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  Riley smiled to hear a note of awe in Frankie’s voice. Although Riley hadn’t realized it when Agent Crivaro first took an interest in her unique abilities, she’d since learned then that her mentor was something of a living legend in the FBI. Frankie couldn’t seem to get over her amazement that Riley was now his fulltime partner.

  Getting a phone call from him must have blown Frankie’s mind, Riley thought.

  Frankie said, “So how are you feeling?”

  “Not good,” Riley said with a sigh. “I guess I always knew… I’d have do something like this someday. But I didn’t know how bad it was going to feel.”

  “Well, I wondered if maybe you’d like to get together and let off some steam,” Frankie said.

  Riley felt a surge of gratitude.

  “Oh, that would be wonderful, Frankie,” she said. “I’ve got tomorrow off. How does lunch sound?”

  “Sounds great,” Frankie said.

  After they made plans and ended the call, Riley stood staring at the phone in her hand. Something was just now sinking in.

  Agent Crivaro reached out to Frankie.

  He called her about me.

  It was a surprising and incredibly thoughtful thing to do, and Riley felt deeply touched by her mentor’s concern. And tomorrow’s lunch date with Frankie gave her something to look forward to after such an awful day.

  Feeling suddenly much better, Riley walked into the kitchen.

  She thought, I’m going to help Ryan with dinner, whether he wants me to or not.

  Today had been worse than she had ever imagined. But she had friends who were helping her through it. Maybe tomorrow would be easier. After all, what kind of nightmare could be worse than the one she’d just faced?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Before noon the next day, Riley went outside to wait for Frankie to pick her up for lunch. She found herself wondering if she would actually be able to talk with her Academy friend about what had happened yesterday. Ryan had gone to work as usual, happily taking the opportunity to drive their car to his office for a change. So Riley had slept late and had a leisurely morning.

  Soon Frankie pulled up in her beat-up hatchback, and Riley climbed in. She realized that her friend’s ruddy features and rusty-colored hair were a welcome sight. She told herself that this was definitely going to be a better day.

  Frankie drove them to their favorite DC lunch spot, Tiffin’s Grub & Pub. They sat down at a little table and both ordered tuna melt sandwiches. Then they sipped coffee and exchanged some small talk, avoiding the topic of Riley’s first kill.

  Maybe we won’t get around to talking about it, Riley thought.

  If so, she felt fine with that. Spending some time with Frankie was going to be enough to make her feel a whole lot better. Meanwhile, she and her friend had some catching up to do.

  Frankie said, “So I hear you’ve worked three more cases since we last saw each other. That’s pretty impressive. Word’s getting around that you’re quite a prodigy—the next Jake Crivaro, they say.”

  Riley blushed at what she knew to be high praise.

  “I’ve still got a lot to learn,” she said. “So how’s your life here in DC? How is being an FBI agent working out for you?”

  Frankie frowned and sighed.

  “It’s not all I hoped it to be, I guess,” she said.

  Riley felt a pang of concern. She knew that Frankie had spent six months working as an undercover drug agent before she’d even entered the academy. Because of her past experience, Frankie had been assigned to an FBI drug enforcement team after graduating. Riley knew that Frankie had been excited and hopeful about the assignment. Now she sounded sad and disappointed.

  As their sandwiches arrived, Riley asked Frankie to tell her about it. Frankie took a sip of coffee and thought for a moment.

  Then she said, “You know, I learned just one real lesson back when I working as an undercover cop in Cincinnati. I learned that the whole ‘War on Drugs’ is completely wrongheaded. It’s a war that can’t be won. The real problem is, there’s a lot of pain out there, and a lot of unhappy people. Locking them up for using drugs doesn’t get to the root of the problem. And I guess I …”

  Frankie’s voice faded away for a moment.

  Then she said, “Well, I thought I could make a difference, working in the FBI. I thought I could change how things got done. But it’s not working out that way. It’s all the same-old same-old, just like in Cincinnati. The only difference is, now I’m not working undercover anymore. But I’m still involved in the same kinds of operations, and I can’t change anything. I’m feeling like a naïve chump for thinking I could make a difference.”

  Riley leaned across the table toward her friend and said, “Frankie, give yourself some time. You’re just getting started. Be patient.”

  Frankie scoffed. “Yeah, well, patience isn’t exactly my strong suit. And anyway, my problems seem pretty trivial next to what you went through yesterday. Crivaro sounded really worried about you over the phone. Do you want to talk about it? Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Riley hesitated for a moment. Then she figured talking about it was part of why she was here. As she began to tell Frankie everything that had happened yesterday, she felt a lump in her throat.

  Don’t start crying again, she thought.

  She managed to keep her tears in check as she described the moment when she killed Heidi Wright.

  Then she said, “Frankie, she was just a kid—fifteen years old. It wasn’t her fault that she’d had such a rotten life. She didn’t have any good choices. She was desperate. She needed someone to give her a good home and some guidance and some love. She didn’t deserve to die like that.”

  Frankie’s face was full of concern now.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any point in my pointing out the obvious,” Frankie said.

  Riley nodded and said, “I know, I know. I didn’t have any choice. It was her life or mine.”

  “And your life matters, Riley,” Frankie said. “It matters a lot.”

  Riley had to wipe away a tear now.

  “I feel like things will never be the same again,” she said.

  Frankie tilted her head and said, “Well, I’ve never had to shoot anybody, but … I know what it’s like to do something that really changes you. I’ve been there. I understand.”

  Riley knew what terrible event Frankie was referring to. Back when she’d been working undercover in Cincinnati, a drug dealer had forced Frankie to shoot up with heroin at knifepoint. She’d had no choice.

  Riley remembered what Frankie had told her about the incredible euphoria she’d experienced.

  “If I’d died right then, I’d have died happy.”

  That was the event that had convinced Frankie that the “War on Drugs” was pointless. Riley knew that Frankie would be struggling with that experience for the rest of her life. Until now, Riley hadn’t been able to imagine what it was like for her.

  Maybe now I can understand, she thought.

  Riley took a bite of her sandwich and thought for a moment.

  Then she said, “Here’s the strange thing, Frankie. About two weeks ago, I really wanted to kill someone. It took all my self-control not to do it.”

  “What happened?” Frankie asked.

  Riley said, “Maybe you heard about that case Crivaro and I worked on in Maryland.”

  “Yeah, that was a nasty business,” Frankie said. “The killer’s name was Mullins, right?”

  Riley nodded. “Yeah, Larry Mullins. He killed two little kids he was hired to take care of—suffocated them in two different playgrounds.”

  Then with a slight groan she added, “Of course, Mullins hasn’t been convicted yet. His trial date hasn’t even been set and the evidence we’ve got against him is still thin. But Crivaro and I know he did it—and so do the kids’ parents.”

  Riley paused for a moment, dreading the memory she was about to describe.

  “Mullins is a smug bastard,” she
said. “He’s got this oozing baby-faced innocence about him, which is why the kids’ parents trusted him. I hated his guts the moment Crivaro and I caught him. He grinned at me, practically admitting with his eyes that he was guilty. But he also knew damn well it was going to be tough for us to prove it.”

  Riley drummed her fingers restlessly on the table.

  She said, “And right then and there, when I was putting him in cuffs and reading his rights, he smirked and said to me, ‘Good luck.’”

  Frankie gasped a little.

  Riley continued, “God, you have no idea how angry that made me. I really wanted to kill him. I think I actually reached for my Glock. Crivaro touched me on the shoulder and gave me a warning look. If it weren’t for Crivaro, I might have blown Mullins away right then and there.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Frankie said.

  “Maybe so,” Riley said. “But now I can’t help wondering—what if Mullins had been my first use of deadly force? Surely I wouldn’t feel as bad as I do now. Maybe I’d even be okay with it. Instead, I wound up shooting some poor dumb kid who didn’t stand a chance in life. It’s just …”

  Riley gulped down an ache of anger and bitterness.

  “It’s just not fair,” she said.

  Riley and Frankie sat eating silently for a few moments.

  Finally Frankie said in a cautious voice, “You know, you’ll probably think I’m crazy for saying this but … maybe we’re both better off the way things happened to us.”

  Riley’s eyes widened.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  Frankie shrugged and said, “Well, if I hadn’t been forced to shoot smack that one time, I’d never have realized how stupid the War on Drugs really is. And if you’d been able to kill Larry Mullins, maybe you’d find it easy to use deadly force in the future—way too easy.”

  Frankie fell silent, then wiped a tear from her eye.

  “I know we’re both hurting, Riley,” she said. “But I think maybe it’s better to hurt than get hardened against pain. At least we’ve been able to keep our humanity, our vulnerability, everything that’s best about us. A lot of people in our line of work don’t manage that.”

  Riley nodded slowly. She knew that Frankie was saying exactly what she needed to hear right now. She realized she was definitely lucky to have Frankie to commiserate with today. This was better than any therapy she was likely to get.

  She and Frankie ate quietly for a little while.

  Then Frankie asked, “So how are things going with that fiancé of yours? Have you set a wedding date yet?”

  Riley was startled by the question.

  She stammered, “Uh, no, not yet.”

  “No?” Frankie said, giving Riley a skeptical look.

  “Not yet,” Riley repeated, then kept on eating in silence.

  She felt uneasy at what Frankie must be thinking right now. She remembered something Frankie had said to her when they’d first met …

  “I’ve got kind of a jaundiced view of men in general.”

  Although Frankie rarely talked about it, Riley knew that Frankie’s own four-year marriage had ended in a bitter divorce. Frankie probably didn’t have any reason to expect things to work out with Riley and Ryan.

  Is she right, maybe? Riley wondered.

  After all, things hadn’t been especially good between them lately.

  Riley and Frankie chatted about little things as they finished their meal. When Frankie was driving her back to her apartment, Riley found herself dreading the rest of her day off, especially wondering how things were going to be with Ryan this evening.

  She wondered—what did it say about her that she didn’t look forward to seeing her own fiancé? Perhaps worse, was she getting hooked on the dangers and ordeals of her work?

  She only knew that she couldn’t help how she felt.

  If I don’t get back to work, I’ll lose my mind, she thought.

  Whatever was waiting for her out there, she needed to go ahead and face it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jake tapped his foot uneasily as he sat across the desk from the Special Agent in Charge at the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

  It sure sounds like a serial, he thought.

  Erik Lehl was describing a pair of similar murders in Kentucky and Tennessee. Jake was trying to decide if he wanted to even think about this right now. After all, he’d been involved in a shootout in upstate New York just yesterday.

  Lehl wound up his account and said, “Agent Crivaro, the only reason I’m talking to you about this is that I don’t have any other senior BAU agents to send out there right now.”

  Jake chuckled and said, “So I’m a last resort, huh?”

  Lehl didn’t laugh at Jake’s little joke. Of course, Jake was well aware that his boss wasn’t known for his sense of humor.

  “You know you’re not,” Lehl said. “I just don’t want to send any rookies. But I know you might need a break after what happened yesterday. If so, I’m fine with that. It’s not exactly a high-profile case, at least not yet. I can get the FBI field office in Memphis to handle it. But the local sheriff is in kind of a panic and he specifically requested BAU. I’d feel better about things if I knew I had my best agent on the job.”

  “You shouldn’t flatter me, sir,” Jake said with a smile. “It’ll go to my head.”

  Again, Lehl didn’t laugh. The lanky man steepled his lengthy fingers together and gazed at Jake expectantly.

  “I’ll do it,” Jake finally said.

  Lehl appeared to be genuinely relieved.

  “All right, then,” Lehl said. “I’ll get a plane ready to fly you to the Dyersburg Regional Airport. I’ll arrange for some local cops to meet you there. Do you want me to assign you a partner?”

  Jake fidgeted in his chair.

  “Naw, I’ll handle this one on my own,” he said.

  Lehl let out a slight growl of dismay.

  He said, “Agent Crivaro, I believe we’ve talked about this.”

  Jake was amused by Lehl’s parental tone, as if his boss was gently scolding him.

  “Yeah, I know,” Jake said. “You keep telling me it’s time I learned to play nice with others. But I’m old and fixed in my ways, sir. If you send me out with a rookie, I’ll only terrorize the poor bum. I might send him screaming into the night. You wouldn’t want that.”

  Then came a rather ominous pause.

  I guess he doesn’t approve of my answer, Jake thought.

  Finally Lehl said, “Just consider taking a partner. I’ll get back to you about that flight.”

  The meeting ended, and Jake walked back to his own office. He sat down at his desk, which was cluttered with the work he’d been doing today. He’d been poring over the “nanny killer” case in Maryland, trying to put together enough evidence to convict a child murderer named Larry Mullins. He and Riley had arrested the man a couple of weeks ago.

  The trial was going to be scheduled soon. Although Jake, Riley, and their whole investigative team knew for a virtual fact that Mullins was guilty, he was worried about whether a jury would agree.

  Jake wondered whether he should have said no to Lehl just now. Lehl wouldn’t have held it against him. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything else important to do. Besides, he was still rattled after the events of yesterday.

  I guess I’m just a guy who can’t say no, Jake thought.

  He wondered whether he might be addicted to working in the field, and to all the action and danger that sort of work involved.

  Or maybe it was something else.

  Lately he’d felt his confidence in his own field abilities slipping. His uncertainty about the Mullins case made him feel those doubts more acutely. Maybe he’d accepted this case out of some anxiety to prove he could still do his job—not just well, but better than anyone else in the BAU.

  But what if those days are over? he wondered.

  He thought back to something Agent Lehl had just said.

  “J
ust consider taking a partner.”

  Jake suspected that it was good advice. Trying to go solo while struggling with self-confidence issues might not be a good idea. But Lehl had just told him that he didn’t have any senior agents available. Jake didn’t feel like giving on-the-job training to some dumb, green rookie—not when a serial killer was probably at large and getting ready to strike again.

  Of course, there was one new agent Jake didn’t feel that way about …

  Riley Sweeney.

  His young protégé was more than merely promising. She already had better skills than many much more seasoned agents, even if her judgment was sometimes still erratic and she had trouble following orders. Someday, he knew, she’d be as good if not better than he himself had ever been. He liked knowing that she could carry on his work after he was gone. And he liked working with her.

  But more than that, he felt as if he might be starting to really depend on her. If it was true that his own abilities were declining, having Riley on hand made him feel more secure about his work.

  But as Jake considered the matter, he sighed aloud.

  I can’t ask her to work on this case, he thought.

  It was way too soon. The poor kid was much too traumatized after the events of yesterday. Ever since the shootout in that snowy parking lot, Jake had been haunted by the stricken look on Riley’s face as she’d stared down at Heidi Wright’s body.

  The dead girl looked even younger than her actual fifteen years—like a pathetic, broken little doll. Although Riley hadn’t said so, Jake knew that she couldn’t help thinking of herself as some sort of murderer. The poor kid had still been in shock the last time he’d seen her yesterday.

  Of course, Jake and Riley had both known that she was going to have to use deadly force sooner or later. But Jake had never imagined that it was going to happen under such awful circumstances—and of course, Riley hadn’t either.

  She needs some time off, Jake thought.

  She also needed the kind of professional counseling that Jake was in no way prepared to give her.

  And yet Jake wondered whether he really had the right to make such a decision on her behalf. Shouldn’t she be allowed to decide for herself whether she felt ready to get back to work?