Once Taken Read online

  Riley turned toward her daughter.

  “April, you’re going to stay at your father’s house tonight.”

  April’s eyes widened.

  “I’m not leaving you here,” April said. “And I sure don’t want to stay with Dad.”

  “You’ve got to,” Riley said. “You might not be safe here.”

  “But Mom—”

  Riley interrupted. “April, there are still things I haven’t told you about this man. Terrible things. You’ll be safe with your father. I’ll pick you up tomorrow after your class.”

  Before April could protest further, Lucy spoke.

  “Your mother’s right, April. Take it from me. In fact, consider it an order from me. I’ll handpick a couple of agents who can drive you there. Agent Paige, with your permission, I’ll call your ex-husband and tell him what’s going on.”

  Riley was surprised by Lucy’s offer. She was also pleased. Almost uncannily, Lucy seemed to understand that this would be an awkward call for her to make. Ryan would undoubtedly take this news more seriously from any agent other than Riley. Lucy had also handled April well.

  Not only had Lucy had spotted the picked lock, she also demonstrated empathy. Empathy was an excellent quality in a BAU agent, and it was all too often worn away by the stress of the job.

  This woman is good, Riley thought.

  “Come on,” Lucy said to April. “Let’s go call your dad.”

  April stared daggers at Riley. Even so, she got up from the table and followed Lucy into the living room, where they started making the call.

  Riley and Bill were left sitting at the kitchen table alone. Even though there seemed to be nothing left to do, it seemed right to Riley that Bill was there. They had worked together for years and she had always thought of them as something like a matched pair—both were forty with touches of gray showing in dark hair. They were both dedicated to their jobs and troubled in their marriages. Bill was solid in build and temperament.

  “It was Peterson,” Riley said. “He was here.”

  Bill said nothing. He looked unconvinced.

  “You don’t believe me?” Riley said. “There were pebbles in my bed. He must have put them there. They couldn’t have gotten there any other way.”

  Bill shook his head.

  “Riley, I’m sure there really was an intruder,” he said. “You weren’t imagining that part. But Peterson? I doubt that very much.”

  Riley’s anger was rising now.

  “Bill, listen to me. I heard rattling against the door one night, and I looked outside, and I found pebbles there. Marie heard someone throw pebbles at her bedroom window. Who else could it be?”

  Bill sighed and shook his head.

  “Riley, you’re tired,” he said. “And when you’re tired and you get an idea fixed in your head, it’s easy to believe just about anything. It can happen to anybody.”

  Riley found herself fighting back tears. In better days, Bill would have trusted her instincts without question. But those days were over. And she knew why. A few nights ago she’d called him drunk and suggested that they act on their mutual attraction and begin an affair. It had been an awful thing to do, and she knew it, and she’d not had a drink since then. Even so, things hadn’t been right between her and Bill after that.

  “I know what this is about, Bill,” she said. “It’s because of that stupid phone call. You don’t trust me anymore.”

  Now Bill’s voice crackled with anger.

  “Damn it, Riley, I’m just trying to be realistic.”

  Riley was seething. “Just go, Bill.”

  “But Riley—”

  “Believe me or don’t believe me. Take your pick. But right now I want you to go.”

  With an air of resignation, Bill got up from the table and left.

  Through the kitchen doorway, Riley could see that almost everybody had left the house, including April. Lucy came back into the kitchen.

  “Agent Huang is leaving a couple of agents here,” she said. “They’ll watch the house from a car for the rest of the night. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be alone inside. I’ll be glad to stay.”

  Riley sat and thought for a moment. What she wanted—what she needed right now—was for somebody to believe that Peterson wasn’t dead. She doubted that she could convince even Lucy of that. The whole thing seemed hopeless.

  “I’ll be all right, Lucy,” Riley said.

  Lucy nodded and left the kitchen. Riley heard the sound of the last agents leaving the house and shutting the door behind them. Riley got up and checked both the front door and back door to make sure they were locked. She moved two chairs up against the back door. They would make noise enough if anybody picked the lock again.

  Then she stood in the living room and looked all around. The house looked weirdly bright, with every single light burning.

  I ought to turn some of them off, she thought.

  But as she reached for the living room light switch, her fingers froze. She just couldn’t do it. She was paralyzed with terror.

  Peterson, she knew, was coming for her again.

  Chapter 3

  Riley hesitated for a moment as she entered the BAU building, wondering if she was really ready to face anyone today. She hadn’t slept all night, and was bone-tired. The sensation of terror that had kept her awake all night had run her adrenaline until there was nothing left. Now, she just felt hollowed out.

  Riley took a deep breath.

  The only way out is through.

  She gathered her resolve and walked into the busy maze of FBI agents, specialists, and support staff. As she wound her way through the open bay area, familiar faces looked up from their computers. Most smiled to see her and several gave her a thumbs-up. Riley slowly felt glad she had decided to come in. She’d needed something to lift to her spirits.

  “Way to go with the Dolly Killer,” one young agent said.

  It took Riley a couple of seconds to understand what he meant. Then she realized that “Dolly Killer” must be the new nickname for Dirk Monroe, the psychopath she had just taken down. The name made sense.

  Riley also noticed that some of the faces looked at her more warily. Doubtless they had heard about the incident at her house last night when a whole team had raced to her frantic call for backup. They probably wonder if I’m in my right mind, she thought. As far as she knew, absolutely no one else in the Bureau believed that Peterson was still alive.

  Riley stopped by the desk of Sam Flores, a lab technician with black-rimmed glasses, hard at work at his computer.

  “What news have you got for me, Sam?” Riley said.

  Sam looked up from the screen at her.

  “You mean about your break-in, right? I’m just now looking at some preliminary reports. I’m afraid there won’t be much. The lab guys didn’t get anything off the pebbles—no DNA or fibers. No fingerprints, either.”

  Riley sighed with discouragement.

  “Let me know if anything changes,” she said, patting Flores on the back.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Flores said.

  Riley continued on to the area shared by senior agents. As she passed by the small glass-walled offices, she saw that Bill wasn’t in. That was actually a relief, but she knew that sooner or later she would have to clear up the recent awkwardness between them.

  When she set foot in her own neat, well-organized office, Riley immediately noticed that she had a phone message. It was from Mike Nevins, the D.C. forensic psychiatrist who sometimes consulted on BAU cases. Over the years, she had found him a source remarkable insight, and not only into cases. Mike had helped Riley through her own bout of PTSD after Peterson had captured and tortured her. She knew he was calling to check up on her, as he often did.

  She was about to call him back, when the broad frame of Special Agent Brent Meredith appeared in her doorway. The unit commander’s black, angular features hinted at his tough, no-nonsense personality. Riley felt relieved at the sight of him, alway
s reassured by his presence.

  “Welcome back, Agent Paige,” he said.

  Riley got up to shake his hand. “Thanks, Agent Meredith.”

  “I hear you had another little adventure last night. I hope you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Meredith looked at her with warm concern, and Riley knew that he was trying to assess her readiness for work.

  “Would you like to join me in the break area for some coffee?” he asked.

  “Thanks, but there are some files I really need to review. Some other time.”

  Meredith nodded and said nothing. Riley knew he was waiting for her to speak. Doubtless he had also heard about her belief that Peterson had been the intruder. He was giving her a chance to voice her opinion. But she was sure that Meredith wouldn’t be any more inclined than anybody else to agree with her about Peterson.

  “Well, I’d better be going,” he said. “Let me know whenever you’re up for coffee or lunch.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Meredith paused and turned back toward Riley.

  Slowly and carefully, he said, “Do be careful, Agent Paige.”

  Riley detected a world of meaning in those words. Not long ago, another higher-up in the agency had suspended her for subordination. She’d been reinstated, but her position could be still tenuous. Riley sensed that Meredith was giving her a friendly warning. He didn’t want her to do anything to jeopardize herself. And raising a lot of fuss about Peterson might cause trouble with those who had declared the case closed.

  As soon as she was alone, Riley went to her filing cabinet and pulled out the thick file on the Peterson case. She opened it up on her desk and browsed through it, refreshing her memory about her nemesis. She didn’t find much that was helpful.

  The truth was that the man remained an enigma. There hadn’t even been any records of his existence until Bill and Riley finally tracked him down. Peterson might not even be his real name, and they’d turned up several different first names supposedly connected with him.

  As Riley looked through the file, she came across photographs of his victims—women who had been found in shallow graves. They had all borne burn scars, and the cause of death had been manual strangulation. Riley shuddered with the memory of the large, powerful hands that had caught her and caged her like an animal.

  Nobody knew just how many women he had killed. There might be many more corpses yet to be found. And until Marie and Riley had been captured and lived to tell about it, nobody knew about how he liked to torment women in the dark with a propane torch. And nobody else was willing to believe that Peterson was still alive.

  The whole thing was really getting her down. Riley was known for her ability to get into the minds of killers—an ability that sometimes scared her. Even so, she’d never been able to get into Peterson’s mind. And as of right now, she felt that she understood him even less.

  He had never struck Riley as an organized psychopath. The fact that he left his victims in shallow graves suggested quite the opposite. He was no perfectionist. Even so, he was meticulous enough not to leave clues behind. The man was truly paradoxical.

  She remembered something that Marie had said to her shortly before her suicide …

  “Maybe he’s like a ghost, Riley. Maybe that’s what happened when you blew him up. You killed his body but you didn’t kill his evil.”

  He wasn’t a ghost, and Riley knew it. She was sure—more sure than ever—that he was out there, and that she was his next target. Even so, he might as well be a ghost as far as she was concerned. Aside from herself, nobody else even believed that he existed.

  “Where are you, you bastard?” she whispered aloud.

  She didn’t know, and she had no way to find out. She was completely stymied. She had no choice but to let the whole thing go for now. She closed the folder and put it back in its place in her filing cabinet.

  Then her office phone rang. She saw that the call was coming through on a line shared by all the special agents. It was the line that the BAU phone bank used to forward appropriate call-ins to agents. As a rule of thumb, whichever agent picked up such a call first would take the case.

  Riley glanced around at the other offices. Nobody else seemed to be in at the moment. The other agents were all either taking a break or out working other cases. Riley answered the phone.

  “Special Agent Riley Paige. What can I do to help you?”

  The voice on the line sounded harried.

  “Agent Paige, this is Raymond Alford, Chief of Police in Reedsport, New York. We’ve got a real problem here. Would it be okay for us to do this by video chat? I think maybe I could explain it better. And I’ve got some images that you’d better see for yourself.”

  Riley’s curiosity was piqued. “Certainly,” she said. She gave Alford her contact information. A few moments later she was talking to him face to face. He was a slender, balding man who appeared to be well along in years. At the moment, his expression was anxious and tired.

  “We had a murder here last night,” Alford told her. “A real ugly one. Let me show you.”

  A photograph came up on Riley’s computer screen. It showed what appeared to be a woman’s body hanging from a chain over railroad tracks. The body was wrapped in a multitude of chains, and it seemed to be oddly dressed.

  “What’s the victim wearing?” Riley asked.

  “A straitjacket,” Alford said.

  Riley was startled. Looking closer at the photograph, she could see that it was true. Then the picture disappeared, and Riley found herself face to face with Alford again.

  “Chief Alford, I appreciate your alarm. But what makes you think this is a case for the Behavioral Analysis Unit?”

  “Because this exact same thing happened very near here five years ago,” Alford said.

  An image appeared of another woman’s corpse. She, too, was chained all over and bound in a straitjacket.

  “Back then it was a part-time prison worker, Marla Blainey. The MO was identical—except that she was just dumped on the riverbank, not hung up.”

  Alford’s face reappeared.

  “This time it was Rosemary Pickens, a local nurse,” he said. “Nobody can imagine a motive, not for either of the women. They were both well-liked.”

  Alford slumped wearily and shook his head.

  “Agent Paige, my people and I are really out of our depth here. This new killing must be a serial or copycat. The trouble is, neither of those makes any sense. We don’t get that kind of problem in Reedsport. This is just a little Hudson River tourist town with a population of about seven thousand. Sometimes we have to break up a fight or fish a tourist out of the river. That’s about as bad as things usually get here.”

  Riley thought about it. This actually did look like a case for the BAU. She really ought to refer Alford directly to Meredith.

  But Riley glanced toward Meredith’s office and saw that he hadn’t returned yet. She’d have to alert him about this later. In the meantime, maybe she could help a little.

  “What were the causes of death?” she asked.

  “Throats slashed, both of them.”

  Riley tried not to show her surprise. Strangulation and blunt force strike were far more common than slashing.

  This seemed to be a highly unusual killer. Even so, it was the kind of psychopath that Riley knew well. She specialized in just such cases. It seemed a shame that she wasn’t going to be able to bring her skills to this one. In the wake of her recent trauma, she wouldn’t get the assignment.

  “Have you taken the body down?” Riley asked.

  “Not yet,” Alford said. “She’s still hanging there.”

  “Then don’t. Leave it there for now. Wait till our agents get there.”

  Alford didn’t look pleased.

  “Agent Paige, that’s going to be a tall order. It’s right next to the train tracks and it can be seen from the river. And the town doesn’t need this kind of publicity. I’m under a lot o
f pressure to take it down.”

  “Leave it,” Riley said. “I know it’s not easy, but it’s important. It won’t be long. We’ll get agents there this afternoon.”

  Alford nodded in mute compliance.

  “Have you got any more photos of the latest victim?” Riley asked. “Any close-ups?”

  “Sure, I’ll bring them up.”

  Riley found herself looking at a series of detail shots of the corpse. The local cops had done a good job. The photos showed how tightly and elaborately the chains were wrapped around the corpse.

  Finally came a close-up of the victim’s face.

  Riley felt as though her heart jumped up into her throat. The victim’s eyes bulged, and her mouth was gagged by a chain. But that wasn’t what shocked Riley.

  The woman looked a lot like Marie. She was older and heavier, but even so, Marie might have looked a lot like this if she’d only lived another decade or so. The image hit Riley like an emotional blow to the gut. It was as if Marie was calling out for her, demanding that she get this killer.

  She knew that she had to take this case.

  Chapter 4

  Peterson coasted his car along, not too fast, not too slow, feeling good as he finally had the girl back in his sights. Finally, he had found her. There she was, Riley’s daughter, alone, walking toward her high school, with no clue at all that he was stalking her. That he was about to end her life.

  As he watched, she suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned around, as if suspicious she were being watched. She stood there, as if undecided. A few other students passed her and filtered into the building.

  He coasted the car along, waiting to see what she would do next.

  Not that the girl mattered to him especially. Her mother was the true target of his revenge. Her mother had thwarted him badly, and she had to pay. She already had, in a way—after all, he’d driven Marie Sayles to suicide. But now he had to take from her the girl who mattered to her most.

  The girl, to his delight, began to turn around and walk away from school. Apparently she had decided not to go to class today. His heart pounded—he wanted to pounce. But he could not. Not yet. He had to tell himself to be patient. Other people were still in sight.