Once Hunted

by Blake Pierce

  And that someone wasn’t very far way from her right now.

  I’ve got to go see him, she thought.

  She picked up her phone and dialed a number that she hadn’t used in a very long time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  When she got out of a taxi later that morning in Miami, Riley wondered if she’d come to the right address. Before her stood a tall building that gleamed in the sunlight—hardly the place where she would expect Jake Crivaro to live.

  Jake had been her partner and mentor many years ago, when she was just starting her career with the FBI. He was now seventy-five and retired and living here in Miami. But she couldn’t imagine him living here, in this towering structure.

  On the way from the airport, Riley had kept expecting the driver to exit into one of Miami’s suburban neighborhoods. Instead, the driver had kept going until they were winding among tall buildings. Miami itself didn’t look like what she’d expected—at least not this part of Miami. It looked like any other major city, high and shiny with glass and metal.

  Where are the palm trees?

  It was hard to imagine that there were beaches anywhere nearby.

  She walked into the building’s swank lobby, where a smiling female receptionist stood at a desk.

  “May I help you, ma’am?” the woman asked.

  Riley was feeling more puzzled by the moment.

  “Um, I’m here to visit Jake Crivaro,” she said.

  “Could I have your name, please?”

  “Riley Paige.”

  The woman looked at a clipboard.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “He told me he was expecting you. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  The woman picked up a phone, punched in a number, and said, “Riley Paige is here to visit you, Mr. Crivaro.”

  The woman nodded at whatever was said in reply, then hung up.

  “You may use the elevator, ma’am. His apartment is on the thirty-fifth floor.”

  Riley rode up in the elevator. When she stepped out of it she was greeted by Jake, who was standing outside his apartment door.

  “Hello there, stranger! Happy New Year! Come on in!”

  As she walked inside, Riley couldn’t help gasping aloud. The apartment was amazing—spacious and modern with lots of glass and sunlight. Riley followed Jake into his living room, with its simple but elegant furniture.

  “You look a little dazed,” Jake said.

  “Yeah, maybe a little,” Riley said. “Nothing’s quite what I expected.”

  “I guess you didn’t expect a bum like me to be living in a joint like this,” he said.

  Riley smiled uneasily.

  She said, “I wouldn’t put it in those words, but—”

  “But what? How do you think I managed it?”

  Jake stood there with a somewhat wicked-looking smile on his face. She knew he was taunting her, teasing her curiosity. After all, how could anyone live in a place anything like this on an FBI retirement salary?

  Riley gulped as a dark possibility occurred to her. Was it possible that Jake had dealt in dirty money? Was that what he was trying to tell her with that devilish grin?

  Seeming to guess her thoughts, Jake chuckled.

  “Relax, it’s totally legit. My son is in real estate here in Miami. He bought the apartment, said it was a good investment. I get to live here, and I’ve only got to pay the maintenance fees. It suits me fine.”

  Riley smiled, feeling more comfortable now. Jake led Riley through sliding glass doors out onto a narrow balcony. In one direction were more glass buildings. In the other direction she could see water, bridges, and the barrier islands that she knew must include Miami Beach.

  “Nice view of Biscayne Bay, huh?” Jake said. “Great beaches are right out there. Not that I go over there much. I’ve got everything I need right here—a great pool, exercise facilities. And I’m right downtown, so there’s plenty to do.”

  Riley stood basking in the warm Miami air. It was hard to believe that only yesterday morning she’d been shivering in the cold of Upstate New York.

  Jake himself was certainly a sight for sore eyes—a short, barrel-chested man who managed to look both tough and dapper. She’d last seen him briefly a few months ago at a parole hearing. Then they were both revisiting the case that had prompted Jake into an angry, bitter retirement.

  When she’d seen him, he’d grumbled about hip and knee replacements, eye problems, a hearing aid, and a pacemaker.

  But to look at him now, Riley wouldn’t guess there was anything wrong with him. He looked younger than his seventy-five years, and scarcely less energetic than he had when they’d worked together years ago.

  With a look of concern, he said, “You’re not doing so good, are you?”

  Riley smiled wanly.

  “How’d you guess?” she said.

  “Come on, kid. This is Jake you’re talking to. I’ve got instincts. Not as good as the instincts you’ve acquired over the years—I always knew you’d get better than me sooner or later. But my instincts will still do in a pinch.”

  He guided her back into the apartment.

  “Let’s talk about it over lunch,” he said.

  *

  A little while later, Riley was sitting with Jake at his dining area table. They were finishing the sandwiches he’d made. She had just brought him up to date on the Orin Rhodes case, and how she’d been taken off of it. She held back no facts or details—not even her unsettling communications with Shane Hatcher.

  Jake was visibly shocked as Riley described Rhodes’ attack on April and the two sadistic killings that followed.

  “Jesus, I’d never have thought it,” he said. “The kid we put away seemed so repentant. And I kept hearing what a model prisoner he’d been over the years. So it was all just an act to get early release. He sure fooled us all but good.”

  Jake sat there for a moment, trying to take it all in.

  “And now you’ve gone rogue,” he finally said. “I know what that’s like. I was at odds with the powers-that-be at the Bureau more than a few times. Sometimes you’ve got to buck the system if you really want to get the job done.”

  He leaned toward her, gazing at her thoughtfully.

  “But you haven’t told me everything, have you?” he said. “And I’m not talking just about the case. I’m talking about you.”

  Riley felt a surge of the despair she’d been struggling with since last night. She remembered images from her dream—of Heidi Wright riddled with bullets, and how she’d said:

  “You can’t kill love.”

  And then Heidi morphing into Orin Rhodes, who’d said:

  “It’s all for Heidi.”

  Riley struggled with her thoughts and feelings.

  “I’m having some ugly thoughts, Jake,” she said. “Like this whole thing is my fault somehow.”

  She waited for a moment for Jake to tell her how crazy that was. He didn’t say anything.

  She said, “It started with me, Jake. I killed her. I know, I had to kill her, but that doesn’t change the fact that I did kill her. I’m not prepared to deal with this. I’m not strong enough to face Orin Rhodes. He’s got revenge driving his every move. But all I’ve got is … guilt. I feel too weak.”

  Jake scratched his chin thoughtfully.

  “Shut your eyes for a minute, Riley,” he said.

  Riley knew what was coming next—or at least she thought she did. She was known in the Bureau for her ability to get into a killer’s skin, to find her way into the darkness of his mind. She’d learned this skill from Jake. As good as he’d been at it in his own time, she knew that she’d surpassed him long ago.

  Riley shut her eyes.

  Jake asked, “Did you ever kill somebody you really and truly wanted to kill?”

  Riley was a bit surprised by the question. But she knew the answer without stopping to think.

  “Yes,” she said.

  The last person she had truly wanted to kill was Peterson—the sadisti
c monster who had caged and tormented both her and April. And she had felt an almost terrifying satisfaction in his death.

  “Remember that time,” Jake said. “Remember what it was like.”

  The memory came back in a flood of images.

  She was trapped under a house in the dark, shrinking back from a flame that moved toward her. She heard Peterson’s ugly laugh. But then something changed. It wasn’t Riley who was being tortured anymore. Instead, Peterson was tormenting her friend Marie with the flame, and Riley could do nothing to stop him. She knew that Marie was already dead, but she clawed through the darkness toward the deadly light anyhow.

  When she got closer she saw that it was April crying out and shrinking away from the fire. April was struggling to escape the man who had tormented Marie until she killed herself, who had tortured Riley until she managed to escape.

  Then the darkness overcame them all, and the scene changed.

  Riley was on the bank of a river, and Peterson was holding April, bound hand and foot, out in the water. April had fought back, but she was about to drown in the freezing water. Riley moved forward with a murderous determination she had seldom found in herself. She lifted a sharp heavy rock and knocked the man down to the water with a strike to the head. Then she struck him again and again, crushing his face with the rock as the river turned red with blood.

  “How did it feel?” Jake asked.

  Riley realized that she’d been describing the vision aloud.

  “Wonderful,” she said, her eyes still closed.

  “You’re getting the idea,” Jake said.

  Yes, I’m getting the idea, Riley thought.

  It was easy now to connect with Orin Rhodes’ mind. All she had to do was imagine killing Peterson in a different manner. She pictured herself in the river again. This time she thought about Orin Rhodes as he had killed Kirby Steadman in South Carolina.

  Riley stood facing the man, knee-deep in cold river water. But this time she was holding her Glock with a full clip of ammo. She was Orin Rhodes now.

  She fired one shot into Peterson’s shoulder and watched him staggering toward the shore, trying to get away.

  Delighting in her adversary’s pain and terror, Riley fired another shot, and then another, and then another …

  Riley’s eyes snapped open. Jake was gazing at her with an expression of complete understanding.

  “You know what it’s all about now, don’t you?” he said.

  “Yes,” Riley said.

  After all, her own dark lust for revenge had really been no different from Orin Rhodes’.

  “And do you still feel weak and unprepared?” Jake asked.

  Riley shook her head no.

  Jake smiled.

  “Good,” he said. “Now let’s get to work.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  Riley suddenly felt renewed and energized, ready to focus on the case with white-hot intensity. She could tell by Jake’s grin that he shared her excitement.

  “So what have you got in the way of evidence?” he asked.

  “I’m still trying to make sense of a couple of things,” Riley said.

  She handed Jake the message that she and Bill had found at Rhodes’ room.

  “Bill and I found this when we checked out a room that Rhodes had rented in Philadelphia. Somebody sent it to Rhodes by regular mail.”

  Jake read a bit of the message aloud.

  “‘Glad you like the house in the picture.’ What picture is that?”

  “Bill and I had no idea,” Riley said. “There wasn’t a picture in the envelope. But last night, I found this in the parking lot where Amber Turner was killed. I haven’t sent it to Quantico to be located because I’m off the case and it’s probably not relevant anyhow. Still, I have a feeling about it.”

  She handed him the cut-out magazine photo.

  “It looks vaguely familiar,” Jake said. “I think I’ve seen this somewhere before.”

  “Think, Jake! Where could it be?”

  He turned the image from side to side. Finally he said, “I can’t place it. But those are mangrove trees there in the background. Lots of those out in the Everglades.”

  Riley felt a jolt of excitement. She said, “Rhodes left fliers about the Everglades in his cabin back in South Carolina. There’s got to be some kind of connection.”

  “Let me see what I can find out.”

  Jake opened his computer and muttered softly to himself as he did some quick searches.

  “Not there. But maybe in a file of abandoned properties that a buddy once showed me.”

  He located a particular website and scrolled through the images.

  “There it is!” Riley cried.

  Jake clicked the image and it came up larger on his monitor. He leaned closer and read the text.

  “Yep. It’s an abandoned house out in the Everglades.”

  “It’s in the national park?” Riley asked.

  “It was built before the Everglades was a national park. There are other places like this around Florida, abandoned mansions that belonged to powerful criminals before their dirty deals finally caught up with them. This one belonged to a mafia don back in the day—Fingers Lucanza, I think they called him.”

  Jake sat back in his chair and grinned. “An old pal of mine is the chief ranger in the park—Wilbur Strait’s his name. He told me about this place and showed me a picture of it. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  Riley felt ready to boil over with excitement.

  “That’s where Rhodes is, Jake! We’ve got three clues that say so—the letter he got in Philadelphia, the fliers about the Everglades, and now this picture. He’s hiding in that abandoned mansion. We’ve got to go there right now!”

  Jake chuckled at Riley’s impatience. “Now slow down just a little. We haven’t proved anything yet. Before we go in there half-cocked, let’s check this out. Let’s get Wilbur on the phone.”

  Jake called up his friend, the chief ranger in the Everglades. He put his phone on speaker so that Riley could listen and talk. After Jake and Wilbur Strait exchanged greetings, Jake got right to the point.

  “Wilbur, I’m sitting here with a friend from the FBI. She and I both think maybe some bad guy might be hiding out in the old Fingers Lucanza mansion. Have you got any reason to think that yourself?”

  Wilbur Strait thought for a moment.

  “I don’t know about that exactly,” he said. “But we do have a situation here. A hiker disappeared a couple of days back—on Tuesday. We haven’t been able to find the guy anywhere. He was out exploring the park all alone so I guess he could have been taken by a gator, but his friends say he’s an experienced outdoorsman.”

  It sounded to Riley as though Orin Rhodes had claimed another victim. She decided to get into the conversation.

  “Chief Strait, my name’s Riley Paige, and—”

  Strait interrupted.

  “Wait a minute. Did you say Riley Paige?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Somebody called our switchboard, must have been the day the hiker disappeared. The guy kept saying, ‘Tell Riley Paige that she’d better watch her step.’ We had no idea who Riley Paige was. We figured somebody must have gotten the wrong number.”

  Riley and Jake locked gazes. She knew they were thinking the same thing. The anonymous caller was surely Shane Hatcher, calling in just as he had after Rhodes’ two murders. He was still on Rhodes’ trail. Or he was still working with Rhodes. Riley couldn’t be sure which was true.

  Riley said, “Chief Strait, the man we’re looking for is named Orin Rhodes. He’s armed and extremely dangerous. He’s killed at least two people within the last few days. And if he’s hiding in that mansion, we need to get him. What are the chances of us putting together a team to storm the mansion, SWAT-style?”

  Strait replied in a confident tone.

  “I’ve got some rangers here who’d be up to it. And we could bring in a few local cops who’ve been through SWAT
training.”

  Riley asked Jake, “How long will it take us to drive to the Everglades location?”

  “A couple of hours,” he replied.

  Riley said, “Chief Strait, do you think you can get your team together in time to get out there today?”

  “Sure,” Strait said. “It will be getting late in the day but we should be able to get out there before dark.”

  Riley’s cell phone buzzed. She saw that the call was from Bill.

  “I’ve got to take this,” she told Jake and the chief ranger. “You two firm up your plans.”

  Riley got up and walked out onto the balcony, where she took Bill’s call.

  “Things are a real mess here, Riley,” Bill said. “Creighton and Huang are interviewing everybody in Apex who knew Amber Turner—family, friends, co-workers, the works. They’re turning up nothing. The girl had no prior connection to Rhodes. Both killings so far have been random, just like you’ve been saying.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Riley said.

  Bill continued, “The problem is, Creighton just won’t give up. She’s sure she’ll find out something if she interviews absolutely everybody. She’s driving the town crazy, and she’s on the verge of causing a local panic. She’s got people thinking that any of them might be the killer’s next target.”

  Riley groaned a little. Bill was right—things really were a mess.

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

  “I’m at the airport,” Bill said. “I’m flying back to Quantico. Walder won’t listen to reason, but Meredith might. But this isn’t something I can sort out on video chat. I’ve got to take care of it in person. And I’m going to do my damnedest to get you back on the case.”

  Riley felt breathless with excitement.

  “Actually, I am on the case,” she said. “And I think I’ve got something. I’m visiting Jake Crivaro in Miami. We’re all but sure that Rhodes is holed up in an old mansion in the Everglades. Hatcher’s also in the area. Jake and I are going to drive there right now. We’re joining up with an assault team that the chief ranger’s putting together.”