ONCE TRAPPED

by Blake Pierce

  Riley had phoned him in a state of drunken despair, and he could still hear her words as if it were yesterday …

  “I think about you, Bill. And not just at work. Don’t you think about me, too?”

  Riley had wanted to begin an affair while Bill was still struggling to keep his marriage and family together.

  That phone call had almost wrecked his relationship with Riley—both professionally and as a friend.

  We can’t go down that road again, he thought.

  He let go of her hand and patted her on the shoulder.

  “Let’s both just get some sleep, OK?” he said.

  Riley nodded again, took out her key, and went on into her room.

  After the door closed, Bill headed for his own room.

  This case is really getting to Riley, he realized.

  He tried to shake off his concern as he walked into his room.

  He reminded himself …

  There are things I just can’t fix.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Riley was sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat on a hardwood floor in a very large room.

  She was in a circle of maybe twenty women who were seated the same way.

  Or are they real women? Riley wondered.

  They all seemed to be absolutely motionless. Riley saw that none of them even seemed to be breathing. They seemed more like mannequins than real people.

  Suddenly, the air was pierced by a cry of despair.

  Riley turned and saw that the woman sitting next to her had come to life and had burst into tears.

  “He’s a monster,” she said. “My husband’s a monster.”

  She kept on sobbing, and the same thing happened to the woman sitting on Riley’s other side …

  “He’s a monster,” she wailed. “My husband’s a monster.”

  In a matter of seconds, grief and anguish shuddered through the whole circle of women.

  They were all crying out, not in unison but in a chaotic cacophony …

  “He’s a monster. My husband’s a monster.”

  Riley’s eyes quickly fell upon one woman who wasn’t crying and wailing.

  She was sitting directly across from her, but Riley couldn’t see her clearly. Of all the women there, only she seemed to be in shadow.

  But a faint light revealed that the woman’s lips were moving.

  She was saying something, but Riley couldn’t hear it over all the wailing.

  One by one, the women in the circle seemed to become aware of the woman in the shadows.

  One by one, the others fell silent.

  They all stared at the woman in the shadows.

  They all listened.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “I can fix it …”

  Little by little, the words she was saying became clearer …

  “I can make everything better … Just trust me … Just wait … You’ll see … Everything will be better …”

  Now the women were all listening to her in rapt silence. They seemed to be taking comfort in those words.

  And indeed, the voice sounded soothing and gentle.

  But Riley shuddered at the sound of that voice. She heard something that none of the other women could hear.

  It was hatred—insane, murderous hatred and fury.

  She wanted to warn the others not to trust the woman …

  I’ve got to make them understand.

  She opened her mouth but no words came out.

  *

  Riley’s eyes snapped open.

  Where am I?

  She looked around and saw that she was lying in bed in a hotel room.

  Most of the clothes she’d worn yesterday were scattered on the floor. She’d slept in her underwear.

  She struggled to remember. She knew she’d had too much to drink last night.

  She remembered feeling that old attraction to Bill.

  Had they …?

  No. She remembered that Bill had led her back to her room but had left her there.

  Riley felt a flood of gratitude that he had handled things so well. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to deal with the terrible complications of an affair with her best friend and her developing relationship with Blaine.

  Why, she wondered, can’t I ever just have just a simple happy relationship?

  Was it because she was so good at her job?

  But now she wasn’t doing much of a job. She had a sense of dread that this killer wasn’t finished.

  She groaned and sat up in bed. Sunlight was peeping through the crack between the closed curtains.

  She had to get up. Everybody would be expecting her to tell them what they were going to do next. But she didn’t really know what to do next.

  They couldn’t just wait around for another death.

  Before Riley could shake herself completely awake, wisps of sounds and images began to run through her mind. She remembered women wailing. She remembered someone saying, “I can fix it …”

  She realized she’d a nightmare. And like many of her nightmares, it had told her something.

  She shuddered. But she forced herself to remember what she could of it.

  There had been a circle of women sitting on yoga mats …

  One woman had been speaking …

  That was it!

  She had to throw aside her self-doubt.

  She had to trust her instincts …

  The killer really is a woman.

  She really does go to LifeGrasp meetings.

  And somehow, LifeGrasp was the key to finding and stopping the killer.

  Riley scrambled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. She needed a quick shower. She needed to get dressed and call Bill.

  She knew what she was going to do today.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Riley had a strong sense of déjà vu. She was sitting cross-legged on the yoga mat with her eyes closed, just as she had in her dream last night. This time, it was all too real.

  This was the third meeting she’d attended today. Her nostrils felt positively saturated by the smell of incense, and she was sure she’d never get that droning New Age music with wind chimes out of her head.

  She found herself remembering something Jared had said yesterday …

  “Maybe the women were brainwashed into killing by all that New Age crap at LifeGrasp.”

  Riley was wondering if that was such a ridiculous theory after all. She knew that some kinds of meditation could be helpful to agents, especially for relieving stress. She used a form of meditation to get in touch with her own insights. But this program was way too flowery to work for her. The elaborate directions, the persistent music, and the pungent smells were becoming a distraction rather than an aid.

  She was supposed to be visualizing herself in her own dream refuge or sanctuary—sitting beside a running stream, or walking along a misty beach, or sequestered in the safety of a cave illuminated by firelight …

  Or some such place.

  Instead, she kept trying to visualize a serial killer. Her mind was on the case and nothing but the case.

  So, she acknowledged to herself, the problem with all of this might just be me.

  She hoped that attending these meetings wouldn’t be a waste of time.

  But she was starting to have her doubts.

  After last night’s nightmare she’d felt sure that the killer must be a frequent visitor at these meetings. When she’d talked to Bill about it over breakfast, he’d pointed out that the women whose husbands had been killed had gone to three of the four LifeGrasp centers.

  That left one LifeGrasp center unaccounted for—the one located in Marshfield, a wealthy suburb of Atlanta.

  She and Bill had agreed that the killer must surely be going to the Marshfield clinic next, looking for signs that some woman’s husband deserved to die.

  Bill had approved of Riley’s plan to go undercover to all of today’s Marshfield meetings. Right now, Bill and Jared were parked a short distance down the street,
not so patiently waiting for Riley to come out and tell them what she’d found.

  If I find out anything.

  The first two of the meetings had been a bust as far as she was concerned.

  A few of the women in attendance complained of unhappy marriages, but none had indicated the kind of physical or emotional abuse that might attract the killer. A few were actually trying to come to terms with serious issues such as life-threatening illnesses. Some were dealing with serious problems such as opioid or alcohol addiction or eating disorders. But most of these women seemed to be struggling with general feelings of malaise and ennui.

  As Eleanora Oberlander had explained to Riley, all the women had adopted names from myth and legend. Riley herself had chosen the name Penelope simply because it was the first mythic name that popped into her head.

  Riley hadn’t yet had anything to say at the meetings, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to. She preferred to stay as inconspicuous as possible so she could focus on what the other women were complaining about. If she did get stuck talking, she figured she could share some of her own real-life problems—a messy adoption, a messier divorce from an unfaithful husband, and the seemingly hopeless task of juggling work and family.

  LifeGrasp’s one-size-fits-all solution was supposed to fit every situation. That solution was a long process of self-realization and inner transformation.

  Riley was, of course, skeptical—especially knowing as she did that even LifeGrasp’s CEO and founder wasn’t a certified therapist.

  But she couldn’t deny that most of the women were apparently benefitting from the LifeGrasp experience …

  Or at least they think they’re benefitting from it.

  Some of those who spoke were eloquent about the gains they’d made. And maybe that was all that mattered.

  Maybe for some of them LifeGrasp really was all that it was advertised to be.

  It sure had better be, she thought.

  She herself had paid for each of the sessions in cash, and they were damned expensive. She couldn’t imagine spending so much money on something like this on a regular basis. She was glad the FBI was going to reimburse her.

  Eventually the therapist in charge of this meeting, who called herself Minerva, spoke to the group in a gentle voice, coaxing the women out of their visualized sanctuaries and back to the reality of the large meeting room.

  Like everybody else, Riley opened her eyes on Minerva’s final command.

  Then she sat looking around the room. Darkness was falling outside, so the room was lit by candles.

  As she had at earlier meetings, Riley felt a bit disoriented.

  There had been some changes since she’d closed her eyes.

  There were still about thirty women sitting in the circle. But some who had been here before had left, while a few others had just arrived. LifeGrasp meetings seemed to be somewhat porous. Women came and went pretty much whenever they liked.

  Minerva said …

  “Now who would like to share first?”

  A woman on the opposite side of the circle from Riley raised her hand. She called herself Demeter. She started talking about her feelings of abandonment by her grown children.

  Riley fought down a sigh …

  Still no luck.

  When Demeter finished talking, the leader encouraged the rest of the group to offer the woman their affirmations. The women purred out kindly thoughts and wishes, assuring Demeter that she was strong and self-sufficient. Soon Demeter was crying—tears of happiness, Riley felt sure.

  Then a Latina woman who called herself Mayahuel began to talk about her feelings of guilt for having married into prosperity, while others in her family remained poor and struggling. She tried to help them out however she could, she said, but it never felt like enough.

  At Minerva’s coaxing, women assured Mayahuel that she was a beautiful soul who fully deserved of her good fortune, and that she had nothing to feel guilty about.

  Another woman spoke about how she’d given up her dream of becoming a concert pianist, and yet another about how she and her husband were unable to have children, and …

  This is pointless, Riley thought.

  She was about to get up and walk out of the meeting when a woman who called herself Hecate held out her arm and showed a long scratch on her wrist.

  “This happened this morning,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “Harlan did this to me. He’s getting worse and worse. He bruises me and burns me and cuts me and does all kinds of terrible things. Oh, he always apologizes afterward, but I’m sure he has no idea … how deeply he hurts me.”

  Riley listened with keen interest.

  Maybe this is what I’ve been waiting for, she thought.

  Hecate’s voice started to become more shrill and desperate.

  “I don’t know … if I should say this …”

  Minerva told her gently …

  “You can talk to us about anything, Hecate. You know that.”

  Shaking all over now, Hecate said, “I’m so angry. I want to do something terrible. I think I want to …”

  She choked down a sob while the rest of the group waited for her to continue.

  “If he does anything like this again, I’ll kill him. I don’t thing I can stop myself. You know, some wealthy men have been murdered lately. They’re probably cruel to their wives, just like Harlan is to me. Their wives probably did it. I don’t blame them. In fact I …”

  The woman fell silent, too overwhelmed to continue.

  Then Riley heard a voice from nearby.

  “Oh, Hecate, I know this is hard, and you feel helpless. But you won’t be trapped in that pain forever. In fact, this agony won’t go on much longer. Things will be better before you even know it. I promise. I know.”

  Riley looked and saw that the woman was the fourth woman sitting to her left. She must have arrived while Riley’s eyes had been closed.

  Riley recognized her immediately.

  She called herself Eris, and she’d shown up during both of the earlier meetings. Riley had been curious enough about her to look up that name and find out that Eris was a Greek goddess of strife and discord.

  But aside from introducing herself at the other meetings, Eris hadn’t said a word.

  Until just now, Riley thought.

  Eris was brightly dressed in an outfit that matched her mane of red hair. She had a warm smile that reminded Riley of Eleanor Oberlander, except that Eris seemed much more sincere.

  Eris continued to speak comfortingly to Hecate, in an almost eerily soothing voice, assuring her that somehow, as if by magic, her problems would soon be over and she’d no longer be trapped.

  Minerva, the group leader, stood outside the circle smiling, apparently pleased by Eris’s words of comfort and optimism. As for Hecate herself, her anger seemed to melt away, and she smiled through tears of joy.

  Then another woman spoke up. She called herself Aura, and Riley had noticed earlier that her arm was in a sling.

  She looked at Eris and said, “Oh, I believe you, Eris. You’re such a wise soul. I feel like I can believe anything you say.”

  Some of the other woman murmured in agreement. It seemed that Eris was not a total stranger to this group, and that many of the women who came here were quite enchanted with her.

  The woman who called herself Aura pointed to her injured arm.

  “I’ve been lying to people about this,” she said to Eris. “I’ve been saying that I slipped and fell. But my husband, Emil, did this to me. I’m terrified of his rages, but I don’t dare talk about it to anyone outside this group. Please tell me, Eris—should I just keep on lying? What else can I do?”

  Eris smiled at Aura. When she spoke, her words had a joyful, triumphant ring.

  “Trust me, Aura, you won’t have to lie to anybody much longer. You will be free of all this very soon. I promise you.”

  Riley felt a prickle of realization as Eris continued speaking words of comfort.

  Eris is
the killer, she thought.

  She simply has to be.

  And the killer fully intended to fix both these women’s problems—by murdering their husbands.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Riley could barely contain her excitement as she sat through the rest of the meeting. The other women who spoke complained about nonviolent issues, such as the challenges of child rearing and their general despair at the state of the world.

  Eris showed no interest in those other women or their problems. She didn’t say another word.

  When the meeting broke up, the women mingled in groups as they headed out of the house. Riley tried to get close enough to Eris to talk to her, but she was quite popular, with a cluster of women gathered tightly around her.

  Not that it mattered …

  What would I say to her, anyway?

  That I know she’s a killer?

  Riley was nowhere near proving anything of the kind. She needed to find something solid to act on.

  When Riley got outside, she kept her eye on Eris and the two women that Eris had comforted, Aura and Hecate. Aura, the woman with the broken arm, headed toward a BMW where a driver was waiting for her. Hecate walked toward an Audi, and Eris toward a large Mercedes.

  Riley didn’t want the women to notice her writing anything down, so she glanced at the three license plate numbers and made a mental note of each. She’d trained her short-term memory to hold such information in her head, at least for brief intervals. Then as she walked away from the house toward where Bill and Jared were parked, she took out her notebook and jotted the numbers down.

  She jumped into the seat behind Bill and Jared and pointed down the street.

  “Follow that Mercedes,” she said. “I’ll explain in a minute.”

  As Bill started to drive, Riley called up Van Roff on her cell phone. As usual, the technical wizard sounded pleased to hear from her.

  She told him, “I need for you to track down the owners of three vehicles and get back to me about them. Here are their license plates …”

  She read off the numbers to Roff, then told him she was most interested in whoever owned the Mercedes.

  When she ended the call, Bill glanced back at her. “Who were you talking to?”