Once Forsaken (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 7)

by Blake Pierce

  Patience let out a short, sarcastic laugh.

  “Really? He’s not a student and he drives a truck, and—”

  She pointed to the sketch.

  “And he looks like that? I don’t think so. And I’m not sure what you’re accusing me of.”

  Bill looked completely baffled.

  “We’re not accusing you of anything,” he said.

  “We just want to know if you know this man,” Riley said. “Are you sure?”

  Patience waved the picture away.

  “Oh, I’m sure, all right. And if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go. I’ve got another class right now. My grades are excellent, and—”

  Then glaring at Lucy again, she added, “And my family expects a lot from me.”

  Patience got up from her seat to leave.

  Lucy was starting to feel a new emotion that surprised her.

  It was panic.

  This girl could be in serious danger, and she was ignoring it out of pique.

  Before Patience could leave the table, Lucy said, “Patience, this is serious. A murderer is stalking students on this campus. If someone who looks like the guy in this sketch approaches you, you need to call for help right away. And don’t walk on the campus alone.”

  The girl picked up her books.

  “I know how to stay out of trouble,” she said to Lucy. “I can take care of myself, thank you.”

  Then she strode out of the cafeteria.

  Bill and Riley were looking at each other, dumbstruck.

  “What was that all about?” Bill asked.

  Lucy sighed bitterly.

  “I’ll explain it to you on the way back to Quantico,” she said.

  Lucy and Agents Paige and Jeffreys got up from the table and headed back toward the car. Lucy’s worry was mounting.

  If anything happened to Patience Romero, how could she help blaming herself?

  *

  Riley was feeling discouraged by the time she got home that afternoon. April was already home from school and greeted her in the living room.

  “Is Jilly home?” Riley asked.

  “Upstairs doing homework. She’s really digging into her classes now.”

  Riley drew a sigh of relief. At least things seemed to be going well at home for now.

  “How’s the case going?” April asked.

  “I’m not sure, April,” Riley said.

  “Well, you’re getting lots of help, right? I mean, you’ve even got Lucy working with you.”

  Riley didn’t reply. She knew that April was fond of Lucy. But Lucy had run into some trouble this afternoon during the interview with Patience Romero. Lucy had explained to Riley and Bill that it was some kind of Mexican class thing.

  What had she called it?

  Oh, yes, she remembered. Malinchismo.

  It seemed to be based on an old Mexican legend about a Spaniard and a native girl.

  Riley knew that the problem they’d had this morning wasn’t Lucy’s fault—not in the least. But Lucy was blaming herself and taking it hard. Riley was afraid that Lucy was going to have trouble getting back in the game.

  “You look so worried,” April said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Riley was touched by her daughter’s concern.

  “As a matter of fact, maybe there is,” Riley said. “Let’s go have a chat with Tiffany.”

  Riley and her daughter went up to Riley’s bedroom office. They called Tiffany for a video chat.

  “Mom’s working real hard on the case,” April told Tiffany.

  “I’m so glad,” Tiffany said.

  “She’s got some questions for you,” April said.

  Riley showed Tiffany the composite sketch.

  Riley said, “I don’t suppose you spent a lot of time on the Byars campus. But I need to know if this face looks familiar to you.”

  Tiffany peered at the picture.

  “Is this the man who killed my sister?” she asked.

  “We think it could be,” Riley said.

  Tiffany shuddered.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him. I think I’d remember that face.”

  “Are you sure?” April asked.

  Riley added, “He seems to call himself Dane.”

  Tiffany squinted and looked closer.

  “I don’t remember the name, either,” Tiffany said. “But I guess he could be the odd guy that Lois told me about. Was he a student?”

  “We don’t think so,” Riley said.

  “Then I guess he wasn’t that guy.”

  Riley thought for a moment about what else she should ask.

  “Did your sister ever mention a boy named Murray Rossum?” she said.

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “It’s just one of the names that came up,” Riley said. She was only asking to make sure she wasn’t leaving any loose ends.

  A silence fell.

  Riley couldn’t think of any more questions to ask Tiffany.

  “That’s all for now,” Riley said. “You’ve been a great help.”

  Tiffany’s face saddened.

  “I haven’t been any help at all,” she said. “I’ve just been feeling so helpless about all this. I feel terrible.”

  Before Riley could reply, April spoke up.

  “Don’t let yourself feel that way, Tiffany. Do you hear me? None of this is your fault. I know what it’s like to want to blame yourself for things you can’t help. But you can’t let yourself do that. Just keep telling yourself it’s not your fault.”

  Riley smiled. April was telling Tiffany exactly what she needed to hear. Riley had been sure she would. That was exactly why she had included April in this conversation.

  Tiffany nodded and said, “OK.”

  “It’s true,” April said. “Just don’t forget it.”

  They ended the video chat, and Riley put her arm around April’s shoulder.

  “You handled that really well,” Riley said.

  “I didn’t do anything really,” April said, blushing.

  “Yes, you did. You know you did.”

  April laughed a little. “Yeah, I guess I kind of did. Well, I’m going downstairs to help Gabriela get dinner ready. I’m sure you’ve got work to do.”

  April hugged her mother and left the room.

  Riley sat at her desk for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts. Then she got on the phone and called Craig Huang.

  “How did things go at the frat house today?” she asked.

  “We came up with nothing,” Huang said. “We showed the sketch to all the guys, told them what had happened to Murray. Nobody recognized the guy in the sketch. Nobody could remember anything about the guy Murray left with.”

  Riley was startled.

  “How is that possible?” Riley asked.

  Huang sounded defensive.

  “Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger. They said lots of people come and go at their parties. Whoever it was, he didn’t stand out.”

  Riley doubted that Huang had asked the right questions. Maybe he wasn’t growing into his job as well as she’d thought. But there was no point in taking him to task about it now. She thanked him and ended the call.

  Then she started going over whatever information she could bring up on her computer—reports on the deaths, newspaper stories, and pictures of the victims.

  It looked like plenty of information.

  So why did she feel that she and the team were making no progress at all?

  This isn’t going to be easy, Riley thought.

  *

  Riley was fast asleep when she felt a hand shake her shoulder.

  “Mom! Mom! Wake up!”

  Riley opened her eyes and saw pale sunlight pouring through her bedroom window.

  It was early morning and she had slept through the night. At least she hadn’t been in the middle of any nightmares. Not that she could recall.

  “What is it?” Riley asked. “What’s the matter?”

  “Tiffany ju
st called. Do you remember that girl we talked to at Byars, Piper Durst?”

  Riley struggled to get her thoughts together.

  “Lois’s friend,” she said, groggily remembering a video chat with a girl named Piper.

  April’s face was lit up with excitement.

  “Right,” she said. “Well, Piper called Tiffany this morning. Piper says that her boyfriend thinks he saw the guy in the sketch. That’s good news, right?”

  Riley sat up in bed.

  “It could be,” she said.

  “So what are you going to do?” April asked.

  “I’m going to call Bill and Lucy. The three of us need to head right over to Byars to talk to the boyfriend.”

  April was bouncing up and down.

  “Can I go too?” she said.

  “No way,” Riley said.

  April slumped with disappointment.

  “Aw, Mom.”

  “You’ve got school today. Now go downstairs and eat some breakfast. And please make sure that Jilly gets off to school all right.”

  April left the room grumbling mildly. Riley knew that Gabriela would see to it that both girls got fed and off to school, but she wanted to encourage April to take on responsibility. She was proud of the way her daughter was growing up.

  Riley scrambled around, putting on clothes.

  This might be it, she thought. This might be just the break we need.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Riley sent a hasty text message to both Bill and Lucy.

  We might have a good lead at Byars. I’ll pick you up.

  Then she drove to get them. Both had apartments in the town of Quantico near the BAU base.

  Bill was standing out front when she got there.

  “What have you found out?” he asked as he got into the car.

  “Someone thinks he spotted the guy in the drawing. And the truck. Let’s get Lucy and go over everything.”

  Lucy’s apartment was just a few blocks away. The young agent came out as soon as they pulled up in front, but she was silent as she climbed into the back seat. Riley could see that she was looking glum.

  “First things first,” Riley said to her. “I know you’re unhappy about what happened yesterday. But it won’t be your last interview that goes badly, believe me. This time it wasn’t your fault. The next time, it’s liable to be a real screw-up on your part. We’ve all been through it, so get used to it. It’s time to get back on the horse.”

  Riley could see Lucy smile in the rearview mirror.

  “OK, boss,” she said. “I hear you.”

  Bill chuckled with approval.

  “Well, I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up,” he said. “Now who are we rushing off to see?”

  “Lois Pennington’s sister got a call this morning from Piper Durst, a friend of Lois’s. We’ve talked to Piper before and she didn’t know anything helpful, except that Lois told her about some rather odd guy. But it turns out that maybe her boyfriend has found out something. We’re going to talk to him.”

  “So the kids on campus are finally coming through with something,” Lucy said.

  “About time,” Bill added.

  As Riley drove toward the city, she said, “Let’s talk about where we are in the case. What do we know at this point?”

  After a moment, Lucy said, “Well, I think maybe we’re getting an idea of the killer’s range of activity. Not only have all the victims been Byars students, they’ve all lived fairly close to DC.”

  At least all the victims we know about, Riley thought.

  But she didn’t say so aloud.

  Bill said, “Now that he’s attacked a male victim, I think we can be pretty sure he’s bisexual.”

  “Not necessarily,” Lucy said. “Not bi, anyway.”

  Riley was surprised, and she sensed that Bill was surprised as well.

  “What do you mean?” Riley asked.

  Lucy mulled it over for a moment.

  “I think maybe he’s a closeted homosexual,” she said. “Think about it. He targets girls—he’s trying to prove to himself that he’s straight. But he can’t stick with that scenario. He finally targets a boy. When he does, he doesn’t finish the job. He doesn’t even stay there to make sure the victim is dead. But all the girls wind up dead. To me, that suggests a deep-seated misogyny, along with repressed erotic feelings toward men.”

  Riley glanced at Bill, who was glancing at her. They smiled at each other.

  She’s definitely back in the game, Riley thought.

  It was a pretty good effort at profiling, given how little they knew so far. And Riley couldn’t think of anything better.

  Nevertheless, something was still nagging at her—an unshaped feeling that things were off somehow.

  It felt as if they were forming theories out of thin air, basing them on unreliable assumptions and information.

  Her instincts weren’t telling her much these days. But her gut did seem to be warning her not to jump to any conclusions.

  Riley suspected that she’d better pay attention to that feeling.

  *

  When Riley, Bill, and Lucy arrived on campus, they headed straight to the commons room in the student union, where they had agreed to meet Piper and her boyfriend. Piper got up from a table and invited them to sit down. Riley introduced the girl to Bill and Lucy.

  “But where’s your friend?” Riley asked Piper.

  Piper looked around, seeming surprised that her boyfriend wasn’t there.

  “Where is he?” she muttered.

  Then her eyes lighted on a young man across the room. He was standing idly staring at a vending machine. Piper rolled her eyes and walked over to him. Riley couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could tell that Piper was trying to coax him back over to the table.

  It seemed as though the kid wasn’t eager to cooperate.

  But why? Riley wondered.

  Soon Piper and the boy came back over to the table and sat down.

  “This is Kenneth—Kenneth Mohl,” Piper said. “My boyfriend.”

  Kenneth nodded his head but avoided making eye contact.

  They immediately struck Riley as an odd couple. Piper was robust, full-figured, and outgoing. Kenneth was skinny, awkward, and withdrawn, perhaps painfully shy.

  What were these two kids doing together?

  But then Riley remembered some of her own ill-fated, ill-advised college relationships. She couldn’t look back on them without wondering …

  What was I thinking?

  Piper would probably look back on this and other early relationships and wonder the same thing.

  Piper patted Kenneth on the shoulder.

  “Kenneth saw the guy in the sketch. Didn’t you, Kenneth?”

  Kenneth shrugged.

  “I dunno. Maybe. I saw somebody.”

  “Please tell us what you can,” Riley said.

  Kenneth sat hunched over for a moment.

  Then he said, “OK, it’s like this. Yesterday afternoon, the college staff put up copies of the sketch all over the campus. I didn’t bother to look at it right away. I was walking through Howard Hall when I saw this guy standing at a bulletin board. He was looking at the picture. He looked really, really interested in it. Then he saw me coming toward him, and he walked away.”

  Kenneth paused.

  “Tell them what happened next,” Piper urged.

  “Well, I looked at the picture myself. And I realized that the guy looked a whole lot like the face in the sketch, and in the description that went with it. You know, a big guy, athletic, with shaggy hair. I hurried out of the building to see if I could get a better look at him. I saw him going away toward the parking lot. He got into a pickup truck and drove off.”

  Riley felt a tingle of excitement.

  A pickup truck!

  According to Murray, the guy who called himself Dane said that he drove a pickup truck. But as far as Riley knew, that information hadn’t been made public.

  Riley sensed that B
ill and Lucy were also excited.

  “Can you describe the pickup?” Bill asked.

  “Yeah,” Kenneth said. “It was a Ford, kind of beat-up looking. It was pretty old—maybe from the 1990s.”

  Riley was surprised at this detail. Kenneth seemed to be a much better witness than she’d expected from his behavior.

  “Can you remember anything else?” Lucy asked.

  The boy gulped a little.

  “Not exactly, but …”

  He produced a small piece of paper. With shaking fingers, he handed it to Riley.

  “I wrote this down,” he said.

  Riley took the note. She almost gasped with surprise. It was a license plate number.

  “This is a great help,” she said to Kenneth.

  Kenneth’s eyes darted nervously among the three agents.

  “Do you think so?” he said. “I mean, I’ve never done anything like …”

  He couldn’t seem to finish his thought. But now at last, Riley thought she understood what was bothering him. Kenneth was not only shy but truly sensitive—and also smart. He knew that what he was doing was serious and consequential. He wasn’t used to making a difference, especially when it came to something as dire as murder. It made him uncomfortable.

  In Riley’s experience, the best witnesses were sometimes like him—unsure of themselves and deeply concerned about what their actions might lead to.

  “You did exactly the right thing,” Riley said.

  Riley, Bill, and Lucy all thanked both Piper and Kenneth, who headed out for their next classes. Riley then got Sam Flores on the phone and read the license plate number to him. She told him that the vehicle was probably a Ford pickup from the 1990s.

  “How long will it take you to find out who the truck is registered to?” Riley asked.

  Flores replied in a classic geek manner.

  “Give me exactly forty-nine seconds,” he said.

  Riley smiled at Lucy and Bill.

  “He’s getting it,” she told him.

  Hardly half a minute passed before Flores got back on the phone.

  “The truck is registered to a guy named Pike Tozer. He lives in DC at ten-twenty Beal View Drive. He’s a licensed electrician, but he doesn’t seem to work with a company. Probably a handyman who gets called in from time to time for minor repairs.”