t surprised that he disobeyed and kept right on running. She broke into a run after him but quickly realized that her knees were aching now, slowing her down. She couldn’t pick up the speed she needed.

  Just when Riley despaired of catching him, Ann Marie appeared from the far side of a garage, heading him off. Even though Brad was much bigger and obviously stronger than Ann Marie, the young rookie threw herself forward and tackled him.

  Both of them sprawled writhing on the concrete, but then Brad rolled sharply away from Ann Marie. As he leapt to his feet, he drew a large hunting knife from an ankle sheaf.

  Ann Marie also struggled up off the ground, but he kicked her backward. By the time the rookie regained her balance, he was holding the knife in front of her face.

  Riley came to a halt and reached for her Glock, but before she could even get it out of its holster, she saw Ann Marie execute a shrewd and swift maneuver. She tore off her jacket and whipped it in front of her, using it to knock Brad’s knife out of his hand.

  With a roar of frustration, Brad turned to lunge for his fallen knife, but found himself facing the barrel of Riley’s gun.

  “Put your hands above your head,” Riley growled. “You’re under arrest.”

  Looking shocked, he did as she demanded.

  Riley tossed her handcuffs to Ann Marie, who cuffed the surly suspect as Riley read him his rights.<
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  When she heard someone approaching behind her, she glanced back and saw that Sheriff Wightman had just arrived.

  He said sheepishly, “Uh … I’m sorry I’m late.” Then he bent over gasping with his hands on his knees, looking completely exhausted.

  Riley realized that he must have been trying to follow them through the obstacle course that Brad Cribbins had run. But the sheriff was definitely not up to this sort of chase.

  Chuckling hoarsely, Wightman said, “I’ve got to say, you two gals can be pretty hard to keep up with.”

  “Thanks for coming to look for us,” Riley said with a tired laugh.

  “Glad to oblige,” the sheriff said. “Not that you needed my help. I can see the two of you’ve got things pretty well under control.”

  We sure do, Riley thought.

  Moments later, Sheriff Wightman was escorting the handcuffed and subdued Brad Cribbins toward his parked vehicle. Riley and Ann Marie agreed to meet them at the police station.

  As she walked alongside Ann Marie back toward their own car, Riley realized that she was limping slightly, but the rookie seemed as spry as ever.

  Riley told her, “You handled yourself pretty well back there.”

  Ann Marie’s eyes glowed and face was flushed with excitement.

  “Yeah, I guess I did, didn’t I?” she said.

  “Where did you learn a move like that?” Riley asked.

  Ann Marie let out a chuckle.

  “Hey, I went to the academy too, you know. Besides that, I took a few Krav Maga classes back when I was in high school.”

  Riley smiled. “Krav Maga. I should have known.”

  She had first encountered that Israeli fighting system before she was even an agent, when her father had decided she needed to know it to defend herself. His lessons had been rough, but she’d had more practice after she joined the FBI. By the time her father had died, they hadn’t been on speaking terms, but the wild combination of boxing, wrestling, karate, and ruthless street fighting techniques was built into her automatic defenses.