by Blake Pierce
Mike paused, and Riley held her breath.
She sensed that he was about to say something she really wasn’t going to like.
Finally he said …
“I think you should look in the mirror.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Mike Nevins’s words cut through Riley like a knife.
“Look in the mirror.”
What could he possibly mean?
Was he accusing her of something?
It sure sounds like it, she thought. At the very least he was implying that she had overlooked some fault of her own.
Mike wasn’t saying anything now. He was waiting for her reply.
She forced a smile and tried to laugh.
“I haven’t got a mirror handy,” she said. “Maybe you should be my mirror.”
Mike heaved a deep sigh.
“Riley, it’s been obvious since I started talking with you. I can see it in your face, I can hear it in your voice. This case isn’t just getting to you, pushing your buttons. It’s hitting you much harder than most cases do. Harder—and deeper.”
Riley felt a lump of emotion form in her throat.
“Something happened today, didn’t it?” Mike asked. “Something that especially shook you up.”
“I pretty much lost it,” she admitted. “I … I went way too hard on a guy we were interviewing.”
Riley hesitated and then blurted out, “It was a flashback to fighting Peterson, and that kind of thing hasn’t happened for a long time. I don’t understand why I did that. I don’t understand why this case is getting to me like this.”
“I don’t completely either,” Mike said. “But it has something to do with time, Riley,” Mike said. “This case is all about time in a way that’s getting the best of you.”
Mike paused, then added, “I want you to do something for me. I want you to do something for yourself.”
Riley gulped hard.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer it without stopping to think, even for a single second. You’re just going to let your thoughts spill out.”
Riley felt slightly reassured.
She’d done this kind of thing with Mike before, and it had always been helpful.
“OK,” she said.
Mike held her gaze for a moment.
“What does time mean to you?”
Riley was shocked by how quickly her thoughts welled up and overflowed.
“I hate it,” she said. “I hate time’s guts. There’s never enough of it. It cheats me at every turn. There are a million and one things I have to do, but never even a fraction of the time I need to do them in. Everyone expects so much from me. I expect so much from myself. I’ve got to be the best damned agent in the world—and the best mother too …”
An image of Blaine Hildreth suddenly popped into her mind.
“… and even the best girlfriend. Because I sure failed as a wife. Am I going to keep failing again and again whenever I try to have a relationship with a man? It makes me want to scream. And time …”
Her words trailed off.
Mike spoke again, his voice soft with concern.
“Riley, you just said that time cheats you. That sounds kind of personal. How is that?”
Now she remembered something else Otis Redlich had said …
“Humankind has been at war with time all along.”
… and she remembered the twisted sneer on his face when he’d said it.
Yes, she thought. Time looks and sounds like just like him.
She said, “Sometimes it’s as if time has a face and a voice, mean and spiteful, looking at me and mocking me, smirking at me, laughing at me. ‘You can’t have it all,’ it keeps telling me. ‘You can’t do it all. Something has to give, someone has to suffer—your kids, your colleagues, or innocent victims who’ll die because you’re busy doing something else. There just isn’t time for everybody.’ Yes, it does feel personal. I feel like I’m the butt of some awful, sick practical joke that time is playing on me.”
Riley felt a stab of anger and despair.
She said, “And I want … I don’t know … fairness or justice or …”
Her voice trailed off again.
Mike said quietly, “Payback?”
She gasped aloud.
“Yes, I think maybe so. I want to get back at time. I want to get even. But I can’t. The idea is ridiculous. Time is just too … big for me.”
A cascade of confusing emotions poured over Riley. She struggled to control herself.
She told herself that bursting into tears would be no help at all. She had to keep her wits about her.
“What … what does it mean?” Riley stammered. “Is this how the killer feels? Does he feel the same despair and anger?”
“Maybe,” Mike said. “If so, maybe you’ll be able to use this as an insight. But he could be quite the opposite. He could feel like he’s controlling time. He could be enjoying that. But this isn’t really about him.”
Mike held her gaze for a moment.
Then he said, “What we’ve been doing is profiling you.”
Riley shook her head anxiously.
“But why? Why right now? Why not on my last case or my next one?”
“Because this is an unusual case, with unusual pressures. It’s already pushing you into emotional exhaustion. And I don’t think you’re going to get through it unless you understand how it’s affecting you.”
Riley nodded silently.
It made sense.
She wished it didn’t, but it did.
“What do I do now?” she asked Mike.
“Pay attention,” Mike said. “Pay as much attention to yourself as you do to the details of the case. More ugly stuff is liable to surface inside you before this whole thing is over. You need to be ready to deal with it.”
A silence fell over the two of them.
I guess that’s all for now, Riley thought.
There seemed to be only one thing left to say.
“Thanks, Mike.”
But the truth was, Riley wasn’t sure how grateful she felt at the moment.
“Any time, Riley,” Mike said. “And I do mean that. Day or night, I’m right here, and I’ll do anything I can to help.”
Without another word, Riley just nodded and ended the video chat.
She sat in the quiet room for a moment, breathing slowly, trying to gather her nerves.
Then she got up from her chair and left the room. She walked out into the hallway where Bill and Jenn were waiting for her.
There was an awkward, quiet moment among them. Riley didn’t know what to say.
How could she explain what she’d been doing for the last few minutes?
Fortunately, neither Bill nor Jenn was asking any questions.
As the three of them walked out of the building toward the SUV, Riley noticed that
Bill was watching her with a concerned expression. By contrast, Jenn had a faraway look on her face.
Riley found herself wondering what was nagging at Jenn today, sometimes even distracting her.
Bill seemed to be doing all right today, but he was undoubtedly still frail from his own recent traumas.
Are they up to this? she wondered.
Was she going to have to be strong for Bill and Jenn as well as herself?
And am I up to it?
“Come on,” Riley said. “Let’s go interview that witness.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Riley was still badly shaken from the troubling conversation she’d just had with Mike Nevins. She sat silently in the passenger seat as Bill drove the SUV through Sattler toward the address they’d been given for the witness. She was glad that Jenn, in the back seat, wasn’t asking any questions right now.
Riley was wondering if calling Mike had been such a good idea after all. She certainly hadn’t expected to be psychoanalyzed.
She remembered something he’d said …
The very idea made her terribly uneasy.
She had no doubt that their conversation had provoked some valuable insights into her own psyche. It had also disturbed her deeply. Was looking inward something she really ought to be doing while working on a murder case—especially one that was so dire and so very urgent?
Mike had seemed to think so. He’d also warned her …
“More ugly stuff is liable to surface inside you before this whole thing is over.”
Riley shivered at the thought. She quickly decided that dwelling on her feelings about time itself hardly seemed productive at the moment. Her own anger and fear could wait. There were plenty of other things to do.
For example, she decided, it would be good to let the witness know they were on their way. This was hardly going to be a raid, and the element of surprise wasn’t needed. Besides, with time so tight it was a good idea to make sure the witness was home.
She punched in the number Chief Belt had given them for Hope Reitman.
When a cheerful woman’s voice answered, Riley introduced herself.
Then she said, “My partners and I would like to ask you a few more questions if we may.”
“About what?” the woman asked.
The question seemed a bit odd to Riley. Wasn’t the answer pretty obvious?
“About the description you gave of the man at the beach this morning,” Riley said.
“Oh,” the woman said.
A short silence followed.
“I answered a lot of questions earlier. I don’t think I left anything out.”
“Even so, we’d like to go over a few things.”
There was another pause, followed by an awkward-sounding laugh.
“OK, I guess,” Hope Reitman said.
“Great. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
The call ended. Riley already sensed something odd about Hope Reitman, something a bit strange in her voice. But she couldn’t put her finger on just what.
As the drive continued, Riley brought up the composite sketch on her cell phone. Again she looked in vain for any distinguishing features.
From behind her, Jenn said, “He sure looks bland and ordinary.”
Riley agreed. The sketch lacked any sign of individualism or personality.
There has to be something, she thought.
Surely the sketch artist had failed to ask the right question to trigger the witness’s memory.
Riley hoped that she, Bill, and Jenn could do better.
The drive took them into a neighborhood not far from Belle Terre. It was more upscale than the area where they’d found Grant Carson. The address itself was in a gated community. A uniformed man stationed in a little booth at the gate asked who they wanted to see.
Bill produced his badge and introduced himself and his colleagues.
“We’re here to talk to Hope Reitman,” Bill said. “She’s expecting us.”
The man looked a little surprised.
“That’s odd,” the man said. “Ms. Reitman didn’t mention you.”
He turned away to talk on a phone for a moment, then turned toward the car again with a smile.
“You can go on in,” he said, pointing. “You’ll find her place in the row at the far end of the parking lot.”
The man opened the gate, and Bill drove them on in.
They were surrounded by rows of pleasant townhouses, some with brick fronts, others of wood. Dusk was setting in, and windows were cheerfully lighted everywhere. A few people moving about the parking lot and green areas glanced their way and then went on about their business. It was clearly a place where inhabitants felt secure.
Bill parked, and the three agents got out. When they reached Hope Reitman’s unit, Jenn rang the bell and the woman buzzed them inside.
Hope Reitman was an imposing, athletic-looking woman wearing loose, comfortable clothes. She had short hair and a warm, welcoming smile. Riley guessed that this witness was just a few years older than she was.
The woman invited Riley and her colleagues inside, where they were greeted by a large, friendly dog—a Malinois, Riley felt pretty sure.
“This is Neptune,” Hope Reitman said, patting the dog’s head. “Don’t worry, he loves visitors. It’s a good thing I’ve got good security and don’t need a watchdog. If burglars showed up, Neptune would just wag his tail happily and show them around the place. Sit down, make yourselves comfortable.”
Riley and her colleagues sat down in large, comfortable chairs. Hope Reitman sat with the dog lying beside her chair. Riley saw that the townhouse was simply but tastefully decorated—and probably expensively. She noticed that much of the decor seemed to have to do with water. There were large original canvases of soothing ocean scenes, countless seashells, and enormous pieces of coral.
Droning, restful New Age music was playing, mingled with the sounds of gulls and waves.
The woman chuckled a little as she followed Riley’s gaze.
“I guess you’ve noticed a water motif here,” she said. “Pisces is my zodiac sign, and I own a chain of gyms throughout the state called Pisces Fitness. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”
Riley nodded. She’d heard good things about the gyms.
She said, “Ms. Reitman—”
“Please, call me Hope.”
“Hope, then—like I said on the phone, we want to talk to you about the person you saw on the beach early this morning. We were wondering if you could give us any further information.”
An odd expression crossed Hope’s face, as if she were a little disturbed by Riley’s query.
“How do you mean?” Hope asked.
Riley said, “The man in the mug shot the police sent to you earlier—it turned out not to be the killer.”
“Oh?”
Riley took out her computer pad and brought up the composite sketch. She got up from her chair and showed it to the woman.
“This is the sketch the artist made from your description,” Riley said.
Hope squinted at the picture.
“Is it really? That’s odd, I … remember the man looking a little different.”
“How so?” Riley said.
“I’m not sure,” Hope said. “Lighter hair, maybe.”
Riley began to worry a little. Had the sketch artist botched the job?
Still holding the sketch in front of the woman, Riley said, “I’d like you to describe exactly what happened this morning. What were you doing on the beach?”
“Oh, Neptune and I go jogging there three mornings a week, at least when the weather is nice. It’s a lovely, peaceful place in the morning. Although I’m afraid it’s been ruined for me after what just happened. I guess I’ll have to find a new place to jog.”
Hope shuddered deeply.
“What an awful thing to have happen,” she said. “And in such a beautiful place, too.”
Jenn asked, “Your dog was with you?”
Hope laughed.
“Oh, yes. Neptune keeps me from getting lost. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
Riley glanced at Jenn, then at Bill. She knew what they both were thinking. Chief Belt hadn’t mentioned that the woman had had a dog with her. It might be an important detail. Just how thorough had the interview been?
Riley said, “I’d like you to talk me through exactly what happened. Which way were you jogging along the beach?”
“South. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but I saw …”
Hope got a faraway look in her eye.
“I saw Rags Tucker’s little hut some distance ahead of me. I saw a man walking around there. I figured it must be Rags. I thought I’d stop by to say hello. I like to talk to Rags. Everybody does. Sometimes Rags and I even do a little business.”
She pointed to a gray twisted piece of wood on a nearby cabinet.
“I got that piece of driftwood from him. Traded an old vase for it. Quite a bargain, really.”
“And t
hen?” asked Riley, anxious to keep the woman focused.
“As I got closer, the man didn’t seem to look like Rags at all. He looked bulkier and too neatly dressed. I wondered what he was doing there. There was seldom anybody else out and around there at that time of morning.”
Hope paused for a moment.
“Then I got a good look at his face.”
She looked again at the composite sketch.
“I’m afraid this just isn’t right. I’m sure the man had lighter hair. And a ruddy complexion.”
Suddenly something didn’t seem right to Riley.
She asked, “You got a good look at his face, you said?”
“Pretty good.”
“How close did you get to him?”
“Oh, pretty close. Ten feet, maybe.”
Riley felt jarred.
She remembered clearly Chief Belt telling her that the witness had been about twenty feet away.
What was wrong here?
She asked, “And you could see his face clearly?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How?”
“Well, it wasn’t very light out yet. But the light definitely fell on his face.”
Riley felt another small jolt. She remembered asking Chief Belt where the witness had been in relationship with the suspect.
She asked, “But wasn’t he between you and the light?”
“No, not at all.”
“So you were running close to the water? Between the water and the wigwam? Not higher up on the beach?”
“I think so. At least I was running nearer the water this morning.”
Riley sat staring at her.
“Is something wrong?” the woman asked, smiling pleasantly.
A strange feeling was starting to come over Riley.
It was as if she were being lulled by her surroundings—the pastel colors of the walls and the peaceful paintings, the soothing music.
Even the woman herself was somehow a lulling presence.
Lulling, Riley thought. And likeable.
A tingling possibility occurred to her.
This woman was large and strong—strong enough to have committed the murders.
Riley flashed back to her impressions of how the murderer had lured the victim on the beach through personal charm, then smiled down into the hole in the woods while pouring dirt over the victim.
