Once Hunted

by Blake Pierce

  Walder said, “You let him go, and now you’re going to fix it. I expect you and Agent Jeffreys to apprehend Hatcher within forty-eight hours if not sooner.”

  Riley shook her head.

  “I think my focus should be on catching Orin Rhodes,” she said.

  “Why?” Walder asked.

  “Right now he’s more of a threat than Hatcher.”

  Walder let out a gasp of disbelief.

  “More of a threat? Agent Paige, in the short time since his escape Hatcher has already killed. He beat a man to death with chains.”

  “A man who betrayed him,” Riley said.

  Walder was really angry now.

  “What’s that supposed to be, an excuse? Does that make it all right? He also probably killed the driver of the book delivery truck he escaped in. We just haven’t found the body yet. And you don’t think he’s much of a threat? He’s just getting started.”

  Riley felt her own rage rising.

  “Orin Rhodes tried to kill my daughter,” she said, her voice shaking.

  Walder slammed his fist on the table.

  “Which is why I don’t want you on his case. You’re too emotionally involved. I’m assigning cooler heads.”

  Riley bit her tongue. She knew that anything she said right now would only prove Walder’s point.

  So would jumping across the table and throttling him, she thought.

  Walder stood up.

  “You blew your chance to catch Hatcher, Agent Paige.” he said. “Now you’re going to fix it. And you’ve got forty-eight hours. Remember that.”

  He stormed out of the room. Riley, Bill, and Meredith sat in silence for a moment.

  At last Meredith spoke in a quiet voice.

  “Agent Paige, your daughter’s safe right now,” he said. “Rhodes can’t get to her. And you can’t turn this into a personal vendetta.”

  Riley said nothing.

  “Listen to me,” Meredith said. “The Bureau’s under tremendous pressure because of the Hatcher thing. His whole history is all over the papers and the Internet—how ‘Shane the Chain’ spent years becoming a brilliant criminologist, how he managed a stunning escape from Sing Sing, and how he’s on the loose now settling old scores. He’s the perfect Internet folk antihero—a criminal genius, admired and feared at the same time. He’s already even got fan clubs. It’s a hell of a mess for us. That’s why Walder is being so—”

  Meredith paused.

  “We’ve got to put him away,” he said. “You’ve got to put him away. You and Agent Jeffreys.”

  “I understand, sir,” Riley said, almost in a whisper.

  “Good,” Meredith said. “Now I want the two of you to put together a written report of what happened in Syracuse. Get it to me before the end of the day. Tomorrow morning at seven-thirty, you’re flying back to Syracuse.”

  Bill and Riley left the conference room. Riley sensed that Bill was worried about her.

  “You haven’t had much sleep,” he said.

  Riley didn’t reply. The truth was, she hadn’t had any sleep since the night before last—before they’d even gone to Syracuse.

  “I’ll take a crack at the report,” he said. “I’ll email it to you to check when I’ve got it drafted. You just go home and get rested.”

  “Thanks,” Riley said.

  Riley felt the need to sit down and clear her head before driving home. She went to her office and sat at her desk. She swiveled in her chair, trying to settle her nerves. She just couldn’t do it. She was sure that Orin Rhodes was the true threat right now, not Hatcher. But there was no way for her to explain to her colleagues why she knew that.

  In all the chaos that had ensued since yesterday, she hadn’t had time to think about Orin Rhodes and why he had targeted her for revenge. She got up from her desk, went to the filing cabinet, and pulled out a yellowed, sixteen-year-old folder filled with information about the case. It was her personal file, one she had kept even after the materials had been scanned and entered into the FBI database. She spread out the photos and reports on her desk.

  The first images to catch her eye were mugshots of Orin Rhodes. It had been about sixteen years since she’d seen that face. She’d forgotten how young he’d been when she’d brought him to justice—only seventeen years old, and he looked even younger. Looking at the picture, she hardly saw the face of a hardened killer. But the boy looked troubled and sullen.

  Skimming through the case history, she was reminded that Orin had come from a broken home in Hinton, New York. He lived part of the time with an alcoholic father and the other part with a very erratic mother. He’d dropped out of high school early. Before the murders, his prior record showed nothing worse than a little shoplifting.

  Not a bad kid, Riley thought.

  Or at least he’d shown no signs of being a bad kid before he’d taken to killing. He’d been just an ordinary adolescent boy who’d been dealt a bad hand in life. But in a single day, something had happened to change all that.

  Before Riley could remember exactly what it had been, her eye was caught by a school photo of a very young girl. She was awkward-looking but rather pretty, and she had an empty, sad expression.

  The girl’s name came back to Riley with a jolt.

  Heidi Wright.

  It was a name that she hadn’t thought about for years, a name that she’d tried to forget.

  Heidi Wright was the first person Riley ever killed.

  *

  Riley stared at the photo of Heidi Wright in shock for a moment. Then as she started reading, the horrible event came back into her memory.

  Heidi had been Orin Rhodes’ girlfriend, and she’d been just fifteen years old at the time. According to Orin Rhodes’ own testimony, she had called him at home one day, frantic and crying, saying she was in danger and begging him to come and save her.

  Orin had picked up his father’s revolver and dashed straight over to Heidi’s home, just in time to find her being sexually assaulted by both her older brother and her father. Orin had shot both men dead.

  The two desperate teenagers decided to go on the lam, but didn’t have any money. Heidi did have her father’s gun. Both of them armed, they fled her home and drove to the nearest liquor store. Their attempted holdup went bad, and they wound up shooting and killing both the manager and an employee.

  That’s when it seemed that their inner demons took over. The killings had given them an unexpected, euphoric rush, and they wanted to feel that again. They wanted to kill more. The two twisted kids drove to Jennings, a little town nearby, where they snatched two unsuspecting people off the street—first a man and next a teenage girl. Each time, they tormented their victim with gunplay, inflicting repeated wounds before the final execution.

  That was when it became an FBI case. Riley was brought in from Quantico, along with her then-partner and mentor Jake Crivaro. It was one of Riley’s first cases, and she hadn’t been emotionally prepared for its outcome.

  Local police and FBI agents cornered Heidi Wright and Orin Rhodes in a motel on the outskirts of Jennings. The young couple fired from their room window while cops and agents—Riley among them—shot back from behind vehicles in the parking lot.

  After a few minutes of exchanged gunfire, Heidi and Orin had seemed on the verge of surrendering. But then Heidi suddenly rushed out of the room into the parking lot, her gun blazing at the cops and agents.

  Riley shot her and killed her. She’d had no choice. Staggered with grief and out of bullets, Orin quietly surrendered.

  Riley remembered what a sad, broken figure Orin had cut at the trial. He pleaded guilty to all charges and had seemed deeply penitent. If he had blamed Riley for Heidi’s death, he’d given her no sign of it. In fact, he said that he blamed Heidi’s death entirely on himself. When he’d received his life sentence, he’d nodded in what seemed like heartbroken agreement.

  Riley’s fingers trembled a little as she handled the old photo of Heidi, who looked like such an ordinary teenager. I
t dawned on her that she’d killed Heidi when the girl was almost exactly April’s age. The bitter irony deepened when Riley considered that April had been born just a year after Heidi had died.

  Riley’s heart ached at the memory that she’d so long tried to put behind her. But forgetting was no longer possible. Orin had marked her for revenge—and April as well.

  She remembered what Shane Hatcher had told her.

  “He just got released. Early, for good behavior. A model prisoner.”

  It seemed strange. The penitent teenager she’d seen in the courtroom had appeared to live into his thirties trying to seek some kind of redemption, doing whatever good he could while in prison, blaming no one but himself for his own downfall and Heidi’s death.

  But now that he was free, things had changed.

  Either that, Riley thought, or things were never what they seemed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When Riley and Bill stepped off the plane at Syracuse Hancock International Airport, cold air hit her in the face like an icy blast of déjà vu. After all, they had just flown out of here the night before last.

  There weren’t any local agents here to meet them this time. Instead, a rental car had been reserved for them. Bill and Riley went to the airport rental desk to pick up the keys. They stepped outside the terminal and started walking to the garage where the car was parked.

  Then Riley stopped.

  “You drive on to the field office, Bill,” she said. “I’m catching a cab. I … want to go somewhere else first. I’ll meet you there later.”

  Bill looked at her with surprise. He obviously wanted to ask where she wanted to go.

  She looked at him with an expression that gently implored:

  “Don’t ask.”

  To her relief, Bill only nodded.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said.

  Bill walked on to the rental car. Riley dialed Kelsey Sprigge’s number on her cell phone. Kelsey answered.

  “Kelsey, this is Riley Paige,” she said. “Some things have happened since I last talked to you.”

  “Oh, yes,” Kelsey said. “I saw it on the news. Awful business about what happened to Smokey Moran. But then, I believe you more or less expected it, didn’t you? I should have expected it too. That awful man was always sure to meet a bad end. And now Shane Hatcher’s a celebrity! Where’s it all going to end?”

  Riley paused for a moment.

  “Kelsey, I’d like to drop by and ask you a few more questions,” she said.

  *

  A little while later, Riley was sitting beside a warm fire with Kelsey Sprigge. She’d just finished telling Kelsey about all that had happened since they’d last met, including her confrontation with Hatcher and Orin Rhodes’ attack on April.

  Kelsey nodded sagely when Riley finished talking.

  “Yes, I remember the Orin Rhodes case,” she said. “I wasn’t assigned to work on that one—not allowed to, really. The men in the office were rather embarrassed that a ‘girl’ had brought down Shane Hatcher. So they never put me on a case like that again. Kept me doing paperwork or on boring cases. They said they were just trying to keep me out of danger. I always knew better.”

  Shaking her head, Kelsey added, “I’m so glad your daughter wasn’t badly hurt. Your housekeeper as well. And your neighbor—I do hope he’s going to be all right.”

  “I hope so too,” Riley said.

  For a moment, the only sound was the crackling from the fireplace.

  “But you haven’t told me why you wanted to drop by, dear,” Kelsey finally said.

  Riley didn’t reply. The truth was, she herself wasn’t at all sure why she’d come.

  Kelsey gazed at Riley, her crinkly eyes full of wisdom.

  “There’s something you haven’t told me,” she said. “Something you haven’t told anybody. You left it out of your report. You haven’t even told your partner.”

  Riley smiled a little.

  “How can you tell?” she asked.

  Kelsey chuckled softly.

  “Oh, maybe it’s just a little leftover skill from my days as an agent. More likely, though, it’s from all my years as a wife and mother. You learn to listen—not just to what people are saying, but also to what they’re not saying.”

  Kelsey reached over and patted Riley on the knee.

  “There’s no hurry,” she said. “But I think you should tell me.”

  Riley took a couple of long, slow breaths.

  At last she said, “When I was in the garage with Hatcher, he told me exactly why he’d escaped. He said it was because of me. He admires my mind, he said. He’s always wanted to work with me. And he says I need him—that I really need his help right now.”

  After a pause, Kelsey asked, “Is he right?”

  The question cut Riley to the quick. Although she hadn’t realized it, this was exactly the possibility that had been troubling her.

  “He told me that we were ‘joined at the brain,’” Riley said. “If that’s true, what does it make me? Am I just a monster like he is?”

  Kelsey sighed.

  “Well, in my experience, there are lots of kinds of monsters. Take Lucien Wayles, for example—the cop Hatcher killed in such an awful way. He was a good man, folks said. He’d saved people’s lives, protected and served the community with honor and distinction. He was also corrupt to the core, and I’m pretty sure he was guilty of at least one murder himself.”

  Kelsey thought for a moment, then continued.

  “And take Smokey Moran, who turned in his best friend for a ‘get-out-of-jail’ card, then spent the rest of his life spreading nothing but destruction and death. Wayles and Moran were monsters without a code. Shane Hatcher is a different sort of monster. He’s nothing like them at all.”

  Kelsey sat staring at the fire for a moment before she spoke again.

  “Just between you and me, dear, some monsters are worthy of respect. You don’t have to like them. And it’s your job to stop them and put them away, to kill them if you have to. But you still need to respect them. It’s the only way to deal with them.”

  “Is Orin Rhodes that kind of monster?” Riley asked.

  Kelsey knitted her brow in thought.

  “Something happened to him that day all those years ago,” she said. “His life stopped making sense, even to him. When he killed the girl’s brother and father for trying to rape her—well, that still made sense. Then when he and the girl killed the liquor store owner and the employee, there was at least a reason for it. But then something happened. They killed two people for no reason at all. Why? I doubt that they even knew.”

  Kelsey scratched her chin thoughtfully.

  “Shane Hatcher told you he wanted to help you, to work with you. Well, Shane Hatcher might be a lot of awful things, but he’s a man of his word. You have every reason to believe him.”

  Kelsey shook her head.

  “But Orin Rhodes is another story. He lost his way a long time ago. And he’s never even tried to find his way back. He likes being lost. It suits him. He’s got no compass, there’s no rhyme or reason to what he thinks or does. He’s been nursing and nurturing his rage and hatred for sixteen years now, and nobody even knew it. And now he’s free to do … God knows what.”

  They both sat in silence for a moment.

  “Shane Hatcher is not your biggest problem right now, dear,” Kelsey finally said. “And if the FBI thinks otherwise, they’re wrong. But Orin Rhodes—well, he scares me, and he ought to scare you, too.”

  A strange mix of feelings came over Riley. She was grateful to Kelsey and glad she’d come to see her. She’d needed her insight and wisdom. And Kelsey had just confirmed what Riley’s gut had been telling her.

  At the same time, Riley was confused. Here she was in Upstate New York, under orders to catch or kill Shane Hatcher before two more days passed. Meanwhile, Orin Rhodes had made his most recent attack at her home in Fredericksburg. And nobody knew what direction he’d headed toward after that.


  Where is he now? Riley wondered. And what’s he going to do next?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Orin Rhodes stood studying his face in the mirror. He had a deep cut on his left temple where the girl had clipped him with the fireplace poker. But he didn’t mind. He hadn’t been recognized on account of it, and he’d gotten far enough away from Fredericksburg not to worry about it now.

  He liked the face that he saw.

  No more mask, he thought, touching his face all over.

  It had been sixteen years since he’d seen this face—sixteen years of wearing a mask all the time.

  He remembered with sour disgust his lonely life of deception in prison. His endless displays of insincere contrition. The hours he’d passed pretending to “improve” himself in classes. The many younger prisoners he’d mentored, counseling them to follow the straight and narrow. He’d even organized his own small Bible group! Never mind that he believed in precisely nothing in the world, let alone Jesus or any other higher power.

  Through all those years, he’d only revealed his true face to one man—Shane Hatcher. Orin had thought he’d found a kindred spirit. But Hatcher turned his back on him, wanted nothing to do with him.

  It had been a crushing disappointment.

  And now he heard on the radio that Hatcher had escaped. Not that Orin much cared. “Shane the Chain” had his own agenda, one that didn’t concern Orin in the least. Their paths would never cross again, he was sure of that.

  He smiled at the face he now saw. He was amazed by how young he looked, as if that fateful day of his capture and Heidi’s death had been only yesterday.

  At last it was time to make up for all the lost years.

  There’s no time like the present, he thought.

  He’d been in hiding for long enough.

  He opened a drawer and took out his CZ P-09 pistol, loaded a nineteen-round clip into it, and put a suppressor on the muzzle. He’d spent quite a lot on this getup, and he was determined to get his money’s worth out of it.