ONCE BOUND Page 13

  They certainly had plenty of questions.

  Jenn asked, “Do we think the victims knew the killer at all?”

  Bill couldn’t think of any reason they could answer that one way or the other. But a glance at Riley told him that she felt differently.

  Riley said, “Both victims were charming and outgoing. I know, that might just be a coincidence, like their physical resemblance. But I’ve got a hunch otherwise. I think the killer engaged their trust. I doubt that either of them had long-term relationships with him. But he wasn’t a total stranger. I think they struck up at least one conversation with him.”

  “Of course, that would make it easier for him to gain control of each prospective victim,” Bill agreed.

  “On the train, do you think?” Jenn asked.

  “Possibly,” Riley said. “Or possibly not. Perhaps they met him in Chicago, and he learned everything he needed to know about them there and traveled on his own to Allardt and Barnwell to kill them. Or I guess they might have met him in their home towns …”

  Bill shook his head.

  “That sounds like a bit of a stretch. I find it hard to believe that he hops from town to town looking for women who happen to commute to and from Chicago.”

  Jenn agreed. “If he started from their home towns, he’d have to have some more personal reason to look up these particular women.”

  Riley added, “And either way we’re still stuck with the question of why these two.”

  The conversation continued without settling anything. As they all talked, Bill felt his exhaustion taking over, and he had trouble focusing on what was being said. It began to occur to him what at least part of the problem was.

  Chemistry.

  He knew that he wasn’t working well with Riley and Jenn as a unit, at least not yet. He missed the old days when he and Riley were one-on-one partners and had an uncanny ability to connect with each other, sometimes communicating their ideas without even speaking at all. They’d constantly boosted each other’s energy. Working with Riley had never drained him or made him feel tired.

  In fact, they’d always been best friends, able to confide in each other completely and with absolute trust. But they hadn’t even had a private moment to talk since they’d started to work on this case.

  Bill bitterly missed that. He wished he could talk to Riley about his own life—his sadness and loss now that his ex-wife, Maggie, had remarried and moved to Saint Louis, taking their two boys away from him. He was losing touch with the boys, and it pained him terribly. And although his PTSD reactions to the debacle in California had subsided over the past six months, he sometimes felt that he still wasn’t back to full capacity.

  In the old days, he could have turned to Riley for sympathy, understanding, and even wise advice.

  Now he felt left out.

  Riley and Jenn seemed to understand each other better than he understood either of them.

  Bill felt embarrassed to be thinking such thoughts. Was he actually jealous of the rapport that seemed to be growing between the two women?

  Was he letting himself feel like the proverbial “third wheel”?

  Their conversation shifted to trying to profile the killer himself. They kept coming back to the same old ideas—that the killer was fascinated by trains, that the women reminded him of someone in his past, and that he was acting out of some sort of guilty compulsion. Most of all, he seemed to resist any textbook profiles they might otherwise come up with about him.

  As they talked, Bill realized little by little …

  It isn’t just me.

  Riley looked tired, and so did Jenn.

  He realized that they both also looked worried.

  About what? Bill wondered.

  Bill had been plenty concerned about Riley lately. He knew that she’d been taking on huge obligations at home—too much, he thought, for an active FBI agent who was a single parent. The last he’d heard she was in the process of adopting Jilly, and she also had that boy named Liam living with her.

  Unless all that’s changed, he thought.

  The truth was, he didn’t know a thing about what was going on with Riley’s life, including whether she was still dating that guy named Blaine, who seemed like a decent man. He wondered if he should just come out and ask. But he didn’t feel comfortable with that idea, not with all three of them in the room.

  And there it was—his concern about that third person. Jenn was still an enigma to him. He couldn’t complain about her behavior toward him. In fact, Jenn had covered for Riley on a recent case when he’d had a suicidal spell and Riley has slipped away to help him out.

  Bill had returned the favor when Jenn herself had briefly gone AWOL last month.

  But he still didn’t even know why that had happened. It was obvious that Jenn harbored some sort of dark secret. Apparently Riley knew what it was, but she wasn’t willing to confide in Bill about it.

  Bill seriously didn’t like being left out of the loop.

  If something was lurking in Jenn’s background that might disrupt everything at any moment, he felt as though he ought to know all about it. In their line of work, information blackouts could be dangerous, even a matter of life or death.

  Eventually Riley said, “It’s getting late, and we’re just spinning our wheels here. I’m heading back to my room. We all really ought to turn in and get some rest so we can be fresh for tomorrow.”

  Jenn nodded, and Bill agreed gratefully. But as he and Riley got up to leave, he heard Riley’s phone buzz.

  He paused on his way to the door, waiting to see if the call had anything to do with the case.

  When Riley answered the phone, her eyes widened with shock.

  She turned pale as she walked back to the bed and sat down.

  Bill felt a chill of apprehension.

  What’s happened? he wondered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Sitting on the hotel room bed, Riley turned to face away from her colleagues. She was trying to process what April just said.

  Jilly’s birthday party had been tonight—and Riley had forgotten all about it!

  On the phone, April’s voice was still explaining, “We all understood that you were on a case and you couldn’t be here. But we’ve been waiting for you to call. When you didn’t, I figured you must be in the middle of something serious—a gunfight or something life and death like that, and I hated to bother you. But Jilly’s not taking it well.”

  A painful silence ensued.

  In a slow, quiet voice, April said, “Oh, Mom. Please don’t tell me you forgot!”

  Riley wanted so much to lie, to say something like …

  “Yes, I’m sorry, but we had an urgent development and I couldn’t tear myself away. But I’ve been thinking about Jilly the whole time.”

  But the words wouldn’t come, and Riley knew that it was just as well. April knew her mother too well. She’d never believe a lame excuse like that.

  Besides, it would be a lie, and Riley couldn’t lie to April.

  “Can I talk to her?” Riley asked.

  The very idea terrified Riley. What was she going to say?

  “I’ll go see,” April said.

  Riley could hear April’s footsteps as she walked up the stairs carrying the phone. She heard April knock on Jilly’s bedroom door.

  April called out, “Jilly, I’ve got Mom on the phone.”

  Riley could hear Jilly’s muffled reply through the door.

  “Did she call?”

  Riley gulped. She didn’t want April to lie. But she dreaded the idea of Jilly hearing the truth.

  “I called her,” April said to Jilly.

  Riley could hear the sound of a sob through the door.

  “Leave me alone,” Jilly said.

  Then came the sound of April’s footsteps heading back downstairs.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” April said as she walked. “She’s really upset.”

  Riley sighed miserably.

  “I’m the one who’s
sorry,” she said. “How could I have let this happen?”

  “Face it, Mom. You’ve done it before.”

  Riley had to think for a moment about what April meant.

  Then she remembered—last August she’d forgotten April’s birthday as well.

  April had been angry and hurt then, but she didn’t sound angry now. She sounded remarkably calm and mature.

  Besides, Riley thought, she’s getting used to my screw-ups.

  Riley said, “Please talk to her, April. Maybe she’ll listen to you. Just tell her—well, tell her that this isn’t about her. It’s about me. Tell her about last August. Maybe you can make her understand …”

  Her voice trailed off.

  Understand what? she wondered. That she’s getting adopted by a terrible parent?

  “I’ll do my best, Mom,” April said.

  Riley didn’t know what else to say. She wondered, of course, how the party had gone, what kind of delicious food Gabriela prepared, what kind of gifts Gabriela and April had gotten for Jilly.

  But what did any of that matter now?

  Everything had been spoiled, and it was Riley’s own fault.

  April asked, “Are you coming home soon?”

  Riley swallowed hard. She wished she could be at home right this very second, trying to make things right.

  “I don’t know, April,” she said. “The case isn’t off to a very good start.”

  “OK, Mom. I understand.”

  “Tell Jilly I love her,” Riley said. “And I love you too.”

  “I love you, Mom,” April said.

  The call ended, and Riley’s body fell limp with despair. Her brain frantically tried to crank out excuses for herself. She was terrible with dates, she told herself. She was too oriented toward the overall picture to remember calendar details. In fact, she never even remembered her own birthday. It always took April or Gabriela to remind her.

  But there was no point in trying to rationalize.

  She’d made a terrible mistake, pure and simple.

  She heard Bill’s voice from behind her, “What happened?”

  Riley turned around and saw that Bill and Jenn had been standing near the door during the entire phone call. They’d surely wondered, at least for the first few moments, whether the call had something to do with the case.

  “I forgot Jilly’s birthday,” Riley said. “The family was having a party tonight. Jilly’s just devastated.”

  “You were on a case,” Jenn said. “You couldn’t be there.”

  Riley knew that Jenn couldn’t understand how serious this was. She didn’t have children of her own—and maybe she never even planned to. And Jilly was, with reason, even more fragile than most teenagers.

  But Bill reacted differently. He sat down on the bed and patted Riley’s hand.

  “I know how you feel,” he said. “I’ve screwed up with my boys plenty of times.”

  Riley shook her head.

  “Not like this, I’ll bet. I did the same thing to April last August. But this is a whole lot worse. This is the first birthday Jilly has spent with her new family. And now it’s ruined—all because of me.”

  A silence fell in the hotel room.

  “I wish I could be there right now,” Riley said.

  “You should be,” Bill said. “In fact, you should go there right now.”

  Riley looked her partner in the eyes.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “I’m on a case. I can’t go anywhere.”

  Now Jenn spoke up.

  “The FBI plane is still at the airport right here in Chicago. We can take you there, and you can fly right back home.”

  Riley was startled.

  She said, “I can’t very well say I’ve got to fly back home because I missed my daughter’s birthday.”

  Jenn smiled a little.

  “We’ll think of something to say,” she said.

  Riley stammered, “But—but—”

  Bill patted her hand again.

  “Jenn’s right,” he said. “You and Jenn covered for me when I was dysfunctional. And you and I covered for her when she was absent. I guess it’s your turn again. Jenn and I can handle things here for a while. And we’ll both cover for you. Let’s go right now.”

  Riley felt flooded by a strange mix of guilt and gratitude.

  She got up from the bed and said, “I’ll go back to my room and get my go-bag.”

  At that moment, her phone buzzed again. Riley saw that the call was from Bull Cullen.

  When she answered it, Cullen said …

  “We’ve got another body.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Riley felt her stomach sink at what Cullen had just said. She gripped the phone tightly as she began to pace the room. She put the call on speakerphone so her colleagues could hear.

  “Where did it happen this time?” she asked Bull Cullen.

  “Just outside of Caruthers, a little town in the western part of the state.”

  Riley glanced at her colleagues and sensed that they were thinking what she was thinking.

  The killer is moving westward.

  He had started in Indiana, then these two were widely separated in Illinois.

  She asked, “A town on a line out of Chicago?”

  “Yes, another heavily used commuter line,” Cullen said, “Her name was Sally Diehl, and she was killed just like the others, bound by duct tape to railroad tracks a short distance from town, killed by an oncoming freight train.”

  “So the MO was exactly the same?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah, but with one important difference. Her own car was found parked next to the road that runs along the railroad. Either she drove herself there or the killer drove her in her own car.”

  Riley thought it more likely that the latter was the case. Her brain clicked away, already trying to put together a possible scenario for what had happened.

  She asked, “Who’s on the scene right now?”

  “The local cops headed there as soon as they heard the news from the train crew. I’ve talked to the police chief, Tanya Buchanan. She thinks the killer may still be in the area, so she’s working fast. She says she’s already got roadblocks set up. He shouldn’t be able to get away this time.”

  Cullen chuckled and added, “Tanya sounds like one smart cookie.”

  Jenn let out an audible groan, and Riley shared her disgust.

  Tanya?

  One smart cookie?

  Riley was sure that Cullen wouldn’t call a male police chief by his first name like that, let alone describe him as a “smart cookie.”

  Cullen continued, “I’ve ordered some of my people to get to Caruthers, and Special Agent in Charge Dillard has sent some of the Chicago FBI people. They’re all on their way right now, driving. But we can get there faster. The town’s got an airport, big enough for your jet. I need you to make a call and make sure it’s ready to fly. I’ll pick the three of you up and we’ll fly there.”

  “How soon will you be here?” Riley asked.

  Cullen chuckled again.

  “Sooner than you probably expect,” he said, ending the call.

  Hardly a second later there was a knock at the door.

  Jenn rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, God—somebody else please answer that.”

  Riley went to the door and opened it.

  Sure enough, Bull Cullen was standing outside, still holding his cell phone in his hand. He was grinning—although his face sobered instantly when he saw that Riley was the one to greet him.

  Riley understood the situation right away. As soon as Cullen had found out about the murder, he’d raced right to the hotel and found out Jenn’s room number at the front desk. He’d made the call while walking to her room.

  Doubtless Cullen had hoped to catch Jenn by surprise alone—yet another immature male stunt of his. Riley was sure it was fortunate that he’d found all three of the FBI agents already gathered there instead.

  Jenn looked furious, of course.
<
br />   Riley said to Cullen, “Agent Jeffreys and I just have to pick up our go-bags.”

  Jenn had her bag already in hand and actually led the way out the door, with Cullen tagging along behind her.

  As she hurried to her room, Riley pulled out her cell phone and contacted the pilot, telling him to have the plane ready for them.

  *

  A short time later, Riley, her two colleagues, and Bull Cullen were aboard the FBI plane flying to Caruthers. Jenn had managed to claim a seat next to Riley so she wouldn’t have to sit by Cullen.

  Cullen had settled in next to Bill in a seat facing the two women. He wasn’t bothering to hide his ogling of Jenn.

  The whole thing exasperated Riley. The last thing they needed was a juvenile-minded guy on this job. She hoped Jenn could keep her own irritation under control, at least until they finished this case.

  The flight was mercifully short. The plane barely reached cruising altitude before it started its descent into the Caruthers airport. When they landed, they were greeted on the tarmac by a pair of local police officers who drove them away, sirens blaring and lights flashing.

  As they neared the crime scene, Riley could see that the local police had done a good job of closing off the area. Reporters had already gathered, but they weren’t able to get past the roadblocks. Even so, Riley wondered—had the barriers been put up fast enough to stop the killer from getting away?

  Maybe, she thought. But she suspected that he was too sharp to hang around. He had probably left as soon as he tied the woman down.

  Local cops waved the police vehicle through the barriers, where it pulled up behind a small hatchback that had been parked on the shoulder of the road—the victim’s vehicle, Riley realized. It was a dark, overcast night and she could see lights darting about nearby. They looked like oversized fireflies.

  Flashlights, Riley realized.

  Some of the local cops had already gathered there, but flashlights were the only illumination available. Riley took her own flashlight out of her go-bag, and saw that Jenn and Bill had theirs too.

  When they walked over to the crime scene area, the moving lights revealed a handful of investigators surveying the area. The spectacle of the beheaded body under the glancing, dancing beams of light looked truly surreal.