ONCE BOUND Read online

  A huskily built uniformed woman strode toward them.

  She said, “I’m Tanya Buchanan, the chief of police here in Caruthers. I take it you folks just flew in from Chicago.”

  Riley and the others all introduced themselves. Chief Buchanan shined her flashlight down at the body and shook her head.

  “I sure as hell never thought I’d see something like this,” she said. “I’d heard about the other murders, of course, but even so I never imagined …”

  The woman’s voice trailed off and she shuffled her feet anxiously.

  Then she pointed along the railroad tracks.

  “The train stopped down there about a mile away. The conductor called us as soon as he and the engineer could get stopped. Those poor guys, they’re really a mess. We’ve already put them in their own motel rooms. A railroad shrink is supposed to get here before too long to help them deal with it.”

  Riley hoped Chief Buchanan was right. While it was true that Jenn had dealt with the engineer at the Barnwell crime scene delicately and sensitively, Riley and her colleagues weren’t here to offer therapy. They were here to solve a crime. And the time between these grisly deaths seemed to be getting shorter.

  There had been four days between the first killing and the second one. But this time the monster had only waited a day to carry out another murder. Whatever was driving him must be growing stronger.

  That meant they had no time for distractions of any kind.

  The first thing Riley noticed was a curve in the train tracks, the same as the Barnwell crime scene. The killer had chosen this spot carefully, knowing that the engineer wouldn’t see the woman until it was much too late to stop.

  Riley crouched beside the body and studied it with her flashlight. The headless corpse was twisted in a writhing position, similar to Reese Fisher’s body. Like Reese, this woman had been all too conscious during the last moments of her life, and she had desperately tried to thrash her way loose.

  Riley turned her flashlight toward the head that had rolled down the embankment. Riley felt a chill as the woman’s dead, terrified eyes seemed to stare directly into her own.

  She quickly noted the resemblance to the other two women—the same thin face, longish nose, and curly brown hair.

  The killer is fixated on a physical type, all right, she thought.

  She heard Jenn ask her, “What do you think about the car?”

  Riley shined her light over at the parked hatchback.

  A scenario had been forming in her mind ever since Bull Cullen had mentioned that the woman’s own car was found at the scene.

  Riley walked over to the car, followed by Bill, Jenn, Cullen, and Chief Buchanan. Riley saw that the passenger door and driver door were both still open.

  She felt a welcome shift in her mental focus as she began to get a faint sense of the killer’s thoughts and actions.

  She walked slowly around the car, telling the others what she was thinking …

  “Her car was parked somewhere else a while ago—a place where she often parked The killer knew exactly where to find it, and when to expect her to come back to it. He knew there weren’t likely to be a lot of people around. He lay in wait for her out of sight near the car.”

  She stood beside the driver door and said …

  “She took out her keys and opened the driver door. At that moment, everything was right for the killer. No one was watching. He made his move. He subdued her with a blood choke, then injected her with flunitrazepam. As she lost consciousness, he had no trouble pushing her into the car and over into the passenger’s seat.”

  Riley leaned into the driver’s seat. She reached out and touched the wheel lightly. “Then he drove directly here. He got out, walked around to the passenger side, pulled the woman out, and carried her over to the tracks. He bound her to the tracks, just as he had the others. Then he …”

  Riley paused.

  Then he what? she wondered.

  He hadn’t used the woman’s car as a getaway vehicle. Did that mean he’d had his own car parked and waiting nearby? Or did he slip away on foot?

  Riley’s connection with the killer suddenly vanished.

  She stifled a sigh. The feeling had been much too fleeting.

  Were her instincts never going to kick in reliably on this case?

  She said to the others, “A forensics team will need to scour the car for DNA.”

  Not that it will probably do any good, she thought.

  She had no idea how many people might have ridden in Sally Diehl’s car. And she felt sure that the killer wasn’t an idiot—he would have worn gloves, so there wouldn’t be any of his DNA on the wheel.

  She turned away from the car and asked Chief Buchanan, “What can you tell me about Sally Diehl?”

  The uniformed woman scratched her head.

  “Well, Sally had lived here in Caruthers for two or three years. She taught third grade in our public school. She was single—divorced, I think. Yeah, I believe she told me that she got divorced before she moved here. I don’t know where her ex-husband might live. She doesn’t have any family here in town.”

  “What about friends?” Riley asked.

  Buchanan smiled sadly.

  “Oh, she had friends, all right. Me included. She was sweet and charming. Everybody liked her. Which is why it’s so hard to imagine …”

  The police chief’s voice faded away again.

  Riley asked, “Do you have any idea where she was or what she might have been doing today before this happened?”

  Buchanan thought for a moment.

  “Well, it’s Sunday, so she wasn’t teaching school. I wouldn’t know where she was. But somebody else might. I’ll ask my team to talk to people around town who knew her, ask if anybody knows.”

  Riley’s head began to fill up with unanswered questions. She knew which one she wanted to ask first.

  “Did she sometimes travel to Chicago?”

  Chief Buchanan tilted her head.

  “As a matter of fact, she did. I think she had a brother there, and she visited him from time to time. I have the impression that he was in and out of trouble a lot.”

  “Did a passenger train come into Caruthers from Chicago today?” Riley asked.

  “Why, yes,” Chief Buchanan said. “About an hour or so before this happened.”

  Riley looked knowingly at Bill and Jenn.

  Jenn nodded and said what Riley was thinking. “The other two victims were on trains from Chicago shortly before they were killed.”

  Bill said, “Maybe Sally Diehl was on that passenger train.”

  “We need to find out,” Riley said. “If she was, somebody needs to try to find people who were on the train who might have seen her or talked to her. We still don’t know whether the killer might have been on the train as well, but we can’t overlook the possibility.”

  Just then Riley heard wailing sirens and saw the flashing lights of several approaching official vehicles. She remembered Bull Cullen saying that he’d ordered his own railroad cops and FBI agents from the Chicago field office to come straight here.

  They made it here in a hurry, Riley thought.

  In a matter of seconds, a swarm of law enforcement personnel poured out of the vehicles. Led by the Chicago field office chief Proctor Dillard, the FBI people hauled an electrical generator and floodlight stands out of a truck and set them up around the body.

  When the lights snapped on, the already surreal crime scene suddenly became a whole lot weirder. The glare of the floodlights was as intense as sunlight, making the whole place seem like some sort of movie set.

  But this scene was all too real.

  Riley, Jenn, and Bill helped Chief Dillard organize the newly arrived personnel, assigning them different tasks.

  Soon Riley noticed a tall, older man in plainclothes mingling among the others. He was looking around the crime scene with a mixture of horror and intense interest, writing down notes in a notepad.

  Where have I seen tha
t man before? she wondered.

  Then she remembered.

  It was Mason Eggers, the retired railroad cop who had caught Riley’s interest at the meeting in Chicago. She remembered being intrigued by his keen concentration at the meeting in Chicago earlier that day.

  She also remembered what he’d said shortly before his abrupt departure.

  “Just playing around with a little theory.”

  Riley headed toward him.

  It was time to find out what had been on his mind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  As Riley walked toward Mason Eggers with mounting curiosity, she remembered something that Cullen had said about Eggers at the meeting …

  “He keeps coming around whenever there’s a new case.”

  She guessed that Eggers had either driven here as soon as he’d heard about the new murder, or he’d hitched a ride with the railroad police.

  Cullen had also said …

  “He’s always got ideas and theories.”

  That’s what really intrigued Riley about him, and she wanted to hear what was on his mind. Mason Eggers seemed to be lost in thought as Riley walked up to him.

  “Hello, Mr. Eggers,” she said.

  He looked up from his notes, startled.

  “Agent Paige,” he said.

  He looked toward the body and shuddered.

  “It’s so horrible,” he said. “I’d seen pictures of the other two victims. But being right here, seeing all this …”

  His voice faded off for a moment.

  Then he added, “Back in my day, railroad cops didn’t have to deal with this kind of intentional thing. What kind of a world are we living in?”

  He shrugged and said, “But you’re with the FBI. I guess you’re probably used to this sort of thing.”

  You never get used to it, Riley almost said.

  Instead she remarked, “Back in Chicago, you said you were working on a theory.”

  Looking down at his notebook, he said, “It’s not much. Nothing I’m sure you haven’t thought of already. And it might not mean anything. But now that there have been three victims, you’ve probably noticed a pattern or two.”

  Riley nodded and said, “For one thing, the killings are moving westward. That might or might not be an actual trend.”

  Eggers said, “Yeah, and I’m sure you’ve noticed something about the town names.”

  Riley realized that she hadn’t had time yet to think about it. She ran the names in her head …

  Allardt … Barnwell … Caruthers …

  Of course! she thought.

  Surely she and her colleagues would have noticed the same thing before too long. But this retired railroad cop had beaten them to it.

  She said, “They begin with the first three letters of the alphabet.”

  “That’s right,” Eggers said. “The idea started to hit me when I heard the first two names. I’m not sure why it did, just two names wasn’t much to go on. It’s just that … well, did you ever get one of those really strong hunches?”

  Riley almost smiled.

  Unexplained hunches were practically her specialty at the BAU.

  Eggers said, “What do you think are the chances the town name will begin with a D the next time?”

  “The next time,” Riley thought with a chill.

  There’d better not be a next time.

  Even so, she hastily thought it over.

  She said, “We still can’t be sure that the alphabetical pattern isn’t just a coincidence. Even if we were sure, how could we narrow down which ‘D’ town to look for?”

  “I know what you mean,” Eggers said. “We’re talking about towns to the west of here. Even narrowed down to those with train lines coming through from Chicago—towns that begin with the letter ‘D.’ I know the railroads through this region like the back of my hand. I can think of a bunch of towns like that right off the top of my head. And if it’s just a coincidence, it would be a waste of time to try to check out all of them.”

  He looked at his note pad for a moment.

  He chuckled bitterly and added, “You may have heard that I’m just some annoying old coot whose better days are long behind him. Well, you’ve heard right. And even in my better days, I never dealt with anything like this. Forget I mentioned it, OK? It’s just a harebrained idea.”

  Riley felt a tingle of interest as he started to walk away.

  “Wait a minute,” Riley called out to him.

  He stopped and turned back toward her.

  She said, “You’ve got another idea, don’t you? Aside from the alphabetical pattern, I mean.”

  He shook his head.

  “I haven’t really worked it out yet,” he said. “I’d just be wasting your time.”

  “Try me,” Riley said.

  Eggers looked reluctant, but walked toward Riley again, pointing to his notepad.

  Just as he opened his mouth to speak, a sharp yell rang out.

  “Hey! You crazy bitch! What’s the matter with you?”

  She recognized the voice immediately.

  It was Bull Cullen.

  Riley turned around and looked. The floodlights displayed a truly bizarre scene.

  Right near the body, Jenn and Bull Cullen were locked in each other’s arms, wrestling viciously while others stood around them gaping with surprise. Cullen was taller and heavier than Jenn, but she was obviously holding her own.

  Bill stood nearby, watching but looking undecided about whether to interfere.

  “Hey!” Riley yelled, striding toward the grappling pair.

  Cullen managed to disentangle himself and threw Jenn down onto the tracks. But she was on her feet in an instant, backing away from him and holding out her hands to warn him off.

  “Don’t even think about it, creep!” she snarled.

  But Cullen ignored her warning. He raised his fist and lunged toward her. Jenn easily dodged his blow and slammed her own fist into his face. Cullen staggered away in pain.

  “Ow! You broke my nose, you crazy bitch!”

  Riley dashed between Jenn and Cullen.

  She yelled, “All right, break it up, you two!”

  Cullen was fingering his bleeding nose. He didn’t look at all eager to resume fighting. Calling out to the witnesses, he said, “Everyone saw that, right? She attacked me! For no reason at all!”

  Riley grabbed Jenn by the shoulders.

  She asked, “What the hell is this all about?”

  Jenn pointed at Cullen furiously.

  “He touched me! The bastard touched me!”

  Riley said, “What do you mean, he touched you?”

  The young African-American agent was shaking all over, apparently too angry to speak.

  Meanwhile, Chief Tanya Buchanan seemed almost to be enjoying the situation. She walked over to Bull Cullen and took his face in her large, strong hands.

  “Let me look at that,” she said.

  “She broke my nose!” Cullen said.

  “Naw, it’s not broken,” the chief said, examining his bleeding nose and speaking as if to a child. “It must hurt though, you poor little thing. We need to get some ice on it. Come on, let’s go to my van. I’ve got a first aid kit, I’ll fix you up as good as new. And I can get someone to drive into town and get you some ice.”

  Thoroughly humiliated, Cullen yanked himself away from Chief Buchanan and stalked off on his own.

  Chief Buchanan said to Riley, “I saw the whole thing. Your agent was crouched over the body looking at it real closely when that clown leaned down beside her and put his hand on her back.”

  Bill added, “Not in an innocent way either, I can tell you that for sure.”

  Riley could tell that Bill was amused at how the confrontation had played out.

  Her mind boggled at Cullen’s stupidity. What was he thinking, making a pass at an FBI agent when she was examining a corpse?

  And hadn’t he learned anything at all about Jenn by now?

  She saw Cullen pacing a short
way off, holding a handkerchief to his wounded nose.

  Riley walked over to Jenn, who was standing stiffly with her arms crossed.

  Jenn shuffled her feet and said, “I know what you’re going to say—we’ve got to work with him. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not,” Riley said.

  The truth was, Riley saw no reason why Jenn should be.

  “OK, you’re right,” Jenn said. “I’m not sorry. But it won’t happen again.”

  Riley glanced over at Cullen, who was now sitting on the ground looking thoroughly shamed and cowed.

  Managing not to smirk, Riley said to Jenn, “No, I’m sure it won’t. He’s bothered you for the last time. I think we can all count on that.”

  Patting Jenn on the shoulder, she added, “Now get your head back in the game.”

  Jenn nodded.

  “I’ll do that,” she said.

  Riley quickly remembered her disrupted conversation with Mason Eggers. She looked over to where she’d been talking to him earlier, but he wasn’t there. She glanced all around and couldn’t see him anywhere. He seemed to have slipped away.

  Riley sighed, remembering what Eggers had said about himself …

  “… some annoying old coot whose better days are behind him.”

  He certainly didn’t seem to have a lot of self-confidence. And that was small wonder, considering how Cullen had treated him back at the meeting.

  Riley cringed as she remembered Cullen saying …

  “Any ideas you’d like to share with us, Grandpa?”

  Riley wasn’t really surprised that the old guy had gone away.

  All the same, she wished he’d hung around. She wasn’t sure why she was so curious about his theories. But she didn’t have any of her own at this point. And she had a hunch that Eggers had more insights than anyone gave him credit for—including himself.

  Just then one of the local cops yelled over to Chief Buchanan from the police barrier on the road.

  “Hey, Chief! Come on over here! We might have a lead!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Riley turned quickly at the sound of the voice.