by Blake Pierce
Riley was happy to hear Mike’s friendly voice.
“Not at all, Mike. Thanks for calling.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Better, I think.”
Riley didn’t know what she would have done without Mike’s help. After Riley had gotten April away from Joel, yesterday had been a bedlam of emergency services, medical treatments, and police reports. Yesterday evening Mike had arranged for April to be admitted here to the Corcoran Hill Health and Rehab Center.
It was much nicer than the hospital. Even with all the necessary equipment, the room was attractive and comfortable. Through the window Riley could see trees on well-manicured grounds.
Just then, April’s doctor came into the room. They ended the call as Dr. Ellis Spears entered, a kindly-looking man with a youthful face but a few telltale gray hairs.
He touched April’s hand and asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Not great,” she said.
“Well, give yourself some time,” he said. “You’re going to be fine. Ms. Paige, could I have a word with you?”
Riley nodded and followed him out into the hall. Dr. Spears looked over some information on his clipboard.
“The heroin is almost cleared out of her system now,” he said. “The boy gave her a dangerous dose. Fortunately, it leaves the bloodstream quickly. She’s not likely to have any more physical withdrawal symptoms. The distress she’s going through right now is more emotional than physical.”
“Is she going to …?” Riley couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.
Fortunately, the doctor understood what she wanted to know.
“Relapse or have cravings? It’s hard to say. First-time heroin use can feel wonderful—like nothing else in the world. She’s not an addict at this point, but she’s not likely to forget that feeling. There’s always a danger that she’ll be drawn back to the glow it gave her.”
Riley grasped what the doctor was getting at. From now on, it was going to be vitally important to keep April away from any possibility of drug use. It was a terrifying prospect. April now admitted to smoking pot and taking pills—some were apparently prescription painkillers, very dangerous opioids.
“Dr. Spears, I—”
For a moment, Riley had trouble forming the question that was on her mind.
“I don’t understand what happened,” she said. “Why would she do something like this?”
The doctor smiled at her sympathetically. Riley guessed that he heard this question quite often.
“Escape,” he said. “But I’m not talking about a complete escape from life. She’s not that kind of user. In fact, I don’t think she’s really a user by nature at all. Like all teenagers, she runs really short on impulse control. That’s simply a matter of an immature brain. She really liked the short-term high those drugs gave her. Fortunately, she hasn’t used enough to do herself any lasting harm.”
Dr. Spears thought silently for a moment.
“Her experience was unusually traumatic,” he said. “I’m talking about how that boy was trying to exploit her sexually. That memory alone might be enough to keep her away from drugs for good. But it’s also possible that emotional distress could be a dangerous trigger.”
Riley’s heart sank. Emotional distress seemed an unavoidable fact of family life these days.
“We need to watch her for a few days,” Dr. Spears said. “After that, she’ll need lots of care, rest, and help with self-analysis.”
The doctor excused himself and continued on his rounds. Riley stood in the hall, feeling alone and troubled.
Is this what happened to Jilly? she wondered. Could April have ended up like that desperate child?
Two months ago in Phoenix, Arizona, Riley had rescued a girl even younger than April from prostitution. An odd emotional bond had formed between them, and Riley had tried to stay in touch with her after placing her in a shelter for teenagers. But a couple of days ago, Riley had been notified that Jilly had run away. Unable to return to Phoenix, Riley called an FBI agent there for help. She knew the man felt indebted to her, and she expected to hear from him today.
Meanwhile, at least Riley was where she needed to be for April.
She was headed back toward her daughter’s room when she heard a voice call her name from down the hallway. She turned and saw the worried face of her ex-husband, Ryan, coming toward her. When she’d called him yesterday to tell him what had happened, he’d been in Minneapolis working on a court case.
Riley was surprised to see him. Ryan’s daughter tended to be low on his list of priorities—lower than his job as a lawyer, and much lower than the freedom he was now enjoying as a bachelor. She’d doubted that he would even show up.
But now he rushed toward Riley and hugged her, his face full of concern.
“How is she? How is she?”
Ryan kept repeating the question, making it difficult for Riley to reply.
“She’s going to be all right,” Riley finally managed to say.
Ryan pulled out of the embrace and looked at Riley with an anguished expression.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry. You told me that April was having problems, but I didn’t listen. I should have been here for both of you.”
Riley didn’t know what to say. Apologies weren’t Ryan’s style. In fact, she’d expected him to heap all sorts of blame on her for what had happened. That had always been his normal way of dealing with family crises. Apparently, what had just happened to April was terrible enough to affect him. He had surely already talked with the doctor and learned the whole awful story.
He nodded toward the door.
“Can I see her?” he asked.
“Of course,” Riley said.
Riley stood in the doorway and watched as Ryan rushed to April’s bed and took her in his arms. He held his daughter tight for a few moments. Riley thought she saw his back heave with a single sob. Then he sat down beside April and held her hand.
April was crying again.
“Oh, Daddy, I messed up so bad,” she said. “You see, I was going through this thing with this guy—”
Ryan touched her on the lips to quiet her.
“Shh. You don’t need to tell me. It’s all right.”
Riley felt a lump form in her throat. Suddenly, for the first time in a very long time, she felt as if the three of them were a family. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Was it a sign of better times to come, or yet another build-up to disappointment and heartbreak? She had no idea.
Riley watched from the doorway as Ryan gently stroked his daughter’s hair, and April closed her eyes and relaxed. It was a touching sight.
When did things go so wrong? she wondered.
She found herself wishing she could turn back time to some crucial moment when she’d made some terrible mistake, and do everything differently so that all this would never have happened. She felt pretty sure that Ryan was thinking much the same thing.
It was an ironic thought, and she knew it. The killer she had taken down the day before yesterday had been obsessed with clocks, posing and arranging his victims like hands on a clock face. And now here she was, with her own yearnings about time.
If only I could have kept Peterson away from her, she thought with a shudder.
Like Riley, April had been caged and tormented by that sadistic monster and his propane torch. The poor girl had been struggling with PTSD ever since.
But the truth was, Riley knew that the problem went back further than that.
Maybe if Ryan and I had never gotten divorced, she mused.
But how could that have been avoided? Ryan had been distant and disengaged both as a husband and a father, aside from being a philanderer. Not that she held him solely to blame. She’d made her own share of mistakes. She’d never struck the right balance between her FBI work and being a mother. And she’d not seen a lot of the warning signs that April was headed for trouble.
Her sadness deepened. No, she couldn’t
think of one particular moment when she could have changed everything. Her life had been too full of mistakes and missed opportunities. Besides, she knew perfectly well that she couldn’t turn back time. There was no point in yearning for the impossible.
Her phone rang, and she stepped out into the hallway again. Her heart beat faster when she saw that the call was from Garrett Holbrook, the FBI agent who had taken on the search for Jilly.
“Garrett!” she said, taking the call. “What’s going on?”
Garrett answered in his characteristic monotone.
“I’ve got good news.”
Riley immediately started to breathe easier.
“The cops picked her up,” Garrett said. “She’d been on the street all night without money or anywhere to go. She got caught shoplifting at a convenience store. I’m with her at the police station right now. I’ll post bail, but …”
Garrett stopped. Riley didn’t like the sound of that word, “but.”
“Maybe I should let her talk to you,” he said.
A few seconds later, Riley heard the familiar sound of Jilly’s voice.
“Hey, Riley.”
Now that Riley’s panic was ebbing away, she was starting to get mad.
“Don’t ‘hey’ me. What did you think you were doing, running off like that?”
“I’m not going back there,” Jilly said.
“Yes, you are.”
“Please don’t make me go back there.”
Riley didn’t reply for a moment. She didn’t know what to say. She knew that the shelter where Jilly had been staying was a good, nurturing place. Riley had gotten to know some of the staff, who had been very helpful.
But Riley also understood how Jilly felt. The last time they’d talked together, Jilly had complained that nobody wanted her, that foster parents kept passing her over.
“They don’t like my past,” Jilly had said.
That conversation had ended badly, with Jilly in tears begging for Riley to adopt her. Riley had been unable to explain the thousand reasons why that was impossible. She hoped this conversation wasn’t going to end the same way.
Before Riley could think of what to say, Jilly said, “Your friend wants to talk to you.”
Riley heard Garrett Holbrook’s voice again.
“She keeps saying that—she won’t go back to the shelter. But I’ve got an idea. One of my sisters, Bonnie, is thinking of adopting. I’m sure that she and her husband would love to have Jilly. That is, if Jilly—”
He was interrupted by squeals of delight from Jilly, who kept yelling, “Yes, yes, yes!” over and over again.
Riley smiled. It was just the kind of moment she needed right now.
“Sounds like a plan, Garrett,” she said. “Let me know how it works out. Thanks so much for all your help.”
“Any time,” Garrett said.
They ended the phone call. Riley stepped back into the doorway and saw that Ryan and April were now carrying on what seemed to be a carefree conversation. Things suddenly seemed so much better. For all of her failings, and Ryan’s too, they’d given April a much better life than many other kids had.
Just then she felt a hand on her shoulder and heard a voice.
“Riley.”
She turned and saw Bill’s friendly face. As she stepped away from the doorway to talk with him, Riley couldn’t help glancing back and forth from her longtime partner to her ex-husband. Even in his current state of distress, Ryan looked like the successful lawyer that he was. His blond good looks and smooth manners opened doors for him everywhere. Bill, as she had often realized, looked more like she did. His dark hair showed touches of gray and he was more solid and much more rumpled than Ryan. But Bill was competent in his own areas of expertise and he had been much more dependable in her life.
“How’s she doing?” Bill asked.
“Better. What’s going on with Joel Lambert?”
Bill shook his head.
“That little thug really is a piece of work,” he said. “He’s talking, anyway. He says he knows some guys who made a lot of money off of young girls, and he thought he’d give it a try himself. No signs of remorse, he’s a sociopath to the bone. Anyway, he’ll definitely be convicted and get jail time. He’ll probably do a plea deal, though.”
Riley frowned. She hated plea deals. And this one was especially upsetting.
“I know how you feel about that,” Bill said. “But my guess is he’ll talk up a storm, and we’ll be able to put a lot of bastards away. That’s a good thing.”
Riley nodded. It helped to know that some good was going to come out of this terrible ordeal. But there was something she needed to talk about with Bill, and she wasn’t sure how to say it.
“Bill, about my coming back to work …”
Bill patted her on the shoulder.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “You can’t work cases for a while. You need to take some time off. Don’t worry, I understand. So will everybody at Quantico. Take as much time as you need.”
He looked at his watch.
“I’m sorry to rush off, but—”
“Go,” Riley said. “And thanks for everything.”
She hugged Bill, and he left. Riley stood in the hallway, thinking about the near future.
“Take as much time as you need,” Bill had said.
That might not be easy. What had just happened to April was a reminder of all the evil that was out there. It was her job to stop as much of it as she could. And if she’d learned one thing in life, it was that the evil never rested.
CHAPTER TWO
Seven weeks later
When Riley arrived at the psychologist’s office, she found Ryan sitting alone in the waiting room.
“Where’s April?” she asked.
Ryan nodded toward a closed door.
“She’s with Dr. Sloat,” he said, sounding uneasy. “They had something they needed to talk about alone. Then we’re supposed to go in and join them.”
Riley sighed and sat down in a nearby chair. She, Ryan, and April had spent many emotionally demanding hours here during recent weeks. This would be their last session with the psychologist before they all took a break for the Christmas holidays.
Dr. Sloat had insisted that the whole family participate in April’s recovery. It had been hard work for all of them. But to Riley’s relief, Ryan had taken part wholeheartedly in the process. He’d come to all the sessions that he could fit into his schedule, and he’d even scaled back his work to make more time for this. Today he’d driven April here from her school.
Riley studied her ex-husband’s face as he stared at the office door. In many ways, he seemed like a changed man. Not long ago, he’d been inattentive to the point of serious delinquency as a parent. He’d always insisted that all of April’s problems were Riley’s fault.
But April’s drug use and her much-too-close brush with forced prostitution had changed something in Ryan. After her stay in the rehab clinic, April had been home with Riley for six weeks now. Ryan had visited often and had joined them for Thanksgiving. At times, they seemed almost like a functional family.
But Riley kept reminding herself that they had never really been a functional family.
Could that change now? she wondered. Do I want it to change?
Riley felt torn, even a little guilty. She’d long tried to accept that her own future probably didn’t have Ryan in it. Perhaps there might even be another man in her life.
There had always been some kind of attraction between her and Bill. But they’d also fought and quarreled from time to time. Besides, their professional relationship was demanding enough without throwing romance into the mix.
Her kind and attractive next door neighbor, Blaine, seemed a better prospect, especially since his daughter, Crystal, was April’s best friend.
Still, at times like now, Ryan almost seemed to be the same man she’d fallen in love with so many years ago. Where were things headed? She really didn’t know.
The office door opened and Dr. Lesley Sloat stepped out.
“We’d like to see you now,” she said with a smile.
Riley had long since taken a liking to the short, stocky, good-natured psychologist, and April was clearly fond of her too.
Riley and Ryan both went into the office and sat down in a couple of comfortable upholstered chairs. They were facing April, who sat on a couch beside Dr. Sloat. April was smiling weakly. Dr. Sloat nodded for her to start talking.
“Something happened this week,” April said. “It’s kind of hard to talk about …”
Riley’s breathing quickened and she felt her heart beating faster.
“It’s got to do with Gabriela,” April said. “Maybe she should be here today to talk about this too, but she’s not, so …”
April’s voice trailed off.
Riley was surprised. Gabriela was a stout, middle-aged Guatemalan woman who had been the family’s housekeeper for years. She had moved in with Riley and April and was like a member of the family.
April took a deep breath and continued, “A couple of days ago, she told me something I didn’t tell you. But I think you should know. Gabriela said that she had to leave.”
“Why?” Riley gasped.
Ryan looked confused. “Aren’t you paying her enough?” he asked.
“It was because of me,” April said. “She said she couldn’t do it anymore. She said it was too much responsibility for her to have to stop me from harming myself or getting myself killed.”
April paused. A tear came to her eye.
“She said it was too easy for me to sneak out without her knowing. She couldn’t sleep at night wondering if I was putting myself in danger. She said that now that I was healthy again, she was moving out right away.”
Riley was jolted with alarm. She’d had no idea that Gabriela had been thinking any such thing.
“I begged her not to go,” April said. “I was crying and she was crying, too. But I couldn’t change her mind, and I was terrified.”
April choked back a sob and wiped her eyes with a tissue.
“Mom,” April said, “I actually got down on my knees. I promised never, ever to make her feel that way again. Finally … finally she hugged me and said she wouldn’t leave as long as I kept my promise. And I will. I really will. Mom, Dad, I’ll never make you or Gabriela or anybody worry about me like that ever again.”
