Blake Pierce - Once Gone

“Sit down, Agent Paige,” Walder said.

Riley sat in the chair next to Bill, who glanced at her with mounting concern.

Walder said, “I heard about what happened with your friend today, Riley.”

Riley was jolted a little. She wasn’t surprised that Walder knew about Marie’s death. After all, word that she’d been first on the scene was sure to make its way back to the Bureau. But why was he bringing it up now? Did she detect a note of sympathy in his voice?

“What happened?” Walder asked. “Why did she do it?”

“She couldn’t deal with it anymore,” Riley said in a whisper.

“Couldn’t deal with what?” Walder asked.

A silence fell. Riley couldn’t shape an answer to that question.

“I’ve heard you don’t think Peterson is dead,” Walder said. “I guess I can understand why you can’t shake that idea. But you’ve got to know that it doesn’t make sense.”

There came another pause.

“Did you tell your friend about it?” Walder asked. “Did you tell her about this obsessive idea of yours?”

Riley’s face flushed. She knew what was coming next.

“She was too fragile for that, Agent Paige,” Walder said. “You should have known it would make her snap. You should have used better judgment. But frankly, Agent Paige, your judgment is shot to hell. I hate to say it, but it’s true.”

He is blaming me for Marie’s death, Riley realized.

Riley was fighting back tears now. Whether they were tears of grief or indignation, she didn’t know. She had no idea what to say. Where could she begin? She hadn’t planted that idea in Marie’s head and she knew it. But how could she make Walder understand? How could she explain that Marie had her own reasons to doubt that Peterson was dead?

Bill spoke up again. “Sir, go easy on her, okay?”

“I think I’ve been going too easy on her, Agent Jeffreys,” Walder said, his voice becoming stern. “I think I’ve been too patient.”

Walder held her gaze for a long moment.

“Give me your gun and your badge, Agent Paige,” he finally said.

Riley heard Bill let out a gasp of disbelief.

“Sir, this is crazy,” Bill said. “We need her.”

But Riley didn’t need to be told twice. She rose from her chair and took out her gun and her badge. She placed them on Walder’s desk.

“You can clean out your office in your own good time,” Walder said, his voice steady and unemotional. “Meanwhile, you should go home and get some rest. And get back into therapy. You need it.”

As Riley turned to leave the room, Bill stood up as if to go with her.

“You stay, Agent Jeffreys,” Walder demanded.

Riley eyes met Bill’s. With a look, she told him not to disobey. Not this time. He nodded back to her with a stricken expression. Then Riley left the office. As she walked down the hall, she felt cold and numb, wondering what to do now.

When she stepped out into the cool night air, tears finally started to flow. But she was surprised to realize that they were tears of relief, not despair. For the first time in days, she felt liberated, free from frustrating limitations.

If nobody else was going to do what had to be done, it was still up to her. But at long last, nobody was going to tell her how to do her job. She’d find the killer, and she’d save Cindy MacKinnon – no matter what it took.

After Riley, later again, picked up April and drove home, she found as they arrived home that she couldn’t deal with fixing dinner. Marie’s face still haunted her and she felt more exhausted than she had ever been.

“It’s been a bad day,” she told April. “A terrible day. Will you settle for grilled cheese sandwiches?”

“I’m not really hungry,” April said. “Gabriela keeps me stuffed all the time.”

Riley felt a deep pang of despair. Another failure , she thought.

But then April took another look at her mother, this time with a hint of compassion.

“Grilled cheese will be good,” she said. “I’ll fix them.”

“Thank you,” Riley said. “You’re a sweetheart.”

She felt her spirits lift a little. At least there would be no conflict here at home tonight. She really needed that little break.

They had a quick and quiet supper, then April went to her room to finish homework and go to bed.

As exhausted as she was, Riley felt she had little time to waste. She went to work. She opened her laptop, pulled up a map of the victims’ locations, and printed out the section she wanted to study.

Riley slowly drew a triangle on the map. Its lines linked the three places where the victims had been found. The northernmost point marked where Margaret Geraty’s body had been dumped in farmland two years ago. A point to the west marked where Eileen Rogers had been more carefully placed near Daggett some six months back. Finally, the point to the south marked where the killer had achieved full mastery, posing Reba Frye by a stream in Mosby Park.

Riley circled the area again and again, thinking, wondering. Another woman might soon be found dead somewhere in this area – if she wasn’t dead already. There was no time to lose.

Riley hung her head. She was so tired. But a woman’s life was at stake. And it now seemed to be up to Riley to save her – without official help or sanction. She wouldn’t even have Bill to help her. But could she solve this case entirely on her own?

She had to try. She had to do it for Marie. She had to prove to Marie’s spirit – and maybe even to herself – that suicide wasn’t the only option.

Riley frowned at that triangle. It was a good guess that the victim was now being held somewhere in that area of a thousand square miles.

I’ve just got to look in the right place, she thought. But where?

She knew that she would have to condense her search area, and it wasn’t going to be easy to do. At least she was familiar with some of the general area.

The uppermost part of the triangle, the point closest to Washington, was mostly upscale, rich, and privileged. Riley was all but sure that the killer didn’t come from that kind of background. Besides, he had to be holding the victim in a place where no one could hear her scream. Forensics had found no sign of the other women’s mouths being gagged or taped. Riley drew an X through that well-to-do area.

The two southern points were both parklands. Might the killer be holding the woman in a rented hunting cabin or on a campsite?

Riley thought it over.

No, she decided. That would be too temporary.

Her every instinct told her that this man operated out of his own home – perhaps a house where he had lived all his life, where he had passed an unusually miserable childhood. He would enjoy taking his victims there. Taking them home with him.

So she crossed out the park areas. What was left was primarily farmland and small towns. Riley strongly suspected that she was looking for a farmhouse somewhere in that area.

She looked again at the map on her computer, then zoomed in closely on the area under consideration. Her heart sank at the sight of a tangle of secondary roads. If she was right, the killer lived on some old dirt farm in that maze. But there were too many roads for her to search quickly by car – and besides, the farm might not even be visible from the road.

She groaned aloud with despair. The whole thing seemed more hopeless by the moment. The terrible pain of loss and failure threatened to surge up again.

But then she said aloud, “Dolls!”

She reminded herself of the conclusion she had come to yesterday – that the killer had probably spotted all of his victims in a single store that sold dolls. Where might that store be?