by Blake Pierce
Two old boats were tied up at the pier. They were both floating and seaworthy. Could he get one of the engines going and sail away from here forever?
But then he heard a loud groan from the van. The woman was starting to regain consciousness. He had to go subdue her and put her into a straitjacket and chains. Then he had to go through with the rest of his horrible task. The chains gave him no choice.
They never would give him a choice.
Chapter 39
Riley knew in her gut that something was about to break. She didn’t know why she felt that way. They’d chosen their route on the basis of some pretty scanty information. Bill was driving, and the three of them were headed south from Albany.
After Eugene Fisk’s escape from the graveyard yesterday, the public was responding to bulletins with more calls than ever. Field agents had spread out in all directions trying to follow up on anything that seemed at least remotely plausible. There had been a cluster of sightings reported on the highways south of Albany, and Bill, Riley, and Lucy had decided to head out in that direction.
“How far we from Callaway?” Lucy asked from the back seat.
Riley turned and saw that Lucy was looking at a text message. It was probably an update from the Albany office.
“We just passed a turnoff for Callaway,” Bill said.
“We need to go back and take it,” Lucy said.
Without asking any questions, Bill slowed the vehicle and turned it around. As he drove, Lucy explained the tip she had received.
“A man in Callaway said some crazy guy pulled out from nowhere on the road in front of his car. It was a white delivery van for a business called June’s Flowers. The man got a good look at the driver. He swears it’s our man, and that he was headed toward an old marina. Everybody in the town has been notified to stay away from there.”
Riley’s heart quickened. Yes, this was it. She was sure of it. The business name came as no surprise at all. Everyone at Albany’s HQ knew perfectly well that Eugene Fisk had probably disguised his van by now.
“Lucy, send a return message that we’re on our way,” Bill said, making the turn that he’d passed by a few moments before. “We’re liable to need backup. Riley, check the GPS to see what we’re driving into.”
Riley brought up the map on her cell phone. She was heartened by what she saw.
“We’re on the right road,” she said. “It goes through Callaway, then straight to the marina. It ends in a cull-de-sac. If Eugene Fisk went there, this road is his only way out.”
Bill put his foot on the accelerator as the siren blared.
He slowed down when they crossed the town line into Callaway. A few anxious-looking residents stood on the sidewalk watching them go by. On the far side of the village, local police had set up a roadblock. Bill held up his FBI badge and they waved him on through. He sped up again and in a matter of minutes, the marina came in sight.
Bill brought the car to a stop and turned off the siren.
Riley’s heart pumped faster. There it was, parked beside a rusted crane-like structure—a white van decorated with flowers and the business name June’s Flowers. The three agents jumped out of the car and headed for the van. Bill got there first and yanked the rear door open.
A woman was huddled on the floor, bound with a straitjacket and chains. Her eyes opened and she moaned aloud through the chain that had been wrapped around her face to gag her.
She’s alive, Riley thought with relief. They had gotten here in time.
But there was no sign of Eugene Fisk.
“Lucy, take care of the woman,” Riley said. “Bill and I will find him.”
Riley headed around the van to search the shoreline, but she stopped at the sound of Bill’s voice.
“Riley!”
She turned and looked at him. His eyes met Riley’s with a determined and yet sympathetic expression.
“This guy is not Peterson,” Bill said.
For a second, Riley couldn’t understand what he meant.
“What?” she said.
Bill narrowed his eyes and said much more slowly, “He’s not Peterson.”
In a moment of clarity, Riley understood exactly what he meant. Her use of deadly force against Peterson had bordered on vengefulness. But the Bureau hadn’t raised questions about it—not after all she’d suffered at Peterson’s hands. This situation was different. They should be able to bring in Eugene Fisk alive.
This kind of instantaneous communication was one thing she treasured most about working with Bill. She’d missed it during their estrangement.
“I understand,” she told him.
Guns in hand, Riley and Bill moved around the van. There was a drop to the water. Along the high ground, clusters of trees could easily hide the killer. Riley was sure they were close to him now. She moved carefully toward the trees on the left. Bill moved off to the right.
Riley had realized that the killer wasn’t where she was searching when she heard Lucy’s voice call out, “I see him!”
Riley turned and saw that Lucy was headed away from the van. She had drawn her weapon and was running toward the pier. The horrible little man was a few yards out on the old structure.
“Stop right there!” Lucy called out to him, her weapon raised. “Hands where I can see them!”
Eugene stopped and turned, his hands raised above his head. In one hand he was clutching a bundle of chains.
Riley drew her own weapon and walked toward them. She felt a flood of relief. This was going to end easily and without violence. What had happened with Peterson was not going to happen here.
Lucy stepped out onto the pier, focused intently on Eugene. But after a few steps, a rotting board broke out from under her, and she fell into a tangle.
“Damn it!” Lucy cried out.
Eugene moved with the same dexterity and speed that he’d shown at the graveyard. In an instant, he grabbed and held Lucy from behind. He wrapped the chain around her neck with one hand. With the other had he took a straight-edged razor out of his pocket. He flipped open the blade and held it at Lucy’s throat. Her face was contorted with pain.
Eugene was trying desperately to talk.
“Drop—drop—”
Riley knew that he was trying to tell her to drop her weapon. She wasn’t ready to do that.
Lucy let out a scream of pain as Eugene pulled her loose from the broken board. He forced her forward along the pier back toward the shore. It looked like her ankle was broken.
“Let—let me—”
Riley understood. The chain killer wanted to take Lucy back to his van as a hostage and drive out of here undisturbed.
She heard Bill’s voice from nearby.
“Easy, easy,” he was saying to Eugene. “You can’t get out of here. You know that.”
But Riley saw that neither she nor Bill had a feasible shot. Lucy’s body formed too effective a shield.
“Let—let me—” Eugene said again. He was on the shore now and backing toward the van with his hostage.
Bill was standing beside Riley, his Glock raised.
Riley’s thoughts clicked away as she tried to assess the situation. She knew one thing for certain. Eugene Fisk wasn’t bluffing with the razor. He’d slit women’s throats before, and he’d do it again in an instant if either Riley or Bill made the wrong move.
Shane Hatcher had been exactly right.
He’s liable to kill one of you before he’s done.
Riley glanced over at Bill.
“Stand down, Bill,” she said.
Bill looked at her with surprise. But then he lowered his weapon.
Riley stooped and placed her weapon on the ground.
“I’m putting down my gun, Eugene,” she said. “You can let her go. We can end this peacefully.”
But Eugene was shaking his head.
“N—no,” he stammered. He was still determined to make his escape with Lucy as a hostage. He continued dragging Lucy toward the van.
Rile
y looked directly into his eyes. He stared back, unable to break their gaze, as if hypnotized. His eyes were small and beady, but Riley saw terrible worlds in them—worlds of childhood suffering and adult humiliation, of pain both physical and emotional, and of almost unfathomable self-loathing.
“He’s not Peterson,” Bill had said just a few minutes ago.
Riley now knew that Bill had been more right than he’d realized.
Eugene Fisk was the most pitiable monster she’d ever encountered. And she could turn that insight to her advantage.
As Eugene waddled backwards dragging Lucy along, Riley moved slowly in the same direction.
“I know about the chains, Eugene,” Riley said in a sympathetic voice. “I hear them too. You’re not alone. You’re not the only person who hears them. I do too.”
Eugene stopped in his tracks. He looked positively stricken now. Riley was getting to him. She knew it.
She remembered something else that Shane Hatcher had said.
“He’s wounded where it hurts most—in his soul.”
And I’m probing that wound, Riley realized.
“Don’t you hear what they’re saying now, Eugene—the chains?” Riley went on. “They’re saying it’s over. You’ve uprooted them, you’ve failed them for the last time, and they’re through with you. It’s really over. The chains are saying so. I hear them. You do too.”
Those small eyes were getting larger now. They glistened with tears.
“The chains don’t want you to take this woman,” Riley said. “She isn’t what they need.”
Eugene nodded with understanding.
“You know what the chains want you to do instead,” Riley said.
Eugene nodded again.
Then he drew the blade across his own throat and sliced it deeply, all the way across.
Riley heard herself scream.
Eugene fell to the ground, clutching his throat, gurgling and coughing. Lucy was drenched in his spurting blood, but she was free of him now. She fell too, but rolled away from the wounded killer.
Riley threw herself upon Eugene as he twitched and writhed. Her hands fumbled around his throat, trying to staunch the bleeding, to plug up the rapidly escaping breath. It was no good. There was nothing she could do. His eyes were wide open, fearful and fading. In a matter of seconds, he lay motionless. She knew that he was dead.
Bill was standing at her side. He reached down and tried to help her to her feet.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to take care of the woman.”
But Riley found that she couldn’t stand.
“I killed him,” she said.
“You did what you had to do,” Bill said.
“No,” Riley said. “I killed him.”
She broke down and sobbed as the sound of approaching sirens filled the air.
Chapter 40
As she looked around her new townhouse, Riley felt freer, luckier, and richer than she ever had, even in the elegant house she used to share with Ryan. This home, after all, was hers.
Even so, something was troubling her deep down.
What is it? she wondered.
She couldn’t put her finger on it.
Without a doubt, this place was better than Riley had dreamed of. The main floor of the house was open, with the living and dining area flowing together and a large deck at the back. The kitchen was fabulous, more than Riley thought she would ever need, but Gabriela loved it.
And it had been Gabriela’s room that had really sold the house to Riley. The basement room that opened to the little back yard had been converted into what the real estate agent called an “in-law suite.” It was a big carpeted room with a gas fireplace and a private bathroom.
Gabriela was down there now, unpacking and organizing her things.
April came wandering out of the kitchen, munching on a sandwich.
“How are you coming with getting your room organized?” Riley asked.
“It’s so big!” she said, beaming. “It’s like twice the size of what I had! And so is the closet!”
Riley smiled, feeling happy for the first time in a long time. Feeling like a real mom.
“So is it ready for me to see yet?” Riley asked.
“Not yet. Just a few more things to put away. Then I’ll need your help hanging some things on the wall.”
“Just let me know when.”
April swallowed the last of her sandwich. Then she said, “Mom.”
“Yes.”
“Mom, I love it! I love this house. I love my room.”
“And I love you,” Riley said, giving her daughter a hug.
April hugged her back and then scampered away upstairs.
Riley drew a deep breath of relief. Not only did her daughter love the new house, but she was once again the bubbly teenager who had been missing for months now.
She had been lucky to find the house on a tip from a co-worker before it actually went on the market. The drive to Quantico would only take her thirty minutes, and April would be able to get around by public transportation—no more hitchhiking ever. And she wouldn’t have to change schools.
It certainly marked a new beginning, the start of a different life. She felt confident that it would be a better life for both April and herself. Her divorce was final, and Ryan was paying the support that he had promised. Riley and April both understood that their contact with Ryan would most likely be civil but infrequent. Riley thought that would probably be best for all of them.
Ryan had already moved on to a more suitable liaison, a divorced D.C. society woman who could support him in every way. Riley wouldn’t be surprised if he moved closer to Washington sometime soon.
Yes, Riley thought, this will suit all of us fine—April, Gabriela, and me.
Still, some nagging discord kept whispering through her brain. She decided to ignore it. She looked around, thinking about where she would need to fill in with a new piece of furniture here and there.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the front doorbell. When she answered the door, Bill was standing outside.
“Just thought I’d stop by and see your new place,” he said.
Riley could tell by his forced smile and his ragged, tired look that he was here for more than that.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Can I come in?” Bill said.
“Of course.”
Bill came inside and the two of them sat down on the couch.
“Maggie is filing for divorce,” Bill said. “I’ve already moved out, into an apartment near the BAU.”
“I’m sorry,” Riley said.
Bill shook his head with confusion and dismay.
“It’s just that I’ve tried so damn hard for so many years,” he said. “It’s weird to think that it’s really all over. Maggie and I have been strangers for a long time. But the kids … I don’t want to be a stranger to my boys.”
Riley patted his hand.
“You won’t be,” she said.
“You don’t know that,” he said.
Riley sighed. Bill was right. She didn’t know anything of the kind. There were far too many things in life that she didn’t know.
Bill seemed eager to change the subject.
“That last case,” he began, then shook his head and sighed. She could see that it was still haunting him, too. In some ways it was comforting to see she was not the only one who was haunted. “Have we ever dealt with one that twisted?”
Riley thought for a moment.
“Twisted? No, that’s not exactly right. He was the most damaged, though.”
“Damaged, twisted, take your pick,” Bill said, shaking his head. “Chains and straitjackets and a straight razor—it’s a new combination for me.”
Riley remembered her experience of the chain killer’s mind.
“Eugene was the most reluctant killer I’ve known,” she said. “But he would never have stopped if we hadn’t caught up with him.”
“And we did stop him,” Bil
l said. “We’re good at that. Together, we’re very good.”
*
After a short while, Bill left. He’d said he didn’t want to bother Riley when things were going so well for her. She’d protested that he was no bother, that he was never a bother and never would be, but he went away anyhow.
As she watched him drive off, she thought about what a deeply decent man he was. She was lucky to have him as a partner and a friend. Whatever happened between them in the days ahead, she hoped their friendship wouldn’t be ruined. They’d come too close to losing it already.
Then she walked through her house and out onto the back deck. Several houses down, children were playing in the yard. Riley had longed for exactly this—a bustling neighborhood where people went about normal lives in an ordinary way.
What was missing? What was wrong?
Then she remembered—she still had trouble looking into a mirror. The faces of all those victims and monsters kept looking back. And now there was Eugene’s face also, his beady eyes full of hurt, guilt, and self-hatred. She’d understood what had gone on behind those eyes only too well. And as horrible a man as he was, his fate still haunted her.
She had merely fought with Peterson and killed him in a primal way, in a blur of self preservation, for herself and for her daughter.
With Eugene, she had used her powers of empathy and understanding.
With Eugene, she had used deadly force.
And not a person in the world could understand that except Riley.
She knew that more monsters lurked out there in the world, probably in more variations that even she had yet imagined. It was her job to stop them. But what would she do the next time she faced those who tormented and destroyed?
She remembered what Hatcher had told her.
“Stop fighting it.”
She still didn’t know what “it” was—but she was starting to think that it was something huge, maybe as big as her whole life. And what did it mean that a multiple murderer understood something about her that she didn’t know herself?
Her cell phone interrupted her questions. She saw that the call was from Brent Meredith. She knew he wasn’t calling just to find out how the move was going.