Once Chosen (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 17)

by Blake Pierce

  “Emory, I can’t believe how awful your police were when they came with the news this morning. They tried to convince me you’ve found Allison’s body. That’s ridiculous and you know it.”

  Wightman looked stricken.

  He began, “Lauren, I’m sorry, but—”

  Lauren interrupted, “Now don’t you go trying to convince me of it too. I know, the body you found was dressed in a skeleton costume. But that doesn’t mean anything at all. Allison bought that outfit at a costume shop, all kinds of people go there. Anybody could have bought a costume like that.”

  Her frown grew more severe as she added, “And the police who came this morning told me the body had been buried for a long time. It hadn’t been positively identified. How could it be? It must be in a terrible state of decay. Emory, you saw the body. Can you honestly say it looked anything like Allison at all?”

  Not giving the sheriff a chance to reply, she spoke again to Riley and Ann Marie.

  “You two are FBI people. I’ve been trying to get Emory to call in the feds this whole time. You understand what I’m talking about. You’re experts at this sort of thing. You know better than to jump to mistaken conclusions.”

  She nodded sharply at Riley and her new partner.

  “Now I want the two of you to get right to work and do what Emory and his—his amateurs haven’t been able to get done for a year now. Find my daughter. She’s alive, I feel it in my bones, and a mother knows such things. My own guess is that she’s got amnesia, can’t remember who she is. She must feel terribly lost. But I’m sure you can find her in no time flat. I’m counting on it.”

  An awkward silence fell. Sheriff Wightman shuffled his feet and looked at the floor.

  Coming here was a mistake, Riley thought.

  She remembered how Wightman had told her at the station that Lauren Hillis was in “a deep state of denial.”

  I should have listened, she thought.

  But this was much worse than she could have expected. The poor woman had spent a whole year hoping and grieving, trying to resign herself to the worst and yet yearning for good news, all at the same time. Confusion and trauma had clearly taken a terrible toll on her. Riley sensed that she was barely in her right mind anymore.

  In a quiet voice, her brother said, “Perhaps the three of you would like to sit down.”

  Riley wanted to say no, that she and her colleagues needed to leave and get on with their work. She couldn’t imagine that Lauren could give lucid, coherent answers to any questions at all. Even trying to ask them would surely be both an intrusion and a waste of time. But leaving abruptly didn’t seem like an option either.

  It would be too cruel, she thought.

  Riley and the sheriff sat down in a couple of straight-back chairs in front of the couch. Riley was startled that Ann Marie sat down on the couch right next to Lauren.

  She was even more startled when Ann Marie took hold of the woman’s hand.

  No! she thought.

  This was completely inappropriate. Didn’t the girl have the sense not to make such intimate contact while conducting an interview? Riley feared an impending emotional catastrophe.

  Then Ann Marie purred in a soft, gentle voice.

  “Ms. Hillis, we’re terribly sorry for how hard this has been for you.”

  Ann Marie’s tone seemed to have an immediate calming effect on the woman.

  “You have no idea,” Lauren Hillis said.

  “No, of course I don’t,” Ann Marie, still holding Lauren’s hand. “Nobody else can possibly understand what you’re going through.”

  Then she and the woman sat looking at each other for a moment. Riley quickly realized what her rookie partner was doing.

  She’s acting just like a mortician.

  She’d undoubtedly watched her father comfort loved ones through all sorts of states of despair. But this realization didn’t make Riley feel better about what was going on.

  We’re FBI agents, not morticians.

  This is completely crazy.

  She wanted to yank Ann Marie away and drag her out of the house and give her a sharp lecture on professional behavior. But she couldn’t do that—not right now, not without making things even worse. She just had to hope that the situation wasn’t going to get as bad as she thought it might get.

  Still in that soft, cozy voice, Ann Marie said, “Ms. Hillis, I need for you to do something for me. Is that all right?”

  Lauren nodded.

  Ann Marie let go of the woman’s hand and got out her cell phone and began to tap on it with her finger.

  What’s she doing now? Riley wondered.

  Then Ann Marie said, “I took this picture at the crime scene this morning. Did your daughter have a mole on her right cheek. One like this?”

  Ann Marie showed her the picture on her cell phone. Lauren’s eyes widened and she grew a little paler. Then she let out a long, strange sigh of surprise that somehow sounded both anguished and relieved.

  She looked straight into Ann Marie’s eyes.

  “It’s her,” she whispered. “It’s really her.”

  Ann Marie nodded and said, “We were afraid so. I’m sorry.”

  To Riley’s surprise, the woman didn’t burst into tears. Instead, she looked at the sheriff, then at Riley, and then at Ann Marie again. She spoke in a voice that hinted of deep anger.

  “You’ve got to find whoever did this to her.”

  Ann Marie nodded. “That’s what my partner and I are here to do. We’d really appreciate your help.”

  “Of course,” Lauren said.

  Riley felt a tingle of unexpected optimism. Lauren was suddenly much more lucid than she had been.

  Maybe it won’t last, Riley thought.

  Maybe the truth hasn’t fully sunk in yet.

  But in the meantime, maybe Lauren could answer some of their questions.

  Riley said, “Could you tell us about the last time you saw your daughter?”

  Lauren nodded.

  “It was about eight thirty in the evening on Halloween night. She’d just put on her skeleton costume and she came into the living room—right here—to show it off to her father and me. We were all quite amused by it. She said she was going to leave for the party right then.”

  “The party?” Riley asked.

  “Over at Patsy Haley’s house, in her family’s rec room,” Lauren said. “Patsy was a friend of Allison’s, and we’ve known her family for years. They had a Halloween party every year, and Allison always had fun there. Brady and I were sure everything would be fine.”

  “How did she get to the party?” Riley asked.

  “She walked,” Lauren said. “The house is just a few blocks away, and our streets are normally so safe.”

  Lauren stared into space for a moment, then repeated, “We were sure everything would be fine.”

  The woman fell silent, but Riley knew better than to coax her with questions.

  She’ll talk on her own.

  Sure enough, Lauren soon continued, “Then at about nine thirty, Patsy called our house. She asked to talk to Allison. She wanted to know why she wasn’t at the party yet. She laughed and said, ‘I called to tell her to get her butt over here.’ I told Patsy … Allison wasn’t here and …”

  Lauren’s voice faded, then she said, “That was when Brady and I started to worry.”

  Her face darkened as she glared at Sheriff Wightman.

  She said, “That was when I called you, Emory. I told you that Brady and I didn’t know where Allison was, even though she was supposed to be at a party, and I asked you to try to find her.”

  Lauren’s lips twisted angrily.

  She said to Wightman with a slight growl, “You told me not to worry. You said it was Halloween and Allison could be lots of places. Teenagers were having parties all over Winneway, you said. Allison might be at any one of them, you said.”

  The sheriff looked stricken now.

  “Lauren …” he said.

  The woman
continued, “I told you something was wrong. I told you it just wasn’t like Allison to go someplace without telling anybody. And that was when you got testy. ‘It’s Halloween night,’ you said. ‘Do you want me to send out some kind of a search party? All of my people are busy dealing with kids playing pranks.’”

  Lauren looked away from the sheriff and added, “You promised everything would be all right. It was only after she was gone all night that you started looking for her. And by then it was too late.”

  A grim silence followed. Riley felt sorry for the sheriff. It was obvious from what Lauren was saying that he hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, Riley knew that most sheriffs wouldn’t have bothered even starting to search the next day. Days might have passed before they started to take the situation seriously.

  Finally Lauren let out a choking sound and started to cry.

  “She’s gone,” she gasped. “She’s really gone.”

  Ann Marie handed Lauren a handkerchief. Then she took Lauren’s hand again and patted it gently.

  Riley knew the interview was over. But it hadn’t turned into the catastrophe that she’d expected. Even though the information Lauren had given them must have long ago been told to the police, it did confirm a starting point for Riley’s investigation.

  Riley rose from her chair and said, “Ms. Hillis, thank you for your time and help. We’ll do everything we can to find whoever did this terrible thing to your daughter.”

  Lauren nodded, sobbing.

  Her brother said, “I’ll see the three of you out.”

  Senator Danson escorted Riley, Ann Marie, and Sheriff Wightman to the front door. Riley saw that his expression was stern as he stepped out onto the porch with them.

  Danson spoke to Riley and her partner.

  “How soon do you expect to catch this killer?” he asked.

  Riley was startled by the question. It didn’t sound like a question at all. He sounded as if he expected them to precisely schedule the murderer’s apprehension and arrest.

  “I don’t know,” Riley said. “But we will find him.”

  Danson crossed his arms, looking anything but satisfied, but he said nothing more.

  As she and her two colleagues stepped down off the porch, Riley looked around at the neighborhood. It was getting dark now, and lawn lights were starting to come on to illuminate the houses. She could see the bright orange of a Halloween decoration in front of a house on the other side of the street.

  Halloween was nearly here. Was this killer going to strike again soon? If he did, would it be here, in this same upscale community?

  She asked Sheriff Wightman, “I assume you canvassed the neighborhood after you found out that Allison was missing.”

  Wightman nodded and said, “Like you wouldn’t believe. We interviewed at least half of Aurora Groves. Nobody had any idea what had happened to her.”

  Riley stood thinking for a moment. She felt sure that Wightman and his team had done a thorough job.

  Then Riley said, “I’d like you show me the way Allison would have walked to her friend’s party.”

  Wightman let out a weary sigh.

  “Easier said than done,” he said, pointing. “The Haleys live over that way, less than a half mile from here. But the way these streets curve and interconnect here in Aurora Groves, she might have gotten there in several different ways. Nobody has any idea exactly which route she chose. Of course all of them are just like this, an apparently safe route through the neighborhood.”

  He hung his head, looking exhausted and discouraged. “It’s been a hell of a long day,” he said to Riley and Ann Marie. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m heading home for the night.”

  Riley nodded sympathetically. After the way Allison’s mother had spoken to him just now, Riley was sure he was emotionally at the end of his tether.

  She said to him, “My partner will keep looking around for a while. Just tell me the address of the Haleys’ home. Also, maybe you could recommend a motel where we can stay while we’re here.”

  Wightman told them the information Riley wanted, then headed for his police car. As she and Ann Marie walked away from the house, Riley glanced back and saw that Walker Danson was still standing on the porch. He was staring at them with his arms crossed.

  Riley didn’t like the looks of him.

  Worse, she didn’t like that he had some kind of relationship with Carl Walder.

  Was Danson going to report her progress or lack of it back to the BAU chief, a man who was constantly looking for ways to discredit or even get rid of Riley?

  Nothing bodes well, she thought.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As the two agents walked along a curving street that led away from the Hillis home, Riley wasn’t feeling good about anything they’d accomplished today. They had just left a mother grieving over her daughter’s death and a politician who seemed likely to make trouble for their investigation. They were making no progress on the case

  Looking around at the comfortable, untroubled-looking neighborhood, Riley turned her thoughts to the disappearance of Allison Hillis.

  It happened on a night like this.

  On that Halloween, nearly a year ago, the houses would have looked much as they did now, with macabre Halloween decorations in many of the windows, front porches, and yards.

  As they walked along, they passed a pale ghostly apparition floating from a nearby tree. At another walkway, a standing figure suddenly came to life, greeting them with an evil cackle and brightly lit eyes.

  “O-o-oh,” Ann Marie squealed. Then she laughed. “I love the ones that are activated by motion detectors. These people really go all out with decorations.”

  Riley knew that her townhouse neighborhood would have some jack-o’-lanterns set out, mostly to indicate where kids might stop for treats. That seemed incredibly tame compared to this.

  As they passed another house, a lighted life-sized plastic skeleton grinned at them from the yard. The white bones and bare skull echoed a more grisly sight they had encountered just hours ago. Apparently that decoration even made Ann Marie uncomfortable

  “Well” the rookie said, “I guess this family would have no way of knowing about …” Her voice trailed off for a moment. Then she became more cheerful. “Of course, on Halloween night, there would have been a lot of people out and about—all kinds of costumed kids roaming these streets knocking on doors. It’s a perfectly charming neighborhood.”

  Riley wasn’t feeling charmed. It was be getting darker out by the moment, and she found something odd about the way lawn lights illuminated these immaculate houses.

  The houses look like toys, Riley realized.

  Had the killer thought the same thing?

  Had these houses seemed unreal to him—and perhaps the people inside as well?

  Had that feeling of unreality made it easier for him to abduct and kill a young woman from this neighborhood? Riley wished she had a stronger sense of who the killer was and what had driven him.

  Was he really threatening to kill again—and if so, where?

  So many unanswered questions.

  Meanwhile, she found that she didn’t know what to say to her young partner. Should she congratulate Ann Marie and perhaps even thank her for how she’d handled Lauren Hillis a few moments ago?

  She couldn’t make up her mind. She winced a little as she remembered that moment when Ann Marie had taken the woman’s hand.

  It was wholly inappropriate, she thought.

  And yet the results had proven to be productive. Lauren had opened up and answered questions much more readily than Riley had dared hope.

  More than that, Ann Marie had helped the woman come to terms with the simple fact of her daughter’s death.

  Still, the whole episode had left Riley feeling uneasy. For one thing, she felt troubled about Ann Marie’s sheer skill at handling such an emotionally fraught moment. Remembering how Ann Marie had spoken softly, patting the woman’s hand, something now occurred to Riley. />
  She hadn’t sensed any true empathy from her partner.

  No real feeling.

  Like a true mortician, Ann Marie had seemed to go through the motions of comforting a bereaved parent with consummate skill, and yet without feeling anything herself. She couldn’t help but think of Ann Marie as emotionally shallow and insincere. She didn’t strike Riley as possessing the maturity needed to really succeed as a BAU agent. And yet …

  Everybody seems to like her.

  Everybody except me.

  Riley doubted very much that she was going to warm up to this rookie before this case was solved. And she found herself hoping that she’d never have to work with her again.

  Before Riley knew it, they’d arrived at the house where the Haley family had held their Halloween party last year.

  Ann Marie broke the silence again. “The sheriff is right. We could have taken any of several routes to get here.”

  Riley stifled a sigh as she looked at the house. She realized she’d been distracted by her complicated feelings about her new partner. It wasn’t like her to let her thoughts drift like that.

  “What do we do now?” Ann Marie asked.

  Riley shrugged. “Walk back to the car, I guess. Take a different route along the way. If we don’t see anything, we should probably call it a night. We can get a fresh start tomorrow morning.”

  As Riley and Ann Marie wended their way back toward their car, Riley noticed a small, well-lit park that extended along a side street. She felt a tingle of interest.

  Pointing, she said, “Let’s head over there.”

  “Why?” Ann Marie said. “There’s no way the girl would have walked in that direction. That park is not on the way to her friend’s house at all. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite direction.”

  “I want to go there anyway.”

  “But it doesn’t make any sense,” Ann Marie said.

  Riley felt a flash of impatience. Ann Marie clearly didn’t understand that Riley sometimes acted on pure instinct, without any rational reasons. Her hunches didn’t always prove to be right, but they often steered her in the right direction.

  Riley said, “Look, it’s OK with me if you don’t want to come along. Go back to the car if you like.”