Once Craved (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #3)

by Blake Pierce

  Riley got up and hurried down the hallway. She could feel her palms sweating.

  Had she lost her mind? Was she seeing things where there was nothing?

  Riley poked her head into the guest bathroom that Dr. Poole had told her to use. There was a medicine cabinet above the sink and a few cabinet doors and drawers. But searching here would be waste of time. Poole wouldn’t have directed her here if there was anything to find.

  I don’t have time to look everywhere, she thought. I’d better get lucky.

  Trespassing deeper into his house, she passed by several other doors and went to a big fancy one at the very end of the hall. When she pushed it, the door opened into a huge master bedroom that was softly lit by two elegant fixtures.

  She stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind her. There were standing wardrobes, three chests of drawers, and doors that probably led to closets.

  Where should she start?

  She went to check an open door on the other side of the room and found a private bathroom. She turned on the light and darted inside. The bathroom was bigger than her own bedroom. It had all the necessities, plus lots of mirrors and elegant decorative touches. She’d have to go through a whole array of drawers and cabinet doors until she found something. She threw one cabinet door open, glanced around, then reached for another.

  There was nothing.

  I hope Bill keeps him talking, she thought.

  *

  Bill wished Riley would hurry up. If the missing girl was still alive, they had no time to lose. And if she wasn’t, they needed to nail the killer before he struck again. And they had found out everything the doctor was willing to tell them. He looked at the pictures on the wall, seeking a topic of conversation.

  “So—you and your kids seem to enjoy fishing,” he said. “Me, too. You folks in Arizona have got it made. So many lakes, so many places to fish.”

  “Yes, there are lots of lakes here, aren’t there?” Dr. Poole said. “They’re all artificial, you know. The products of skillful engineering, damming rivers, and filling canyons. Most of them double as reservoirs, and they’re great recreational sites. Lake Mead is the biggest reservoir in the USA. We share that one with Nevada, you know.”

  “What kind of fish can you go for?”

  “Oh, the state stocks them with trout, crappie, catfish, tilapia, and several kinds of bass. Once I caught a real trophy-size bass.”

  Dr. Poole was looking a little distracted. He kept glancing toward the hallway.

  “I envy all the time you spend with your kids,” Bill said. “I can see from the pictures how much they love you.”

  Dr. Poole shrugged rather absently.

  “They can’t possibly love me as much as I love them,” he said.

  “Yeah, anyone can see that.”

  A silence fell, and as Bill looked around, something shiny on the floor caught his eye. It was under the table right next to his chair, almost hidden in the thick shag of the carpet.

  Bill got up from his chair and bent over to see it better. He picked it up, wanting to help the kind doctor.

  It was a shiny metal earring—a cheap thing, shaped like a flower.

  Suddenly, in his mind he heard the words of Colleen Wuttke.

  “I had a bunch of these once, pretty things, all gold-toned and shaped like flowers.”

  This was Colleen’s missing earring.

  What was it doing here?

  His heart slammed as it all came together at once, and he realized.

  This could only mean that—

  But as soon as he realized, as soon as he began to reach for his gun, suddenly, he felt a hard blow against the back of his head.

  And then, everything went black.

  Chapter Forty

  Riley was finding nothing useful, and knew she had to give up the search soon. She had no legal reason for rummaging around in the doctor’s house—nothing but her sudden intuition about him. And what if her intuition was wrong? What if her paranoid mind had her pinning the most respectable doctor that the police worked with?

  Feeling her time running out, she was close to panic when she pulled open a pair of cabinet doors and heard a low humming sound. She moved a stack of toilet paper rolls aside.

  Far back inside the cabinet was a little refrigerator. She opened its door and a light came on inside.

  The mini-fridge was full of large white plastic bottles, not prescription vials. She reached for one bottle and poured enormous pink pills into her hand.

  It was the stolen HIV medicine. She was sure of it. These bottles looked like they had come straight from a manufacturer, and she knew that some of these medications required refrigeration.

  Her heart slammed in her chest, her mind reeling as all of the pieces fell into place. Her intuition had been right, and now her thoughts chased each other through brambles of confusion.

  Why hadn’t she suspected Poole during her first visit? Why had she let him charm her into liking him?

  The answer was simple. She’d let herself be fooled by conventional wisdom. It was well understood among FBI agents that, in spite of stories about killers inserting themselves into police investigations, it very seldom actually happened. She hadn’t bothered to consider the possibility.

  But Shane Hatcher had considered it—based solely on what she had told him about Dr. Poole. Hatcher knew that Poole was their man. He knew that Riley had already met the killer.

  She remembered his sinister grin.

  “You’re getting warm.”

  And now it made all the sense in the world. What better way for Poole to cover up his own thefts of HIV drugs? The police would never suspect the very man who was helping them—a man with a sterling reputation for honesty and integrity.

  Riley heard a sound behind her, but before she could move something hard slammed into her back. She fell forward and cracked her head hard on the cabinet top. Dazed, she was aware that a knee was pressed into her back, holding her down. Then the knee moved aside and her hands were pulled behind her back and bound. She felt something being pulled over her head and face.

  She thrashed and tried to turn around. But then came another brutal shove, thrusting her face against the floor. Now he was kneeling on top of her, with his weight in the small of her back, keeping himself out of her reach. He’d done this before. He knew how to do this. And he was stronger than he’d looked.

  Riley struggled for air, kicking madly. She could neither inhale nor exhale. The clear plastic fogged over in front of her eyes. She was losing consciousness now. Images swam before her eyes. She expected to find herself back in the hell of Peterson’s cage, seeing his face lit by the propane torch. But instead, she saw her father’s face. His expression was stern and hard. He held a knife to her face.

  “Let me help you out of this,” he said.

  Had he come to rescue her? No, Riley still had just enough presence of mind to know that she was hallucinating.

  “Let me help you out of this,” her father repeated.

  And he pointed the knife under her chin. She knew what he was about to do. He was about to gut her from her jaw to her crotch. He was going to skin her like a squirrel—pull off her pelt as smoothly and gracefully as helping a lady out of her coat on a dinner date.

  Am I going to let it end like this? she thought.

  Was she going to let her father do this to her?

  Was she going to let Dr. Poole do this?

  Was she going to let this ugly world of abuse and exploitation strip her of everything she was, and all she hoped to be?

  Riley fought her way back into defiant consciousness. She twisted her body hard and quickly. She felt Poole’s weight give way as he fell to one side. She felt the hastily tied ropes on her wrists come loose, and then her hands were free.

  She ripped the plastic away from her face, and her throat and lungs burned from the intake of air. She scrambled to her feet and turned around.

  Dr. Gordy stood facing her, and he held a gun in both h
ands. It was Bill’s gun.

  She tried to speak, to ask him what he’d done to Bill. But after her brush with suffocation, the words couldn’t force their way out of her throat.

  He held the gun shakily, standing in an absurd position to fire from. She could tell at a glance that he hadn’t fired a pistol in his life. But in these close quarters, that didn’t make him any less dangerous than a man who went to the firing range every single day.

  She lunged toward him, and he fired. But he was a split second too late, and she had already deflected his arm. She heard the bullet crash harmlessly into the bathroom tile. The gun fell from the doctor’s hand and skidded across the floor.

  She took a step back and slammed her fist into his belly. He lurched over with a loud groan. She brought her other fist hard against the side of his head. His head crashed against the doorframe, and he slid senselessly to the floor.

  Riley shook her hand. It hurt like hell. But she didn’t think it was broken. She got out her handcuffs and cuffed the doctor to a safety grip bar set into the wall, certain he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Picking up the gun, she staggered out of the bathroom and across the bedroom to the hallway.

  Now at last, she was able to call out.

  “Bill! Bill!”

  There was no answer.

  Riley’s strength was returning. She rushed down the hallway and into the living room. Bill was lying on the carpet, bleeding from a head wound. A fireplace poker lay on the rug nearby.

  Riley kneeled over her partner. He hardly seemed to be breathing, and his pulse was weak. She felt a wave of grief, of regret, of guilt. What if he died? This man she had known better than anyone on earth?

  She called the FBI emergency line.

  “Agent down. I need an ambulance here.”

  “Got you,” the reply came. The voice on the phone double-checked the address.

  “Hurry,” Riley said, and hung up. She checked Bill again, but she knew she shouldn’t try to move him. She had to wait for the ambulance.

  Riley stood up and looked around the living room. She knew that if the girl was still alive, she was probably somewhere in this house. She went back into the hallway and started checking doors she had passed by in her search for medications. One opened on a landing and stairs going downward into darkness.

  Riley switched on a light and hurried down the steps.

  In the center of the well-furnished basement recreation room was a thin young girl, bound to a chair with duct tape. She’d overturned the chair and was lying on her side. Her mouth wasn’t gagged, but Riley could tell by her eyes that she was heavily sedated.

  Elation charged through Riley’s body. The girl was alive.

  She ran to Sandra Wuttke and began to untie her.

  The girl seemed to realize what was happening. She began weeping.

  “He was going to kill me,” she said.

  Riley held the girl and rocked her.

  “It’s all right now,” she said. “He can’t hurt you again. It’s all right now.”

  Riley felt tears rolling down her own face. This girl was younger than April and her life had nearly been cut short. In some ways, she could not help but feel as if she were holding April, after she had just escaped from Peterson.

  “He had a plastic bag,” Sandra moaned. “He would have killed me.”

  Riley stroked her hair.

  “You’re a brave girl,” she said. “You’re going to be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  She heard sirens in the distance, the ambulance, and probably an FBI car too.

  Riley only hoped that they would get here in time for Bill.

  Chapter Forty One

  Bill and Riley were finishing up their debriefing with Brent Meredith in his office at Quantico. Bill’s head was still bandaged, and he’d suffered a slight concussion, but Riley could tell that he was doing fine now. All in all, she felt satisfied with the wrap-up of the case in Phoenix.

  “Good job, you two,” Meredith said. Then, with a sort of half-smile to Riley, he added, “Even Agent Morley seemed to think so.”

  Riley smiled back rather weakly. Yes, Morley had thanked her and Bill on the tarmac back in Phoenix before their flight back here. But there hadn’t been a lot of warmth in his thanks. He had been especially chilly toward Riley. She hadn’t found that surprising. And she couldn’t quite blame him.

  Meredith swiveled back and forth in his office chair. Riley recognized it as the chief’s signal that the meeting was coming to an end. He looked at Riley and shook his head a little.

  “Agent Paige, on your next case, I hope you make things easier on my end. I covered for you a lot. And for future reference, our jet is not for your private use.”

  Now Riley blushed a little.

  “I owe you, sir,” she said.

  “Yes, you do,” Meredith said.

  Indeed, she knew that she did. She had Meredith to thank that she hadn’t been kicked off the case—or kicked out of the Bureau, for that matter. What had she been thinking, going AWOL in the middle of a case?

  But of course, she knew what she had been thinking. She’d been thinking about April. At that moment, her daughter had truly meant more to her than her job. Did she still feel that way?

  Yes, she did.

  I’m not my father, after all, she realized.

  Meredith asked, “Was the second trip, the one to Sing Sing, actually useful?”

  Riley considered the question for a moment. No doubt about it, Hatcher had identified the killer, even if he’d only said so in riddles. Still, the idea of having to meet him again felt intolerable to Riley.

  “I don’t plan to consult with him anymore,” she said.

  Meredith rose from his desk, a cue that the meeting was over.

  Bill and Riley left the building. They said nothing for a few moments as they walked. Much of the plane trip back had been like that.

  “I could drive you home,” Bill said.

  “It’s OK, my car is here,” Riley said. She had left her own car at Quantico when they had first left for Phoenix. Now it felt like that had been ages ago.

  “Maybe we could stop somewhere for a drink or something to eat,” Bill said.

  Riley wasn’t sure just what Bill was after. After his awkward pass at her last week, was he still trying to strike some romantic sparks between them? Maybe not. Maybe he really wanted nothing more than a few relaxed moments with a friend and colleague.

  Either way, Riley wasn’t really in the mood.

  “We did some good work together in Phoenix,” she said. “Let’s call it a day.”

  Looking a bit sad, Bill said, “OK, then.”

  Bill started walking away.

  Riley called after him. “Bill. I like working with you.”

  Bill called back. “The feeling’s mutual.”

  She and Bill walked their separate ways. As Riley drove home, she wondered where things really stood between them. She was glad that they were back in the swing of things as a team again. But there was still unresolved tension between them.

  The truth was, Riley now wondered how she felt about men in general. Her experiences in Phoenix had soured her. Pimps like Jaybird and rich misogynists like Calvin Rabbe didn’t inspire her with a lot of trust. Neither did Garrett Holbrook, who had been so enchanted by his carefree bachelor life that he’d abandoned his own sister. Even Bill had turned Riley’s stomach by getting turned on by the sight of her dressed up as a hooker.

  Maybe I’m through with men for good, she thought.

  *

  Riley relaxed on the back deck of her townhouse, enjoying the neighborhood sights and sounds. She’d turned down Gabriela’s offer of fresh lemonade, opting for soda instead. She was afraid that, for a long time to come, lemonade was going to remind her of a murderer who had at first fooled her completely.

  In her mind she could still hear Dr. Gordy’s goshes and oh my goodnesses, and she could still see his face when he’d attacked her.
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  But April and Crystal, the girl from next door, were drinking Gabriela’s lemonade. They were sitting down in the yard watching a movie on April’s laptop. They kept laughing and pointing to the screen.

  Even without the lemonade, Dr. Gordy kept pushing his way into Riley’s mind. Luckily, the man was in jail and the case against him was solid. He would never be free again. In fact, Arizona had the death penalty for those convicted of multiple homicides, so Dr. Gordy’s arrogance would eventually come to a complete end.

  Unfortunately, neither his incarceration nor his death would do anything for the three women he’d killed. Maybe it would be helpful to the two others he had terrorized, and it would certainly benefit those he’d never gotten a chance to take.

  Riley briefly wondered if Socorro had gone back to prostitution or had found some better way to support her kids. There were organizations in Phoenix that would help her make a lifestyle change if she wanted to do it.

  April came up the stairs to the deck and interrupted her ruminations. She poured herself more lemonade from the pitcher that Gabriela had left on the table. Her friend Crystal was still down in the yard, glued to the computer.

  “Are you thinking about your case?” April asked.

  Riley managed to smile a little. “Please don’t worry about me, sweetie. Go back and watch your movie.”

  “Hey, after all we’ve been through together, you can tell me about it.”

  Then April shrugged.

  “Besides, it’s a stupid movie,” she said, sitting down next to Riley.

  Riley sighed.

  “I can’t help wondering what will become of some of the people I met. Especially the young girls.”

  “Like the one you rescued from the killer?”

  “Yes. At least Sandy is back in a shelter now.”

  “From what you’ve told me, she for sure won’t run away again.”

  Riley didn’t reply. She hoped April was right. But April hadn’t seen all that she’d seen lately—the hopeless faces of women like Chrissy, who simply couldn’t comprehend a better life, and the vacant stares of much younger girls who were already starting to lose all hope. She fell quiet for a few moments.