by Blake Pierce
O N C E S T A L K E D
(A RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY—BOOK 9)
B L A K E P I E R C E
Blake Pierce
Blake Pierce is author of the bestselling RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes ten books (and counting). Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising six books (and counting); of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising five books; and of the new KERI LOCKE mystery series, comprising four books (and counting).
ONCE GONE (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #1), BEFORE HE KILLS (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1), CAUSE TO KILL (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 1), and A TRACE OF DEATH (A Keri Locke Mystery—Book 1) are each available as a free download on Amazon!
An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.
Copyright © 2017 by Blake Pierce. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright d1sk, used under license from Shutterstock.com.
BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE
RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES
ONCE GONE (Book #1)
ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)
ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)
ONCE LURED (Book #4)
ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)
ONCE PINED (Book #6)
ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)
ONCE COLD (Book #8)
ONCE STALKED (Book #9)
ONCE LOST (Book #10)
MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES
BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)
BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)
BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)
BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)
BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)
BEFORE HE FEELS (Book #6)
AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES
CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)
CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)
CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)
CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)
CAUSE TO SAVE (Book #5)
KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES
A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)
A TRACE OF MUDER (Book #2)
A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)
A TRACE OF CRIME (Book #4)
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
PROLOGUE
Colonel Dutch Adams looked at his watch as he strode through Fort Nash Mowat, and saw that the time was 0500 hours on the dot. It was a brisk, dusky April morning in Southern California, and all appeared as it should.
He heard a woman’s voice yell out sharply …
“The garrison commander is present!”
He turned in time to see a training platoon snap to attention at the female drill sergeant’s command. Col. Adams paused to return their salute and continued on his way. He walked a little faster than before, hoping not to attract the attention of other drill sergeants. He didn’t want to interrupt more training platoons as they gathered in their formation areas.
His face twitched a little. After all these years, he still wasn’t quite used to hearing female voices snapping out commands. Even the sight of mixed-gender platoons sometimes startled him a little. The Army had definitely changed since his own days as a teenaged recruit. He didn’t like many of those changes.
As he continued on his way, he heard the barking voices of other drill sergeants, both male and female, calling their platoons into formation.
They don’t have much punch anymore, he thought.
He could never forget the abuse spewed by his own drill sergeant so many years ago—the savage invectives against family and ancestry, the insults and obscenities.
He smiled a little. That bastard Sergeant Driscoll!
Driscoll died many years ago, Col. Adams recalled—not in combat as he’d surely have preferred, but of a stroke brought on by hypertension. In those days, sky high blood pressure had been an occupational hazard of drill sergeants.
Col. Adams would never forget Driscoll, and as far as Adams was concerned, that was how things should be. A drill sergeant ought to make an indelible imprint on a soldier’s mind for the rest of his life. He ought to present a living example of the worst kind of hell a soldier’s life had to offer. Sergeant Driscoll had definitely had that kind of lifelong impact on Col. Adams. Were the trainers under his command here at Fort Nash Mowat likely to leave that kind of impression on their recruits?
Col. Adams doubted it.
Too damn much political correctness, he thought.
Softness was now even written into the Army’s training manual …
“Stress created by physical or verbal abuse is non-productive and prohibited.”
He scoffed as he thought of the words.
“What a load of crap,” he murmured under his breath.
But the Army had been moving in this direction since the 1990s. He knew he ought to be used to it by now. But he never would be.
Anyway, he wouldn’t have to deal with it much longer. He was a year away from retirement, and his final ambition was to make brigadier general before then.
Suddenly, Adams was distracted from his musings by a puzzling sight.
The recruits of Platoon #6 were milling around aimlessly in their formation area, some doing calisthenics, others just idly talking among themselves.
Col. Adams stopped in his tracks and yelled.
“Soldiers! Where the hell�
�s your sergeant?”
Flustered, the recruits jumped to attention and saluted.
“At ease,” Adams said. “Is somebody going to answer my goddamn question?”
A female recruit spoke up.
“We don’t know Sergeant Worthing’s whereabouts, sir.”
Adams could hardly believe his ears.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” he demanded.
“He never showed up for formation, sir.”
Adams growled under his breath.
This didn’t sound like Sergeant Clifford Worthing at all. In fact, Worthing was one of the few drill sergeants that Adams had any real use for. He was a real hard-ass of the old school—or at least he wanted to be. He often came to Adams’s office to complain about how the rules reined him in.
Even so, Adams knew that Worthing bent the rules as much as he could. Sometimes the recruits complained about his rigorous demands and verbal abuse. Those complaints pleased Adams.
But where was Worthing right now?
Adams waded among the recruits into the barracks, passing between the rows of beds until he got to Worthing’s office.
He knocked sharply on the door.
“Worthing, are you in there?”
No one replied.
“Worthing, this is your CO, and if you’re in there, you’d damn sure better answer me.”
Again no one replied.
Adams turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.
The office was immaculately neat—and no one was there.
Where the hell did he go? Adams wondered.
Did Worthing even show up on the base at all this morning?
Then Adams noticed the NO SMOKING sign on the office wall.
He remembered that Sergeant Worthing was a smoker.
Had the drill instructor just stepped out for a smoke?
“Naw, it can’t be,” Adams grumbled aloud.
It didn’t make sense.
Even so, Adams stepped out of the office and headed for the back door of the barracks.
He opened the door and stood staring into the early morning light.
He didn’t have to look long or hard.
Sergeant Worthing was crouched with his back against the barracks wall, a burned-out cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
“Worthing, what the hell …?” Adams snarled.
Then he recoiled at what he saw.
At Adams’s eye level was a large dark wet blotch on the wall.
From that blotch, a continuous smear trailed down to where Worthing was crouched.
Then Adams saw the dark hole in the middle of Worthing’s head.
It was a bullet wound.
The entry wound was tiny, but the exit wound had taken off much of the back of Worthing’s skull. The man had been shot dead, standing there smoking an early morning cigarette. The shot had been so clean that the drill sergeant had died instantly. Even the cigarette had remained in his mouth undisturbed.
“Jesus Christ,” Adams murmured. “Not again.”
He looked all around. A large empty field stretched out behind the barracks. The shot had been fired from some great distance. That meant it had been fired by a skilled marksman.
Adams shook his head with disbelief.
His life, he knew, was about to become complicated—and extremely aggravating.
CHAPTER ONE
Riley Paige stood looking out an open window of her townhouse. It was a lovely spring day, one of those storybook days with birds singing and flowers blooming. The air smelled fresh and clean. And yet a lurking darkness kept tugging at her.
She had the strange feeling that all this beauty was somehow terribly fragile.
That’s why she kept her hands hanging at her sides, as if she were in a shop full of delicate china, and a single wrong move might break something lovely and expensive. Or maybe it was as if this perfect afternoon were just a paper-thin illusion that would fall away at the touch of a hand only to reveal …
What? Riley wondered.
The darkness of a world full of pain and terror and evil?
Or the darkness that lurked inside her own mind—the darkness of too many ugly thoughts and secrets?
A girlish voice interrupted Riley’s musings.
“What are you thinking about, Mom?”
Riley turned around. She realized that she’d momentarily forgotten the other people in her living room.
The girl who had spoken was Jilly, the skinny thirteen-year-old Riley was in the process of trying to adopt.
“Nothing,” Riley said in reply.
Her handsome former neighbor Blaine Hildreth smiled at her.
“You certainly seemed to be far away,” he said.
Blaine had just arrived at Riley’s home with his teenaged daughter, Crystal.
Riley said, “I guess I was just wondering where April is.”
It was a matter of some concern. Riley’s fifteen-year-old daughter hadn’t come home from school yet. Didn’t April know that they had plans to go to Blaine’s restaurant for dinner shortly?
Crystal and Jilly grinned at each other mischievously.
“Oh, she’ll be here soon,” Jilly said.
“Any minute now, I’ll bet,” Crystal added.
Riley wondered what the girls knew that she didn’t know. She hoped April wasn’t in some sort of trouble. April had gone through a rebellious phase and had endured a lot of trauma a few months ago. But she seemed to be doing much better now.
Then Riley looked at the others and realized something.
“Blaine, Crystal—I haven’t asked if you wanted something to drink. I have some ginger ale. And bourbon if you’d like that, Blaine.”
“Ginger ale would be nice, thank you,” Blaine said.
“For me too, please,” Crystal said.
Jilly started to get up from her chair.
“I’ll go get some,” Jilly said.
“Oh, no, you don’t need to,” Riley said. “I’ll get it.”
Riley headed straight to the kitchen, rather pleased to have something like this to do. Serving refreshments would normally be the job of Gabriela, Riley’s live-in Guatemalan housekeeper. But Gabriela had the day off and was visiting friends. Gabriela sometimes made Riley feel spoiled, and it was nice be able to fetch drinks for a change. It also kept Riley’s mind focused on the pleasant present.
She poured glasses of ginger ale for Crystal and Blaine, and also for herself and Jilly.
As she carried the tray with the drinks back into the living room, Riley heard the front door open. Then she heard April’s voice talking to someone she’d brought in with her.
Riley was handing out the drinks when April came in, followed by a boy about April’s age. She looked surprised to see Blaine and Crystal.
“Oh!” April said with a gasp. “I didn’t expect—”
Then April reddened with embarrassment.
“Omigod, I completely forgot! We were going out tonight! I’m so sorry!”
Jilly and Crystal were giggling. Now Riley understood the reason for their amusement. They knew already that April had a new boyfriend, and that she’d probably forgotten all about dinner because she was so preoccupied with him.
I remember what that was like, Riley thought, wistfully remembering her own adolescent crushes.
Pleased that April had brought him over to introduce him, Riley eyed the boy quickly. She immediately liked what she saw. Like April, he was tall, gangly, and rather awkward looking. He had bright red hair, freckles, sparkling blue eyes, and a goofy, amiable smile.
April said, “Mom, this is Liam Schweppe. Liam, this is my mom.”
Liam offered Riley his hand to shake.
“Very pleased to meet you, Ms. Paige,” he said.
His voice had an amusing teenaged-boy squawk to it that made Riley smile.
“You can call me Riley,” she said.
April said, “Mom, Liam’s—”
April stopped short, apparently not ready to
say “my new boyfriend.”
Instead she said, “He’s captain of the high school chess team.”
Riley’s amusement was growing by the minute.
“So you’re teaching April to play chess, I take it,” she said.
“I’m trying,” Liam said.
Riley couldn’t help but chuckle a little. She was a pretty good chess player herself, and for years she’d been trying to get April interested in the game. But April had always rolled her eyes at the idea and considered chess to be perfectly uncool—a “mom thing” that couldn’t possibly interest her.
Her attitude seemed to have changed now that a cute boy was involved.
Riley invited Liam to come and sit down with the others.
She told him, “I’d offer you something to drink, but we’re all just getting ready to head out to dinner.”
“The dinner that April forgot about,” Liam said, his grin widening a little.
“That’s right,” Riley said. “Why don’t you come too?”
April’s blush deepened.
“Oh, Mom …” she began.
“‘Oh, Mom’ what?” Riley said.
“I’m sure Liam’s got other plans,” April said.
Riley laughed. She was obviously getting into “uncool mom” territory again. It seemed that April was ready to introduce Liam to her, but a family dinner was rushing things as far as she was concerned.
“What do you think, Liam?” Riley asked.
“Sounds great, thanks,” Liam said. “Where are we going?”
“Blaine’s Grill,” Riley said.
Liam’s eyes lit up with excitement.
“Oh, wow! I’ve heard great things about that place!”
It was Blaine Hildreth’s turn to grin.
“Thanks,” he said to Liam. “I’m Blaine. I own the restaurant.”
Liam laughed.
“Cooler and cooler!” he said.
“Come on, let’s all get going,” Riley said.
*
A little while later, Riley was enjoying a delicious dinner with April, Jilly, Blaine, Crystal, and Liam. They were all sitting on the patio at Blaine’s Grill, enjoying the lovely weather as well as the wonderful food.
