ONCE LOST

by Blake Pierce

  Why not? she wondered.

  The scenario she’d imagined was wrong somehow.

  But how?

  Riley heaved a deep sigh.

  She ought to have known this wouldn’t work—not here in her motel bed. She had usually summoned those uncanny moments of connection in the very locations where a crime had been committed. Or at least somewhere connected to the murder.

  No, it wasn’t going to work here.

  But at least she was feeling more tired now.

  She closed her eyes and went fast asleep.

  *

  Riley heard her phone buzzing on the bed stand.

  She opened her eyes and saw sunlight through the window. The clock said it was eight o’clock.

  Riley was surprised that she’d slept so late.

  But after all, yesterday had been a long, tiring day.

  She grabbed the phone and answered it.

  “Agent Paige, this is Chief Sinard. I thought you should know that we just now released Judd Griggs.”

  Riley sat bolt upright in bed.

  “What?” she said with a gasp.

  “The DA was wavering about bringing charges against him even yesterday. But today he’s sure that Griggs isn’t guilty—and so am I.”

  Riley rubbed her eyes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Another girl has gone missing,” Sinard said. “It happened while Griggs was in custody.”

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  Riley’s mind reeled at what Chief Sinard had just said. She actually felt dizzy.

  Another girl—missing! she thought.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said aloud into the phone.

  But the truth was, part of her did believe it. After all, she’d been struggling with doubt since yesterday evening.

  Sinard sounded bitter and angry.

  “You don’t have to believe it. Frankly, I want you to stay out of this from now on. You’ve failed to catch the killer, and you’ve destroyed a good man’s reputation. I want you and your partner to fly back to Quantico immediately. Call for the BAU plane, and I’ll send Officer Laird to pick you up and drive you to the airport. You can leave my car in the motel parking lot. I’ll have someone pick it up later.”

  Riley said nothing.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” Riley said.

  She abruptly ended the call.

  Then she sat on the bed trying to gather her chaotic thoughts.

  Sinard’s words kept echoing through her brain.

  “I want you and your partner to fly back to Quantico immediately.”

  She knew it was his prerogative to send them back. They were here at his official request, after all. He could change his mind at any time.

  And yet …

  There’s a killer loose in Angier, she thought. He’s more dangerous than ever.

  Did she really think the local police were capable of stopping him?

  She decided to wake Jenn up right away.

  They needed to get the police station as soon as they could.

  *

  During the short drive to the police station, Riley told Jenn what had just happened.

  Jenn seemed to be even more shaken by the news than Riley had been.

  “I don’t understand,” Jenn said. “I just don’t understand.”

  “That makes two of us,” Riley said. “But don’t expect Chief Sinard to give us a cozy welcome. He won’t be glad to see us.”

  “Um, Riley,” Jenn said, pointing. “I don’t think he’s the only who won’t be glad to see us.”

  Riley was just then pulling up in front of the police station. As she parked, she saw a crowd of people clustered around the front steps. Standing at the top of the steps were Judd Griggs, his wife, and their lawyer. They were flanked by a couple of uniformed policemen.

  “Oh, no,” Riley murmured.

  She and Jenn got out of the car and approached the crowd.

  Judd Griggs was still speaking to the crowd, smiling broadly.

  He said, “A night in jail was a new experience, I can tell you that. Not one that I ever want to repeat, though.”

  There was a burst of laughter among the crowd.

  The coach had obviously been talking for a little while now, charming the crowd and winning their sympathy.

  He continued, “Folks, you’re going to hear some bad things about me during the next few days—maybe even sooner. Some of those things might not be true, but I’m afraid others might be. If it’s true, I’ll admit it. I won’t pretend that I’ve lived a perfect life. But I think you know that I’m a man who owns up to his mistakes. And I put those mistakes behind me many years ago.”

  He hugged his wife, who was also smiling.

  “Renee came into my life at a very bad time. She saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself. She turned my life around, made me a better man. I owe everything I have to her.”

  A man’s voice called out from the crowd.

  “What are you going to do now, Coach? Sue the city?”

  Griggs’s lawyers took a step forward. He looked eager to answer the question with a resounding “yes.” But Griggs waved him back.

  “That’s not our first priority, believe me,” Griggs said. “Right now Renee and I are going right back to everything exactly as usual.”

  He still had his arm around Renee. She called out to the crowd.

  “Meanwhile, there’s a real killer loose in this town. Chief Sinard just told us another girl is missing! The FBI sent agents here from all the way out east to solve it, but what did they wind up doing? They accused my husband! I don’t know about you, but that makes me mad! And scared!”

  The crowd yelled out in rowdy agreement.

  Then Renee pointed to Riley and Jenn.

  “And there they are! They’ve got the nerve to show up here! Agents Paige and Roston, I think you owe my husband and the good people of Angier an apology. And you’d better be able to tell us what you’re doing at long last to keep our children safe!”

  Riley and Jenn were suddenly engulfed by angry people, pushing and shoving at them and calling them liars and demanding an apology. Riley grabbed Jenn by the arm and pulled her toward the police station through the crowd. She was worried that things might get violent—not on account of what might happen to her and Jenn, but because of what they might have to do to defend themselves.

  The last thing she wanted right now was for anyone to get hurt.

  She and Jenn pushed their way among the jostling people. When they got to the door, even the two uniformed cops stood with their arms crossed, making a show of being unhelpful to them.

  Riley pulled the door open, and she and Jenn got inside.

  “What do we do now?” Jenn said, breathless from their tussle with the crowd.

  “We’ve got to talk to Chief Sinard,” Riley said. “Whether he likes it or not.”

  They headed straight to the chief’s office. Not surprisingly, he greeted them with a grim expression and didn’t get up from his chair.

  “I thought I told you that your work here is over,” he said, shuffling papers on his desk.

  Riley stood at the edge of desk looking down at him.

  “The least you can do is tell us what happened,” she said. “Who is this missing girl? Why are you so sure she is missing?”

  Sinard’s eyes darted back and forth between Riley and Jenn, as if trying to decide whether to bother offering them an explanation.

  Finally he spoke in a tight, angry voice.

  “Her name is Amelia Stack. She’s a junior at Wilson. She was last seen yesterday afternoon at play practice after school, which finished at about four-thirty. I don’t need to tell you that that was after you apprehended the coach.”

  He paused for a moment.

  “She and her cast mates were supposed to meet for snacks after rehearsal. She didn’t show up, and her friends said that wasn’t like her. She didn’t go home for dinner either, so her pare
nts started to worry. She’d told them she planned to go over to a friend’s house later that evening to study. They called the friend’s parents—she never showed up there. They called all of Amelia’s friends, and nobody had any idea where she was.”

  Sinard drummed his fingers on his desk.

  “The parents were beside themselves. Amelia’s a good and reliable girl, and they knew she wouldn’t just wander off for no reason. They called me. My men and I spent the whole night looking for her and couldn’t find her.”

  Sinard got up from his desk and started to pace.

  “Well, I called the DA early this morning. He’d already had his doubts about bringing charges against Coach Griggs, but this was the last straw. He ordered me to release him a little while ago.”

  He waved his finger and Riley and Jenn angrily.

  “I told you I wanted you gone, and I meant it. If I feel like we need BAU help, I’ll call in someone else—agents who might have some idea of what they’re doing. Meanwhile, I want you out of this town, do you hear me?”

  Riley locked eyes with him for a silent moment.

  “Was Amelia Stack on the soccer team?” she asked.

  Sinard glared at her. “I don’t know,” he snapped. “That doesn’t really matter now.”

  Then Riley turned around and said to Jenn, “Let’s go.”

  As Jenn followed her out of the office, Sinard yelled after them.

  “Did you hear what I said. I want you gone!”

  Riley and Jenn headed down the hallway toward the front door.

  “We’ve still got work to do,” Riley said.

  “How?” Jenn said. “I don’t understand.”

  Riley wasn’t sure herself—not just yet.

  But another girl was missing, and she might be dead already.

  They had no time to lose.

  Fortunately, the crowd had dispersed by the time they left the building, and there was no sign of Coach Griggs and his wife anywhere. They got into the chief’s car, and Riley started to drive.

  “Where are we going?” Jenn said.

  A frantic plan was brewing in Riley’s mind.

  “I’m going to drop you off at Wilson High,” she said. “You can ask whether or not Amelia Stack was on the soccer team. She must have had some connection to the coach. See what you can find out about that.”

  Jenn sat in the passenger seat gaping at Riley with disbelief.

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “That’s what you want me to do? Do you really think I’m going to learn anything there fast enough to save—”

  Riley interrupted her in a sharp voice.

  “That’s an order, Agent Roston.”

  It was the first time Riley had called her that in several days.

  Jenn looked like she’d been slapped.

  She said with a bitter tone, “And what about you—Agent Paige? What are you going to do while I’m asking questions at Wilson High School?”

  Riley’s jaw clenched.

  “That’s my own business,” she said.

  Jenn let out a growl of anger and frustration.

  “If you say so,” she said.

  They drove the rest of the way to school in silence.

  Riley hated having to talk like that to Jenn. But she knew it was for Jenn’s own good.

  Taking Jenn to Wilson High served no purpose except keeping her away from Riley.

  Riley was about to do something desperate, something that would probably end her own career.

  There’s no reason to ruin Jenn’s career too, she thought.

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  Bill had been making this same short trip almost every day since Riley had gone to Iowa. His regular drive-by checks of Riley’s house had only been interrupted by his emotional collapse on Sunday.

  He knew that PTSD could happen to anyone. He’d even helped see Riley through a terrible bout with it. But it still embarrassed him that he had fallen apart and drawn Riley away from her assignment.

  Now that Riley was back to her job, Bill felt good to be back to his unofficial duty.

  But then he noticed something unsettling.

  The unmarked police car parked in front of the house appeared to be empty.

  What the hell? he thought.

  Bill parked his own car nearby, got out, and looked inside the other vehicle.

  Sure enough, nobody was in the car.

  He felt a rush of anger.

  During the last couple of days, he’d talked to both pairs of cops who had been taking turns watching Riley’s house. He knew that Maddox and Carney were supposed to be here on the day shift. They’d struck him as OK guys, but not especially bright. Still, Bill had figured they were up to the job of watching a house where nothing was likely to happen.

  After all, the last he’d heard, the FBI team was still tracking Shane Hatcher down in Norfolk.

  Bill grumbled aloud …

  “What are those clowns doing? Taking a stroll for a doughnut?”

  He shook his head with frustration, then decided he’d better check Riley’s house for himself. He walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell.

  No one answered. He knew that the kids were in school, but where was Gabriela?

  Then Bill noticed something that alarmed him.

  The door wasn’t completely closed.

  He pushed the door, which swung open. Had Gabriela accidentally left the door ajar? No, that didn’t sound like Gabriela at all.

  Bill took a deep breath to cool his nerves. Then he drew his weapon and walked on into the house.

  In the middle of the living room, he saw Officer Maddox lying in a pool of blood.

  He hurried over to the body, knelt down, and felt for a pulse.

  There wasn’t any.

  Maddox was dead.

  And next to his body was a bloody chain.

  Shane the Chain! Bill thought with a shudder.

  It was Hatcher’s legendary calling card, and his preferred method of murder—to bludgeon his opponents to death with a chain. Bill knew that Riley believed Hatcher to have put such vicious acts behind him.

  He obviously hadn’t.

  He’d reverted to the heartless killer who had always lurked beneath his educated surface.

  Bill saw that Maddox’s eyes were wide open in an expression of sheer terror.

  Bill gulped hard.

  It must have been a nasty way to die.

  But Bill didn’t have time to dwell on that. It seemed entirely possible that Shane Hatcher was still in the house. If so, where was the second cop? And what might have happened to Gabriela?

  His gun still ready, Bill moved slowly through the house, looking through all the doorways. He heard no sounds at all except for his own breathing and cautious footsteps.

  When he got to the back of the house, Bill found that the door to the back deck was also ajar.

  Bill remembered that Gabriela lived in the downstairs apartment, so he made his way down the stairs. He found the door partly open.

  When he stepped into the apartment, he saw Carney’s body.

  Carney had died a different death—his throat slit wide open with a bloody knife that still lay on the floor nearby.

  Like Maddox, Carney appeared to have been dead for about an hour.

  Bill’s heart was pounding now.

  Where was Gabriela? Was Shane Hatcher still in the house?

  Bill dashed up the stairs and continued on up to the second floor. He frantically searched through all the rooms and closets. There was no sign of Hatcher anywhere—or of Gabriela.

  Bill felt dizzy with confusion. He walked back downstairs, trying to gather his thoughts, to figure out just what had happened. Little by little, things started to make some sense.

  Hatcher had slipped through the BAU’s fingers down in Norfolk. He’d left false trails all over the place to keep them busy. He’d only gone there in the first place as a ruse, to free him up to come here without anybody’s knowledge.

  Hatcher must
have broken in through the back door, then disarmed the security system. Even so, something must have alerted Maddox and Carney that something was wrong in the house—possibly something as simple as a shadow moving past a window.

  The two cops had stormed inside and separated to search the place. Carney had been the first to encounter Hatcher down in Gabriela’s apartment. Hatcher had killed him swiftly, ruthlessly, and silently. Then Hatcher had crept upstairs, taken Maddox by surprise, and viciously bludgeoned him to death.

  But where was Hatcher right now?

  And what had happened to Gabriela?

  Fortunately, Bill had Gabriela’s cell phone number. He punched in the numbers and breathed a sigh of relief when the Guatemalan woman answered.

  “Gabriela, this is Bill Jeffreys. Where are you right now?”

  “Out shopping for groceries. Is something wrong?”

  “Are the kids in school?”

  “Sí, of course. What is the matter? You are scaring me.”

  Bill tried to sound calmer than he felt. There was no point in telling Gabriela about the two dead cops.

  He said, “Gabriela, whatever you do, don’t come home.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just trust me.”

  “But where should I go instead?”

  Bill thought for a moment.

  He remembered that charming guy whom Riley seemed to be dating these days.

  He said, “Can you get over to Blaine Hildreth’s house?”

  “Sí, I am very near there right now.”

  “How long will it take for you to get there?”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  “Go there right now. I’ll call him and tell him you’re coming. Stay with him until I get in touch with you.”

  Bill ended the call, then quickly found Blaine’s number and punched it in.

  When Blaine answered, Bill told him who was calling.

  “Where are you now?” Bill asked.

  “At home. I was just getting ready to go to my restaurant.”

  “Don’t,” Bill said. “Stay right where you are. Riley’s housekeeper, Gabriela, is on her way to your house. You’ve got to keep her there.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Bill struggled with what to say next. He’d avoided telling Gabriela about the grisly scene he’d discovered. He didn’t like alarming civilians if he didn’t have to. But he was putting Blaine in the middle of this situation. Blaine deserved to know.