by Blake Pierce
And if I hadn’t stopped him …
She put the knife in her own pocket, shuddering at the thought that she’d surely have been his next victim. The guys were still holding Leon on the floor, so she stepped back and sat down on her futon. She could hear the other students muttering to each other, but didn’t even try to understand what they were saying.
Riley was grateful when she heard the sound of approaching sirens. Everybody in the room was quiet now, waiting for the police to take over.
Soon there came the loud stomping of feet coming up the stairs and then several cops pushed their way past everybody. Riley wasn’t happy to see Officer Steele, who charged into the room and demanded to know what was going on. She was glad to see that he was followed by the woman cop, Officer Frisbie. Then came Officer White and the little room was absolutely jammed with people.
It took Riley a few moments to notice that Agent Crivaro was standing in the doorway. She wanted to explain everything to him, even across the sea of people between them. But no words came.
Riley realized that she was dumbstruck. She simply didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, Gina explained that some partiers had heard fighting in the attic. They had come up here to find that Riley had already subdued the man she claimed had attacked him.
Then Steele barked, “I want all you kids out of here.”
The students obediently went back downstairs. As Officer White handcuffed Leon, Officer Steele read him his rights. Leon kept protesting that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that Riley had attacked him out of the blue.
Even Steele didn’t seem to think that likely. He and White led Leon away into custody.
Riley drew a deep sigh of relief. The only people left there with her were Officer Frisbie and Agent Crivaro. Frisbie sat down beside her, taking out a pencil and a notepad. Crivaro sat in a nearby chair.
“Now tell me what happened,” Frisbie said to Riley in a gentle voice.
Riley gathered her thoughts and told Frisbie everything, starting with when Leon had arrived at the party and ending when the party guests had poured into the room to find her kneeling on Leon’s chest.
As she told her story, she began to worry …
Wasn’t this a classic “he said, she said” kind of situation?
Leon was surely telling a different version of the story to the male cops who had arrested him.
Who were they likely to believe—Riley or Leon?
When she finished her account, Riley said to Frisbie …
“You’ve got to believe me. I’m telling the truth.”
Frisbie chuckled as she put her notebook and pencil back in her pocket.
“Oh, I think your story will hold up just fine,” she said. “The alternative is to believe that you lured an innocent guy up to your room for the sole purpose of beating the shit out of him. How credible is that?”
Riley laughed a little herself.
“Not very,” she agreed.
Then Riley remembered Leon’s pocketknife.
She took it out of her pocket and said, “Officer Frisbie, I found this in Leon’s pocket.”
Frisbie took the knife, opened it, and looked at the blade with keen interest.
Agent Crivaro got up from his chair and said to Officer Frisbie, “I’d like to see that knife.”
Officer Frisbie handed it to him, and he stepped away to study it closely.
Riley said to Officer Frisbie, “He’s the killer, isn’t he? Leon killed Rhea and Trudy.”
Frisbie tilted her head and said, “It doesn’t seem unlikely.”
She patted Riley on the shoulder and said, “You did good, young lady. You did real good. We may have more questions for you later, but don’t worry about it.”
Then Frisbie got up from the futon and took a camera out of her bag.
She said, “Your blouse is torn, and you’re pretty bruised up. I need to get pictures of all that.”
Riley stood up and let Officer Frisbie take pictures.
When she finished, Crivaro said, “Officer Frisbie, I’d like to speak to the girl alone, if I may.”
Officer Frisbie gave him a questioning look, but then she nodded and left the attic. Crivaro paced back and forth in front of Riley, examining the knife.
His silence worried Riley. She wished he’d say something.
Finally she asked, “It’s over, isn’t it? We’ve caught the killer. He’ll never kill anyone again.”
Crivaro shook his head slowly.
He said, “Riley …”
“What?”
“It wasn’t him. That kid never killed anyone in his life.”
Riley’s mouth dropped opened with disbelief.
“How do you know?” she asked.
Crivaro shrugged a little.
“I’ve known more than my share of killers. I can tell. For one thing, he obviously tried to sexually assault you. There was no sexual component to either of the other murders—none at all. And …”
He fingered the knife blade.
“This knife has never been used as a murder weapon. It’s too small and too dull for that kind of thing. The wounds on the victims had to have been made by a much bigger, sharper weapon.”
Riley felt a flash of anger.
She said, “Are you trying to tell me it’s just a coincidence that the guy who attacked me happened to be carrying a knife?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Crivaro said.
Riley started to shake all over.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” she said.
“Well, you better start believing in them,” he said, sounding a bit angry himself. “In my line of work, coincidences are a fact of life. So is a little thing called ‘confirmation bias.’ That’s when you interpret everything you see as evidence for what you want to believe.”
Riley was really shocked now.
Is he patronizing me? she thought.
“It’s him,” she said. “Leon’s the killer.”
Crivaro sighed bitterly.
“You’ve got a decision to make, Riley. Leon is definitely a sexual predator, and he’ll attack more young women if he isn’t stopped right now. Are you willing to bring a charge of attempted rape against him? He’ll get five years to life. And he’ll damn sure deserve it.”
“It was attempted murder,” Riley said. “I’m sure of it.”
Crivaro folded the knife and said, “Yeah, and the local cops are going to think the same thing. They’ll charge him with murder, all right. But they’ll be wrong. And you’ll be wrong too.”
Riley felt her face redden with rage. She was too angry to even speak.
Finally Crivaro said, “I’m going down to the station now. Whatever you decide to do, I’m going to put the fear of God into that bastard. You gave Frisbie a good solid report of what he tried to do to you. If nothing else, I’ll let him know that this incident will be used against him if he ever tries anything like this again.”
He paused for a moment, then said, “Think it over, Riley. Sleep on it.”
Then he went downstairs, leaving Riley alone.
Riley could hardly believe what had just happened.
“Sleep on it,” he told me.
He’s really got some nerve.
She collapsed onto the futon, aching and exhausted, wondering what to do next.
She surely needed to go downstairs and check on things there. The party guests must have dispersed by now, but she needed to find out how her housemates were doing. Then she needed a shower and a good night’s sleep.
If that’s even possible, she thought.
She didn’t feel like anything in her life was any good right now.
There was only one thing that could make things right.
I’ve got to prove I’m right, she thought.
I’ve got to prove that Leon’s the killer.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Riley recognized the familiar sound of Bricks and Crystal blasting out their grunge rendition of “R
ing of Fire.”
It was night. The air reeked with odors of beer and cigarette smoke.
It took her a few moments to realize that she was sitting alone at a table on the patio at the Centaur’s Den. She was watching a crowd of young people thrashing to the music in the dance area.
But the dancers weren’t smiling and happy.
They all looked frightened.
Their movements seemed convulsive and involuntary, as if they didn’t want to be dancing.
She wondered what awful inner force was driving them.
Then the belting music began to get under her own skin. She felt the pull of the dancing, a powerful urge to join the others.
Don’t, she told herself. It’s dangerous. Don’t go out there.
She breathed slowly, deeply, trying to smooth that terrible urge away …
Connect with that ch’i energy, she told herself.
She knew she might need it soon.
As she watched, she saw something dark spreading on the floor, under the feet of the increasingly desperate dancers.
It was blood!
Pools of blood were spreading and widening on the floor where the people were dancing.
She knew she would have to go out there now. She had to find out where the blood was coming from.
Riley rose shakily to her feet and walked toward the dancers. She felt her own shoes sticking in the blood. She kept breathing slowly, resisting the urge to start dancing.
She was among the dancers now, studying their faces closely.
She realized that she had seen them all here before. She didn’t know their names, but their faces were imprinted in her brain.
Then she came across a figure lying on the floor.
It was a girl. Dark, glistening blood was pouring out of a large wound in her throat.
Riley gasped.
Then she saw one of the dancing girls grip her throat as blood spurted out, and she fell writhing to the ground.
The same thing happened to another girl … then another … then another …
While the rest of the dancers kept thrashing to the music, the floor was littered by more girls with their throats cut open, and the blood got deeper.
Someone was murdering them.
Where was he?
How could she stop him?
Her eye darted from one male face to another. If she could just see him, she would know him …
Riley’s eyes snapped open. Daylight was pouring through her attic window.
It was morning, and she’d been asleep in her open futon.
She sat up slowly, startled by the aches and pains she felt. She looked around and saw that the room was a mess. Pieces of the broken lamp were still scattered on the floor.
Memories flooded back of her desperate struggle against her larger male attacker.
She smiled a little as she remembered …
I beat him. I took him down.
But much of the rest of what had happened last night was foggy and vague.
Her head and stomach hurt—and not just from fighting. She remembered that she’d had more than a few beers last night. She might be just a little bit hungover.
I need to get up, she thought. I need coffee.
She pulled on some clothes, straightened herself up a bit in the second-floor bathroom, then continued on to the downstairs kitchen.
There, Gina was busily cooking at the stove.
When Gina saw Riley, she ran over and gave her a big hug. Riley groaned and winced.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Gina said, letting go of Riley. “You must hurt all over. I’m fixing some scrambled eggs. Would you like some?”
“Sure, thanks,” Riley said.
Riley made her way around the kitchen, fetching orange juice from the refrigerator and a cup of freshly brewed coffee. Then she sat down at the kitchen table.
“How did you sleep last night?” Gina asked, dishing out scrambled eggs and slices of toast onto a couple of plates.
“Like a log,” Riley said.
“I’m so glad,” Gina said. “I had a lot of nightmares, myself.”
Riley shuddered as she remembered her dream, but she decided not to mention it.
Gina put the plates on the table and sat down with Riley. Riley realized that she hadn’t yet seen the other three housemates.
“Where is everybody?” Riley asked, starting to eat.
“You missed them, they left a little while ago to get some breakfast somewhere else. They were pretty shaken up, wanted to get out of the house.”
Riley ate in silence for a few moments. She wondered if the others had wanted to avoid seeing her. Maybe they weren’t happy that she had invited a killer to their party and had the cops invade their house.
“Are you sure you’re OK?” Gina asked. Then she added with a nervous giggle, “I mean, it’s OK if you’re not OK. Perfectly understandable. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut.”
Riley shook her head and said, “I’m still trying to sort it all out—everything that happened last night, I mean.”
Gina reached over and touched Riley on the shoulder.
“What happened was—you’re some kind of a hero, Riley! You took out that guy all by yourself! It was amazing. How did you do it?”
Riley felt shrugged. Right now it seemed like a good question …
How did I do it?
Gina continued, “Anyway, you did something really, really good. The cops have got that guy now. He’ll never kill anybody again.”
Riley felt a jolt as she remembered what Agent Crivaro had said …
“It wasn’t him. That kid never killed anyone in his life.”
She remembered how angry his words had made her. And now she started feeling angry all over again.
Crivaro just had to be wrong. How could Leon not be the killer?
He even had a knife! Riley thought.
The local police had seemed as sure of his guilt as she did. It troubled her a lot that Crivaro didn’t think so as well. What if he convinced the local cops that Leon wasn’t the killer after all?
What if they just let him go?
Somehow, she felt responsible for keeping that from happening.
Riley kept on eating, not really paying attention to Gina’s continuing chatter. When she was finished, she thanked Gina for breakfast and left the house.
But she wondered, where did she want to go, and what did she want to do?
All she knew for sure was that she’d left something unfinished—something she had to take care of.
If Leon was really the killer—and Riley felt sure that he was—it was up to her to prove it once and for all. If she didn’t, other people would surely die.
But she had no idea at all how to go about it.
For a while, Riley wandered aimlessly along the tree-lined streets near the campus. Then she was startled to realize that her rambling steps had taken her right past the Centaur’s Den. She stopped and looked around, not sure whether she had come here on purpose or by accident.
She was surprised to see the front door wide open. She was sure the Centaur’s Den didn’t open this early on a Sunday.
But that open door seemed to invite her in.
She shuddered. That was where last night’s dream had taken place. Did she really want to go in there today?
Without answering her own question, Riley went to the open door and peeked inside.
A man in coveralls was mopping the floor. She guessed that he’d left the door open just to air the place out while he cleaned.
She felt a strange tingle of curiosity. She stepped inside and called out to the cleaning man …
“Excuse me, sir …”
The man looked up from his mopping.
Riley thought fast, trying to decide what to say.
“Um, I think I lost a piece of jewelry here last night. Could I come in and have a look?”
“What kind of jewelry?” the man asked.
“A pretty earring. My aunt gave it to
me. It would be awful if I lost it.”
The man shook his head.
He said, “I’ve been cleaning up here, and I haven’t run across anything like that.”
Trying to sound more insistent, Riley said, “It’s really little, you might have missed it. I might have dropped it out on the patio. It might have fallen into one of the potted plants. Please let me have a look.”
The man shrugged.
“Suit yourself, go have a look,” he said, resuming his mopping.
Riley thanked him and walked through the bar toward the patio. When she got to the outside dance floor, she stood there wondering …
What am I trying to do?
What am I looking for?
Then she realized—she needed to re-create what had happened to Trudy on that awful night.
She remembered arriving here with Trudy, then later her alarm at not seeing Trudy among the dancers, followed by her rising panic as she made her way through the bar until she’d finally found her downstairs in the booth with Harry Rampling.
She also remembered what Harry had said about what had happened afterward—how he’d started walking Trudy back to the dorm until he’d been distracted by a couple of buddies, and then Trudy was gone.
He’d been telling the truth, of course. But now Riley found herself wondering …
Was Leon also here that night?
Had he been watching Trudy, stalking her, waiting for a chance to catch her alone?
The nightmare she’d had this morning began to come back to her. In that dream, she’d been able to clearly visualize the dancers’ faces.
Could she do that now?
Standing in the middle of the patio, she closed her eyes and thought back to that terrifying moment when she’d noticed that Trudy was missing. Riley had waded among the dancers looking for her.
She was startled at how vividly the scene came back to her. Just like in her dream, she could see faces clearly—the faces of those who had been on the dance floor that night.
But everything was moving too fast.
She slowed down her impressions, trying to remember, trying to see the individual faces again, one at a time until …
No, she realized. He wasn’t out here dancing.
But on the periphery of her mental vision, something at a nearby table caught her attention.
