Once Stalked (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 9)

by Blake Pierce

  But her fists would do.

  Rage took Riley over completely. She leaped onto the man on the floor, crouched on his belly, and slammed her fist into his face.

  She heard April yell …

  “Mom! Stop! That’s enough!”

  At the sound of her daughter’s voice, Riley’s rage ebbed.

  The man was staring up at her with horror. Blood was trickling down his face.

  Riley knew that if she hadn’t been stopped, she probably would have killed him.

  Riley climbed off him, feeling shocked by her own actions. The man rose unsteadily to his feet. Moaning and groaning, he staggered to the front door and left.

  Riley went to the doorway and watched him lurching away down the sidewalk.

  Then she turned around and saw April helping Liam off the floor and into a chair.

  “Didn’t you call nine-one-one?” Riley asked April.

  “No,” April said. “Liam didn’t want me to. I called you instead.”

  “It’s OK now,” Liam said, rubbing his bruised face.

  “It’s not OK!” Riley said.

  Riley was feeling a different sort of anger now—anger at Liam and April for not having called for police help.

  “I’m sorry you had to see Dad like that,” Liam said, crying now. “He hasn’t been drinking like this for a long time. He got bad after my mother left, but then he straightened up and didn’t drink for years. Now it’s started again. But he’ll come out of it. I’m sure.”

  Riley crouched down in front of Liam.

  “Liam, listen to me. You’ve got to do something. You’ve got to call Child Protective Services. Your father is dangerous.”

  Still crying, Liam shook his head.

  “No, he’s not. He’ll come home in a little while and sleep it off. I’ll talk to him when he wakes up. He’ll listen. I’m sure he won’t do it again.”

  Riley’s heart sank. Liam’s denial was all too typical of abuse victims. And she knew from experience how hard it would be to persuade him to face facts.

  He doesn’t deserve this, she thought.

  Riley barely knew him, but she already liked him. She used to think she’d like to have a son, a brother for April. Things hadn’t worked out that way. But Liam seemed to be exactly the kind of boy she would have liked to raise.

  As bad luck would have it, Liam had gotten shortchanged on parents. Riley didn’t know why Liam’s mother had left his father. She might well have had good reason. But her departure had brought out the worst in his father. And now Liam’s situation was truly desperate.

  April tugged on Riley’s arm. Riley stepped aside to hear what April wanted to tell her.

  “Let’s take Liam home,” April whispered through her tears. “He’s not safe here.”

  For a fleeting instant, Riley felt ready to agree. But she knew that it wasn’t a decision to make on an impulse.

  She turned back to Liam and said, “I’m going to call Child Protective Services.”

  “No!” Liam said sharply. “Please, please don’t! You have to give my dad and me a chance.”

  Riley knelt down beside him again.

  “Then you’ve got to, Liam. You’ve just got to.”

  Liam shook his head miserably.

  “Think about it,” Riley said. “Please just think about it.”

  Liam nodded.

  “We’ll stay here till your dad gets back,” Riley said.

  “No,” Liam said. “Thank you, but no. I’ll—Dad and I will work things out.”

  Riley felt a crushing sadness settling in. There really was nothing she could do here. She got up and led April out of the house. They got into the car and Riley started to drive home.

  “We’ve got to do something,” April said, still in tears.

  Riley felt the same way. But what were their options? She thought about it for a moment.

  Finally she said, “I’m going to call Child Protective Services myself when we get home.”

  “Mom, no!” April said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because Liam told us not to! He’d never forgive me—us—if we do that. He’d feel betrayed.”

  Riley said nothing. She didn’t know what to say. She remembered Liam’s plea, “You have to give my dad and me a chance.”

  Then April said, “Let’s go back and get Liam. Let’s take him home. He can live with us for a while.”

  Riley was able to think more clearly about that option than she could before. Was it possible? Might it help? She held back a sigh as a world of problems dawned on her.

  She was just now getting Jilly settled in and stable with her new life. Did she have the resources—financial or emotional—to take care of another teenager, one whose life was already fraught with trouble?

  And how would Liam’s father react?

  Besides, April was in a relationship with this boy. It just couldn’t be a good idea to have them both living in the same house.

  “We can’t,” Riley said.

  “Why not?” April asked.

  “For more reasons than I can count,” Riley said. “And if you just stop and think about it, you’ll see I’m right.”

  A tense silence fell between them.

  Then Riley said, “If you really want to help Liam, you’ve got to talk him into calling CPS.”

  There was another silence.

  Then April spoke in a harsh, angry voice.

  “You just don’t care,” she said.

  The words cut through Riley like a knife.

  “How can you say that to me?” Riley said.

  “You don’t.”

  Riley felt on the verge of tears.

  “April, I do the best I can,” she said in a choked voice. “I can’t fix everything in the world. No one can.”

  April crossed her arms and didn’t reply. She maintained a sullen silence during the rest of the ride. When they got home, April stormed up to her room and slammed the door. Riley looked around and didn’t see anyone else. She figured Gabriela was probably downstairs in her apartment, and Jilly must still be at volleyball practice.

  Riley sat down in the living room feeling very alone.

  Just this morning she’d been looking forward to a few days off, especially some time to spend with the girls.

  But it wasn’t working out very well so far.

  What now? she wondered.

  She felt sure that April wouldn’t talk to her for the rest of the day. Tomorrow maybe Riley could make peace with her. It would be Sunday, so maybe they could all do something together as a family—April, Jilly, and Gabriela too.

  Tomorrow will be better, Riley promised herself.

  *

  The next morning Riley got up and fixed herself some coffee. The girls were still in bed, and the house was quiet and peaceful. Riley sat sipping her coffee, considering what to do with her family today.

  April could phone Liam and find out if everything was all right there. And then she and the girls could go out somewhere.

  Of course, she automatically thought of going to Blaine’s Grill for lunch.

  But then she remembered how tense things had been between her and Blaine just yesterday. It didn’t seem like a good idea to just drop in at his restaurant until she and Blaine had worked things out.

  If we can work things out, Riley thought. She couldn’t help feeling pessimistic.

  Before she could consider any other options, her phone rang, and she answered it.

  “Agent Paige, this is Jennifer Roston.”

  Riley was surprised and uneasy.

  “What can I do for you?” Riley asked.

  Roston said, “I really need to talk with you. Right away. Something new has come up regarding Shane Hatcher.”

  Riley’s heart jumped up in her throat.

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  “We can’t talk about it over the phone,” Roston said. “I need to see you in person. I could come to your house.”

  Riley gulped. The last
thing she wanted was to talk about Hatcher at home with the girls around. And she could hear them stirring around upstairs, starting to get up.

  “No, I’ll come to Quantico,” Riley said.

  “OK,” Roston said. “I hate to ask you. I know you’re supposed to be taking time off. But this is important. Meet me in the conference room.”

  “I’ll be there in a half hour,” Riley said.

  They ended the call just as Gabriela came up the stairs to fix breakfast.

  Riley said, “Gabriela, I’ve got to go out for a while. Tell the girls I’ll be back soon.”

  Gabriela nodded, and Riley left the house.

  What’s this all about? she wondered as she started the car.

  Whatever it was, she doubted that it was good.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  When Riley arrived at the BAU building, her uneasiness grew. The whole place felt ominously vacant. The FBI didn’t close down on weekends, but there were far fewer people around than usual. Riley was pretty sure that Meredith wasn’t here today, and of course Bill wasn’t either.

  She found Special Agent Jennifer Roston already waiting for her in the conference room. The room felt unusually large and forbidding, with only the two of them sitting at a big table with a dozen empty chairs.

  Riley wondered why Roston asked to meet her here. Only the most senior agents had private offices, so Roston would just have a desk in an area with several others. But why couldn’t they have met in Riley’s office?

  Riley wondered—did Roston want her to feel uncomfortable?

  For a few moments, the young African-American agent sat across the broad table just looking at Riley.

  Finally Riley asked, “Why were you so eager to see me?”

  Roston didn’t answer Riley’s question. Instead, she took out a notepad and pencil.

  She said, “I need to know everything you know about Shane Hatcher.”

  Riley tried not to show her rising alarm.

  “You have all the files,” Riley said. “I don’t have anything new.”

  “I need for you to tell me the whole history of your relationship.”

  Riley felt puzzled.

  “Surely you know all that already,” she said. “It’s all in the files.”

  “I need to hear it directly from you.”

  Riley sat studying Roston’s face for a moment. She couldn’t read her expression at all. It occurred to her that Roston had the makings of a good interrogator. In fact, this meeting was feeling more and more like an interrogation with every passing moment.

  Riley spoke slowly and carefully.

  “As I’m sure you know, I first visited Shane Hatcher in Sing Sing in August of last year, when I was working on a case in upstate New York. I met with him at the recommendation of Mike Nevins, a forensic psychologist who works for the Bureau from time to time. Hatcher is a brilliant self-taught criminologist whose articles have been published in professional journals. His insights helped me solve that case. I went back to Sing Sing to consult with him on two more cases.”

  Roston’s notebook lay on the table, but she wasn’t taking notes.

  She asked, “Why did you always go to Sing Sing to see him?”

  “He wouldn’t talk to me by phone. I had to meet with him in person.”

  “Why?”

  Riley hesitated. How could she explain a living enigma like Shane Hatcher?

  “He’s a strange man, and he lives by strange rules,” she said. “But like I said, he’s brilliant, and his insights were always valuable.”

  “So he was controlling the situation whenever you met?”

  Riley squinted at Roston.

  “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘controlling,’” Riley said. “He was incarcerated at the time. I found my visits to him to be extremely productive.”

  Roston began to make seemingly random scribbles on the notepad.

  She said, “Then in December he escaped and killed a man in Syracuse, New York. An old acquaintance, I believe.”

  “An old enemy,” Riley said, correcting her. “From many years ago, when Hatcher was still a young gangbanger.”

  Her words sounded strange to her own ears. She surely didn’t mean to justify Hatcher killing anyone. But that was how it must have sounded to Roston. And Roston’s face showed it.

  Roston asked, “When have you been in touch with him since his escape?”

  Riley knew that they were moving into dangerous territory. She had to be careful with all her answers.

  “He turned up in Virginia in January,” Riley said. “You already know that, because it’s in the files. You must also know that he rescued my daughter and ex-husband from a vicious killer.”

  Riley didn’t dare tell the story, but she shivered inside at the memory. Hatcher had not only saved the lives of April and Ryan, he had delivered the killer into Riley’s clutches bound and gagged, a test to see if she’d kill him out of sheer vengefulness.

  Riley could feel afresh the bitter taste of fury in her mouth, could remember how she’d wanted to cut out the killer’s beating heart and show it to him. Even so, she had resisted her own murderous urges.

  That was also the first time she had deliberately let Hatcher himself escape arrest.

  “A ‘vicious killer,’” Roston said, echoing Riley’s words. “More vicious than Hatcher himself?”

  Riley was momentarily speechless.

  What could she possibly say?

  She collected her thoughts and said, “I know perfectly well how vicious Hatcher can be. I found the mangled corpse of his old enemy hanging in chains. But he’s a complex man—not like the obsessed psychopath who threatened my family. He’s always been complex. I talked to the cop who first arrested him many years ago. After his escape, some in the FBI were afraid he’d go after her. She said he wouldn’t and she was right. He didn’t try to kill her because she had stopped another cop from killing him.”

  Riley hesitated, then added, “He’s got a strict code.”

  Roston raised her eyebrows.

  “A code? Could you explain that to me?”

  Riley didn’t reply. Where could she even begin to explain?

  Then Roston asked, “Do you feel that you owe Hatcher something?”

  A chill went down Riley’s spine. Her entanglement of obligations to Hatcher baffled even her.

  When Riley didn’t reply, Roston began to push.

  “Are you in debt to Shane Hatcher for saving your family?”

  “I—I’m grateful,” Riley stammered. “But I’m a sworn law enforcement officer. I wouldn’t hesitate to arrest him if I had the opportunity.”

  Riley’s alarm was growing. Could Roston tell that this was an outright lie?

  She could have arrested Hatcher several times when she’d confronted him in person.

  Or at least she could have tried to.

  But she hadn’t tried.

  Roston said, “I’ve heard that he’s got a nickname—‘Shane the Chain.’”

  Riley nodded uneasily.

  “That’s right,” she said. “He was called that in his early days as a gangbanger.”

  Riley didn’t go on to say how he’d gotten that nickname—because he had a reputation for pulverizing his victims with heavy chains. Roston surely knew that already.

  Now Riley noticed that Roston was looking at the gold chain bracelet on her wrist. Hatcher had given it to her.

  I should have taken it off, Riley thought.

  A code etched on one of its links was a means of contacting him. He wore one just like it to symbolize their bond. For the first time something occurred to Riley—if Roston ever managed to capture Hatcher, he’d probably be wearing his bracelet.

  It seemed odd to Riley that she hadn’t thought of that before.

  Had she never seriously considered the possibility that Hatcher could be captured?

  Nevertheless, Riley resisted the urge to move her arm off the table to hide the bracelet. That would only attract more attentio
n to it.

  “So you saw him in Virginia,” Roston said. “When did you see him next face to face?”

  Riley’s alarm was escalating into near panic. Some of her interactions with Hatcher were in the records Roston had read. Others were known only to Riley herself.

  How was she going to keep her stories straight?

  Riley’s mind clicked away frantically.

  Then she remembered.

  She’d communicated with Hatcher several times by phone and video chat. But she’d only encountered him in person two other times. Once was in Seattle when he’d helped her on a poisoning case. The other was when he’d shown up at her father’s cabin. Neither one of those encounters were included in the records. She couldn’t admit to them.

  “I never saw him in person after that,” Riley said.

  Riley realized that her alarm was starting to turn into anger. Why was she letting Roston treat her this way?

  The young agent had an agenda, and Riley still didn’t know what it was.

  Riley said, “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Agent Roston. Perhaps you should get right to the point.”

  Roston smiled a rather insincere smile.

  “Relax, Agent Paige. You’re being very helpful, and I appreciate it. It’s just a complicated case, and I need to get all the details straight. I’ve got just a few more questions.”

  Roston kept making random marks on her notepad.

  She said, “I understand that a real estate agent, Shirley Redding, is handling the sale of your property—the cabin you inherited from your father.”

  Riley felt a new wave of worry.

  Where was Roston going with this?

  Did she know that Hatcher had been living at the cabin?

  Riley said, “I originally asked Shirley to sell it. But I changed my mind.”

  “Was Shirley Redding ever at the cabin?” Roston asked.

  Again Riley knew she had to choose her words carefully.

  “Of course she saw the property and estimated its market value. I believe that she also showed it to potential buyers.”

  “When was that?”

  “I’m not sure. I was in California during some of this time.”

  Roston tapped her pencil against the notepad.

  Then she said, “I understand that she reported at least one offer to you. Why did you turn it down?”