Once Hunted

by Blake Pierce

  “We’ve obviously got a few things to discuss,” Walder said in an ironic tone. “I’ve asked for Agent Creighton to join us.”

  For a moment, Riley wondered what he meant. Had Agent Creighton flown up to Quantico in the wee hours of the morning?

  But no, Creighton’s face suddenly appeared in the middle of the display. The meeting was, in fact, a video conference call.

  Riley noticed that Craig Huang wasn’t included in this call. Riley wasn’t surprised. She remembered Huang’s words of agreement when Riley called the misguided interview with the Steadmans to an end.

  “We’ve got no more questions.”

  He’d been reasonable. He’d backed Riley up. So like Meredith, he was excluded from this meeting. Huang probably wasn’t in anywhere near as much trouble as Riley, but he was definitely being kept on a tight leash.

  Walder swiveled in his chair to face the screen.

  “Agent Creighton,” Walder said, “I’d like you to tell Paige and Jeffreys what you reported to me yesterday.”

  Creighton could hardly hide a smirk of smug satisfaction.

  “Agent Paige and her partner muscled their way into an interview,” she said. “Craig Huang and I were questioning Gilbert and Cheryl Steadman, the son and daughter-in-law of the murdered fisherman, in their home. The couple was hiding something, I’m sure of it. They knew something about Orin Rhodes. And if Agent Paige had let me ask just a few more questions—”

  Bill interrupted in an angry voice.

  “Now wait a minute. I was there. I saw what was going on. Agent Paige made the right call. The interview was going nowhere. The Steadmans had never heard of Orin Rhodes until that very day.”

  Riley wanted to shush him. But she knew that it would do no good.

  “Really?” Walder asked, leaning across the table toward Bill. “And just how did you know that?”

  “I just know!” Bill said. “Agent Paige and I have got some three decades of experience between us. We know what we’re doing. Our instincts are solid and our judgment is sound. Agents Huang and Creighton were just kids when we joined the Bureau. And frankly, Agent Creighton is acting like a kid right now—a rank amateur.”

  Creighton was finding it harder and harder to conceal her gloating.

  She said, “Maybe you’re right, Agent Jeffreys—about the Steadmans, I mean. But we’ll never know now, will we? We tried to go back to pick up where we left off, but they won’t talk to us now. What would have been the harm of letting me ask just a few questions?”

  Bill snapped, “You were causing unnecessary distress to a grieving son and his wife. You were on the verge of treating them like criminals. And if Agent Paige hadn’t put a stop to it, you’d have started accusing them of lying.”

  Walder glared across the table at both Riley and Bill.

  “It was Creighton’s call, not yours,” he said. “You had no business being there at all.” Turning to the screen, he added, “Agent Creighton, I want you and Huang to stay in South Carolina. See if you can get anybody else to talk. If the Steadmans are keeping any secrets, somebody in that town knows about it—friends, family, or neighbors.”

  “We’ll get right on it,” Creighton said.

  “Thank you, Agent Creighton. That will be all for now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Creighton said, beaming with pleasure as she disappeared from view.

  Walder now turned his full indignation against Riley.

  “Agent Paige, do I need to remind you of your deadline? You’re now almost twenty hours behind schedule. I sent you to South Carolina to catch Shane Hatcher. You blew your opportunity. God only knows where he’s gone by now. What were you thinking?”

  Riley felt her face reddening with humiliation and anger.

  She said, “I’m thinking that Orin Rhodes has tasted blood for the first time in sixteen years,” she said, her voice shaking. “And he’s remembering how much he likes it. He’s just itching to do it again. And you’ve got two rookies chasing their own tails instead of stopping him. We all need to be together on this, sir. It’s going to take our whole team to bring him in.”

  Walder shook his head.

  “Agent Paige, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re in cahoots with Hatcher.”

  Riley’s patience was gone. She was on the verge of letting forth a stream of profanities. Bill stopped her with a nudge of his elbow.

  She took a deep breath and was silent for a moment. Then she took out her badge and gun and put them on the table.

  “Here,” she said to Walder. “I take it that these are what you’re really after.”

  Walder looked like he was trying not to chuckle.

  “Keep those, Agent Paige,” he said. “You’ll be needing them, at least for now. I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself.”

  Redeem myself! Riley fought back another string of curses.

  Walder continued, “You and Agent Jeffreys are going after Hatcher—in earnest this time. The first thing you’ve got to do is figure out where he is. Once you do, you’ll go there and apprehend him, once and for all.”

  Then, after a pause, he said, “That will be all. I’ll be expecting results by later today.”

  For a moment, Walder just stood there with a sneer on his freckled face.

  Then he added, “Oh, and Happy New Year.”

  Riley and Bill got up and walked out of the conference room.

  “Bill, I’m so sorry I got you mixed up in my problem,” she said.

  Bill laughed.

  “Hey, don’t mention it. One of these days, I’ll be the loose cannon, and you can return the favor.”

  Riley laughed a little as well.

  “Besides,” Bill added, “you’re right, and that baby-faced creep back there and his groveling protégé are wrong. We both know that.”

  Riley felt a lump of emotion in her throat as she walked at Bill’s side. She had no words to express her gratitude for his constant loyalty.

  “Have you had breakfast?” Bill asked. “Maybe we can go somewhere to eat, talk about our next move over some coffee.”

  Riley shook her head.

  “I think I just need an hour or so to myself,” she said. “I need to clear my head and think about where we go from here. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  She and Bill parted, and she headed straight to her office. On her desk inside lay a flat FedEx envelope. The return address was in South Carolina. The name of the sender was “S. H. Friend.”

  Riley had to catch her breath. She knew in an instant that the package was from Shane Hatcher.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Riley stood there staring down at the envelope, momentarily paralyzed with indecision. She was certain that it was from Shane Hatcher and that it might contain clues to his whereabouts. She thought that she should probably open it in the presence of another agent and list it as evidence. But she didn’t want to wait. And she definitely didn’t want to show the contents to Walder, at least not until she knew what those contents were.

  She also knew that she was grappling with deeper issues than mere procedure. Opening this package alone and keeping it to herself might push her over a dangerous threshold that she didn’t yet understand. But she simply couldn’t imagine showing it to Walder right away. That might be the professional thing to do, but it wasn’t an option.

  Her hands trembling, she tore the envelope open.

  Inside, she found three things—a sealed manila envelope, a white letter-sized envelope, and a large photograph. The photo was a picture of a smiling large-boned man sitting on a beach. Neatly written on the picture was a date—the day before yesterday—followed by a short message.

  Wade Rosone sends his best regards from … ? As the song says, “You can’t make old friends.”

  Riley recognized the face right away. She’d just seen this man’s photograph in Walder’s multimedia display. Wade Rosone was none other than the book truck driver who was missing and presumed dead.

  So Hat
cher hadn’t killed him after all. The picture and the message gave Riley a pretty good idea of what had happened. Wade Rosone had been an “old friend,” and a willing accomplice to Hatcher’s escape. Hatcher had rewarded him with a pleasant retirement in some tropical paradise.

  Riley had no idea where the money had come from. But Hatcher hadn’t acted like someone short on funds. Now it seemed likely that he had somehow hoarded away an illicit fortune over the years. It occurred to her that he was probably a smart investor and that he would have ways of building up hidden bank accounts even from prison.

  I’ll never get to the bottom of all his secrets, Riley thought.

  The question was, did she even want to?

  Next she tore open the manila envelope. It contained a small handwritten note, pierced by a colorful fishing fly attached to a short length of fishing line. The note said:

  Dedicated to Riley Paige … I’m just getting started.

  Riley could see at a glance that this handwriting was not Hatcher’s. She wondered why that was. And what was the fishing fly supposed to mean?

  Then something started to dawn on her. She remembered how lately she’d had a puzzling feeling that Rhodes had left the murder scene by the lake strangely incomplete.

  Now she understood. Rhodes had actually left this note hooked by the fishing fly onto Kirby Steadman’s body. But when Hatcher had arrived at the scene a short time later, he’d snatched the message away. And here at last were the note and the fishing fly—grim souvenirs sent to Riley by Hatcher himself.

  But why? Riley wondered.

  It didn’t make sense. Hatcher had told her that he escaped solely to help her stop Rhodes. How had it been helpful to keep this note until just now? If anything, it seemed the opposite of helpful. It was as if Hatcher were toying with Riley, playing some kind of game with her.

  She ripped open the smaller envelope. In it was a message in Hatcher’s own handwriting.

  Something is hidden in the room that never sees the sun.

  Look inside the Cell.

  And always ask yourself …

  “Am I already? Or am I becoming?”

  She sighed with discouragement. Hatcher was communicating again in riddles. But the last words seemed especially personal, cryptic, and disturbing.

  “Am I already? Or am I becoming?”

  She had no idea how to answer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  A little while later, Riley and Bill were on the FBI plane again, headed for Upstate New York. Riley alone understood the real reason why.

  After reading Hatcher’s message a few times, she thought she understood at least part of what he had meant. Surely the “room that never sees the sun” and “the Cell” referred to Rhodes’ cell at Sing Sing. Hatcher seemed to be telling Riley that she’d find some vital clue there. So that was where Riley had to go.

  Of course, she couldn’t tell Walder anything about the package. And telling Bill would only put him at risk. So she’d convinced Walder that she and Bill needed to go back to Sing Sing in order to investigate Hatcher’s escape. Walder had arranged for the use of the jet right away.

  She was grateful that Bill wasn’t asking her any questions.

  Once the jet reached cruising level, Riley opened her laptop and dialed up April for a video chat. April answered, looking even more irritated than she had before.

  “I just thought I’d check in on you,” Riley said. “We haven’t talked for a day or two.”

  April rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, I guess you know it’s New Year’s Eve. Aren’t you even coming by?”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I can’t. I’m on a plane right now and I’ll be out of the state.”

  “Yeah, well, this sucks more and more by the minute.”

  “Has your father come by again to see you?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah. He comes every day.”

  Riley had mixed feelings about this. At long last, Ryan was showing true fatherly devotion. But was it really a good idea for him to show up at the safe house every day? What if someone was watching him? Riley wondered if maybe she should contact him and warn him about possible dangers. On the other hand, his visits were surely helping April to get through a bad situation.

  “Daddy said he would come by sometime today,” April continued. “But he has a party to go to later.”

  “April, I know this is unfair to you.”

  April blurted, “Mom, if I don’t get out of here soon, I’m going to go batshit crazy. Don’t get me wrong, Tara and Lucy are both great. But I’m so cooped up. I feel like I can’t breathe.”

  “You’ve got to be patient for just a little while longer,” Riley said.

  “But how long is that?” April asked.

  “As long as it takes,” Riley said. She was startled by a note of impatience in her own voice.

  April was quiet for a moment, then said, “So you’re on a plane?”

  “Yeah.”

  “On your way to catch a bad guy?”

  “I’m on my way to Sing Sing prison looking for clues.”

  April’s face had been growing more sullen by the second. Now she sounded angry.

  “A prison, huh? Well, book me a room there, OK? It’s got to be better than this place. I mean, as long as I’m never going home again—”

  “April, that isn’t fair. I’m doing everything I can—”

  But April didn’t give Riley a chance to say more.

  “Goodbye, Mom,” she said. Then she ended the call.

  Riley sat there staring at the computer screen. She heard Bill’s voice.

  “Kid trouble?”

  She looked over to where Bill was sitting. He’d been poring over his own laptop. Riley shook her head.

  “I can’t say I really blame her,” she said. “She didn’t ask for all this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Bill said, with a warm smile of concern.

  Riley didn’t reply. She couldn’t help but think that Bill was wrong. There had to have been something she could have done to keep April out of this terrible situation.

  Even so, she smiled back at Bill. His sympathy meant the world to her—especially at a time like now. Again, she felt a flush of gratitude that he was in her life.

  But she felt a pang of guilt as well. Although Bill hadn’t said so, Riley felt sure that he knew that she wasn’t telling him something. And yet here he was, at her side as always, not pressing her for details.

  She felt a sudden unreasonable and impossible urge to change that.

  “Bill, I want you to tell you—”

  But Bill silenced her by raising his finger to his lips.

  “Shh,” he said. “No need.”

  Then he turned his attention back to his computer.

  Riley felt strangely breathless, as if staggered under the weight of Bill’s loyalty. As she sat there watching him work, she found herself remembering late last year, when April had fallen into the hands of Joel Lambert. Bill had been at her side then as well. And he’d done her a favor that had troubled her conscience ever since.

  She remembered that fateful moment when she and Bill had found April, heavily drugged in a sordid room with Joel and a repulsive man who intended to have sex with her. Riley had implored Bill with a look to leave her alone with Joel.

  With a simple nod, Bill had cuffed the would-be john and left the room. Riley had seized the opportunity to cause Joel gratuitous harm. The young man’s hand would probably never heal properly.

  No one knew what had happened except Joel himself, whose word meant nothing, and Bill. There would be hell to pay even now if anyone at the BAU ever found out about it. But she knew—absolutely knew—that she could trust Bill with the secret for the rest of their lives.

  She briefly wondered, would she do the same for Bill in a similar situation?

  It was a ridiculous question. She knew she would, without a second’s pause.

  But had it been the right thing for him to do? No—not if ethics and protocol
had any meaning whatsoever. So had Riley’s demand on Bill’s loyalty forever tainted his integrity?

  Loyalty takes some dark forms, she realized.

  Loyalty also sometimes came at a terrible personal cost.

  She turned away from Bill and closed her eyes. She found herself thinking again of Hatcher’s cryptic riddle.

  And always ask yourself …“Am I already? Or am I becoming?”

  She still didn’t know what the words meant. But she didn’t doubt that they were full of meaning. She also sensed that their meaning would become blazingly clear with some terrible self-revelation.

  And then there was the song quote:

  “You can’t make old friends.”

  Was that how Hatcher was starting to see Riley—as an old friend, like Wade Rosone, bound by ties of savage, amoral loyalty?

  And might he be right?

  Riley tried to force such thoughts from her mind.

  Get your head in the game, she told herself.

  She and Bill would be at Sing Sing soon. Riley still had no idea what she might find there. She hoped that it would be something to lead her toward Orin Rhodes, the criminal she wasn’t even supposed to be tracking.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Riley could tell that Guard Captain Garth Pyle didn’t like her the moment she and Bill entered his office at Sing Sing. She didn’t know why, but felt sure that she would soon find out. He was a powerful-looking man with a gravelly voice.

  “Agent Riley Paige, huh?” Pyle grumbled after she and Bill introduced themselves. She detected a sneer in the curl of his lips.

  “I take it you’ve heard of me,” Riley said.

  “Oh, yeah. You’re Shane Hatcher’s friend. Everybody here knows about your little visits. Tell me, what’s Hatcher up to these days? Do you two stay in touch?”

  Riley felt stung. The words were sarcastic, of course. Now she understood the feeling of hostility she was getting from him. The fact that she’d been in contact with a now-escaped prisoner didn’t endear her to the prison staff.