Blake Pierce - Once Pined

Riley felt a lump in her throat. That possibility hadn’t occurred to her and it was a humbling thought. She was both exhilarated and terrified by this feeling of newfound responsibility.

The whole family went straight to the guidance counselor’s office. Warm and smiling as always, Wanda Lewis greeted Jilly with a map of the school.

“I’ll take you straight to your homeroom,” Ms. Lewis said.

“I can see this is a good place,” Gabriela told Jilly. “You’ll be fine here.”

Now Jilly looked nervous but happy. She hugged them all, then followed Ms. Lewis down the hall.

“I like this school,” Gabriela told Ryan, Riley, and April on the way back to the car.

“I’m glad you approve,” Riley said.

She meant it sincerely. Gabriela was much more than a housekeeper. She was a true member of the family. It was important that she feel good about family decisions.

They all got into the car, and Ryan started the engine.

“Where to next?” Ryan asked cheerfully.

“I’ve got to get to school,” April said.

“Then home right after that,” Riley said. “I’ve got a plane to catch in Quantico.”

“Got it,” Ryan said, pulling out of the parking lot.

Riley watched Ryan’s face as he drove. He looked really happy – happy to be a part of things, and happy to have a new member of the family. He hadn’t been like this through most of their marriage. He really did seem like a changed man. And at moments like now, she felt grateful to him.

She turned and looked at her daughter, who was in the back seat.

“You’re handling all of this really well,” Riley said.

April looked surprised.

“I’m putting a lot into it,” she said. “Glad you noticed.”

For a moment Riley was taken aback. Had she been ignoring her daughter out of concern for getting their new family member settled in?

April was quiet for a moment, then said, “Mom, I’m still glad you brought her home. I guess it’s all more complicated than I thought it would be, having a new sister. She’s had an awful time and sometimes she isn’t easy to talk to.”

“I don’t want to make this hard on you,” Riley said.

April smiled weakly. “I was hard on you,” she said. “I’m tough enough to deal with Jilly’s problems. And the truth is, I’m beginning to enjoy helping her. We’ll be fine. Please don’t worry about us.”

It eased Riley’s mind that she was leaving Jilly in the care of three people she felt sure she could trust – April, Gabriela, and Ryan. All the same, it bothered her that she had to be away right now. She hoped it wouldn’t be for long.

The ground dropped away as Riley looked out the window of the small BAU jet. The jet climbed above the clouds for the flight to the Pacific Northwest – nearly six hours. In just a few minutes, Riley was watching the landscape rolling beneath them.

Bill was sitting next to her.

He said, “Flying across the country like this always makes me think of long ago, when people had to walk or ride horses or wagons.”

Riley nodded and smiled. It was as if Bill had read her thoughts. She often had that feeling about him.

“The country must have seemed huge to people back then,” she said. “It took settlers months to get across.”

A familiar and comfortable silence settled between them. Over the years, she and Bill had had their share of disagreements and even quarrels, and at times their partnership had seemed to be over. But now she felt all the closer to him because of those hard times. She trusted him with her life, and she knew he trusted her with his.

At times like now, she was glad that she and Bill hadn’t given in to their attraction to one another. They’d come perilously close at times.

It would have ruined everything, Riley thought.

They’d been smart to steer clear of it. The loss of their friendship would have been too hard for her to imagine. He was her best friend in the world.

After a few moments, Bill said, “Thanks for coming, Riley. I really need your help this time out. I don’t think I could handle this case with any other partner. Not even Lucy.”

Riley looked at him and said nothing. She didn’t have to ask him what was on his mind. She knew he was finally going to tell her the truth about what had happened to his mother. Then she’d understand just how important and troubling this case really was to him.

He stared straight ahead, remembering.

“You already know about my family,” he said. “I’ve told you that Dad was a high school math teacher, and my mom worked as a bank teller. With three kids, we were all comfortable without being especially well off. It was a pretty happy life for all of us. Until …”

Bill paused for a moment.

“It happened when I was nine years old,” he continued. “Just before Christmas, the staff at Mom’s bank threw their annual Christmas party, exchanging gifts and eating cake and all the usual office stuff. When Mom came home that afternoon, she sounded like she’d had fun and everything was fine. But as the evening wore on, she started behaving strangely.”

Bill’s face tightened at the grim memory.

“She got dizzy and confused, and her speech was slurred. It was almost like she was drunk. But Mom never drank much, and besides, no alcohol had been served at the party. None of us had any idea what was going on. Things rapidly got worse. She suffered from nausea and vomiting. Dad rushed her to the emergency room. We kids went along with them.”

Bill fell quiet again. Riley could tell that it was becoming harder by the moment to tell her what had happened.

“By the time we got to the hospital, her heart was racing, and she was hyperventilating, and her blood pressure had gone through the roof. Then she slipped into a coma. Her kidneys started to fail, and she had congestive heart failure.”

Bill’s eyes were shut tight and his face was knotted with pain. Riley wondered if maybe it would be best for him not to tell the rest of his story. But she sensed that it would be wrong to tell him to stop.

Bill said, “By the next morning, the doctors figured out what was wrong. She was suffering from severe ethylene glycol poisoning.”

Riley shook her head. That sounded familiar but she couldn’t quite place it.

Bill quickly explained, “Her punch at the party had been spiked with antifreeze.”

Riley gasped.

“My God!” she said. “How is that even possible? I mean, wouldn’t the taste alone – ?”

“The thing is, most antifreeze has a sweet taste,” Bill explained. “It’s easy to mix with sugary beverages without being noticed. It’s awfully easy to use as a poison.”

Riley was struggling to grasp what had she was hearing.

“But if the punch was spiked, weren’t other people affected?” she said.

“That’s just it,” Bill said. “Nobody else was poisoned. It wasn’t in the punch bowl. It was only in Mom’s drinks. Somebody specifically targeted her.”

He fell quiet again for a moment.

“By then, it was too late for anything,” he said. “She stayed in a coma and died on New Year’s Eve. We were all right there at her bedside.”

Somehow, Bill managed not to break down in tears. Riley guessed that he’d done plenty of crying about it over the years.

“It didn’t make sense,” Bill said. “Everybody liked Mom. She didn’t have an enemy in the world that anybody knew of. The police investigated, and it became clear that nobody who worked at the bank was responsible. But several co-workers remembered a strange man who came and went during the party. He’d seemed friendly, and everybody assumed that he was somebody’s guest, a friend or a relative. He was gone before the party was over.”