by Blake Pierce
“Is this Riley Page? Special Agent Riley Paige?”
Although the woman spoke in a kindly tone, Riley didn’t reply. She knew better than to identify herself to an unknown caller.
“Well,” the woman said cheerfully, “I hope it’s OK for me to call you Riley.”
“Who is this?” Riley finally asked.
A silence fell. Riley almost hung up the phone.
Then the voice said, “I thought it was time we got acquainted.”
Shock ran through Riley’s mind as she realized who she was listening to.
“Aunt Cora,” she said, almost in a whisper.
The woman chuckled and continued, still sounding perfectly friendly. “After all, we’ve both been mentors to a brilliant young woman. I must admit, though, to a certain pang of jealousy that she’s left my nest, and she’s now in your charge. But that’s life, isn’t it? Things change. And it’s healthy that things change. Healthy and natural.”
Riley almost asked …
How did you get this number?
But of course, it was a ridiculous question.
From everything Jenn had said about Aunt Cora, that woman would have no trouble at all tracking down a simple home phone number.
Aunt Cora continued, “I’ve been following that case you’ve been working on. It must be frustrating—getting stymied like that, knowing that the killer is still out there. How are you holding up?”
Riley started to feel a new worry, but Cora seemed to anticipate it.
“Before you get upset … no, Jenn hasn’t been in touch, isn’t reporting to me. She’s being a perfectly good girl, very discreet, loyal to you and the FBI, keeping me at a safe distance. I’m just nosy, that’s all. I like to know what’s going on. And …”
For the first time, Riley heard a slightly sinister sound in the woman’s voice.
“… and I have my ways of finding out whatever I want to know.”
Riley felt an icy chill.
Was Cora in touch with any of the local cops Riley had dealt with? Or someone with the railroad police? Or the Chicago FBI?
Or all of them?
Riley couldn’t imagine the extent of Aunt Cora’s criminal web.
Cora continued, sounding as warm as before.
“Such horrible murders, so shocking. Not so shocking to you, I don’t suppose. But do you ever get used to it? Do you have any idea what drives someone to do such ghastly things?”
Riley said nothing. She wondered what to do.
Just hang up?
No, something told her that she’d want to hear whatever this woman had to say.
The voice on the phone went on, “You meet some interesting people working on a case, don’t you? I hear you’ve met a nice widower. So sweet, so lonely. Any sparks between you? Any possibility of romance? Well, I suppose he’s a bit old for your taste …”
Riley’s stomach felt uneasy at the obvious reference to Mason Eggers.
The woman knew a lot—too much for Riley’s comfort.
Cora continued, “I’m sure you hope you’ve seen the last of that young railroad cop. Such an obnoxious character, isn’t he? Can’t keep his hands to himself. Doesn’t treat women with proper respect. I wonder. A man who harasses female colleagues like that—it makes you wonder, what else might he be capable of?”
She knows about Cullen too, Riley realized.
But she determinedly kept her silence.
Finally, in a sweet, chirping voice, Aunt Cora said, “Well, I’m so glad we had this pleasant little chat. Let’s do stay in touch. I always want to know how dear little Jenn is doing. Such a remarkable girl!”
Aunt Cora abruptly ended the call.
Riley sat there with the phone in her hand, feeling completely baffled.
Cora had said …
“Let’s do stay in touch.”
… but she hadn’t told Riley a thing about how to reach her.
Not that Riley wanted to know.
It was surely best for her not to know.
But why had Aunt Cora contacted Riley?
A “pleasant little chat,” she had said.
It certainly hadn’t been pleasant at all for Riley.
But surely Aunt Cora had called with some purpose in her mind.
Riley began to replay the one-sided conversation over and over in her head.
Little by little, an idea started to take form in her mind. There was something she should look up, something she’d never checked on because it had never seemed even remotely relevant.
Her heart beat faster as she turned on her computer and ran a search.
In a matter of moments, she’d found an old newspaper clipping with a photo.
Riley gasped aloud.
I know who he is.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Juliet Bench had just sat down at a table in the train’s lounge car when she saw the man come in from the next car.
There he is again, she thought.
Shortly after she’d boarded the train, the same man had walked past her seat and stopped in the aisle to look at her—just long enough for her to notice—and then he had continued on his way.
And now he stood at the far end of the lounge car, looking at her again.
Do I know him? she wondered. The face didn’t seem familiar.
He was gazing downward now, his hands in his pockets.
Acting like he doesn’t notice me, Juliet thought.
But he looked up at her again and walked straight toward her table.
Juliet wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She didn’t travel much, especially by train, and she didn’t like to travel. Would talking to a total stranger make things any better? She doubted it.
When the man reached her table, he said, “Excuse me, but … I see that you’re sitting alone, and …”
Rather surprisingly, the shyness in his voice put her somewhat at ease.
“Please, have a seat,” she said.
The man smiled timidly and sat down.
“Have we met?” Juliet asked.
The man wrinkled his brow curiously.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But you do look remarkably like someone …”
His voice trailed off.
Then he said, “Do you have any family in Dunmore?”
“No,” she said. “I’m from Chicago originally, and my blood relatives are all there. Now I live in Keadle with my husband and two daughters.”
The man’s eyebrows rose.
“Keadle. Well, I don’t know anybody there. I guess it’s just a coincidence—the resemblance, I mean. So were you visiting family in Chicago?”
Juliet felt a stab of sadness. For a moment, she couldn’t say anything.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the man said. “It’s something sad, isn’t it? Never mind, forget I asked.”
Juliet managed to smile faintly.
“No, it’s all right. My dad passed away. I spent some time with him before he died and stayed for his funeral. He’d been ill for a long time—prostate cancer—so it wasn’t a shock, but still …”
She fell quiet.
The man said, “It’s always sad to lose someone you love. I know what it’s like.”
Juliet noticed a melancholy look in his eye.
Yes, he does know what it’s like, she thought.
And she had to admit, it was nice to talk to someone who knew and understood.
“His passing was peaceful,” Juliet said. “Hospice is such a blessing, and he was able to spend his last days at home, with family all around. My mother was holding his hand during his last moments.”
“Did your husband go to Chicago with you?” the man asked.
“No, he wanted to. Kent and my dad were very close. But someone had to stay at home with the children. Jenna is five, and Amy is seven. Jenna especially is having a hard time understanding that her grandfather is gone. I thought about bringing them along to say goodbye and for the funeral but …”
She paused for a mom
ent, wondering again over something that still worried her.
“Kent and I decided against it. Do you think we were wrong?”
The man shrugged a little.
“I never had children, so I’m afraid I’m not the right person to ask. But … well, five and seven sound awfully young to me. My guess is that you did the right thing.”
Juliet felt a smile form on her face. It was really nice to hear someone say that.
She said, “I was just getting ready to order a glass of wine. Would you …?”
The man smiled.
“I’d love to. Allow me to get it. What will you have?”
“Just an ordinary red wine.”
The man got up and walked toward the bar and ordered the wine.
It now seemed to Juliet that this was turning out nicely. A little friendly company was what she really needed after those sad days in Chicago. She reminded herself that she still had to make the drive home from the station, but it was short and very familiar. One glass of wine wouldn’t hurt.
The man came back with two glasses of red wine and sat down.
“By the way, I don’t believe I know your name.”
She lifted her wine glass with a smile.
“Juliet Bench,” she said. “What’s yours?”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Riley sat staring at the picture on her computer screen—a newspaper photograph of a smiling young woman with a slender face, an aquiline nose, and curly brown hair.
She kept reading the name in the caption over and over again …
Arlene Eggers
… the name of Mason Eggers’s wife, who had died fifty years ago.
Riley kept murmuring aloud to herself …
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”
But that wasn’t true.
She did believe it. She believed it completely.
She just didn’t want to believe it.
Aunt Cora had triggered Riley’s research effort with her words about Eggers.
“I hear you’ve met a nice widower.”
It had been a hint, of course.
So Riley had checked to see how the retired railroad cop had been widowed. And she had discovered that the victims of the serial killer looked very much like the wife Eggers had lost.
Aunt Cora had also said …
“I’ve been following that case you’ve been working on.”
Now Riley realized that the mysterious woman had also been doing her own research, coming up with her own theories.
Riley shivered deeply.
All this hinting and teasing.
So much like Shane Hatcher.
In fact, this was too much like Shane Hatcher for comfort. Was another criminal mastermind trying to gain control of an FBI agent? Did Aunt Cora already have her hooks in Jenn? Was she now working on Riley?
There was no time to figure that out now. But she couldn’t avoid the main question in her mind.
Why didn’t I know all along?
Surely the thought should have occurred to her at the third murder scene, when she’d wondered how the killer had escaped from the scene of Sally Diehl’s murder without taking the car he had stolen.
He hadn’t escaped at all.
He’d been right there, talking with Riley.
How had her instincts failed her so badly?
Then it dawned on her …
My instincts didn’t fail me.
From the very first time she’d seen Eggers at that meeting in Chicago, he’d stood out to her. Unlike everyone else in the room—especially Cullen—she’d sensed that he had some special insight into the case.
She’d sought him out for that very reason.
She also remembered how he’d reacted when she’d said …
“I see you’re married.”
… how he’d covered up his wedding ring with a look of pain.
Right then she’d sensed the depth of the grief of an elderly widower.
She remembered, too, something she had decided about him.
He doesn’t like to talk about himself.
She’d been right about all of it.
Mason Eggers was all that he seemed to be—intelligent, kindly, restless, lonely, misunderstood …
But he was also something else.
He was also a murderer.
Riley just hadn’t looked hard or deep enough.
And the reason she hadn’t was very simple. She’d actually felt a kinship with him, thought of him as a colleague, and something of an oddball like herself, someone whose best work and ideas often seemed to others like pure craziness—at least until facts bore out those ideas.
She didn’t want to see that he harbored his share of demons …
Just like I do.
… for Riley could remember surrendering to her own internal darkness with acts of brutality against her adversaries. She remembered how she’d killed one especially vicious man who had captured and tormented April—how she’d beaten him savagely to death with a rock, smashing him in the face time and time again.
To this day, she had no regrets about it.
She’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Riley shuddered deeply, then reminded herself …
I’m different.
I’m not like Mason.
I kill monsters.
I don’t kill innocent women.
But why did Mason Eggers kill innocent women?
Riley reread the newspaper article, looking for some hint of explanation.
Fifty years ago on this very night, Mason Eggers’s wife, Arlene, had committed suicide by lying down on railroad tracks in front of an oncoming freight train just outside the little Michigan town of Dunmore.
She’d just left the home of some friends, who had said she seemed very sad when they’d last seen her. They hadn’t known why.
It seemed that everybody in Dunmore liked Arlene Eggers, and she liked everybody in return.
But all of her friends and loved ones used the same word to describe her.
“Sad. So often sad.”
She’d been a chronically melancholy person, and no one could understand why—least of all her loving husband, a respected and well-liked local cop named Mason Eggers.
Riley felt a stab of sympathy for the poor woman—and for her husband, too.
She knew that fifty years ago clinical depression was poorly understood, its ravages and terrors underestimated. Today’s antidepressant drugs didn’t yet exist. People routinely died from depression, often by their own hands, without anyone knowing why.
Mason Eggers had carried this terrible loss with him for years. He’d surely felt guilty for his wife’s death. How could he possibly understand why she might kill herself, unless it was somehow his fault?
And now, she could see into the killer’s mind for the first time.
She could actually feel his anguish. The sensation was so strong that for a moment she almost believed he was in the room with her. After he’d retired guilt had started pressing in on him again.
And with a deep chill, she realized something else about him. Something was wrong in his mind. Something, whether physical or emotional, had twisted his perceptions. And as that horrible fifty-year anniversary came nearer, his demons had taken over, and he’d begun to kill.
Tonight, Riley realized. He’s going to finish his work tonight.
He was going to kill one last time—on the same date, in the same place, where his beloved wife had taken her own life.
It was the most powerful gut feeling Riley had gotten on the case so far.
But was it correct?
She couldn’t risk being wrong again.
She brought up a map and saw that Dunmore was just a short distance from Detroit. Then she searched for a train schedule and saw that a passenger train had already left from Chicago on a four-hour trip to Detroit.
He’s on that train, she realized.
He had to be stopped as soon as he arrived
in Detroit—before he had a chance to abduct anybody, much less kill again.
She needed help—but who could help her?
Who would even listen to her theory?
Proctor Dillard, she thought.
She and Bill had worked with the special agent in charge of the Chicago FBI Field Office. If anybody would listen to her, he would. And he could alert agents at the Detroit FBI Field Office to arrest him straight off the train there. Eggers wouldn’t even make it all the way to Dunmore.
She found Dillard’s emergency phone number.
When she got him on the line, she said, “Agent Dillard, this is Riley Paige. Please listen to me. I know who the killer is. I know where he’s going to strike next. He’s going to kill tonight. I need for you to—”
Dillard interrupted her.
“Agent Paige, just stop. Whatever it is, I can’t help. My hands are tied.”
Riley could hardly believe her ears.
Dillard continued, “I got a call from Carl Walder in Quantico today. He was very specific. I’m not to have anything more to do with you, at least pertaining to this case. He really meant it.”
Riley suppressed a growl of rage.
That bastard Walder!
She said, “Listen! The killer is Mason Eggers!”
A long pause fell.
Then Dillard said, “Agent Paige, you know I’ve got all the respect in the world for you. But everybody knows you’ve been off your game on this case. And I’ve known Eggers too many years to think he could possibly be a murderer.”
“But Agent Dillard—”
“And anyway, it’s out of my hands. Orders are orders. I don’t want to lose my job.”
“Please listen—”
“I’m sorry, but I’m hanging up now.”
He ended the call.
Riley felt about to hyperventilate from frustration. She struggled to calm herself. There had to be some way to handle this.
Who else could she call?
Could she try contacting Walder himself, try to make him understand her theory?
Impossible, she thought. He’ll never listen.
And even if she could make him listen, she’d lose precious time in the effort.
But who else was there?
Bull Cullen?
No, the very idea of trying to persuade him was laughable. He wouldn’t even take her call, much less seriously listen to her.