Once Forsaken (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 7)

by Blake Pierce

  “Agent Paige, I don’t know about this.”

  “It’s important.”

  “I’m sure it must be, but—”

  “But what?”

  Van was looking truly worried now.

  “Agent Paige, whether you know it or not, your friendship or kinship or whatever the hell it is with Shane the Chain is something of an FBI legend. Everybody says it’s dangerous. They think it’s crazy that you’re mixed up with him. Everybody’s scared of him—I mean truly petrified. From what I know about him, I’m scared of him.”

  Riley was startled. Van wasn’t the type to get squeamish. He usually relished breaking the rules.

  “Van, I just want you to find him. I’m not asking you to actually deal with him personally.”

  Van shook his head.

  “I get that. It’s not the point. Agent Paige, I like you. I like working with you. Hell, I admire you. But when you play with Hatcher, you’re playing with fire. For your sake, I just can’t be a part of it.”

  Riley could hardly believe her ears.

  Van, you picked a hell of a time to get principled, she thought.

  But she didn’t say so aloud.

  “Van, I wish you’d—”

  “No. That’s all I’ve got to say, just no. This is too crazy even for me. Look, I’m going to hang up now. I’m going to forget we ever had this conversation. If anybody asks me about it, I’ll deny it ever happened. You’d better do the same.”

  Van Roff ended the call.

  Riley just sat there staring at the computer screen, feeling desperately alone.

  She swallowed another drink, then poured another.

  *

  Riley was in darkness again—the deep darkness of a vast garage. She heard her own footsteps echoing through the darkness.

  She knew what to expect next—or she thought she did.

  She was about to see one of the victims hanging in a pool of light, surrounded by framed family pictures.

  Instead, a rustic cabin appeared in the midst of the darkness.

  She recognized the place right away.

  It was her father’s cabin up in the Appalachian Mountains.

  The front door to the place slowly opened.

  An embittered-looking old man came out, wearing the full dress uniform of a Marine colonel.

  It was Riley’s father. She was surprised to see him in his uniform. Hadn’t he retired from the military many years ago?

  Then she realized …

  … her father had died last October.

  He was walking away from the house, heading into the surrounding darkness, not looking at Riley.

  “Daddy,” Riley called out.

  He stopped walking but still didn’t look at her.

  “I thought you were dead,” Riley said.

  “I am,” her father growled. “That’s why I’m leaving.”

  He pointed to the cabin.

  “That’s your place now,” he said. “I left it to you. You’d damn well better start taking care of it.”

  Riley remembered—Daddy had left the cabin to her in his will. She didn’t know why. She had nothing but bitter memories of the place. She hadn’t even gone there since he’d died. She didn’t know why he hadn’t left it to her older half-sister.

  “You should have left it to Wendy,” Riley said.

  “What do you care about her?” Daddy said.

  Riley didn’t know what to say. The truth was, she hadn’t seen Wendy in many years. She’d talked to Wendy once on the phone after Daddy died. It hadn’t been pleasant.

  “Wendy was with you when you died,” Riley said. “You used to beat her black and blue, but still she took care of you at the end. She was kind to you. I never was. She deserved something from you. You should have left her the cabin.”

  Daddy let out a growl of a laugh.

  “Yeah, well, life sure is unfair, isn’t it?”

  He pointed to the cabin.

  “Anyway, it’s not mine anymore, it’s yours. If you don’t go in there and fix things up, you’ll be lost. Nobody in the world can help you.”

  With a snarl he added, “Not that I give a damn.”

  He turned away from her and walked off into the surrounding darkness.

  Riley stood facing the cabin.

  I’ve got to go in there, she told herself.

  But she felt paralyzed.

  She couldn’t move from her spot.

  And she was terrified—as terrified as she could remember ever being.

  Riley awoke at the sound of a knock at the door. Morning light was shining in through the windows. She realized that she’d fallen asleep at her desk and had been there all night.

  She managed to grunt, “Come in.”

  April poked her head inside.

  “Jilly and I have had breakfast already. We’re on our way to school.”

  “OK,” Riley said.

  April didn’t leave. She looked at Riley with concern. Riley was sure that she noticed the near-empty bourbon bottle sitting right beside her.

  “Are you OK?” April asked.

  Riley managed to smile weakly.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “You kids hurry along.”

  April left, closing the door behind her.

  Riley’s head was splitting. She needed to clean herself up a bit, then go downstairs and get some coffee. But before she could get up from her chair, her phone rang. It was Bill.

  He said, “I just want to talk over what we’re going to do today.”

  Riley didn’t reply.

  Bill said, “I can’t help but feel like the killer’s right under our noses, hiding in plain sight. I’m thinking maybe you and Lucy and I should interview the electrician again—Pike Tozer. We may have been wrong about him. I can find out if he’s going to be working on campus today. If not, we can find out where he’ll be and—”

  Riley interrupted.

  “I’m not coming in today.”

  “What?”

  Riley struggled to find the right words.

  But there were no right words.

  “I can’t, Bill. Not today.”

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  Riley struggled against her tears.

  “You and Lucy go. I won’t be any good to you today. You’ll do better without me.”

  A silence fell.

  Then Bill asked, “Have you been drinking?”

  Riley couldn’t bring herself to reply.

  “Jesus,” Bill said. He sounded angry now. “OK, take today off, get yourself together. Let me know when you’re ready to get back to work.”

  Bill hung up.

  Riley sat there miserably, still determined not to cry, trying to decide what to do.

  Then she remembered the dream she’d just awakened from, and something her father had said.

  “If you don’t go in there and fix things up, you’ll be lost. Nobody in the world can help you.”

  She also remembered her terror as she’d stood outside the cabin.

  I’ve got to face it, she thought.

  Riley got up from her desk and headed for the bathroom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  The effects of Riley’s hangover lifted as she drove through the Shenandoah Valley. But her dread remained.

  As always, she was struck by the beauty of Virginia farmland. She’d always had a special liking for this country in this kind of weather—the thinning blanket of snow, the starkness of the trees without leaves, the monochromatic grayness of it all.

  Still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to enjoy it.

  It had always been like this during her rare visits to her father when he’d still been alive—a feeling that things were going to be ugly between them.

  And of course, that feeling had always been right.

  But why now? she wondered.

  Her father wasn’t there anymore—not there to fight or argue or engage in his own unique talent for cruelty.

  So why was she so apprehensive
?

  Then she realized—she dreaded his very absence.

  Irrationally, she feared that his disembodied cruelty might still have a life of its own up there, still haunting the place.

  As she turned off the highway and made her way up into the Appalachian Mountains, there was more remaining snow on the ground than down below. She also saw some ice on the streams that she drove by, but the back roads were clear.

  She passed through one last little town, then followed a dirt road that wound its way upward among bare trees and occasional boulders. This was the only part of the drive where the snow hadn’t been cleared. But even so, the driving wasn’t very difficult.

  The road ended at the cabin—the sturdy wooden structure that she’d seen in last night’s dream. As she pulled to a stop, she was startled to see that her father’s battered old utility vehicle was still there, covered with a layer of snow. Wood was still stacked near the tree stump in front of the cabin—wood he had cut for heat and cooking through the winter. He’d never had a chance to use it all up.

  More weeds than usual were poking up through the snow. Riley knew that the weeds would overrun the place in the spring. She needed to do something with the place before then.

  As she got out of the car, she half-expected her father to come walking down from the wooded hills behind the place. He might be carrying a couple of freshly shot squirrels, which he would sling into a basket that was still beside the front door.

  But of course he wouldn’t be here now.

  She stood by her car and looked all around. The cabin was surrounded by deep forest. She knew that her deed to the place included some thirty acres that backed up to National Forest property. She had no idea if the land had any value, hadn’t given it any thought.

  Why did he leave it to me? she wondered yet again. Why not to Wendy?

  Poor Wendy. Riley couldn’t help but pity her. When Wendy was young Daddy had beat her whenever he was annoyed, and she had finally run away. And yet at the end, Wendy was at his deathbed and had arranged his funeral.

  She’d come back to him like a loyal dog.

  Riley, by contrast, hadn’t even gone to his funeral.

  She walked to the cabin door and found that it was locked. That would have been unusual when her father was still alive. In this out-of-the-way place, there was no need to worry about intruders.

  Fortunately she had the key. The lawyer who had settled the estate had mailed it to her after she signed and returned the necessary papers.

  She turned the key, but hesitated before opening the door.

  She remembered that spasm of terrible fear she’d felt in her dream last night at the prospect of going inside.

  She felt some of that fear again.

  Going in there seemed momentous somehow.

  But she gathered her courage, opened the door, and stepped inside.

  It was dim in the cabin. The only light was coming in through the small windows. She was struck by the familiar warm and pleasant woody smell from the pine paneling. The place looked a bit more rundown now, but she didn’t see much that had actually changed. What was missing was the enormous, fierce vitality of her father’s presence.

  But that vitality had been on the wane during her last visit.

  She looked at the stool where he’d been sitting when she last came in here. Grizzled and stooped, his face pasty and pale despite the heat from the wood-burning stove, he’d been deftly skinning a dead squirrel. Several naked squirrel carcasses had been piled up next to him.

  She’d known at a glance that he was deathly ill. He coughed all through their visit, sometimes uncontrollably. But he wouldn’t talk about it. The visit had been grim enough without such talk. They’d even come to blows. In his weakened state, she’d defeated him easily.

  She remembered what she’d said to him after that—the last words she ever spoke to him.

  “I don’t hate you, Daddy.”

  The words weren’t the least bit conciliatory. They were harsh and cruel. She’d known it when she’d said them. They’d crushed him with a feeling of his own failure.

  Although he’d beaten Wendy, he had saved his worst for Riley. Instead of laying a hand on her, he’d demeaned, belittled, and insulted her in every way he could. He’d hoped to make her as unfeeling as himself—and invulnerable to any kind of hurt.

  He’d failed, of course.

  Now she said it aloud.

  “I don’t hate you, Daddy.”

  In her mind, she could see his devastated face when she’d said those words.

  It served him right, she thought.

  But she also felt a lingering pang of guilt.

  She pushed the feeling away and reminded herself that she was here for a reason.

  She was here “to fix things up”—or so Daddy had said in last night’s dream.

  She still didn’t know what needed fixing or how.

  There was a roll-top desk next to a wall. Riley had never looked inside it. She opened the desk, and the first thing that caught her eye took her by surprise.

  It was a framed picture of herself and Wendy and their mother. Riley looked like she must have been about four, and Wendy in her teens. Both girls and their mother looked happy.

  When were we ever happy? Riley thought.

  She couldn’t remember.

  Instead, painful memories came flooding back.

  She remembered her despair when Wendy left home for good. Riley had only been five, and Wendy had been fifteen. She hadn’t seen her sister since. How old was Wendy now?

  Oh, yes, she thought. Fifty.

  What did she look like now?

  What had her life been like?

  Riley had no idea.

  Worse was the memory of her mother’s death, which happened a year after Wendy’s disappearance.

  Suddenly it felt as though it had all happened yesterday.

  Mommy had taken her to a candy store. She’d been spoiling six-year-old Riley, buying her all the candy she wanted.

  But then a man with a gun and a nylon stocking over his head demanded Mommy’s money.

  She’d been too terrified to comply, too terrified to move.

  The man shot Mommy, who died at Riley’s feet.

  Riley trembled all over at the memory.

  Daddy had never forgiven Riley—as if a six-year-old could possibly have saved Mommy’s life.

  And somehow, deep inside, Riley had always accepted the blame.

  Riley rummaged around in the desk. Its drawers and compartments were stuffed with receipts and lists and such. But poking out of one compartment was a folded piece of paper. It looked almost as if it were intended to be found.

  Riley took it out and unfolded it.

  What she saw took her breath away.

  It was an unsent letter written to her.

  It began …

  Dear Riley

  The rest of the letter consisted of crossed-out beginnings of sentences.

  You never were much of a

  I’ve always known you’d never

  Ever since you were little you’ve failed to

  I’ve always been disappointed that

  I don’t know why I ever hoped that you

  There were at least twenty more cross-outs. But at the end, the one-word signature was not crossed out.

  Dad

  Riley understood perfectly.

  Her father had written exactly the letter he’d intended to write.

  And he’d left it here for Riley to find.

  A sob exploded out of Riley’s throat. Her tears fell on the paper, smudging the ink.

  This was it—the thing she had come here to find.

  In a letter that said precisely nothing, her father had succeeded in saying everything there was to say about their relationship—not just their mutual hatred, but the mysterious kinship they’d shared.

  No, it wasn’t love.

  There wasn’t a word for their dark and powerful bond.

  So it could only
be communicated in crossed-out words.

  Riley collected herself and folded the letter and put it in her pocket.

  She looked around the cabin.

  “Goodbye, Daddy,” she said.

  She knew that she was saying goodbye to the cabin too. She had no need to come here anymore. She’d give the place to Wendy if she’d take it. If not, Riley would sell it and put the money in the bank. It would be a good way to start a college fund for the girls.

  She walked to the door and opened it.

  She almost collapsed from shock at what she saw.

  Standing outside, facing her with a sinister smile, was Shane Hatcher.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Shane Hatcher always cut a disturbing figure, with his dark and knowing smile, his sturdily built frame, and dusky features. But suddenly turning up here was even more alarming to Riley than his other unannounced appearances.

  “Riley Paige,” Hatcher said. “Fancy finding you here.”

  As usual, he was taunting her, feigning surprise.

  How did he get here? Riley wondered.

  Then she noticed a car parked a short distance down the road. She realized that he’d followed her here, perhaps all the way from home. Overcome by her father’s letter, she hadn’t heard the car’s approach.

  “It’s been too long,” Hatcher said.

  “It hasn’t been long enough,” Riley said in a grim, tight voice.

  In fact, it had been just about a month since they’d met face to face.

  Hatcher tilted his head in an expression of mock self-pity.

  “Oh, Riley, that’s not a very nice thing to say. It’s seemed like a long time to me. I’ve felt neglected.”

  Then he added with a sarcastic chuckle, “I do have feelings, you know.”

  “What are you doing here?” Riley asked.

  Hatcher shrugged.

  “I was under the impression you wanted to talk.”

  Now Riley understood. Hatcher had seen her attempt to contact him, but had decided to ignore the call. He’d preferred to meet her under his own sinister terms—face to face and in the flesh. And now here she was, all alone in the mountains with the most dangerous man she’d ever known.

  But she knew that the danger he posed to her wasn’t likely to be physical.