Once Dormant

by Blake Pierce

  Still, something didn’t add up for Riley …

  She said, “So Paul and Barrett are forcing you out? That’s their solution?”

  Ryan nodded, and Riley shook her head with disbelief.

  Paul and Barrett weren’t exactly Boy Scouts themselves, and Riley had overheard some pretty salacious talk among all three of the partners over the years. She was sure that their behavior had been no better than Ryan’s—possibly considerably worse.

  She said, “Ryan, you said she wouldn’t sign an NDA.”

  Ryan nodded and took a sip of his drink.

  Very cautiously she asked, “How many sexual harassment NDAs have you worked out over the years?”

  Ryan winced again, and Riley knew she’d hit upon the truth.

  She added, “And Paul and Barrett—how many NDAs have they had to negotiate for themselves?”

  Ryan began, “Riley, I’d rather not get into—”

  “No, of course you wouldn’t,” Riley interrupted. “Ryan, you’re being scapegoated. You know that, don’t you? Paul and Barrett are trying to clean up the firm’s image, make it look like they’ve got some kind of zero-tolerance policy toward harassment. Getting rid of you is their way of doing that.”

  Ryan shrugged and said, “I know. But what can I do?”

  Riley certainly didn’t know what to tell him. She didn’t want to sympathize with him. He’d been digging this hole for himself for years. Even so, she hated the trick his partners had played on him.

  But she knew there was nothing he could do about it now. Besides, something else was worrying her.

  Nodding toward the bags, she asked, “What are these for?”

  Ryan looked at the bags for a moment.

  Then he said in a choked voice, “Riley, I can’t go home.”

  Riley gasped aloud.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “Did you lose the house?”

  “No, not yet. It’s just that …”

  Ryan’s voice faded, then he said …

  “I can’t face it alone. I can’t live in that house alone. I keep remembering happy times with you and April. I keep thinking about how badly I screwed things up for all of us. The place breaks my heart, Riley.”

  He took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. Riley was shocked. She’d very rarely seen Ryan cry. She almost felt like crying herself.

  But she knew she had a serious problem to solve right now.

  She said in a gentle voice …

  “Ryan, you can’t stay here.”

  Ryan shriveled like a punctured balloon. Riley wished her words weren’t so hurtful. But she had to be honest.

  “I’ve got my own life now,” she said. “I’ve got two girls to raise. And it’s a good life. Blaine and I are serious about each other—really serious. In fact …”

  She almost went on to tell him about Blaine’s plans to build onto his house.

  But no, that would be too much right now.

  Instead she said, “You can sell our old house.”

  “I know,” Ryan said, still crying softly. “I plan to. But in the meantime … I just can’t live there.”

  Riley wished she could do something to comfort him—take his hand, give him a hug, or some other physical gesture of comfort.

  It was tempting, and some of her old feeling for him was welling up inside her but …

  Don’t do it, she told herself.

  Stay cool.

  Think of Blaine.

  Think of the kids.

  Ryan was sobbing pathetically now. In a truly frantic voice he said …

  “Riley, I’m sorry. I want to start all over. I want to be a good husband and a good dad. Surely I can do that if … we try again.”

  Still keeping physical space between them, Riley said …

  “Ryan, we can’t. It’s way too late for that.”

  “It’s never too late,” Ryan cried. “Let’s just go away, the two of us, put things back together.”

  Riley shuddered deeply.

  He doesn’t know what he’s saying, she thought.

  He’s having a nervous breakdown.

  She also felt pretty sure now that he’d been drinking earlier today.

  Then, with a nervous laugh, he said …

  “I’ve got it! Let’s head up to your dad’s cabin! I’ve never even been there, can you believe it? Not once in all these years. We can spend a few days there and—”

  Riley interrupted him sharply, “Ryan no.”

  He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

  In a gentler voice Riley said, “I’ve sold the cabin, Ryan. And even if I hadn’t …”

  She fell silent for a moment, then said …

  “Ryan, you’ve got to pull yourself out of this. I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”

  Ryan’s shoulders sagged and his sobbing grew quieter. He seemed to be taking Riley’s words to heart.

  She said, “You’re a tough, smart, resourceful man. You can come back from all this. I know you can. But I can’t be a part of it. It wouldn’t be good for me—and if you’re honest with yourself, you know it wouldn’t be good for you either.”

  Ryan nodded miserably.

  “You’re right,” he said, his voice steadier now. “It’s my own mess and I’ve got to fix it. I’m sorry I bothered you. I’ll go home now.”

  As he got to his feet, Riley said …

  “Wait a minute. You’re in no condition to drive home. Let me drive you. You can come back and get your car when you’re feeling better.”

  Ryan nodded again.

  Riley was relieved that they weren’t going to have an argument about it, and that she didn’t have to forcibly take his car keys away from him.

  Riley finally dared to take him by the arm as she led him out to her own car. He really did seem to need her physical support.

  They were both silent during the drive. When they pulled up to the big, beautiful house they’d once shared, he said, “Riley, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I … I think you’ve done really well. And I wish you every happiness.”

  Riley felt a lump in her throat.

  “Oh, Ryan—” she began.

  “No, please listen to me, because this is important. I admire you. You’ve done so many great things. You’ve been a great mother to April, and you’ve adopted Jilly, and you’re starting into a relationship, and I can tell that he’s a great guy. And all the while you’ve been doing your job, stopping bad guys, saving lives. I don’t know how you’ve done it. Your life is all of a piece.”

  Riley was deeply startled—and deeply disturbed.

  When was the last time Ryan had said anything like this to her?

  She simply had no idea what to say.

  To her relief, Ryan got out of the car without saying another word.

  Riley sat staring at the house as Ryan went on inside. Her heart really went out to him. She couldn’t imagine facing that house alone herself—not with all the memories it harbored, both good or bad.

  And those words he’d said …

  “Your life is all of a piece.”

  She sighed and murmured aloud …

  “It’s not true.”

  It was still a struggle for her, raising two girls while working at a consuming and often dangerous job. She was pulled in too many directions, had too many commitments, and she hadn’t yet learned to handle it.

  Was it always going to be this way?

  And how was Blaine going to fit into it all?

  Was a successful marriage even possible for her?

  She shuddered at the thought that maybe she’d be in Ryan’s shoes one day.

  Then she pulled away from the house where she had once lived, and drove back home.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Riley was pacing the floor in her living room.

  She told herself that she should just relax now, that she’d learned all about relaxing on her recent vacation. But when she thought about that, she found herself rem
embering what her father had said in her nightmare …

  “You’re a hunter, like me.”

  But she sure didn’t feel like a hunter at the moment.

  More like a caged animal, she thought.

  She’d just gotten home from taking the girls to their first day of school. Jilly was delighted to finally be in the same high school as her sister. The new students and their parents got the customary welcome in the auditorium, then a quick tour of the students’ classrooms. April had been able to join Riley and Jilly for the tour.

  Although Riley hadn’t had a chance to talk at length with each teacher, she’d managed to say hello and introduce herself as Jilly’s mother and April as Jilly’s sister. Some of Jilly’s new teachers had taught April in earlier years, and they had nice things to say about her.

  When Riley had wanted to hang around after the orientation, both girls had teased her.

  “And do what?” April had asked. “Go to all of Jilly’s classes?”

  Riley had said maybe she would, provoking a moan of despair from Jilly.

  “Mo-o-o-m! That would be so uncool!”

  April had laughed and said, “Mom, don’t be a chopper.”

  When Riley asked what a “chopper” was, April informed her it meant “helicopter parent.”

  One of those terms I ought to be up on, Riley thought.

  Anyway, Riley had respected Jilly’s pride and come on home—and now here she was. Gabriela had gone out to meet one of her numerous cousins for lunch, then do some grocery shopping. So Riley was alone in the house, except for a dog and a cat that didn’t seem the least bit interested in her.

  I’ve got to snap out of this, she thought.

  Riley went to the kitchen and got herself a snack. Then she forced herself to sit down in the living room and turned on the TV. The news was depressing, so she switched to a daytime soap. She had no idea what was going on in the story, but it was diverting, at least for a little while.

  But her attention soon wandered, and she found herself thinking about what Ryan had said during his awful visit when she got back from the beach …

  “I can’t face it alone. I can’t live in that house alone.”

  Right now, Riley had some idea of how he felt.

  Were she and her ex-husband more alike than she wanted to admit?

  She tried to convince herself otherwise. Unlike Ryan, she was taking care of her family. Later today, the girls and Gabriela would all be home and they’d have dinner together. Maybe this weekend Blaine and Crystal would join them.

  That thought reminded Riley that Blaine had been a little bit reserved toward her ever since the whole thing with Ryan had happened. Riley could understand why. Riley hadn’t wanted to talk to Blaine about the visit afterward—it seemed too intimate and personal—and it was only natural that Blaine had felt uncomfortable about it.

  She had an urge to phone him right now, but she knew that Blaine was putting in a lot of hours catching up with things at his restaurant now that their vacation was over.

  So now here Riley was, feeling terribly alone in her own house …

  Just like Ryan.

  She couldn’t help feeling a little guilty toward her ex-husband—although she couldn’t imagine why. Nothing that was wrong in his life was her fault. Even so, she more than half-wanted to give him a call, find out how he was doing, maybe commiserate with him a little. But of course, that was an incredibly stupid idea. The last thing she wanted to do was give him any false signals that they might get together again.

  As the soap opera characters argued, wept, slapped each other, and jumped in out of bed with each other, something occurred to Riley.

  Sometimes her own life at home, her family and relationships, didn’t seem any more real to her than what she was watching on TV. The actual presence of her loved ones tended to distract her from her deep-seated sense of isolation. But even just a few hours by herself in the house was enough to painfully remind her of how truly alone she felt inside.

  There was an empty place inside her that could only be filled by …

  What, exactly?

  By work.

  But how meaningful was her work, to herself or to anybody else?

  Again she remembered something her father had said in that dream …

  “It’s a damn crazy useless life you’ve got—seeking justice for people who’re already dead, exactly the people who don’t need justice anymore.”

  She wondered …

  Is that true?

  Is what I do really useless?

  Surely not, since she often stopped killers who would certainly have killed again if they could have.

  She saved lives in the long run—just how many lives, she couldn’t begin to imagine.

  And yet, in order for her to even have a job to do, somebody had to kill, and somebody had to die …

  It always starts with death.

  And more often than not, her cases continued to nag at her and haunt her even after they were solved, after the killers were slain or brought to justice.

  She turned off the television, which was only irritating her now. Then she sat back and closed her eyes and thought about her most recent case, that of a serial killer down in Georgia.

  Poor Morgan, she thought.

  Morgan Farrell had been married to a wealthy but abusive man. When he’d been brutally stabbed to death in his sleep, Morgan had been sure she was the one who had killed him, even though she couldn’t remember the deed.

  She was sure she’d forgotten about it because of pills and alcohol.

  And she’d been proud of what she’d thought she’d done. She’d even called Riley by phone to tell her so …

  “I killed the bastard.”

  Morgan had been innocent, as things turned out. Another deranged woman had killed Morgan’s husband—and several other equally abusive husbands.

  The woman, who had suffered at her own late husband’s hands, had been on a vigilante mission to free other women from that pain. Riley had stopped her just before she could mistakenly kill a man who wasn’t guilty of anything except loving his disturbed, delusional wife.

  Riley replayed the scene in her mind, after she’d fought the woman to the ground and was putting her in handcuffs …

  “Adrienne McKinney, you’re under arrest.”

  But now Riley wondered …

  What if everything could have ended differently?

  What if Riley been able to save the innocent man, explain to the woman the mistake she’d made, and then simply let her go?

  She’d have kept on killing, Riley thought.

  And the men she killed would have deserved to die.

  So what kind of justice had she really carried out that time?

  Riley’s heart sank, and she remembered again her father’s words …

  “It’s a damn crazy useless life you’ve got.”

  On one hand, she was desperately trying to live the life of a mother raising two daughters, the life of a woman in love with a man she hoped to marry. At times, that life seemed to be actually working out for her, and she knew she would never stop trying to be good at it.

  But as soon as she found herself alone, that ordinary life seemed unreal.

  On the other hand, she struggled against awful odds to bring down monsters. Her work was intensely important to her, even though it all too often began and ended in pure futility.

  Riley felt perfectly miserable now. Despite the early hour, she was tempted to pour herself a stiff drink. As she resisted that temptation, her phone rang. When she saw who the caller was, she breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  This was real.

  She had work to do.

  CHAPTER NINE

  During her drive to the BAU building, Riley realized that her feelings were mixed about getting back to work. When Meredith had called her, she’d known by his tone of voice that he wasn’t in a good mood.

  He hadn’t offered any details. He’d just said that he was calling a meetin
g of her team about some new developments. She’d been relieved to get out of the house and head for Quantico. Now she found herself wondering what Meredith was mad about.

  About a week and a half ago, he had suggested that she go down to Rushville, Mississippi, to check on a murder that had just happened there. Riley had told him no.

  But he hadn’t seemed angry with her then. In fact, he’d been downright apologetic for bothering her.

  “I’m sorry I bothered you,” he’d said. “Keep on enjoying your vacation.”

  Something had changed since then.

  Whatever that change was, it probably meant that she had real work to do. Riley’s spirits lifted as she pulled up in front of the big white building that held the Behavioral Analysis Unit. She realized that it felt like coming home.

  After she parked her car, Riley opened the trunk and took out her go-bag, which she kept always ready. She knew it was likely that she was about to head out on a new case.

  When she walked into the conference room, the meeting was just getting underway. Riley’s two partners, Bill Jeffreys and Jenn Roston, were sitting across the table from Special Agent Brent Meredith, the team chief.

  As always, Meredith cut a daunting figure, with his big frame and his black, angular features.

  But today he looked more intimidating than usual. He glowered at Riley as she took a seat at the table.

  Then he snapped, “How was your vacation, Agent Paige?”

  His sharp words cut Riley. Instead of responding to Meredith’s question, she returned his gaze and said firmly, “I’m ready to get back to work.”

  Meredith nodded with sullen approval.

  Then he said, “Now that we’re all here, let’s get started.”

  Glancing among his three colleagues, Meredith added, “I kept thinking about the murder down in Rushville, Mississippi—the one the local cop there called us about. I asked Agent Jeffreys here to do a little research on it. He did, and now he’s thinking maybe we should look into it after all. Would you care to explain, Agent Jeffreys?”

  “Certainly,” Bill said as he stood up walked over to the screen in front of the room. Bill had been Riley’s partner and close friend for many years, and Riley was happy to see him here. He was about her age, a solid, striking man with touches of gray in his dark hair.