Once Hunted

by Blake Pierce

  They both chuckled a bit.

  “Let’s check out some places,” her father said.

  They opened April’s laptop, and April’s father started to shop for places to stay.

  “Here are some motels,” he said, pointing to a list.

  April sighed loudly.

  “Oh, Daddy, puh-lease! Not another motel!”

  She took over the laptop and ran a search of her own. She quickly found a listing for a tall house with lots of balconies and porches looking out over the water.

  “Here’s what we need,” she said. “A nice house for rent, right by the water. There’s a garage at ground level, so we can pull right into it and no one will know who is staying there. It’ll be nice, and I bet it’ll be safer than a motel. Nobody will even see us go in there.”

  “You won’t be able to go outside,” her father said.

  “Yeah, I get that. It’s OK. This place has lots of room and a great view. You can go out and do whatever shopping we need, or we can get stuff delivered.”

  April’s father sat staring at the ad for the house. Then with a smile, he quickly started making the reservation. April ran around the room grabbing her belongings.

  “Are you really skipping your party?” April asked.

  “Yes, I am,” her dad said proudly. “I’ll let them know later.”

  He quickly finished up on the computer.

  “OK, that does it,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute!” April said. “We can’t just walk out of here. A couple of agents are sitting in a car outside. We’ve got to tell Darlene.”

  April hurried over to the door between the rooms and opened it. She waved for her father to come over. He didn’t look very confident. April understood why. They were probably about to break a dozen or so rules. She hoped that the two of them could pull it off.

  “My daughter and I are leaving,” April’s father told Darlene.

  Darlene looked completely taken aback.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m taking April someplace else,” he said, his voice sounding surer. “This place is completely unsuitable. And frankly, I don’t think you’re keeping her very safe here. I can do much better.”

  Darlene seemed to be very confused now.

  “Sir, I’m not sure this is your decision to make,” she said.

  “It is my decision, and it’s my right,” April’s father said. “She’s a minor, and I’m her legal parent and guardian. You’ve been keeping her here with my tacit permission. Now I’ve changed my mind.”

  Darlene looked dumbly back and forth between April and her father.

  April’s father added, “I’m a lawyer. I know what I’m talking about.”

  April could see that Darlene was wavering.

  “I should call her mother and let her know,” Darlene said.

  Without stopping to think, April blurted, “We called her already. She agrees with Daddy. She’s fine with us getting out of here.”

  April didn’t dare look at her father. She knew that he was surely horrified by her brazen lie. But at least he didn’t contradict her.

  “All right then,” Darlene said. “I’ll let the agents outside know.”

  She got on her radio and called the agents sitting in the car. April grabbed her bag and ushered her father to the front door, anxious to get out before somebody changed their mind.

  As they walked out into the parking lot, April could see the FBI car parked inconspicuously nearby. She couldn’t see the people inside very well, but at least they weren’t jumping out of the car to stop her.

  “You shouldn’t have lied about your mother,” April’s father said as they headed toward his car.

  April giggled. “What about you? ‘I’m a lawyer. I know what I’m talking about.’ Did you really have any idea whether you had any right to get me out of there?”

  Her father let out a reluctant-sounding chuckle.

  “No, I wasn’t sure, I guess,” he said. “I’m a business lawyer.”

  “OK, then. Let’s get out of here. We can let Mom know after we get there.”

  April felt positively giddy as she climbed into the passenger side of her father’s car. Just knowing that she and Daddy had bluffed their way out of an FBI safe house made this whole thing even cooler.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Riley leaned forward to get a closer look at Amber Turner’s bullet-riddled body. It was night, and she was using her flashlight because the parking lot wasn’t illuminated well enough for examining details. The dead young woman’s wide-open eyes seemed to stare straight at Riley, as if to ask her:

  Why?

  Riley wished she had an answer. But there never really was an adequate explanation for crimes like these. She felt a familiar bitterness in the pit of her stomach.

  Bill stood at her side, adding the beam of his flashlight to her own.

  “Happened in broad daylight,” he said. “It must have been quite a shock to the guy who found her.”

  A restaurant customer had found the body that afternoon. It was splayed in the driver’s seat of an SUV in a parking lot a short distance away from the sports bar. Riley’s flashlight beam fell on a note fastened to the woman’s jacket. She’d been told about that, and she bent closer to read it.

  To Riley Paige … Are you paying attention?

  It was written on the same kind of paper as the note Hatcher had sent her—the note he had snatched from the fisherman’s body. For some reason, Hatcher hadn’t taken the note this time. Even so, Riley was sure that he’d been here. He’d reported the crime to the local police, after all.

  Riley gingerly removed the note from the body and handed it to Bill.

  “Let’s bag this as evidence,” she said.

  As she continued examining the body, Riley wondered whether Walder was right after all. Were Hatcher and Rhodes working as a team?

  Riley took a deep breath and tried to imagine the murder as it had unfolded. Might Hatcher have been the actual triggerman? She simply couldn’t believe it. He’d never used a gun in a crime, and she was sure he hadn’t started now.

  No, Rhodes himself had fired the shots, Riley was sure of that. But had Hatcher participated in some way? Was he the seasoned veteran somehow guiding or mentoring the younger Rhodes? Might he have even stood at Rhodes’ side while he committed the murder?

  It didn’t feel right to her. The more she thought about it, the more she felt sure that Walder was wrong. Hatcher would never team up with a guy like Rhodes—or with anybody else. It just wasn’t in his nature. He was too solitary. And besides all that, she felt sure that Hatcher would consider Rhodes beneath him.

  Nevertheless, the call left no question that Hatcher had been here.

  Riley glanced at the woods along the edges of the parking lot. She knew that the area had been searched already. But Hatcher was nothing if not elusive. Perhaps he was out there watching right now.

  If so, what was he doing here, trailing Rhodes’ every step? And if he wasn’t joining up with the random killer, then why was he tracking him? Or what was Shane Hatcher hunting?

  Peering at the wounds, Bill said, “Looks a lot like Kirby Steadman’s body at the lake.”

  “There are some differences,” Riley said. “The killer wanted Steadman to crawl and plead. He didn’t want that this time. It was broad daylight in a public place. He needed for the victim to stay put.”

  Riley pointed to a wound in the center of the woman’s abdomen.

  “That was his first round,” she said. “It immobilized her but didn’t kill her, didn’t render her unconscious. But even though these shots were fired at point-blank range, they’re a little sloppier than the killing at the lake. He was in more of a hurry, partly because he wanted the victim to be alive the whole time, partly because he was out in the open and might be seen. The suppressor on his gun kept the noise down.”

  Bill added, “The noise from the bar would have covered the slight soun
d his pistol did make.”

  Riley pointed to the wound in the forehead.

  “The last round hit there.”

  A local cop walked toward Riley and Bill.

  “That guy over there wants to talk to you,” he said.

  He pointed to a young man sitting on a low wall just beyond the yellow crime scene tape.

  Riley and Bill walked over to him. Riley thought she detected a family resemblance to the unfortunate woman in the SUV—the same dark curly hair, the same roundish facial shape. He looked deeply stunned.

  “I’m Riley Paige, FBI,” she said, showing him her badge. “This is my partner, Bill Jeffreys. What’s your name, sir?”

  “Roy Turner,” he said in a low, mechanical voice. “I’m … I was … Amber’s brother.”

  “Did you witness the murder?” Bill asked.

  The man shook his head.

  “I got a call soon after … it happened. I came over. I’ve been sitting here since I got here.”

  He fell silent for a moment.

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” Bill said.

  The man nodded silently again.

  “You wanted to talk to us?” Riley said.

  “Well, yeah,” the man said. “What do you know? Who did this? Why?”

  Riley fought down a discouraged sigh. There it was again, that question:

  Why?

  She crouched down in front of him and spoke in a soothing tone.

  “Mr. Turner, I’m sorry to say this, but we don’t know anything for certain yet. You must try to be patient.”

  He looked at her with a pleading expression.

  “But surely you’ve got some idea,” he said. “This is just a little town. How long is it going to take?”

  Riley’s heart went out to the young man. But she knew she had to weigh her words carefully. As much as she wanted to promise him that there would be answers soon, she simply couldn’t do that.

  She was grateful when Bill spoke up.

  “Do the police have your contact information?” he asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Then I think you should go home,” Bill said. “You should try to get some rest. You’ll be contacted as soon as we know anything.”

  Without another word, the man numbly got to his feet and walked away.

  Riley heard the crackle of a police radio. A local cop came over to her and Bill.

  “You’re wanted in the bar,” he said.

  Riley nodded. As she and Bill headed toward the bar, Riley looked over at the medical examiner. He and his team were standing next to their van, waiting patiently. Riley nodded as a signal that they could take the body away and the team strode efficiently toward the SUV.

  Riley and Bill went inside the bar. Emily Creighton and Craig Huang had gotten here earlier. They had turned the bar into an improvised command center for local cops and a couple of FBI agents from the Jacksonville field office.

  A handful of customers and employees had been kept here for further questioning. Riley and Bill walked over to Creighton and Huang, who were sitting at a computer.

  “We’re looking at the bar’s surveillance video,” Creighton said.

  “Any luck?” Bill asked.

  “The quality is lousy,” Huang said.

  Riley looked at the screen and saw that Huang was right. Whoever had installed the camera outside obviously hadn’t expected it to be used for such a dire purpose. The image was grainy, and the angle gave a better view of the tops of people’s heads than of their faces. Many of the people in those images, especially the men, looked exactly alike. The video wasn’t likely to be very helpful.

  Riley looked around the bar at the people who had been waiting. She picked out a person to talk to—a beefy guy on the edge of being overweight. She could tell by his face that he was normally happy and outgoing. Now he looked terribly distraught. The expression seemed rather incongruous on that particular face.

  Riley introduced herself and Bill.

  “I’m Marty Hollister,” the man said. “I was bartending when I saw all the cops outside. I didn’t know what had happened until I came out and saw—”

  He couldn’t finish the sentence. Riley sensed the reason for his anguish.

  “She was your girlfriend, wasn’t she?” Riley said.

  Marty Hollister nodded.

  “We’re very sorry,” Bill said.

  Riley took out her cell phone and brought up a photo of Shane Hatcher.

  She said, “Could you tell me if you saw this man today? Either in the bar or elsewhere?”

  Hollister shook his head as he looked at the large, dark, and imposing man in the picture.

  “I think I’d notice that guy,” he said. “We don’t get a lot of strangers in here. Apex isn’t any kind of tourist town. There’s nothing for people to see or do.”

  Then Riley brought up a prison photo of Orin Rhodes.

  “What about this man?” Riley asked.

  Hollister squinted at the photo.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I saw her waiting on a guy before she left. I didn’t recognize him, so I don’t guess he was from around here. He looked pretty ordinary, and I didn’t really pay much attention. He could have been this guy, I guess. But his hair was darker. And he had some stubble on his face.”

  Riley felt encouraged. But before she could ask any more questions, she heard Creighton call out.

  “Jeffreys, Paige—get over here. Walder’s on video chat.”

  Riley and Bill sat down at the table with Creighton and Huang. Walder’s disagreeable face glared from Creighton’s laptop.

  “What have you got?” Walder asked the team tersely. “It had better be good. We’re under huge pressure to bring in Hatcher.”

  Riley stifled a groan. Walder’s fixation on Hatcher instead of Rhodes was really annoying her.

  “I was just talking to the bartender,” Riley said. “He might have seen Rhodes. He thinks Rhodes might have been the woman’s last customer before she went out to her car and got killed.”

  “‘Might have been’?” Walder asked.

  Riley bristled at his scornful tone.

  “Yeah, might have been,” Riley said. “A positive identification is going to be hard to come by. The surveillance footage is especially lousy.”

  “How about Hatcher?” Walder asked. “Did anybody see him?”

  “The bartender didn’t think so,” Riley said. “And I don’t think he would have missed him.”

  Walder sat glowering for a moment.

  “Has anybody interviewed anybody in the victim’s family?” he asked.

  Bill said, “Agent Paige and I just had a few words with her brother out in the parking lot?”

  “‘A few words’?” Walder grumbled. “Doesn’t sound like much of an interview. Does he have any idea what connection she may have had to Hatcher or Rhodes—or both?”

  Riley and Bill looked at each other. Of course it hadn’t occurred to them to ask. The idea was simply too far-fetched.

  Riley said, “I’m sure the woman didn’t have any connection to either of them, sir.”

  “You’re ‘sure’?” Walder echoed, sounding more and more incredulous. “Did you happen to ask him?”

  “We did not, sir,” Riley said.

  “What about the bartender? Did you ask him?”

  “No, sir,” Riley said.

  She didn’t know who was getting angrier—Walder or herself. The team chief’s sheer denseness about the matter exasperated her.

  “Well, you’d better get back to it,” Walder said. “Go talk to both of them right now—and every other friend or relative the woman had.”

  Riley had finally had enough.

  “It’s a waste of time, sir,” she blurted. “These killings are random, meaningless. It’s just like back in South Carolina. Did Huang and Creighton ever interview anybody who suggested that Kirby Steadman had any connection to either Hatcher or Rhodes?”

  This time it was Creighton’s turn to
grumble.

  “We didn’t—no thanks to you,” she said.

  Riley knew that Creighton was still holding a grudge about how Riley had cut short that interview with Kirby Steadman’s son and daughter-in-law.

  “There are no connections,” Riley insisted. “I know it sounds crazy that Rhodes has come all the way down to South Carolina and now Florida looking for random victims, but that’s exactly what he’s doing. I don’t know why, but I’m sure it’s true. And Hatcher’s not helping him. Meaningless murders just aren’t his style.”

  Walder continued to glare at Riley in silence for a moment.

  Finally he said, “You haven’t filed a report on what happened in Philadelphia. Did you find anything there?”

  Riley said, “We went to a room that Rhodes had rented, and—”

  The words were out before she’d had time to think.

  “A room that Rhodes had rented?” Walder snapped.

  “Yes, sir,” Riley said.

  She knew she’d stumbled badly. Now she braced herself for the worst.

  “Agent Paige,” Walder said in a slow, severe voice, “when you requested the use of the jet to fly to Philadelphia, you said you were checking out a clue left by Hatcher.”

  “And I was, sir,” Riley said. “It was a note left in a book in the—”

  Walder interrupted.

  “And now you’re telling me you went to check out a room Rhodes rented.”

  “Yes, sir,” Riley said. “We didn’t find anything except—”

  But before she could tell him about the cryptic note in the mail, Walder interrupted again.

  “Agent Paige, that’s enough. You’re off the case.”

  Riley gulped.

  “Which case, sir?”

  “Rhodes, Hatcher—they’re really the same case now, so it doesn’t matter. And I mean immediately.”

  Riley could tell that Bill had been doing his best to be quiet. But he couldn’t do it anymore.

  “Sir, what about me? I went with her, I was in the loop, I knew what she was doing.”

  It wasn’t exactly the truth, and Riley knew it. She’d only filled Bill in on her involvement with Hatcher during the flight down from Philadelphia. As much as she appreciated his loyalty, she wished he’d keep his mouth shut, for his own sake.