ONCE LOST

by Blake Pierce

  Would Jenn Roston share Riley’s feelings, or even want to hear them?

  Riley had no way of knowing, and it bothered her.

  It was hard not having a partner she could talk to freely, expressing ideas as they came whether they made sense or not. She missed Bill more with every passing minute—and Lucy as well.

  The victim’s family lived in an older but well-kept brick bungalow on a quiet street with large trees in the yard. The curb and the driveway were crowded with parked vehicles. Riley guessed the Philbins had a lot of visitors at the moment.

  Sinard stopped his marked patrol car in the street and got out. He gestured Jenn toward a small parking space and stood giving directions to help her squeeze the car into place. Once the car was parked, Riley and Jenn got out and walked toward the house. Chief Sinard was already on his way to the front door, his patrol car still double-parked in the street.

  Riley wondered—were they going to meet an innocent grieving family and many sincere and well-meaning friends and loved ones?

  Or were they about to encounter people who might be capable of murder?

  Either way, Riley always dreaded this kind of visit.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  For several long moments, Riley couldn’t put her finger on what struck her as odd about the house where Katy Philbin had lived. As soon as she and Jenn walked in through the front door she had felt a tinge of unease.

  As Riley had expected, the living room was crowded with people—well-wishing friends and neighbors, most of them women. In typical small-town style, the community was pulling together to help a family in a time of crisis.

  So why did the scene strike her as somehow strange?

  Then Riley realized—everything seemed uncannily organized and proper. All the people appeared to be wearing their Sunday best. They had brought food and had arranged it on the dining room table, and everybody was either tending to assigned tasks or eating and talking in hushed voices.

  It reminded Riley of many funeral receptions she’d been to, the kind of event that might take place after a burial. It hardly seemed possible that Katy Philbin’s desecrated body had been found just this morning. How had this orderly gathering come together so spontaneously and quickly?

  It’s that kind of town, she reminded herself.

  Riley felt weirdly out of place in this world where everybody seemed to know just what to do at any given moment and for any occasion. It had been a long, long time since she’d lived in this kind of community—not since she’d been a child, really. And she was far from comfortable about being here in this kind of setting.

  All this neighborly activity seemed too rehearsed, too automatic, for Riley’s liking. After all, the girl’s death hinted that something evil lurked beneath this veneer of rural propriety and decency. She couldn’t shake off an irrational feeling that all this kindness and good will was an enormous lie.

  Riley and Jenn followed close behind Chief Sinard. He was saying kind things to everybody as he moved among them, and he obviously knew everybody by name.

  Sinard struck Riley as truly the perfect small-town police chief. He also had the ruddy complexion of a man who had been exposed to all the weather that the Midwest had to offer. Riley felt sure he’d lived in this part of the country—perhaps this very town—all his life.

  Riley remembered that his brother was Forrest Sinard, the FBI’s executive assistant director. She’d met Forrest Sinard a few times, and he’d struck her as witty and urbane, hardly the rural type at all. She wondered how two brothers had wound up following such different paths in their lives.

  A man and woman seated in the back of the room were the center of everyone’s attention. Chief Sinard introduced Riley and Jenn to Katy’s parents, Drew and Lisa Philbin.

  Lisa seemed barely aware of the two agents’ presence.

  “Why not?” she kept asking her husband. “Why can’t I?”

  “It’s best not to, honey,” Drew kept saying, holding her hands tightly. “Believe me, it’s best.”

  “If not now, when?”

  “I don’t know. Soon maybe. Not yet.”

  Riley understood what was going on right away. She remembered Chief Sinard mentioning that Drew had been to George Tully’s field to identify his daughter’s body. Now his wife wanted to see the body too, but Drew wanted to spare her the horror—at least for the time being.

  Lisa looked all around in tearful confusion.

  “She’s my daughter, and I’m her mother,” she said, choking back a sob. “Katy needs me. Where is she?”

  Riley felt a pang of sympathy.

  Denial, she thought.

  It was going to take a while before the reality of Lisa’s daughter’s death sank in.

  Meanwhile, Riley guessed that she and Jenn ought to address most of their questions to Drew.

  She said, “Mr. Philbin, we’re terribly sorry for your loss, and we hate to disturb you. But my colleague and I need to ask you a few questions.”

  Still holding his wife’s hands tightly, Drew simply nodded.

  “When did you notice that your daughter had gone missing?” Riley asked.

  Drew knitted his brow as if trying to remember.

  Shock, Riley thought.

  Although he had accepted the reality of his daughter’s death, Riley knew that he was still struggling with confusion. She worried whether he might find it difficult to answer even the simplest questions.

  “Last night, I think,” he said. “No, the night before last.”

  Lisa appeared to be emerging from her fog of denial at least a little. She said, “Yes, it was the night before last. She was out late for a club meeting at her school. We expected her late, but she didn’t come home at all.”

  “Did you report her missing?” Jenn asked.

  Lisa and Drew looked at each other uncertainly.

  “We did—didn’t we?” Lisa asked her husband.

  Drew stammered, “Y-yes. We called Chief Sinard … I can’t remember exactly …”

  Riley looked at Chief Sinard, who said, “It was Lisa who called me. She called last night. I put out a local alert online.”

  Riley noticed that Jenn seemed to react to this information with suspicion. They knew that Katy had almost certainly been killed Wednesday night. She hadn’t come home, but her parents hadn’t reported her missing until last night, Thursday night.

  Jenn asked Lisa, “You mean you waited a full day? Didn’t you know that another girl had already gone missing?”

  Lisa’s eyes darted among Jenn’s, Riley’s, and Chief Sinard’s faces.

  She replied, “We did hear about that. But we didn’t actually know her. And she just ran away, didn’t she? It was … it had … nothing to do with us … with Katy … Did it?”

  Riley knew there was nothing she could say in reply. After all, as far as anybody knew at this point, Holly really had run away and might turn up at any time.

  But that didn’t stop her partner from asking questions.

  Speaking rather sharply, Jenn said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why wait so long? Didn’t you start worrying when she didn’t show up Wednesday night?”

  Riley started to cut her partner off, but she told herself that Jenn’s suspicion was understandable. At this point, every person they met—especially male—might be Katy’s killer. That might even include Drew Philbin.

  But Riley also worried that Jenn might let her suspicion get the best of her. She was definitely not as skillful at questioning as Lucy had been. Even Bill had been better at putting others at ease. Riley knew that she herself tended to be blunt sometimes and she had depended on her partners to be friendlier.

  Lisa seemed to be on the verge of panic.

  She stammered, “I … we … this isn’t …”

  Drew gently interrupted his wife.

  “What Lisa means to say is that this has happened before. I don’t mean that Katy was ever gone for this long. But she stayed out until the wee hours of the morning once be
fore without calling home. We thought she was doing something like that again.”

  Lisa nodded and chimed in, “And we did call other people yesterday morning—her ex-boyfriend, some of her friends, even a couple of her teachers.”

  “But not Chief Sinard?” Jenn asked.

  Lisa looked shaken and ashamed.

  “We just … we didn’t think …”

  Before Jenn could prod Lisa and Drew with more questions, Riley touched her on the shoulder to quiet her. She ignored the sidewise glance that Jenn gave her. Riley had a pretty good idea why the couple might not have called the police chief right away, but now was no time to get into it.

  Riley asked the couple, “Did Katy mention being frightened of anything or anybody recently? Was anything making her uneasy?”

  Lisa and Drew looked thoughtful for a moment.

  “Not exactly,” Lisa said. “But she hadn’t been herself lately. She’d been quiet, stayed in her room a lot, and she seemed … I don’t know, sad or upset about something. She wouldn’t tell me what it was all about.”

  Drew shook his head.

  “Lisa’s right,” he said. “She was behaving oddly. She used to be so happy and enthusiastic about everything—school, sports, friends.”

  Lisa said, “We kept waiting for her to pull out of it. Whenever I asked her what was the matter, she said it was nothing.”

  Lisa paused for a moment. Then she said, “I think she changed when she broke up with Dustin.”

  Riley’s attention quickened.

  “Her boyfriend?” Riley asked.

  “That’s right,” Drew said. “Dustin Russo.”

  “Did she say what the breakup was about?” Riley asked.

  Lisa shrugged slightly.

  “No. She wasn’t telling us much of anything around then.”

  Riley asked, “Did anything about Dustin’s behavior worry the two of you?”

  “Not really,” Drew said. “I mean, he’s a kid. He’s just a regular teenage kid.”

  “Did Katy keep a diary?”

  “If she did, it would be on her laptop. We never snooped.”

  “Of course,” Riley said. “But we’ll need to go over it.”

  Drew was silent for a moment, then said, “Anything that might help. It’s upstairs, in …”

  “I’ll have someone pick it up,” Riley said.

  Then Riley looked at Jenn, whose mind seemed to be elsewhere. But Riley knew they needed to find the kid and talk to him.

  Riley said to the couple, “Thanks so much for your help. I know this is terribly difficult.”

  She handed Drew her FBI card.

  “Please call me if you think of anything else you think we should know. We’re terribly sorry for your loss.”

  As Riley and Jenn turned away from the couple, they saw that Chief Sinard was now surrounded by houseguests, who were asking him all kinds of questions. Riley and Jenn managed to push among them and pull him aside.

  Riley asked him, “Do you know a boy named Dustin Russo?”

  Chief Sinard nodded.

  “Yeah, Rae and Derek Russo’s boy,” he said. “He was dating Katy the last I heard.”

  “What are your impressions of him?” Riley asked.

  “We need to talk to him,” Jenn said.

  Chief Sinard looked at his watch.

  “Well, school’s out, so we can probably catch him at home. I’ll drive ahead of you and take you there.”

  Riley didn’t especially want Sinard along for the interview. She and Jenn would do better without him. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to think of an excuse.

  “No, you’re needed here,” she said, indicating the people who had surrounded him. “Just give us his address and directions to his house.”

  After Chief Sinard jotted down the information, Riley said, “Oh, and Drew said that Katy’s laptop is upstairs. Would you have someone pick it up? We should check it out.”

  “I’ll do that,” Sinard said, then turned back to the questioning guests.

  Riley and Jenn left the house and walked to the car. Saying nothing and looking grim, Jenn got into the driver’s seat.

  Without comment, Riley took the passenger’s seat. She glanced over at the younger agent, wondering why she was sensing tension between them. She remembered that Jenn had gotten quiet while they were talking to the Philbins. She wasn’t sure what was wrong and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  As Jenn drove, Riley gazed out the side window, wondering whether their partnership was going to work out.

  The question worried her. She hoped she’d have more of an answer to it after they’d dealt with Dustin Russo.

  But right now she couldn’t help but think she might be better off working this case on her own. Or with someone else.

  Riley missed Bill and Lucy more and more.

  But she couldn’t think about that now.

  Possibly—just possibly—they were on their way to meet a young murderer.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jenn Roston was quietly seething as she drove toward the Russo house. Riley had cut her short during the interview, and it really pissed her off. Should she just let it go, or should she mention it?

  Finally Jenn said to Riley, “You wouldn’t let me ask the questions I wanted to ask.”

  “When was that?” Riley said.

  “It was when the Philbins couldn’t explain why they hadn’t called Chief Sinard earlier. I’m sure they were hiding something. We needed to put more pressure on them. You went too easy on them.”

  To Jenn’s surprise, Riley let out a small chuckle.

  “So are you thinking Drew Philbin raped and killed his own daughter?” she asked.

  “Aren’t you?” Jenn asked. “I mean, isn’t it a possibility?”

  “It might be. We sure haven’t eliminated him as a suspect.”

  Jenn was starting to feel confused now. She said, “They didn’t call Chief Sinard for a full day. That seemed weird. I wanted to know why. Didn’t you? Maybe we could have cracked this case right then and there.”

  Riley laughed a little again and asked, “Did you ever live in a small town, Jenn?”

  Jenn wondered what Riley’s question had to do with the matter at hand.

  “No,” she said. “I was a city kid, born and raised in Richmond.”

  She glanced and saw that Riley was looking reflectively out the window.

  “Well, I grew up in some small towns,” Riley said. “One was a little town called Slippery Rock, up in the Appalachian Mountains. It had a population of a few hundred. Whenever my father and I walked by the liquor store, he’d go inside and buy whiskey—lots of it, he drank a lot.”

  Riley paused for a moment, seemingly lost in memory.

  “I’d look in the window when Daddy was in there. I never, ever saw anybody else in there except old Mr. Stalnaker, who owned the store. He’d always talk to Daddy for a while—he never seemed to have anybody else to talk to.”

  Riley laughed again.

  “Well, I was really little and didn’t know any better, so one time I asked Daddy, ‘Doesn’t anybody in Slippery Rock drink except you?’ He laughed. That surprised me, because he was a bitter man and didn’t laugh a lot …”

  Riley’s voice faded away. For a moment, Jenn wondered if she was going to finish her story.

  Then she said, “He told me, ‘Sure, kid. Most of the men in this shit hole of a town drink more than I do. It’s just they don’t buy their liquor at Mr. Stalnaker’s place. Their wives won’t let them. They have to drive on over to Lyons or Tryon and buy their booze there.’”

  Riley chuckled.

  “It was a town full of drunks, and everybody knew that everybody else drank, but they were also decent churchgoers, and they didn’t dare be seen in a liquor store. Not Daddy, of course. He didn’t give a damn what anybody thought.”

  Riley fell silent. It took Jenn a few moments to understand the point she was making.

  Finally Jenn said, “I think I get it. I
n a small town like this, appearances are everything.”

  Riley nodded and said, “Angier’s a bigger town than Slippery Rock. But it’s still rural America. We’re in a place where appearances can be a lot more important that what’s really going on behind those appearances. At least to the locals.”

  Jenn turned that over in her mind as she continued to drive. She had never lived in a small town, but she had certainly known people to whom appearances were all-important.

  Then she said, “So … Drew and Lisa Philbin were worried about their daughter when she didn’t show up that first night and all the next day. But they were also worried what people might think if they knew about it. The first night, they probably didn’t call anybody. The next day they called only a handful of people at first—the boyfriend, friends, teachers. But …”

  Riley nodded and finished Jenn’s thought.

  “But not Chief Sinard, at least not right away. They knew he’d put the word out, and everybody would find out about it. And of course, that’s exactly what happened when they reported Katy missing.”

  It all seemed clear to Jenn now.

  Why hadn’t she been able to figure it out before?

  Because I’m not Riley Paige, she thought. She realized that she simply lacked the wide range of experience with people that an agent needed.

  Then Riley asked, “Do you still think Drew Philbin is our killer?”

  Jenn shrugged a little.

  “I don’t know. We still can’t count him out.”

  “Anything else?”

  Jenn paused, putting her thoughts together.

  She reasoned out loud, “I don’t think we’re dealing with a serial killer. The disposal of the body was too sloppy, too amateurish.”

  “Well,” Riley said, “some serials don’t conceal the body at all. They just dump them or even display them. I’ve seen victims left hanging in chains or made up to look like dolls.”

  Jenn remembered learning about those cases during her classroom days.

  She said, “But a killer who doesn’t want people to even know a murder has been committed does conceal the body. I just think that a serial would probably do a better job of it. And I’ve got a gut feeling about the boyfriend. Katy’s death sounds like a lovers’ spat turned really mean.”