Once Chosen (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 17) Read online

  Someone was right around that corner, doing something weird.

  Now would be a good time to call out and ask who’s there, she realized.

  But she hadn’t known until just this moment just how scared she’d gotten.

  Her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps, and she was shaking all over.

  If she tried to say anything now, it would come out in some sort of weak-sounding croak.

  That wouldn’t be good, she decided.

  Instead she drew her weapon, struggling to control how it shook in her hands. Then she stepped past the hallway corner, pointed her weapon, and called out in a voice so strong and firm it surprised her.

  “FBI! Let me see your hands!”

  She heard a clatter of metal fall to the floor.

  It took a moment for her to absorb what she was looking at.

  One teenaged boy had been spraying graffiti on a row of lockers, while another had been holding a flashlight so he could see what he was doing. At Ann Marie’s appearance, they’d dropped both the spray can and the flashlight, and now they stood with their hands high and their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open.

  “Holy shit!” one of the boys said.

  “What are you doing here?” the other said.

  Ann Marie breathed deeply, at once disappointed and relieved.

  “You’re the ones who’d better answer that question,” she said.

  Holstering her weapon, she shone her flashlight on the lockers, which were scrawled with seemingly random patterns of spray paint.

  “We didn’t mean any harm,” one of the boys said.

  Ann Marie said, “You mean, no harm except to vandalize public property.”

  One of the boys smirked and replied, “Hey, it’s Halloween.”

  He sounded as though that explained and justified everything. The other one didn’t look nearly so cocky.

  Ann Marie quickly assessed the kinds of kids she was dealing with. One was a real smart-ass who thought he was tough and cool, while the other was his sheep-like follower.

  “Tell me how this happened,” Ann Marie said.

  The smart-ass kid shrugged, looking rather proud of himself.

  “I hid in my gym locker until the party was over,” he said. “Then I came out and stuck a book in the side door so Saul here could get into the school too.”

  The kid named Saul said nervously, “This whole thing was Barry’s idea.”

  Ann Marie stifled a groan of annoyance.

  “And what if Barry’s idea was to jump off a cliff?” she said.

  Saul looked embarrassed by the question.

  “Please don’t arrest us,” he said in a pathetic voice.

  Ann Marie replied with a silent scowl.

  Saul said, “You’re not going to arrest us, are you?”

  Barry kept smirking like he thought it might be cool to spend a night in jail. Ann Marie doubted he’d enjoy it much if it happened for real.

  She had a good mind to march both of these guys out of the school to her car and drive them straight to the police station. She only had one set of handcuffs, but she could slap those on smart-ass Barry, and she was sure Saul would come along quietly.

  But she felt like that would be a waste of time right now. And besides, she didn’t need to arrest the kids to make sure they didn’t get away with this.

  “Let me see some ID, guys,” she said.

  The kids showed her their school ID cards. Saul’s last name was Blessing, and Barry’s last name was Forster. Ann Marie made a mental note of those names and handed the cards back to the kids.

  “I’m telling Sheriff Wightman about this,” she said. “He can figure out what he wants to do about it. Now get out of here before I change my mind about arresting you.”

  The two kids scurried away toward the door they’d come in by.

  Ann Marie leaned against a row of lockers, trying to decide what to do next. All she knew at the moment was that she was glad she hadn’t arrested the kids. She didn’t want her first-ever solo arrest for the BAU to be a couple of teenaged punks spraying graffiti.

  Meanwhile, she figured she might as well have a look around to see if anyone else was in the building. She drew her gun again and continued on down the hallway, but soon realized that the school complex spread in all directions and it wouldn’t be possible to check the whole building. The halls were silent now, and Ann Marie felt truly alone in the dark maze. The creepiness of the place was really getting to her, and she felt more than ready to get out of there. She went back the way she’d come in until she got to the side door.

  To her annoyance, she saw that the book was still there holding the door cracked open. The kids had obviously left without stopping to pick it up, so the door hadn’t closed and locked.

  “Kids,” Ann Marie muttered with disgust.

  She reached down to move the book out of the opening, but before she could touch it, the door flew open. Someone rammed into her, throwing her sprawling on the floor and sending the gun flying out of her hands.

  Before Ann Marie could recover, a large and strong person was upon her, gripping her by the throat.

  She heard a voice murmur, “Pan is waiting.”

  It’s him! she realized.

  The junior agent’s academy training kicked in, overcoming even her terror. She struck out, twisted violently, and managed to get out from under her attacker.

  As she struggled to her feet, she glimpsed his large, dark form as he stood up to block the doorway.

  With no way out in front of her, Ann Marie whirled and ran madly into the dim maze of school hallways.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Riley kept staring into the surrounding darkness of the cemetery until her eyes were tired. The truth was finally dawning on her.

  My hunch was wrong.

  The proximity of the gravestone to where Allison Hillis had been abducted was purely a coincidence. The killer probably didn’t even know where the marker was. Her notion that he’d come to it as a shrine had been way off.

  It’s time to report in to Wightman, she thought.

  She took out her cell phone and got the sheriff on the line.

  “There’s nothing at the cemetery,” she told him. “Please tell me that you and your cops have had better luck.”

  “I wish I could,” Wightman replied. “My guys are too busy getting civilians off the street to seriously look for the killer—if he’s really out tonight, which I doubt. I’m afraid we’re not going to get him, at least not tonight. What do you want to do next?”

  Riley stifled a sigh.

  She said, “It’s getting near time to call it a night. Give your team another hour. Then call them all back to the station, and we’ll send them home.”

  “OK,” Wightman said. “I talked to your partner a little while ago. Do you want me to contact her, or do you want to do it yourself?”

  Riley squinted with surprise.

  “My partner?” she asked.

  “Yeah. The last time I talked to her, she was over at the high school. There was a party going on there, and she was keeping watch to make sure everybody there stayed safe. Do you want to call her, or should I?”

  Riley stammered, “Uh … I’ll do it.”

  They end the call and Riley stood staring at her cell phone.

  Ann Marie is still in Winneway.

  *

  With a burst of sheer animal terror, Ann Marie fled down the hallway.

  Don’t panic, she told herself.

  But she’d lost her gun and a madman was chasing her. She didn’t dare look back to see how close he was. She couldn’t even hear his footsteps over the sound of her own.

  She just had to keep moving.

  I’ve got to get a grip on myself. I’ve got to think.

  What was there to think about? What sort of plan could she come up with? What was there to do except run and try to stay away from her pursuer?

  The hallway seemed to stretch longer in front of her, and she
thought she was moving much too slowly.

  She knew he could see her. The dim, intermittent ceiling lights gave her enough light to run by—but also enough light for the killer to see her by. The throb of her pulse felt like both her head and her chest were about to explode.

  Her soft soles skidded and she almost lost her balance as she whirled and turned at the first hallway corner she came to.

  Had he seen her make that last turn?

  Surely he must have.

  But she still didn’t dare slow down to look behind her.

  She ran until she came to another corner and turned again. It dawned on her that she was running blind. She didn’t know the layout of the school, and in this maze of hallways, the killer could be either in front of her or behind her. Tearing through the hallways like this was pointless. For all she knew, she might be running directly into his clutches.

  Ann Marie slowed to a walk and struggled to bring her breathing under control, listening as well as she could. If he was anywhere nearby, she couldn’t see or hear him.

  She fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone, hoping she could call for backup, or at least punch 911 for help. But then she felt a new jolt of panic as a gleeful voice echoed around her.

  “Why are you running? There’s no need to run.”

  She flattened herself against the row of lockers along the wall as the voice spoke again. Where was he? What could she do?

  “Pan just wants to be friendly,” the voice said.

  The eerie voice seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere. Try as she might, Ann Marie simply couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from.

  “You dropped something. A gun, I believe. Pan and I just want to give it back.”

  Ann Marie stifled a moan of despair.

  My gun, she thought. He’s got my gun.

  And who on earth did he mean by “Pan”?

  Did he have someone else with him—an accomplice of some sort? Suddenly the stakes in this chase seemed much more dire than even before. She had some vague recollection of a mythological figure with that name, but she couldn’t pin it down.

  “You can trust me,” her pursuer said. “I would never shoot you. That isn’t Pan’s style.”

  His words were obviously meant in a mocking way.

  No, he wouldn’t shoot me.

  Her pursuer surely had a much crueler death in mind. And since he’d killed at least four other people, she knew better than to underestimate either his prowess or his viciousness. He knew how to hunt as well as how to kill.

  Staying tight against the wall, she crept around another corner.

  She felt a surge of hope at the sight of an EXIT sign at the far end of this hallway.

  A way out! she thought.

  She broke into a run again. But this time, she heard a clanging sound and a masked figure leapt in her way. It was the very man she’d been fleeing.

  Where had he come from?

  Then she saw a large locker door hanging open, and she remembered the kid named Saul mentioning that he’d hidden in a locker.

  That was exactly what her pursuer had done. As she’d feared, he’d circled around to get ahead of her and waited there for her. He obviously knew these hallways well.

  She stood frozen in place, staring at him. Now that she got a good look at him, she recognized his werewolf mask, and also the leather satchel slung over his shoulder. It was the man she’d confronted a little while ago outside the school.

  I should have known, she thought. I should have been aware that he was dangerous even back then.

  A voice from behind the mask demanded, “What are you going to do now, little girl?”

  Ann Marie was sure there was a sneer behind that mask, and she heard a note of challenge in that voice.

  He considers it my move, she realized.

  He was standing squarely in front of her, just waiting for her to do something. But Ann Marie was paralyzed with indecisiveness. The EXIT sign at the end of the hallway suddenly looked much farther away than it had before. She almost turned around to break into another mad dash away from him.

  But then she felt a surge of resolve.

  She remembered how she’d taken down Brad Cribbins yesterday. Even Agent Paige had admitted that Ann Marie had pretty good fighting skills. Those Krav Maga classes she’d taken in high school had really paid off.

  Eyeing the EXIT sign, Ann Marie decided that she wasn’t going to run away from the killer.

  I’ll run right through him.

  She broke into a run again, toward her tormenter this time. Everything seemed to slow down as she got closer. With her every step, he looked bigger and stronger and more dangerous. Then everything lurched to a halt as she smashed into him.

  It was like running into a brick wall.

  Staggering backward, she flashed back to one of the main rules of Krav Maga.

  Use any object you can get your hands on.

  She knew that the leather satchel was hanging by a strap from the man’s soldier. With a swift, deft move, she snatched it away from off his arm. When he lunged to take it back, she ducked down low and slung the strap between his feet, then scrambled crablike around him. When he tried to take another couple of steps, his feet became entangled with the strap and he stumbled badly.

  Ann Marie gave him a sharp kick to the chest, and this time he toppled backward. She briefly considered leaping on him and trying to pummel him. But now that she had an idea of his size and strength, she didn’t dare.

  Instead, she turned and ran again. But she realized she was moving away from the exit she had spotted, rather than toward it.

  And now the familiar ugly voice rang through the hallway behind her.

  “Really, now. All this violence isn’t necessary. Pan is quite put off by it.”

  Pan again, she thought, as she fled around yet another corner.

  I’ve got to hide.

  She glanced to her left and saw that she was standing next to a classroom door. She grabbed the doorknob and turned it and yanked it. She was hardly surprised that the door was locked. She hurried to the next classroom door and found it was locked as well. Then she rushed to a third door, expecting the same results.

  But this time the door came open.

  She could hardly believe her luck.

  At that very moment, she heard his voice behind her.

  “I see you!”

  She charged through the door and shut it behind her. Leaning against the inside of the door, she fumbled for a lock, but she didn’t find anything she could turn with her fingers. Her mind raced, trying to sort some kind of logic to offset her fear. She was pretty sure now that the man had come here alone. So who the hell was Pan? His imaginary friend?

  Something from her psychology classes dawned on her …

  Yes. That’s exactly what Pan is.

  She was dealing with a psychotic who experienced hallucinations. And like many psychotics, this one had serious delusions of self-importance—and possibly supernatural power. He was even more dangerous than she had imagined.

  I’ve got to keep him from coming in here, she thought.

  She grabbed a chair and shoved the back of it under the doorknob, but before she could get it braced in place, the door flew open and the chair went flying. Her pursuer came hurtling into the room with her.

  Ann Marie turned to flee, but she was stunned to find herself face to face with a grinning face … a human skull.

  It took her a fraction of a second to realize where she was.

  A science classroom.

  The skull was part of a complete human skeleton that was hanging from a stand.

  She grabbed the skeleton and slung it toward the man as she dashed around to the other side of a big lab table. Glancing back, she caught a glimpse of him colliding with the strange figure, looking almost comical as he wrestled with the rattling bundle of bones.

  But she knew the skeleton wasn’t going to slow him down. She grabbed beakers and test tubes and hurled them at
him wildly. He raised his hands to protect his eyes, and she made a rush toward the door, pushing a large desk between her and her pursuer as she fled the way she’d come.

  In an instant, Ann Marie was careening through the maze of hallways again. She’d long since lost any sense of direction and had no idea where she was. As she turned down one hallway, she saw an open doorway at its end. When she ran through it, she found herself on the stage of a school auditorium.

  She felt relieved at the sight of the rows and rows of seats extending beyond the stage. Perhaps she could disappear among them and stay hidden until he gave up searching for her.

  Like that’s going to happen, she thought with a groan.

  Then she heard his voice from behind her again.

  “A stage-struck little girl, are we?”

  She spun around and saw him standing in the doorway through which she’d just come. She knew it was no good trying to hide among the auditorium seats now that he could see her. She whirled and saw another door, yanked it open, and dashed into total darkness.

  Ann Marie found herself suddenly tangled and tumbling in some sort of soft, chaotic mass of material. Before she could work herself free, a light snapped on, momentarily blinding her.

  Then she saw that she was in the school’s theater storage room, full of costumes and props and even masks. She’d tumbled into a rack of costumes and was now struggling on the floor trying to pull herself loose from them.

  The man was standing in the doorway now. He’d flicked on the light switch, and he’d lifted his mask to reveal an insanely grinning, wild-eyed face that seemed scarcely more real than the mask itself.

  He let out a laugh and said, “Pan has chosen the perfect spot.”

  Ann Marie was too tangled to pull herself loose. And in a flash, the man was upon her, and he had looped a cord around her neck and she couldn’t breathe.

  As he ruthlessly tightened the cord, he spoke in a gleeful whisper.

  “Pan’s will be done.”

  Ann Marie felt the whole world disappearing around her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  It only took Riley Paige a moment to realize that her junior partner was in terrible danger—if she wasn’t dead already. With a yell of fury, she rushed up behind the crouching man and threw her arm around his neck, yanking him fiercely backward away from his intended victim.