Once Gone (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #1)

by Blake Pierce

  *

  Less than fifteen minutes later, Riley pulled up to a dusty, isolated lot. A shabby-looking mobile home sat in the middle of it. Riley parked her car and got out.

  An old car was parked on the street in front of the lot, but Riley didn’t see any sign of the truck the witness described after Cindy MacKinnon’s abduction. Of course, Cosgrove might well be keeping it somewhere else. Or perhaps he had dumped it for fear that it might be traced.

  Riley shuddered when she saw a couple of sheds with padlocked doors at the back of the lot. Was that where he had kept the women? Was he holding one right now, torturing her and preparing to kill her?

  Riley looked around, taking in the area. The lot wasn’t completely isolated. There were a few houses and mobile homes not far away. Even so, it seemed likely that no one live near enough to hear a woman screaming in one of those sheds.

  Riley drew her gun and approached the trailer. It was set up on a permanent foundation, and it looked like it had been there for many years. Some time ago, someone had planted a flower bed alongside the trailer to make it look more like a regular house. But now the bed was overrun with weeds.

  So far, the place matched her expectations. She felt certain that she’d come to the right place.

  “It’s all over for you, you bastard,” she murmured under her breath. “You’ll never take another victim.”

  When she reached the trailer, she banged on the metal door.

  “Gerald Cosgrove!” she yelled. “This is the FBI. Are you in there?”

  There was no answer. Riley edged her way up onto the cinderblock steps and peered through the door’s little window. What she saw inside chilled her to the bone.

  The place seemed to be packed full of dolls. She didn’t see a living soul, just dolls of all shapes and sizes.

  Riley shook the door handle. It was locked. She banged on the door again. This time she heard a man’s voice.

  “Go away. Leave me alone. I didn’t do anything.”

  Riley thought she heard someone scrambling around inside. The trailer door was designed to open outward, so she couldn’t kick it in. She fired her gun at the locked handle. The door fell open.

  Riley burst into the small main room. She was momentarily dazzled by the sheer number and array of dolls. There must have been hundreds of them. They were simply everywhere—on shelves, on tables, and even on the floor. It took a moment for her to see a man among them, cowering on the floor against a partition wall.

  “Don’t shoot,” Cosgrove pleaded, his hands raised and shaking. “I didn’t do it. Don’t shoot me.”

  Riley sprung at him and yanked him to his feet. She spun him around and pulled one hand behind his back. She holstered her handgun and got out her cuffs.

  “Give me your other hand,” she said.

  Shaking from head to foot, he obeyed without hesitation. Riley quickly had him cuffed and sitting awkwardly in a chair.

  He was a weak-looking man in his sixties with thin gray hair. He cut a pathetic figure, sitting there with tears running down his face. But Riley wasted no pity on him. The spectacle of all these dolls was enough to tell her that he was a sick, twisted man.

  Before she could ask any questions, she heard Bill’s voice.

  “Jesus, Riley. Did you blow open this door?”

  Riley turned and saw Bill stepping into the trailer.

  “He wouldn’t open up,” Riley said.

  Bill growled under his breath. “I thought I told you to wait outside,” he said.

  “And I thought you knew better than to think I would,” Riley said. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. This looks like our guy.”

  The man was wailing now.

  “I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me! I did my time! I put all that stuff behind me!”

  Riley asked Bill, “What did you find out about him?”

  “He did some time for attempted child molestation. Nothing since—until now.”

  This made good enough sense to Riley. This monstrous little man had undoubtedly moved on to bigger prey—and to greater cruelty.

  “That was years ago,” the man said. “I’ve been good ever since. I take my meds. I don’t get those urges anymore. It’s all in the past. You’ve made a mistake.”

  Bill asked in a cynical tone, “So you’re an innocent man, eh?”

  “That’s right. Whatever you think I did, it wasn’t me.”

  “So what’s with all the dolls?” Riley asked.

  Through his tears, Cosgrove smiled brokenly.

  “Aren’t they beautiful?” he said. “I collected them little by little. I got lucky a few weeks back, found this great store over in Shellysford. So many dolls and so many different dresses. I spent my whole Social Security check right there and then, bought as many as my money could get me.”

  Bill shook his head. “I sure as hell don’t want to know what you do with them,” he said.

  “It’s not what you think,” Cosgrove said. “They’re like my family. My only friends. They’re all I’ve got. I just stay home with them. It’s not like I can afford to go anywhere. They treat me right. They don’t judge me.”

  Again, Riley worried. Was Cosgrove holding a victim right now?

  “I want to check your sheds out back,” she told him.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “There’s nothing there. I’ve got nothing to hide. The keys are right over there.”

  He nodded toward a bunch of keys hanging next to the wounded door. Riley walked over and grabbed them.

  “I’m going out there for a look,” she said.

  “Not without me, you’re not,” Bill said.

  Together, Bill and Riley used Bill’s cuffs to fasten Cosgrove to his refrigerator door. Then they stepped outside and walked around the trailer. They opened the first shed’s padlock and looked inside. There was nothing in there except a garden rake.

  Bill stepped into the shed and looked around.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Not even any sign of blood.”

  They walked over to the next shed, unlocked it, and looked inside. Aside from a rusty hand lawnmower, the shed was completely empty.

  “He must have held them somewhere else,” Bill said.

  Bill and Riley went back to into the trailer. Cosgrove was still sitting there, gazing wretchedly at his family of dolls. Riley found him a troubling sight—a man with no real life of his own, and certainly no future.

  Still, he struck her as an enigma. She decided to ask him a couple of questions.

  “Gerald, where were you last Wednesday morning?”

  “What?” Cosgrove replied. “What do you mean? I don’t know. I don’t remember Wednesday. Here, I guess. Where else would I be?”

  Riley gazed at him with increasing curiosity.

  “Gerald,” she said, “what day is today?”

  Cosgrove’s eyes darted around in desperate confusion.

  “I—I don’t know,” he stammered.

  Riley wondered—could it possibly be true? Did he not know what day it was? He sounded perfectly sincere. He certainly didn’t seem bitter or angry. She saw no fight in him at all. Just fear and desperation.

  Then she sternly reminded herself not to let him take her in. A true psychopath could sometimes fool even a seasoned veteran with a total lie.

  Bill unfastened Cosgrove from the refrigerator. Cosgrove was still cuffed behind his back.

  Bill barked out, “Gerald Cosgrove, you’re under arrest for the murders of three women …”

  Bill and Riley escorted him roughly out of the trailer as Bill continued with the victims’ names and Cosgrove’s rights. Then they shoved him to the car Bill had driven here—a well-equipped Bureau vehicle with mesh caging between the back and front seats. Riley and Bill pushed him into the back seat. They strapped and cuffed him in securely. Afterwards they both just stood for a moment without saying a word.

  “Damn it, Riley, you did it,” Bill muttered with admiration. “You caught the bastard—even without your badg
e. The Bureau’s going to welcome you back with open arms.”

  “Do you want me to ride with you?” Riley asked.

  Bill shrugged. “Naw, I’ve got him under control. I’ll get him into custody. You just take your own car back.”

  Riley decided not to argue, wondering if Bill still harbored resentment toward her for the other night.

  As she watched Bill pull away, Riley wanted to congratulate herself on her success, and her redemption. But any feeling of satisfaction evaded her. Something kept nagging at her. She kept hearing her father’s words.

  You just keep following that gut of yours.

  Little by little as she drove, Riley started to realize something.

  Her gut was telling her that they’d gotten the wrong man.