by Blake Pierce
He and Riley Sweeney were an erratic team, but they had proved to be
effective together. The young woman had a rare talent, and he was
determined to see it developed properly, both for her sake and for the good of
the Bureau.
All the same, he reminded himself …
Don’t go to easy on her.
He felt skeptical about the way they had decided to go about the
investigation. Could they really make a father-daughter act work?
Still, Jake realized that he also felt a renewed enthusiasm. He and Riley
were here officially now. A BAU team was on the trail of a man who found
some kind of twisted pleasure in draining young women of their lives.
He just hoped they weren’t too far behind him to prevent another murder.
*
Riley sat in the passenger seat of the police car, watching Crivaro walk
toward her. She couldn’t tell from his expression whether the call had gone
well or badly.
She knew it mattered a lot. She was sure he’d called their boss at
Quantico, and if that had gone badly, they’d be headed right back there …
Or we might both get fired.
As Crivaro got into the back seat, Riley asked him, “Did you talk to
Lehl?”
“Yeah, and he’s willing to make this an official case.”
Riley felt a wave of relief.
“Did he say anything else?” she asked.
Crivaro smiled slightly and said, “He told me to keep your nose clean.”
“My nose?” Riley asked with surprise.
“Yeah, and my nose too.” He added with a chuckle, “He’s very concerned
about our nasal hygiene—speaking figuratively, of course.”
Riley laughed. She understood what Crivaro meant—that both of them
had better stay on their best behavior. Otherwise, they could wind up in a lot of trouble.
The cop named Wally was obviously trying not to show too much
curiosity about their conversation as he pulled out of the parking lot and
drove them across town. When they reached the RV rental business called
Arizona Outdoors, Crivaro told him …
“We won’t need you to chauffeur us around anymore. But we do need you
to make an official report to Chief Webster. Tell him we’re now sure this is a
serial killer and the FBI is staying on the case.”
Wally snapped out a brisk “Yessir.”
Crivaro thought for a moment, then added, “Also tell Webster to fax all
his reports and paperwork on this case to two numbers. One is the ME here in
Stover. Agent Sweeney and I will pick it up later. The second is the BAU
headquarters at Quantico.”
Jake took out a card and handed it to Wally.
“This is the number.”
“Anything else, sir?” Wally asked.
“That’s it. But those faxes are important. I’m counting on you to see that
they get done.”
For a moment, Wally looked as though he might salute, but then he just
nodded, tucked the card in a pocket, and drove away with a determined
expression on his face.
Riley felt a bit amused that Crivaro hadn’t called Webster to personally
tell him to send the faxes. Her partner clearly wasn’t eager to deal with the
grumpy local police chief more than he had to. And judging from their earlier
experiences with him, she was sure that Webster felt the same way about
Crivaro and Riley.
There was a fast food place just across the street from Arizona Outdoors.
Riley and Crivaro decided to go there first to have a coffee and a quick snack.
When they sat down to eat, Riley thought about the tasks they were about to
undertake.
Her mind began to reel.
This would be something she’d never tried to carry off before …
We’re going undercover!
CHAPTER TWELVE
Riley told herself to curb her excitement about going undercover. After
all, she and Crivaro would just be pretending to be campers so that other
campers would be willing to talk to them. This would be nothing like the
harrowing stories her Academy roommate, Frankie, had told her.
Frankie had gone undercover to bust drug dealers, but the experience had
become a nightmare when she was forced to inject herself with heroin in
order to save her own life.
Riley shuddered at the thought.
But surely she and Crivaro couldn’t get into such a dire situation while
staying at the fancy RV resort they planned to check out. It was where the
recent victim had last been seen alive, and it seemed possible that the killer
had stayed there too. Or at least, maybe someone there knew something about
him. They had no other clues that might help pick up his trail.
Riley asked Crivaro, “Have you ever gone undercover before?”
Crivaro chuckled and said, “Yeah, but nothing like this. I’ve got to admit,
I feel a little out of my depth.”
Riley looked at him in surprise, and finally he continued.
“Trying to pass myself as some regular old retired camper is going to be
tough enough. As you know, I’ve been a city type all my life. But trying to
convince people that I’m your dad … well, that’s really going to be a
challenge.”
Riley looked at Crivaro and considered how well they might pass as
family members. They both had dark hair and strong features. He was
rugged-looking in a different way from her real father, muscular but not so
lean and wiry.
And like many fathers, he could be tough on her—sometimes too tough
for her liking. She didn’t expect to find it all that hard to pretend that Crivaro was her dad. She knew she’d already thought of him as a father figure, at
least a few times.
Then she grinned and told him, “I think the toughest part for me will be
remembering to call you ‘Dad.’”
“You’ll have to make it sound natural,” he replied.
Riley was curious about something, but the memory of Frankie’s awful
story made her hesitate to ask.
She nibbled at her fries, then asked cautiously, “What were your other
undercover jobs like?”
Crivaro squinted as he took a sip of coffee.
He said, “Way back during my early years with the Bureau, I posed as a
hit man on a couple of cases.”
Riley’s eyes widened.
“That sounds dangerous,” she said.
Crivaro grunted and said, “Not as much as you might expect. But it sure
took a toll on my faith in human nature.”
As Crivaro bit into his burger, Riley wondered whether he was going to
tell her anything else about it.
Better not push him, she thought.
Finally he said, “The first time I went undercover, I helped bust a bank
manager. One of his employees had caught him embezzling, and he wanted
to bump the guy off. It took a whole team to set it up so that he’d seek me out for the job. I put on a wire, and the bank manager and I held the meeting right in his office. He didn’t mince words about what he wanted, and our team
burst right in the minute he gave me an envelope full of money.”
Crivaro scratched his chin and added, “That first case didn’t really shake
me up too much. I’ve never thought highly of bankers, so it didn’t come as a
surprise that my target would think
of murder as just another business deal.
Call me cynical, but I figure that’s the way business is done in this country, at least by the people who can afford it.”
Then Crivaro’s expression darkened a little. “But the other case … that
one still nags at me.”
Riley sensed that he was truly troubled by the memory.
She was about to say …
“You don’t have to tell me about it.”
But then Crivaro said, “There was this housewife whose husband cheated
on her, and she decided she wanted to kill his girlfriend, and she tried to hire me to do it. We arranged a clandestine meeting in her car, and I was wearing
a wire, and it was … one of the strangest damn things I’ve ever experienced.”
Crivaro leaned across the table toward Riley and said …
“She acted like it wasn’t anything serious. She acted like it was some kind
of silly game. I kept trying to get her to say aloud what she wanted me to do,
and she kept giggling and nudging me and all but winking, saying, ‘Oh, you know. I don’t have to say it. You know what I want you to do. You must
have done this lots of times.’”
Riley was imagining the scene now. She was starting to understand just
why it must have seemed so weird to Crivaro.
He continued, “Then she kind of wagged her finger at me and said that the
woman had a really sweet dog, and whatever else I did, I mustn’t hurt that
dog. The dog hadn’t done anything bad to her. She said now that she thought
about it, she wanted to adopt the dog.”
Crivaro shook his head and said, “And finally she just blurted out, ‘I want
you to kill that woman, but after you do, I want you to bring me the dog. I’ll
keep the dog. I’ll be very nice to him.’ And she handed me the money, and
the team swarmed right in and arrested her.”
Riley’s mouth hung open with shock.
The idea of a woman wanting to kill somebody but fretting about the life
of the victim’s dog seemed downright bizarre.
And really twisted.
Crivaro said, “Even then, I was used to tracking down a different kind of
killer. Some of them have been bona fide monsters who wore their evil on
their sleeves. Others have just been rotten people. But if you met this woman
on the street or in a grocery store, she’d seem like just another normal
housewife.”
He shook his head and added, “And that’s what scared me. Maybe she was
just a normal housewife. Doing the kind of work I do, how am I supposed to know what ‘normal’ even means? Ever since then, I’ve wondered about
people I see around me everywhere, on the streets and in public places—
polite people who smile even at strangers. I wonder whether most people are capable of murder, given the opportunity and as long as someone else does
the dirty work.”
He shrugged and added, “Like I said, who am I to even know?”
Crivaro and Riley continued eating in silence. After they finished their
snack, Crivaro said, “Come on, we’d better get to work.”
They walked across the street to Arizona Outdoors, where dozens of
vehicles and trailers were parked neatly for display in a lot outside the main
building.
Crivaro put his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet and shook his
head.
He asked Riley, “Have you ever been camping?”
“Some,” Riley said. “I used to go out with my dad from time to time into
the Appalachian Mountains. It was when he was hunting or fishing.”
Crivaro grumbled, “Well, I haven’t been camping since I was a Boy
Scout. And even then I wasn’t any good at it. I’ll be damned if I’ve got any
idea what we’re looking for.”
Crivaro pointed to a nearby storefront. “That looks like a camping goods
store. Remember what Harry said—we can’t go into a campground dressed
like a couple of FBI agents. I’m gonna go over there and find myself some
appropriate clothes. Your assignment is to pick out an RV, something
suitable for a father-daughter holiday. What do I know about that anyhow?”
Riley was about to protest that she didn’t know anything more about
campers than he did. She and her father had always roughed it whenever
they’d gone out into the woods for a few nights, taking little with them but a
tent and some necessary supplies.
But Crivaro patted her on the arm and said, “Money’s no object. This is an
official case, so we’re doing everything on the Bureau’s dime now.”
Without giving her a chance to protest, he strode away toward the store.
Riley looked around at the conglomeration of vehicles, wondering …
Now what do I do?
As if in reply to her unspoken question, she heard a voice behind her.
“May I help you?”
She turned around and saw a young woman wearing a nametag that said
“EMILY.” She was dressed in blue shorts and a blue T-shirt, obviously the
company’s employee uniform. Emily had a flawless smile and an equally
flawless complexion. She looked like she’d walked straight out of a TV
commercial. Riley doubted she’d ever been camping in her life.
Riley suddenly realized that she had no idea what to say to her.
Think fast, she told herself.
She said, “Um, my dad and I want to rent a nice trailer or an RV or
something to camp in.”
Emily squinted at Riley and said, “I wonder if you could be more
specific.”
Riley felt thoroughly stymied now, but quickly figured …
Maybe the truth is best.
She forced a chuckle and said, “To be honest, I’ve got no idea what I’m looking for. We’d just like to spend a vacation together and thought it would
be fun to stay at some of the really nice RV resorts. He’s left the choice of
camper up to me. I’m hoping you can help me make a decision.”
“Well, that’s what I’m here for,” Emily said with a chuckle.
Then she eyed Riley from head to foot and asked, “Where are you from?”
For a moment Riley wondered why Emily had asked that question. But
then she remembered how she was dressed—in a suit jacket with full-length
slacks, hardly the sort of wardrobe anybody would normally wear on a warm
Arizona day.
She remembered Harry’s words.
“Hell, you’ve got ‘FBI’ written all over you.”
Riley wondered if maybe Emily had already figured out exactly who she
was. Maybe she’d even noticed the bulge under Riley jacket where her Glock
was holstered. The thought was discouraging. She’d been undercover for
only a minute or so, and she was already having trouble keeping her cover,
even with an ordinary rental employee. Was she really ready to take on this
task in earnest?
Again, she figured maybe it wouldn’t hurt to be at least partially truthful.
She said, “My dad and I just flew in from Virginia. We’re from the, uh,
DC area.”
Emily’s smile widened, as if that explained a lot.
She said, “Maybe a simple camping trailer would suit you.”
Riley looked where Emily was pointing and saw some camping trailers of
various shapes and sizes. The larger ones looked like the pictures that Harry’s wife, Jillian, had shown her of their camper.
But towing something like that could
be a problem.
She remembered how she and Ryan had hauled their belongings in a
trailer when they’d moved to DC. Putting the hitch on Ryan’s car had been a
lot of trouble, and she hadn’t enjoyed her share of the driving. Making turns
and backing up had been difficult. Besides, she and Crivaro would have to
rent a car or truck in addition to the trailer.
She said to Emily, “I don’t think a trailer’s quite what I’m looking for.”
Emily asked, “May I ask what kind of price range you’ve got in mind?”
Riley remembered what Crivaro had just said.
“Money’s no object.”
Riley wasn’t sure how she felt about running up a huge bill for the FBI to pay. But at least they could afford more than these trailers.
Feigning embarrassment, Riley said, “Well, the truth is, my dad’s pretty
well off.”
Emily nodded and said, “Let’s look at some motor homes, then.”
Emily led Riley through the lot and explained to her the categories of the
vehicles. The biggest and most luxurious were the Class A motor homes.
These box-shaped vehicles were built on what looked like truck chassis, and
they were as big as buses. Riley figured their interiors must be furnished like expensive hotel rooms, but she didn’t ask Emily to let her look inside any of
them. She couldn’t imagine driving around in such a ridiculously large
vehicle.
“Well,” Emily chirped, “maybe a Class B would work better for you.”
These were the smallest vehicles—more like good-sized vans, with raised
roofs and tiny kitchen facilities and bathrooms. Riley could picture herself
getting pretty comfortable in the one Emily showed her. But what about
Agent Crivaro? What about the two of them living in that tight space
together? Riley wished he’d stuck around to help her decide.
Riley shook her head no, and Emily took her over to see the Class C RV
motor homes. These were mid-sized vans, smaller than Class A but bigger
than Class B.
Emily showed Riley a brand new midsized motor home. A single camping
unit was perched on a truck chassis, with an extension jutting out over the
cab. Riley figured that even though it was longer, it wouldn’t be much harder
to drive than an ordinary pickup truck or a big van. The strategy for turns and backing up would be more familiar.