by Blake Pierce
She and Ryan ate in silence for a few moments. Then Ryan started to complain about his day …
“This entry level work—it’s practically slave labor. We’ve got to do all the heavy lifting for the partners—research, writing briefs, making sure everything’s ready for the courtroom. And we put in longer hours than the partners by far. It feels like some kind of fraternity hazing, it except never stops.”
“It’ll get better,” Riley said.
Then she forced a laugh and added …
“Someday you’ll be a partner yourself. And you’ll have a team of entry level guys who’ll go home and complain about you.”
Ryan didn’t laugh, and Riley couldn’t blame him. It seemed like a lame joke now that she’d said it.
Ryan kept grumbling during dinner, and Riley didn’t know whether she felt more hurt or angry. Didn’t he appreciate the effort she’d gone to make everything as perfect as she could tonight?
And didn’t he understand how much their lives were about to change?
When Ryan fell quiet for a few moments, Riley said …
“You know, we’re having a get-together tomorrow at the FBI building to celebrate the end of the internship. You’ll be able to come, won’t you?”
“I’m afraid not, Riley. This is going to be a seven-day week.”
Riley almost gasped.
“But tomorrow’s Sunday,” she said.
Ryan shrugged and said, “Yeah, well, it’s like I said—slave labor.”
Riley said, “Look, it’s not going to take all day. There’ll be a couple of speeches—the assistant director and our training supervisor will want to say a few words. And then there will be some snacks and—”
Ryan interrupted, “Riley, I’m sorry.”
“But I’m leaving for Quantico tomorrow, right afterwards. I’m taking my suitcase with me. I thought you’d be driving me to the bus station.”
“I can’t,” Ryan said a bit sharply. “You’ll have to get there some other way.”
They ate in silence for a few moments.
Riley struggled to understand what was happening. Why couldn’t Ryan come with her tomorrow? It would only take a couple of hours out of his day. Then something began to dawn on her.
She said, “You still don’t want me to go to Quantico.”
Ryan let out a groan of annoyance.
“Riley, let’s not get started on this,” he said.
Riley felt her face redden with anger.
She said, “Well, it’s now or never, isn’t it?”
Ryan said, “You’ve made your decision. I took it to be final.”
Riley’s eyes widened.
“My decision?” she said. “I thought it was our decision.”
Ryan sighed. “We’re not going to have this conversation,” he said. “Let’s just finish eating, OK?”
Riley sat there and stared at him as he continued to pick at his meal.
She found herself wondering …
Is Ryan right?
Did I just railroad us both into this?
She thought back to their conversations, trying to remember, trying to sort it out. She remembered how proud Ryan had been of her when she’d stopped the Clown Killer …
“You saved at least one woman’s life. By solving the case, you may have saved other lives as well. It’s crazy. I think maybe you’re crazy. But you’re also a hero.”
At the time, she’d thought that was what he wanted—for her to pursue a career with the FBI, to keep right on being a hero.
But now that she thought about it, Riley couldn’t remember him saying those precise words. Ryan had never told her …
“I want you to go to the academy. I want you to follow your dream.”
Riley took some long, slow breaths.
We need to discuss this calmly, she thought.
Finally she said …
“Ryan, what do you want? For us, I mean?”
Ryan tilted his head as he looked at her.
“Do you really want to know?” he asked.
Riley’s throat tightened sharply.
“I want to know,” she said. “Tell me what you want.”
A pained look crossed Ryan’s face. Riley found herself dreading what he was going to say next.
Finally he said, “I just want a family.”
Then he shrugged and ate another bite of steak.
Feeling a glimmer of relief, Riley said, “I want that too.”
“Do you?” Ryan asked.
“Of course I do. You know I do.”
Ryan shook his head and said, “I’m not sure even you know what you really want.”
Riley felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach. For a moment she simply didn’t know what to say.
Then she said, “Don’t you think I can have a career and a family?”
“Sure I do,” Ryan said. “Women do it all the time these days. It’s called ‘having it all,’ I hear. It’s tough and it takes planning and sacrifices, but it can be done. And I’d love to help you do all that. But …”
His voice faded.
“But what?” Riley asked.
He breathed deeply, then said, “Maybe it would be different if you wanted to become a lawyer, like me. Or a doctor or a shrink. Or go into real estate. Or start your own business. Or become a college professor. I could relate to any of those things. I could deal with them. But this whole thing with going to the Academy—you’re going to be in Quantico for 18 weeks! How much are we going to see each other during that whole time? Do you thin any relationship can survive so much time apart? And besides …”
He held Riley’s gaze for a moment.
Then he said, “Riley, you’ve almost been killed twice since I’ve known you.”
Riley gulped hard.
He was right, of course. Her most recent brush with death had been at the hands of the Clown Killer. Before that, during their last semester in college, she’d almost been killed by a sociopathic psychology professor who still awaited trial for murdering two other coeds. Riley had known both of those girls. One had been her best friend and roommate.
Riley’s help in solving that awful murder case was how she’d gotten into the summer intern program, and it was one of the main reasons she was thinking about becoming an FBI agent.
In a choked voice, Riley said, “Do you want me to quit? Do you want me to not go to Quantico tomorrow?”
Ryan said, “It doesn’t matter what I want.”
Riley was struggling not to cry now.
“Yes, it does, Ryan,” she said. “It matters a lot.”
Ryan locked gazes with her for what seemed like a long time.
Then he said, “I guess I do. Want you to quit, I mean. I know you’ve found it exciting. It’s been a great adventure for you. But it’s time for us both to settle down. It’s time for us to get on with our real lives.”
Riley suddenly felt as though this had to be a bad dream, but she couldn’t wake up.
Our real lives! she thought.
What did that mean?
And what did it say about her that she didn’t know what it meant?
She only knew one thing for certain …
He doesn’t want me to go to Quantico.
Then Ryan said, “Look, you can work at all kinds of jobs right here in DC. And you’ve got lots of time to think about what you want to do in the long run. Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter if you make a lot of money. We’re not rich on what I’m making at the firm, but we’re getting by, and I’ll eventually be doing really well.”
Ryan started eating again, looking oddly relieved, as if they’d just settled everything.
But had they settled anything at all? Riley had spent all summer dreaming about the FBI Academy. She couldn’t imagine giving it up right here and now.
No, she thought. I just can’t do that.
Now she felt anger swelling up inside her.
In a tense voice she said, “I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m not changi
ng my mind. I’m going to Quantico tomorrow.”
Ryan stared at her like he couldn’t believe his ears.
Riley got up from the table and said, “Enjoy the rest of your meal. There’s some cheesecake in the refrigerator. I’m tired. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.”
Before Ryan could reply, Riley hurried into the bathroom. She cried for a few minutes, then took a long, hot shower. When she put on her slippers and bathrobe and came back out of the bathroom, she saw Ryan sitting in the kitchen. He’d cleared the table and was working at his computer. He didn’t look up.
Riley went into the bedroom and climbed into bed and started crying again.
As she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, she wondered …
Why am so angry?
Is Ryan wrong?
Is any of this his fault?
Her thoughts were such a jumble, she couldn’t think things through. And a terrible memory started to creep up on her—of waking up in this bed with a sharp pain, then seeing that she was soaked in blood …
My miscarriage.
She found herself wondering—was that one of the reasons Ryan didn’t want her to go into the FBI? She’d been badly stressed by the Clown Killer case when it had happened. But the doctor in the hospital had assured her that stress had nothing to do with her miscarriage.
Instead, she’d said that it had been caused by “chromosomal abnormalities.”
Now that Riley thought about it again, that word disturbed her …
Abnormalities.
She wondered—was she somehow abnormal, deep down inside where it really mattered?
Was she incapable of having a lasting relationship, let alone a family?
As she drifted off to sleep, she felt as though she knew only one thing for sure …
I’m going to Quantico tomorrow.
She was asleep before she could think about what might happen after that.
CHAPTER TWO
The man was pleased to hear the woman’s soft moan. He knew she must be regaining consciousness. Yes, he could see that her eyes had opened a little.
She was lying on her side on a rough-hewn wooden table in the small room that had a dirt floor, cinderblock walls, and low timbered ceiling. She was bound up tightly in a curled up position, taped fast with duct tape. Her legs were sharply bent and tightly bound to her chest, and her hands were wrapped around her shins. Her head lay sideways on top of her knees.
She reminded him of pictures he’d seen of human fetuses—and also of embryos he sometimes found when he cracked a fresh egg from one of the chickens he kept. She looked so mild and innocent, it was somehow a rather touching sight.
Mostly, of course, she reminded him of the other woman—Alice had been her name, he believed. He’d once thought that Alice would be the only one he’d treat this way, but then he’d enjoyed it … and there were so few pleasures in his life … how could he stop?
“It hurts,” the woman murmured, as if out of a dream. “Why does it hurt?”
He knew that it was because she lay in a thick tangled bed of barbed wire. Blood was already trickling onto the table top, and it was going add to the stains in the unfinished wood. Not that it mattered. The table was older than he was, and he was the only person who ever saw it anyway.
He was hurting and bleeding some as well. He’d cut himself while getting her into the truck with the barbed wire. It was harder to do than he’d expected because she’d fought back more forcefully than the other one.
She had writhed and twisted while the homemade chloroform was starting to kick in. But her struggles had weakened and he’d finally subdued her completely.
Even so, he wasn’t much bothered to be hurt by the sharp barbs. He knew from hard experience that such cuts healed up pretty quickly, even if they did leave ghastly scars.
He stooped down and looked closely into her face.
Her eyes were opened almost impossibly wide now. Her irises twitched around as she looked back at him.
Still trying to avoid looking at me, he realized.
Everybody acted that way toward him, wherever he went. He didn’t blame people for trying to pretend he was invisible, or that he didn’t exist at all. Sometimes he’d look in the mirror and pretend that he could make himself disappear.
Then the woman murmured again …
“It hurts.”
In addition to the cuts, he was sure that her head ached badly from the heavy dose of homemade chloroform. When he’d first mixed up the stuff right here, he’d almost passed out himself, and he’d suffered from a splitting headache for days afterward. But the preparation worked very well, so he would continue using it.
Now he was well prepared for what he was about to do next. He was wearing thick work gloves now and a thickly padded jacket. He wasn’t going to hurt himself any more while getting the thing done.
He went to work on the mass of barbed wire with a pair of wire cutters. Then he pulled a length of it tightly around the woman’s body and twisted the ends into makeshift knots to hold the wire in place.
The woman let out a sharp whimper and tried to twist loose from the duct tape as the barbs tore through her skin and clothing.
As he kept working, he said …
“You don’t have to be quiet. You can scream if you want—if it helps.”
He certainly wasn’t worried about anybody hearing her.
She whimpered louder, and she seemed to try to scream, but her voice was weak.
He chuckled quietly. He knew that she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs to properly scream—not with her legs bound up against her chest like that.
He pulled another length of barbed wire around her and stretched it tight, watching as blood dripped from where each barb pierced her flesh beneath her clothes, soaking through the fabric, spreading and making spots much wider than the wound itself.
He kept right on pulling strand after strand around her until she was all bound up like some kind of enormous wire cocoon, not looking human at all. The bundle was making all kinds strange low sounds—sighs, gasps, whimpers, and groans. Blood trickled here and spurted a little there until the whole tabletop was bathed in red.
Then he stepped back and admired his handiwork.
He turned off the overhead light and walked out into the night, closing the heavy wooden door behind him.
The sky was clear and starry, and he couldn’t hear anything now except the dense rumble of crickets.
He took a long, slow breath of the clean, fresh air.
The night seemed especially sweet just now.
CHAPTER THREE
As Riley lined up with the rest of the interns for their final formal photograph, she heard the door to the reception room open.
Her heart leapt, and she turned around expectantly to see who had arrived.
But it was only Hoke Gilmer, the program’s training supervisor, returning after having stepped out for a few minutes.
Riley suppressed a sigh. She already knew that Agent Crivaro wouldn’t be here today. Yesterday he’d congratulated her on completing the course and said he wanted to get back to Quantico. It was obvious that he simply had no taste for ceremonies or receptions.
Her secret hope was that Ryan might show up out of the blue to help her celebrate the completion of the summer program.
Of course she knew better than to seriously expect that to happen.
Even so, she couldn’t help but fantasize that somehow he’d change his mind and he’d arrive at the last minute and apologize for his cold behavior last night and finally say those words she longed for him to say …
“I want you to go to the academy. I want you to follow your dream.”
But of course, that wasn’t going to happen …
And the sooner I get that through my head, the better.
The 20 interns formed three rows for the photograph—one row seated at a long table, with two rows standing behind them. Since the interns were arranged in alphabetical order, Riley fou
nd herself in the back row between other two other students whose last names began with S—Naomi Strong and Rhys Seely.
She hadn’t gotten to know Naomi or Rhys very well.
But then, that was true for almost all the other interns. She’d felt out of place among them ever since the first day of the program 10 weeks ago. The only student she’d gotten close to during that whole time was John Welch, who was standing a few students to her left.
On that first day, John had explained why the others were giving her odd looks and whispering to each other about her …
“Pretty much everybody here knows who you are. I guess you could say that your reputation precedes you.”
She was, after all, the only intern who already had what everybody called “field experience” under her belt.
Riley fought down another sigh at the thought of those words …
“Field experience.”
She found it weird to think of what had happened back at Lanton University as “field experience.” A nightmare seemed more like it. She’d never be able to shake off those memories of finding her two close friends with their throats cut in their blood-drenched dorm rooms.
Back then, the last thing she’d had in mind was training with the FBI. She’d gotten caught up in the case through no choice of her own—and she’d helped solve it, which was why pretty much everybody here had known who she was from the very first day.
And then when the program got underway, and all the other students had started learning about computers and forensics and other less thrilling matters, Riley had tracked down the deadly Clown Killer. Both of those cases had been traumatic and life-threatening.
Getting a “head start” on “field experience” had hardly made her popular with the other interns. In fact, their unspoken resentment had been palpable all along.
And now at least some of them envied her for moving on to the Academy.
If only they knew what I’ve been through, she thought.
She doubted that they’d envy her then.
She felt horror and guilt at the memory of her two friends being murdered at Lanton, and she wished she could turn back time and stop it from happening. Not only would her friends still be alive, but her own life would be completely different right now. She’d have a psychology degree and some kind of run-of-the-mill job and a whole lot of uncertainty about what she was going to do with the rest of her life …