Once Pined

by Blake Pierce

  The figure started to move away into the swirling whiteness.

  Riley reached for her gun, but it wasn’t there.

  She let go of the girls’ hands and hurried after the vanishing figure.

  “Mom, where are you going?” April called out.

  “Don’t leave us here!” Jilly said.

  The voices broke Riley’s heart. She didn’t want to leave them. But she had a job to do. She had no choice.

  “I’ll come back for you,” Riley said.

  But how was she ever going to find them again in this fog?

  Riley was awakened by the sound of her phone ringing. She was shaking all over from the dream. She wasn’t sure which had terrified her most, the figure in the fog or her abandonment of the girls.

  She tried to clear her head as she answered the phone and heard a familiar voice.

  “Agent Paige, this is Chief Rigby. I need you and Agent Jeffreys right away. We’ve got another body.”

  “Do you know who it is?” Riley asked.

  “We sure do,” Rigby said. “And the press is going to eat this one up. The victim is Amanda Somers.”

  Riley jumped out of bed.

  “Amanda Somers?” she said.

  “I thought maybe you’d heard of her. We’re meeting at Parnassus Heights Hospital. Wingert and Havens will pick you up ASAP.”

  Rigby ended the call.

  “Amanda Somers!” she whispered aloud.

  The case had taken a turn that she couldn’t have imagined.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The morning fog was still thick when Riley and Bill stepped out of the hotel. Agent Lloyd Havens was waiting for them outside. He hastily ushered them into the FBI car. Agent Jay Wingert was driving again.

  “Tell me what we know,” Riley said to Havens.

  “It’s a writer this time,” Havens said. “Somebody famous. Amanda something.”

  Riley bristled.

  “Amanda Somers,” she said. “Please don’t tell me you’ve never heard of her.”

  “I remember her name from somewhere,” Havens said.

  “She wrote some kind of bestseller, right?” Wingert said.

  Riley was aghast at their ignorance.

  “She was more than a writer,” she said. “She was a legend. And her book was a lot more than just a bestseller. Haven’t you ever read The Long Sprint?”

  “Not me,” Havens said.

  “Me neither,” Wingert said.

  Riley glanced at Bill, who looked as annoyed as she felt.

  What are they teaching kids in school these days? Riley wondered.

  Bill told them, “Amanda Somers wrote a really great novel quite a few years ago. Then she became a total recluse. She never did interviews, and she never appeared in public. There have always been rumors that she was working on another book, or maybe several. Thousands upon thousands of readers have been waiting anxiously all this time. This news is going to crush their hearts.”

  Havens and Wingert looked like they couldn’t care less.

  Riley felt an ache in her throat. The sadness of what had happened was just hitting her.

  She’d read The Long Sprint when she was still in college—not for a class, but because everybody was reading it and loving it. The Long Sprint was one of those rare novels that touched and changed lives. It was an epic saga about an adventurous and rebellious young woman named Emerson Drew. Like thousands of other young women, Riley adored Emerson Drew and wanted to be just like her.

  And like so many other readers, Riley had long hoped that Amanda Somers would write another book—maybe even a sequel about Emerson Drew. Riley had often wondered what had become of the beloved character. How much like her own life had Emerson’s life been?

  Now maybe we’ll never know, Riley thought.

  “How did it happen?” Bill asked.

  Havens said, “A neighbor spotted her body floating in water late last night. The neighbor called nine-one-one, then dived in and fished her out and tried to revive her. The paramedics arrived promptly, but it was too late. She was pronounced dead on the spot.”

  Riley tried to make sense of what she was hearing.

  “In the water?” she asked. “Do you mean a swimming pool?”

  “No, in Lake Union,” Havens said. “One of the fancy houseboat communities there. She lived in one of those multimillion-dollar floating homes. Kind of a super houseboat.”

  Riley couldn’t quite picture what he meant. She’d seen houseboats in the bodies of water that threaded through and around Seattle, but she’d never gotten very close to them.

  Bill asked, “Are we positive that she was poisoned, like the other victims?”

  “Yes, we are,” Havens said. “Because of who she was, Chief Medical Examiner Prisha Shankar got called in to do the autopsy personally. She found traces of thallium right away. That’s when we got the call.”

  Riley’s head was buzzing with questions. How had the murderer gotten access to her? Was the murderer now pursuing high-profile targets? Rigby had been right when he said that the press would soon be all over this. A lot of publicity was the last thing the team needed right now. How much worse were things about to get?

  “Take us to this houseboat,” Riley told Wingert and Havens. “I want to see it.”

  “Later,” Havens said. “First we’ve got a big meeting at Parnassus Heights Hospital.”

  Wingert drove skillfully through the morning traffic, but Riley was impatient to get on with the investigation.

  Why, she wondered, do we have to detour for yet another meeting?

  The case had taken on new urgency, and she was more eager than ever to track this awful killer. But, she realized, she wasn’t in a position to give orders right now. With a sigh of resignation, she settled back into the car seat.

  When Wingert pulled up to the hospital, Local Division Chief Sean Rigby was waiting outside. His usual icy demeanor was now one of palpable alarm.

  “Get ready,” he said, ushering the agents inside. “We’re in for a rocky time of it.”

  Riley couldn’t imagine what he meant by that. But when she, Bill, and the others stepped into the large meeting room, she was buffeted by bodies and deafened by chatter. News of Amanda Somers’ death had spread like wildfire, and reporters were already swarming.

  The crush of people reminded her of the shadowy figures from her dream.

  Here they were, crowding her from all sides.

  And the fog is here too, Riley thought with despair.

  It was the impenetrable fog of chaos and confusion.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The suffocating heat of the overcrowded room hit Riley hard after the damp, chilly air outside. Local Division Chief Rigby ushered her along with Bill and Agents Wingert and Havens to seats at a large conference table.

  Reporters were jammed against each other all around the table, taking pictures and videos and scribbling notes. Seated at the table were some people Riley knew and some she hadn’t seen before.

  Rigby took a seat nearby, looking anxious and uncertain. Team Chief Maynard Sanderson was seated beside him, struggling to maintain his starched, official composure. Police Chief Perry McCade was sweating profusely, and his walrus-style mustache was twitching nervously.

  Seated at the head of the table was a man who seemed to be in charge. He had the mannequin-like stiffness and the frozen smile of a politician.

  Riley now fully understood that this was a press conference, not an investigative meeting. She didn’t know whose idea it had been, but it was a lousy one. A PR stunt like this was going to make the case much harder.

  The only person Riley was glad to see was Chief Medical Examiner Prisha Shankar. Perhaps she’d bring an element of sanity to whatever was about to unfold.

  The man at the head of the table stood up.

  “For those of you who don’t know me,” he said, “I’m Briggs Wanamaker, Director of Parnassus Heights Hospital. The local FBI Field office and I want to confirm some t
ragic news. The famous writer Amanda Somers was pronounced dead last night from undetermined causes.”

  Reporters tried to yell Wanamaker down with a barrage of questions, but he managed to silence them with his own booming voice.

  “Ms. Somers was hospitalized here a couple of weeks ago for a completely unrelated condition. She also spent a short time at the Stark Rehab Center. We at Parnassus Heights want to express our condolences to Amanda Somers’ legion of readers, and to her son and daughter, Logan Somers and Isabel Watson, who are here with us today.”

  Wanamaker gestured toward a man and a woman. They seemed to be making an effort to appear appropriately grief-stricken. It looked more like veiled gloating to Riley.

  A male reporter shouted out.

  “Can you confirm that Amanda Somers received surgery here for carpal tunnel syndrome?”

  “No comment,” Wanamaker said.

  But the reporter wasn’t going to back down.

  “Does that kind of surgery often involve a risk to the patient’s life?”

  Wanamaker snapped back, “The surgery had nothing to do with it.”

  Riley stifled a gasp. It was a blunder, and she could tell by Wanamaker’s fallen expression that he immediately knew it. Now the questions came piling on.

  “Does the hospital accept any responsibility for possible misdiagnosis?” asked one reporter.

  “Was medical malpractice involved?” yelled another.

  Wanamaker raised his arms and tried to subdue the group.

  “Please, we have additional statements for you, and then we will be open to questions. The division chief of the Seattle FBI field office, Sean Rigby, would like to make a statement.”

  Rigby stood up and for a moment he looked like he might head for the exit. Riley sensed that he now understood the disaster he had helped create by setting up this meeting. He read from a piece of paper that he managed to keep steady in his hand.

  “Last night at approximately twelve thirty, Amanda Somers’ neighbor Dale Tinker spotted a body floating in the water next to Somers’ floating home. Ms. Tinker is with us today.”

  He gestured toward a frightened-looking woman. As far as Riley was concerned, it made no sense that she was even here. Riley wondered which had been the greater shock for her—discovering the body or getting dragged into this PR insanity.

  Riley could see that she was in no condition to make a statement of her own.

  Even so, Rigby obviously expected her to say something.

  Cowering in her chair, Dale Tinker spoke in a barely audible voice.

  “I saw her in the water. It’s not far between our houses, so I jumped in. I pulled her back up onto her deck. I tried to do CPR, but …”

  Her voice froze for a moment and she looked dazed.

  “I didn’t know who she was,” she said, almost weeping now. “I’ve known her for years, and she was always just Amanda. I didn’t know she was that Amanda. The neighbors only knew her as Amanda. I even read her book, and I didn’t know.”

  The woman couldn’t say anything more.

  A reporter said to Rigby, “You haven’t said anything about the cause of death.”

  Rigby said, “We can’t give any details yet. It appears that she fell from the upper deck of her floating home into the water.”

  “So you think she drowned?” the reporter asked.

  Rigby hesitated.

  Then he said, “No comment.”

  Riley was cringing now. Those two words were like red meat to a pack of wolves. The reporters all started asking questions at once.

  Could he possibly be handling this any worse? Riley wondered.

  One reporter managed to make herself heard over the rest.

  “I see that the chief medical examiner is here. Do the authorities have any reason to suspect foul play?”

  Another chimed in, “We understand that the FBI is investigating two poisonings. Is this death related to that investigation?”

  Yet another pointed to Riley.

  “Isn’t that BAU Agent Riley Paige, the well-known profiler? Why has she been brought in?”

  Dr. Prisha Shankar looked thoroughly exasperated. Riley sensed that she, too, thought this meeting was worse than useless.

  “No comment,” Rigby said again. “I’d like to give Amanda Somers’ son and daughter a chance to speak.”

  Logan Somers stood up.

  “Isabel and I just want to say that this is a terrible shock. Our mother had been depressed lately, but we hadn’t realized how desperate she was. If we’d only known, if we’d only seen the warning signs …”

  He acted as though he was too overwhelmed with emotion to say more. Riley didn’t find him the least bit convincing.

  Logan sat down, and his sister, Isabel Watson, spoke in a calculatedly regretful tone.

  “My brother and I wish we’d have known,” she said. “If we’d known, maybe we could have done something.”

  Riley was completely dumbfounded. She could see that everybody else at the table felt the same way.

  The room was in a greater uproar than ever. The flock of reporters was demanding to know whether Amanda Somers had committed suicide. Things were completely out of control.

  Rigby called out, “This meeting is over.”

  Despite noisy protests, hospital security officers deftly herded the reporters out of the room.

  Logan Somers and Isabel Watson both rose. With solemn expressions, they each thanked everyone rather ceremoniously. Then, looking rather smug and self-satisfied, they left.

  By the time the throng was gone, hospital director Briggs Wanamaker had lost what little remained of his carefully cultivated political poise.

  He barked at Rigby, “I told you to keep the FBI out of this meeting. You should have just let me handle it.”

  “You’d have botched it even more,” Rigby shot back. “You should thank me and my people for saving you from yourself. If the press got wind of what was really going on, you’d be in a lot more trouble than you already are.”

  Riley couldn’t contain her frustration a moment longer.

  “Whose idea was this damned meeting, anyway?” she said, almost shouting.

  Rigby and Wanamaker turned toward her, startled. Then they stared at each other, looking somehow both accusing and ashamed. Riley could see that they had cooked this whole mess up together. Why either one had thought it would be a good idea, she couldn’t possibly imagine.

  Riley said, “Mr. Wanamaker, I’d like you to leave. I need to confer with my law enforcement colleagues.”

  Looking thoroughly cowed, Wanamaker took what was left of his dignity and left the room.

  Riley glared at Rigby and Sanderson.

  “I’ve got some questions of my own,” Riley snapped. “And I’d better get some answers right now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  All eyes snapped toward Riley, and everybody fell silent. Her ears were still ringing from the racket that had filled the room just a few minutes before. But the place wasn’t so suffocating now, and she could breathe more easily.

  At least she now had the full attention of everybody in the room.

  “That whole scene was a farce,” she said, managing to keep her anger under control. “Right now, those reporters know as much about Amanda Somers’ death as Agent Jeffreys and I do. For all I know, they’re as well informed as anybody here. And that’s a disaster. It’s about time we all got a few things straight.”

  She noticed that two people were smiling slightly—Bill and Dr. Shankar. They’d been sharing her frustration all along.

  Then Riley said, “First of all, what were her son and daughter talking about? Agent Havens said that traces of thallium were found in the victim’s body. So what was all this about suicide? Did Amanda Somers commit suicide? Did she take pills, jump off that platform and drown, or both? If she did, what are all of us doing here?”

  Riley was relieved that Prisha Shankar was the first to speak.

  “She didn�
�t drown. That was the first conclusion we were able to come to. And she most certainly did not commit suicide. What you were told is correct. We found traces of thallium in her system. Even if we didn’t already have a pattern of thallium poisoning, it’s not a substance anyone would be likely to use for suicide.”

  Bill was jotting down notes.

  “So what were her kids talking about?” he asked.

  Everybody was silent for a moment.

  “I’ve got a hunch about that,” Shankar finally said. “Everybody knows that Amanda Somers was notoriously reclusive. I’d be willing to bet that she and her children had been estranged for years. So all their talk about how depressed she was and how worried they were about her was just brazen hypocrisy. Right now they’re looking to inherit her fortune.”

  Riley was starting to understand what Shankar was getting at.

  She said, “And there’s nothing to boost an author’s posthumous sales like suicide.”

  Shankar nodded.

  “Right. Better than murder, and much, much better than an accident or natural causes. Especially for a writer like Amanda Somers. It would add to her already considerable mystique. She’d be tortured and unhappy as well as reclusive. It all adds up to the stuff that literary legends are made of.”

  It made sense to Riley. Too much sense. “And besides,” she added, “there wouldn’t be all those inconvenient questions about who would kill her and why.”

  Shankar nodded and continued, “And you can bet that new books by Amanda Somers will be published in the near future. Posthumous works, one right after another. Very likely cribbed together from notes and drafts, the kind of stuff that Somers would never have allowed to get into print when she was still alive.”

  The possibility saddened Riley. She’d spent years looking forward to a new Amanda Somers novel, especially one about Emerson Drew. But this was not what she’d been hoping for at all. And Somers’ children were definitely muddying the waters for the investigation with this talk of suicide.

  Police Chief Perry McCade was stroking his mustache, listening with interest.

  “So should we be looking at the kids as suspects?” he asked.