Once Stalked (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 9)

by Blake Pierce

  Then she heard the sound of something moving about farther inside.

  She walked forward, following the sound, and found herself in a huge, gloomy assembly hall, with a balcony looming above.

  “Titus Mulligan?” she called out again.

  “Who’s asking?” a male voice replied. The voice sounded like it came from somewhere in the balcony.

  “Special Agent Lucy Vargas, FBI,” she repeated. “If you’re Titus Mulligan, you might be in danger. I want to talk to you.”

  “What kind of danger?”

  Now Lucy could see a shadowy figure moving among the chairs on the balcony.

  Her hand reflexively hovered near her weapon.

  But she quickly let her hand relax. After all, she had no reason to think she was in danger. She was here to warn someone else that he was in danger.

  She called to him, “I’m sure you know about the series of killings on the base recently.”

  “Yeah,” the man called back.

  “We have reason to believe that you might also be a target.”

  He didn’t reply.

  Then Lucy cautiously added, “That is, if you are Titus Mulligan.”

  The figure laughed a little. It sounded like a friendly laugh.

  Lucy said, “Come on down here so we can talk.”

  “I don’t think so,” the figure said.

  He stepped to the edge of the balcony, and a beam of light from an unpainted window fell on him.

  Lucy fleetingly thought there was something wrong with his face.

  Then she realized—it wasn’t his face at all.

  It was a mask.

  A mask of a snarling wolf.

  In the sunlight she could also see a glint of metal—the barrel of a rifle pointed straight at her.

  Lucy drew her weapon.

  Then, all in the same instant, she heard a sound behind her.

  She realized that someone else was coming into the room.

  And there was a flash from the balcony, a sharp crack, a violent push, and searing pain.

  Lucy fell backward and crashed to the floor.

  It took a moment for her to realize that a bullet had torn through her body.

  *

  Bill had just reached the abandoned assembly building when he saw a figure dash in through the door.

  Then he heard a shot from inside.

  Bill rushed into the building and charged through a short hallway. He came out into a huge room and saw a man moving toward a woman lying prone on the floor.

  The woman was Lucy—and she was bleeding from the chest.

  Instinctively, Bill raised his weapon and fired at the man, who spun around and hit the floor.

  Only then did Bill see that the man’s hands were empty.

  He wasn’t holding a weapon.

  But Lucy had raised herself up on one elbow. She lifted her Glock and fired six rounds toward the balcony.

  Bill looked up in time to see another man tumble over the balcony rail and crash to the floor nearby.

  *

  Riley was outside the building when she heard the series of gunshots.

  She fought down a wave of panic as she rushed inside.

  What the hell’s going on?

  She found herself in a large, dimly lit room with a balcony.

  Lucy was sprawled on the floor, bleeding from the chest. Bill was holding her in his arms.

  Bill’s expression was glazed, and he was obviously in a state of shock.

  A few feet away, a fallen man was moaning in pain. And just beyond all of them lay another man, bleeding from multiple bullet wounds. That one was wearing a wolf mask and an M110 sniper rifle lay near him.

  Her mind registered that someone had taken down the killer, and that two people were wounded. Bill was trying to stop Lucy’s bleeding. Riley forced her attention to the man who was moaning.

  She saw that it was Private Stanley Pope and that he had been shot in the shoulder.

  “What happened?” she asked him.

  His face twisted with pain, Pope pointed toward Lucy.

  “I was trying to help,” he gasped. “But then—”

  He was in too much pain to finish his thought.

  The private was wounded, but he would live.

  “You’ll be all right,” Riley said. “Just hang on.”

  Riley turned back to Bill and Lucy.

  Bill was staring at the young woman in his arms, his expression one of stupefied horror.

  “I—I shot the wrong man,” he stammered. “And Lucy …”

  Riley shook Bill by the shoulder.

  “Get hold of yourself. Call for medics. Right now!”

  Bill laid Lucy gently on the floor and took out his cell phone.

  Riley lifted Lucy’s head with one arm. Her heart sank at the amount of blood that was spreading across the floor. She put pressure on the wound, but she knew it was too late.

  Lucy opened her eyes. “Agent Paige …”

  “I’m right here,” Riley said.

  Lucy had a faint, agonized smile on her face.

  “I did it this time, didn’t I? I didn’t freeze … like last time. I didn’t screw up. I took the bastard out.”

  Riley knelt down beside her.

  “You did good, Lucy,” she said. “You’re getting better and better every day.”

  “So are you proud of me?” Lucy asked.

  Riley felt a knot of emotion in her throat.

  “Oh, so, so proud. You took out the sniper. You’ve got a great career ahead of you. Now stay with us, Lucy. Stay with us.”

  But Lucy’s eyes closed and she seemed to lose consciousness.

  Riley felt tears running down her face. She felt a terrible agony forming inside her. Then she heard sirens approaching. Bill had called them here, but she knew that it was too late for Lucy.

  Riley gently lowered the dead agent’s head to the floor.

  Standing up and looking around the chaotic scene, she understood at least part of what had happened. Bill had seen Lucy down and had fired at what he thought was her assailant. In the chaos, he had shot Pope. But Lucy had taken out the sniper.

  Then she heard another sound and looked toward it. The masked sniper wasn’t dead yet. Riley wiped away her tears and stepped over to the fallen man.

  He was groping across the floor for his rifle. Just when he almost had it in his grasp, Riley kicked him away from it.

  She pulled out her own weapon. Wild eyes stared back at her through the eyeholes of the wolf mask.

  In a croaking voice, he said, “I will protect the Wolf Pack … from outsiders … by any means necessary.”

  “Not anymore, you won’t,” Riley snarled.

  She fired point-blank into the man’s forehead. Blood oozed out from under the mask.

  “That was for Lucy,” Riley said to the dead man.

  His nametag told her that the killer’s name was Mulligan.

  Riley lifted the mask and saw his face.

  She didn’t recognize him.

  But his face had been so ordinary, she doubted that she would recognize him even if she’d seen him before.

  He had the blond, blue-eyed looks of an all-American Eagle Scout.

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  Riley struggled to hold back tears as she listened to FBI Director Gavin Milner speak to the gathering of Lucy Vargas’s colleagues, friends, and loved ones. She had cried a lot during recent days, and the ache in her chest had barely subsided at all. She hoped that this memorial service would put some of that pain to rest.

  As always, the slight, dapper man spoke in that gentle, distinguished purr of a voice.

  “What is it that makes the bravery of young agents like Lucy Vargas so remarkable? I think it’s that danger is no secret to them. They spend countless hours in an academy learning how hazardous their work is going to be. And then they take the job anyway. They take the oath and they carry out their duties at all possible costs—sometimes at the ultimate cost.”

 
; Riley found it impossible to believe that she had listened to this same man speaking in this same Quantico auditorium less than two weeks ago. Back then he had been talking about Riley …

  “We all owe her a debt of gratitude for her service—and for her example.”

  Riley didn’t feel like much of an example right now.

  She certainly didn’t feel that she could compare with Lucy. In Lucy’s short career, she had performed better than many agents did in a lifetime. Just a few days ago, Riley and Bill had attended Lucy’s actual funeral in Sacramento. That had been a day of open mourning, of pain experienced and expressed—and at the same time a celebration of a brave, successful life. The size of the funeral had surprised Riley. Much of the conversation had been in Spanish, and Riley had been glad that her own Spanish was good enough to participate at least a little.

  This crowd at Quantico was smaller, and the proceedings more formal. But Lucy’s parents and brothers were at this ceremony as well. Riley and Bill had insisted to Meredith that the FBI pay their way.

  It did Riley’s heart good to see the pride in Lucy’s brothers’ faces. Even Lucy’s parents looked proud beneath their pain. She felt that they might eventually find some peace even after their terrible loss.

  Riley felt deeply saddened by the shattered expression on Sam Flores’s face. It was heartbreaking to think of the romance that had just been budding between Sam and Lucy.

  Now it would never be.

  Riley was sitting next to Bill. She slipped her arm through his and could feel him trembling. She knew that he was having trouble dealing with all that had happened. He blamed himself for Lucy’s death—for getting there just a second after the fatal shot was fired, and for mistakenly shooting a man who was only trying to help her. At least it looked like Stanley Pope was going to recover fully from his injury.

  Nobody blamed Bill for his mistake—least of all Riley.

  But she knew that it would take a long time for Bill to stop blaming himself. He had seen the future in Lucy.

  And now it had been snatched away.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  When Riley got home from the service, she was hoping for a quiet afternoon. But to her surprise, Liam was sitting in the family room with April and Jilly. They were all looking glum.

  “What’s the matter here?” Riley asked.

  April said, “Liam’s father kicked him out. He’s got nowhere else to go.”

  April and Jilly looked at Riley with expressions of silent appeal.

  Riley knew what her daughters were asking with those looks. They wanted to know—could Liam stay here with them, at least for a while?

  Riley resisted the impulse to simply say no outright. She sat down with her daughters and the miserable-looking boy.

  “Let’s talk about this,” she said. “It’s all very complicated.”

  “You like Liam, don’t you?” Jilly asked her.

  Riley simply nodded. She hadn’t known Liam very long, but she liked him a lot. He’d had a good influence on April. Her recent grades had been higher than they’d ever been. Liam had even gotten April interested in playing chess and possibly going to a chess camp. He was also good with languages. He was an unusually gifted boy.

  But he’d been dealt a bad hand in life, with an abusive father and a mother who had disappeared long ago.

  He deserves a break in life, Riley thought.

  But was she in any position to give him that kind of break?

  She had too much to deal with in life as it was—a professional life that consumed her time and brought danger into her own home, and a family that was growing much faster than she ever imagined.

  Riley didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine what she could do.

  Gabriela walked into the family room with a tray of cold drinks and snacks, then sat down with the others. Riley could tell that Gabriela already knew what the conversation was all about.

  Jilly was starting to get emotional now.

  “Look, whatever you do, don’t turn him over to the foster care system. I know what that’s like. It’s just awful.”

  Riley felt a knot of emotion in her throat. Jilly had been through her own kind of hell.

  Riley could never wish anything like that on another young person.

  “I know, Jilly,” Riley said. “But …”

  “But what?” April asked.

  Riley didn’t know what she wanted to say.

  April said, “Liam doesn’t have any friends who can take him in. We’re his only chance.”

  Riley remembered how she’d felt when she’d first encountered Jilly. The girl had been ready to sell her young body just to survive. Riley hadn’t been able to turn her back on Jilly. How could she turn her back on another kid who needed help? How could she leave him without choices about his own life and future?

  It just wasn’t in Riley’s nature.

  Riley looked at Gabriela and asked, “What do you think?”

  Gabriela smiled that warm smile of hers.

  “I think you know what I think, Señora Riley.”

  Riley smiled back. As far as she was concerned, Gabriela’s approval pretty much settled the issue.

  She said to Gabriela, “This is going to be one more for you to look after when I’m away.”

  Gabriela laughed.

  “I had six younger brothers and sisters. And more cousins than you could count. This is nothing.”

  Then Gabriela leaned forward and spoke sternly to the teens.

  “But there will have to be rules. You girls keep your own rooms. This end of this room will be Liam’s living space, with the couch for him to sleep on. It will be enough space. I’ll empty some of those cabinet shelves for him. He can use the first-floor bathroom.”

  Liam’s mouth dropped open with amazement.

  “Is this really happening?” he asked.

  Riley let out a welcoming chuckle.

  “It certainly is, Liam,” Riley said.

  Gabriela wagged her finger at Liam and April.

  “Another thing. Here in this house, the two of you are brother and sister. Hermanos solamente. ¿Comprenden?”

  April and Liam smiled and nodded.

  “Sí, comprendemos,” April said.

  “Perfectamente,” Liam added.

  As Gabriela continued discussing the rules and arrangements, Riley felt warmth inside that she hadn’t felt for a long time.

  I think this is going to work out, she thought.

  *

  Later that evening, Blaine Hildreth came by unannounced with his daughter. Crystal was carrying a bouquet of beautiful flowers.

  As they stood in the front doorway, Blaine said, “Crystal told me what you’ve been through. She heard about it from April. I’m so, so sorry for what happened to your friend.”

  He nodded to Crystal, who handed the flowers to Riley.

  “Thank you,” Riley said, genuinely moved. “Won’t you come in for a little while?”

  Crystal eagerly headed toward the family room to join April, Jilly, and Liam.

  “Would you like a drink?” Riley asked Blaine.

  “I’d love that, yes,” Blaine said.

  Riley went to the kitchen and poured them both drinks. They sat down together in the living room.

  Blaine said, “Crystal also told me you’ve got a new member of the household.”

  Riley smiled and shook her head.

  “Yeah, I just can’t seem to help myself. I hope we all can handle it.”

  Blaine briefly patted Riley’s hand.

  “You can handle it. You’re an amazing, generous person.”

  Riley felt a surge of emotion. But she was determined not to cry. She had cried so much lately, and she welcomed the chance for happier feelings.

  “Thank you, Blaine,” she said.

  They sat together in silence for a few moments.

  Then Blaine said, “Look, about the last time we saw each other—I’m sorry about that.”

  “I’m sor
ry too,” Riley said, truly meaning it.

  “There really isn’t anything going on between me and Laura. She was just paying me a visit, and we’re really just friends. But I know how things looked, and …”

  He shook his head with embarrassment.

  “I guess I was just trying to make you jealous,” he said.

  “It worked,” Riley said with a weak laugh.

  Blaine shrugged and looked as though he was searching for the right words to say.

  “Look, I really don’t care about being free to date others. What about you?”

  “Actually, I haven’t even given any thought to dating anyone else,” Riley said.

  Blaine took hold of Riley’s hand.

  “Is it settled, then? Just you and me?”

  Riley squeezed his hand back.

  “I’d really like that,” she said.

  They sat together holding hands, looking at each other in comfortable silence.

  This is turning out to be a good day after all, Riley thought.

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  Early the next morning, Riley was awakened by a cell phone call from Brent Meredith.

  “Agent Paige, what is your location right now?” the team chief asked in his usual gruff manner.

  Riley sat up and rubbed her eyes, trying to understand the question.

  “I’m in bed,” she said. “I just woke up.”

  “At home?” Meredith asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Whatever you do, stay away from your father’s old cabin.”

  Riley stood up from the bed, suddenly much more awake.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We’ve got Shane Hatcher pinned down there.”

  Riley’s heart jumped up into her throat.

  “How?” she asked.

  “After that woman’s death up there, we asked the Milladore sheriff to keep an eye on the place—to keep a lookout for Hatcher especially. Sheriff Garland was prowling around the property on foot a little while ago when he saw the cabin door standing wide open. He saw an African-American man inside.”

  Riley tried to keep from gasping

  “Hatcher?” she asked.

  “From Garland’s description, there’s no question about it.”