Once Pined

by Blake Pierce

“Damn. I thought we had your villain. But I’m always intrigued by a new hunt. So what do we do now?”

  Riley gave him the new instructions that she and Hatcher had discussed.

  “Very interesting. I’ll get right on this. But how will I know when I’ve found what I’m looking for?”

  Riley remembered what Hatcher had said.

  “He’ll know when he’s really found her.”

  “Don’t worry,” Riley said. “You’ll know.”

  The call ended, and Riley and Bill just looked at each other for a moment. Riley could hardly get over her relief at seeing him.

  “What made you decide to come?” Riley asked.

  Bill looked away from her.

  “Meredith told me you’d been in touch with Hatcher. I figured he must be here in Seattle. Is he?”

  Riley didn’t reply.

  “OK, so you can’t talk about it. But I knew I’d better get here right away.”

  Riley smiled.

  “So you could rescue me from Hatcher?” she said.

  Bill smiled back.

  “You never need rescuing,” he said. “But it really hit me—you had nobody on your side at all except an escaped convict. Not to mention, I’m the one that dragged you into this case to begin with. You did it for me. So, it wasn’t right. I couldn’t let that slide. I’m your partner. I’m supposed to stick by you.”

  Riley squeezed his hand.

  “Thanks,” she said. “But I’m afraid you’ll be in trouble now.”

  Bill squeezed her hand back and smiled.

  “Trouble is what we do—and we’ll always do it together.”

  They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Then something started to nag at Riley’s mind.

  “Bill, Hatcher said something to me that I don’t understand. He said, ‘Everything happens for no reason.’ What do you think he meant?”

  Bill shook his head. “If you don’t know, I sure don’t.”

  Riley sat thinking about it. It was obvious play on that old clichéd saying …

  “Everything happens for a reason.”

  Riley winced. She hated that saying. People always said it when something terrible had happened, and it was supposed to give comfort, but it never did. Riley always thought it was glib and shallow—and even downright insensitive.

  But Riley had never told anyone that she felt that way.

  She felt an uncanny shiver.

  Once again, Hatcher seemed to have touched a uniquely personal chord.

  But why had he said that just now?

  For no reason, I guess, she thought with an ironic smile.

  Riley’s phone buzzed. It was Van Roff again. Riley put him on speakerphone.

  “Bingo,” Van Roff said. “I’ve really got something this time.”

  Riley and Bill glanced at each other in expectation.

  “What is it?” Riley asked breathlessly.

  “I’ve got a trail of names—all female healthcare workers who used mail service addresses, and who disappeared shortly after a patient died. They all paid for their mail services in cash—except for the very first one, whose name was Alicia Carswell.”

  Riley felt a tingle of excitement.

  Her real name! she realized.

  Roff continued, “She used a credit card, so it was easy to find out more about her. I was able to bring up her Social Security number and a driver’s license. Her picture looks a lot like the others.”

  “What’s the address on the license?” Bill asked.

  Roff recited the address and Bill jotted it down.

  “I’m not sure it’s current, though,” Roff said. “It’s an old license, expired for years. It looks like she’s been off the grid for a long time.”

  “It’s all we’ve got,” Bill said.

  “Thanks,” Riley said.

  They ended the call, and Riley and Bill headed straight for her rented car.

  *

  Riley and Bill drove through the dark, mist-shrouded city to the address that Roff had given them. It was a small attractive, old-fashioned house in a working-class neighborhood. The yard was overgrown, and the white picket fence was in disrepair. There wasn’t a single light on inside.

  “Does anybody still live here?” Riley said as she parked the car.

  “Let’s go see,” Bill said.

  They got out of the car, walked up to the front door, and knocked.

  No one answered.

  Riley looked at Bill for an indecisive moment.

  Then she turned the doorknob.

  The door swung open easily and they walked on in. Riley found a light switch near the door and flipped it on.

  It was as though she’d stepped into a living room from an earlier time.

  “It looks like the fifties in here,” Bill commented.

  The furniture was colorful, early modern, and very clean, although it looked well used. Family portraits and images of cheerful scenes hung on the walls. Unlike the outside of the house, everything here was in good repair and in its proper place.

  Somebody still lived here, all right.

  Riley and Bill split up. Bill headed for a bedroom and Riley to the kitchen. The kitchen was even more picturesque than the living room. Whoever lived here had gone to a great deal of trouble to keep this place frozen in time.

  Perhaps it was a happier time, Riley thought.

  But in her gut, Riley sensed that things weren’t at all what they seemed. As she glanced around, her eyes fell on a row of colorful, old-fashioned kitchen canisters that were labeled with fancy lettering—coffee, tea, sugar, flour …

  Riley opened up the tin that was labeled coffee.

  It contained a white crystalline substance.

  “Bill, you’d better get in here,” Riley called out.

  Bill was with her in a second. Riley showed him the contents of the canister.

  “This isn’t coffee,” Riley said. “I’ve got a hunch it’s thallium.”

  “Jesus,” Bill murmured. “This kitchen doubles as a lab for preparing poisons.”

  Riley turned and saw a notepad on the Formica table. The sheets of paper were prettily decorated with images of flowers. Neatly written on the top sheet was “Brio 15.”

  Riley showed it to Bill.

  “What do you think this is?” she said.

  “An address, maybe?” Bill replied.

  Riley whipped out her cell phone and called Van Roff.

  “Hey, where are you?” he asked.

  “We’re at Alicia Carswell’s house,” Riley said. “She lives here, all right. We found a note in her kitchen. Does ‘Brio 15’ sound like an address to you?”

  “I know my city well,” Roff said. “I don’t think that’s a public street. Lemme check.”

  Riley heard a flurry of computer keys.

  “Brio 15 is a cottage on a private road in a retirement community. And it’s really close to where you are. I’ll send directions to your phone.”

  “And send a backup team to the address,” Bill said. “We don’t want to take any chances with this one.”

  Riley looked out the kitchen door and noticed the front door still standing open.

  It hadn’t been locked when they’d come in.

  She left in a hurry, Riley realized.

  “Hurry up,” she told Roff. “I’ve got a feeling we don’t have a minute to lose.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  The lane called Brio wound among a scattering of small attractive cottages. The street was quiet, with lights on in most of the cottages along the way but no outside activity. In spite of the peaceful scene, Riley was sure that one of these picturesque little places was hiding a deadly killer.

  Bill pulled the car up to number 15 and parked. When he turned off the engine, everything around them was quiet. But Riley felt a renewed surge of alarm. She remembered the haste with which the woman seemed to have left her home.

  Something bad is going on in there, she thought.

  She was glad that
an FBI backup team was on its way, but she didn’t have time to wait for them. She and Bill got out of the car and trotted toward the cottage. When they reached the front door, Bill was about to knock and call out.

  Riley stopped his hand and held her finger to her lips, silencing him.

  Signaling Bill to follow her, she moved to the right and peeked in a wide window. She saw a well-lighted living room, but no one inside. Then they moved toward the windows on the other side of the door. When they looked through those, Bill let out an audible gasp.

  “What the hell!” he whispered.

  Riley couldn’t believe her eyes.

  A nightmarish, bug-like figure was lurking near an elderly man who lay unconscious on a bed. It was a woman wearing a white laboratory coat, heavy elbow-length gloves, goggles, and a mask with an oxygen canister. She was taking a glass vial out of a small portable safe.

  “We’re out of time,” Riley said. “Let’s get in there.”

  They tried the front door and found it locked. Riley moved out of Bill’s way as he stepped back and got into position to open it. He brought his foot up, throwing his weight into a kick just below the lock.

  That’s all it took. The door flew open and Riley darted inside.

  The figure was now hovering over the unconscious man.

  She was holding an upturned eyedropper over him.

  She turned and looked at Riley and Bill, barely seeming surprised.

  Muffled sounds came through the mask, and Riley realized that the ghastly creature was singing. She remembered the tune and the words from her visit to Lance Miller …

  You pine away

  From day to day

  Too sad to laugh, too sad to play.

  Riley drew her weapon.

  “Stop right there,” she ordered.

  The woman just stared at her through those goggles, still singing in that muffled voice.

  No need to weep,

  Dream long and deep.

  Give yourself to slumber’s sweep.

  Ignoring Riley and Bill, the woman lowered the eyedropper toward the man’s face.

  With a cry of fury, Bill charged the killer. He grabbed the wrist of the hand that held the eyedropper. The woman let out a screech and fought him.

  As they thrashed back and forth, Riley holstered her weapon and looked for an opening to help Bill subdue the madwoman.

  The woman’s mask and goggles flew off in the struggle, and she staggered backward. Suddenly, liquid spurted from the eyedropper.

  Grinning horribly, the woman turned toward Riley.

  She held up the eyedropper.

  “Empty!” she cried. “And I’d gone to so much trouble! And I had Mr. Auslander all tucked in and sedated and ready. Such a shame.”

  Still smiling, she pointed to Bill’s hand.

  “There’s no saving you, though,” she said.

  Bill looked at his hand, glistening with drops of the clear liquid that had spurted from the eyedropper. He was about to brush it off with his other hand.

  “Don’t touch it!” Riley said.

  Bill looked at her with surprise.

  “What is it?” Bill said.

  “I’ve got no idea. Just don’t touch it.”

  The woman sat down in a chair and laughed quietly. She touched her own face and felt the liquid that had splashed there too. Riley recognized her face from the photos she’d seen of the poisoner’s aliases.

  Yes, this was the one. This was the healthcare worker responsible for her patients’ deaths.

  “But what about me?” she said in a strange, delirious voice. “I’m poisoned too. Oh, but don’t worry. I can’t die. Esther Thornton—the woman you see—she’ll pass away. So did Judy Brubaker and Hallie Stillians and a half dozen others. But not me. Don’t you know what I am? Can’t you see my black wings?”

  She sang some more.

  Far from home,

  So far from home—

  This little baby’s far from home.

  She touched her arms, gazing at them sadly.

  “But these wings are withering. I must cocoon myself, spin black silk, grow new wings. I’ll return. Angels never die.”

  She sat humming and swaying now.

  She closed her eyes and seemed to drift out of consciousness.

  Then she held completely still and fell silent.

  Catatonic, Riley realized.

  In her escalating madness, the woman had put herself in a catatonic state.

  The man in the bed was groaning now. Although he’d obviously been sedated, the uproar had wakened him. He sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes.

  “Esther?” he said in a weak voice.

  Then he saw Riley and Bill.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Stay right where you are,” Riley said sharply. “Don’t move. Don’t anybody move.”

  Everybody in the room was frozen for a moment.

  “What do we do?” Bill asked.

  “I know who we need to ask,” Riley said.

  She got out her cell phone and dialed Prisha Shankar’s home number. She got a machine message. Riley’s voice was shaking.

  “Dr. Shankar, please pick up. This is Agent Riley Paige. This is an emergency. This is a real life and death—”

  She heard Prisha Shankar’s voice.

  “Hello.”

  Relieved, Riley put the phone on speakerphone.

  “Dr. Shankar, my partner and I have just found the murderer. We stopped her in the act. She’s dressed in goggles and a mask and has huge gloves on. She had a vial and an eyedropper. We kept her from dropping the liquid on her intended victim, but some splashed on her face and my partner’s hand. What should we do?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Goggles, mask, gloves?” Shankar finally said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Good God,” Shankar said.

  Riley heard the sound of vehicles approaching.

  “Our backup agents have arrived,” Riley said.

  “Don’t let them in!” Shankar shouted. “Don’t let anybody in!”

  “Why not?” Riley asked.

  Shankar sounded breathless with alarm.

  “Keep them out. It’s not safe in there.”

  “But my partner and I—”

  “Your partner’s not safe. He’s dangerous. To them.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  A car screeched to a halt outside and footsteps approached the broken cottage door. Riley rushed to the door and pulled it shut. She shoved a chair under the door handle.

  “This is the FBI,” called a voice from outside. “Open up.”

  “Listen to me!” Riley screamed. “Don’t come in! This is Riley Paige, FBI from Quantico. We have been exposed to a toxic substance here. My partner and I are handling the situation. You must not come inside.”

  A short silence fell.

  “What should we do?” the voice outside asked.

  “Just wait,” Riley said.

  Riley and Bill stared at the telephone.

  “Talk to us,” Riley said.

  “Agents Paige and Jeffreys, I want you to listen to me carefully. I believe that the chemical your partner was exposed to is dimethylmercury. It is extremely, unspeakably dangerous, and it can even pass through most protective clothing. By now there might be vapor in the air, and even that can be deadly.”

  Bill’s eyes widened with horror and disbelief.

  “But I feel OK,” Bill said. “I don’t feel any pain or—”

  Shankar interrupted. “Symptoms don’t occur for months. But if it has enough time to really get into one’s system, death is inevitable.”

  Riley and Bill stared at each other in shock.

  “What now?” Riley asked.

  “I’m sending a hazmat team. They’ll be there in minutes. When they get there, let them inside.”

  Hazmat—hazardous materials, Riley realized.

  She had never been involved in a hazmat situation before.

 
“Now follow my directions,” Shankar said. “Take Bill to the bathroom, and wash his exposed hand with soap and water for fifteen solid minutes. Make sure to use plenty of water.”

  Riley was struggling against panic now.

  “But if it’s as dangerous as you say—”

  “This is just to get started. Begin doing this right now. Keep the phone with you on speakerphone. I’ll stay on the line.”

  With the phone in hand, Riley led Bill to the bathroom and started the faucet. Bill put his shaking hands under the water and started to scrub the exposed area. Riley stood by his side, feeling utterly helpless.

  “Isn’t there anything I can do?” she asked Shankar.

  “Just wait.”

  After a couple of minutes, Riley heard a loud pounding on the front door.

  “Someone’s outside,” Riley told Shankar.

  “It’s the hazmat team,” Shankar said. “Go let them in.”

  Riley hurried to the front door and removed the chair that was blocking it. The door opened to reveal five hazmat workers, all of them grotesquely clad in bulky bodysuits with huge clear plastic masks. Two of them had yellow tanks on their backs.

  The sight was spine-chilling, but she knew that these grotesque figures were on her side.

  With a deep sense of gratitude, Riley stepped aside and the figures lumbered inside.

  “Where is the substance?” one worker asked in a muffled voice.

  Riley pointed to the bottle and dropper that had fallen on the floor.

  One of the workers gingerly picked up the bottle and the dropper and put it into a silvery bag. Two of others began to spray the room with the contents of the yellow tanks.

  “What should I do?” Riley said.

  “Go into the bathroom. Undress. Shower. Keep showering and scrubbing yourself all over until we tell you to stop.”

  Riley went into the bathroom, took off her clothes, got into the shower, and turned on the water. As she turned around, she saw the silhouette of one of the workers standing on the other side of the shower curtain.

  She had no idea whether the figure was a man or a woman. But she knew better than to worry about a thing like that now.

  She scrubbed herself all over for what seemed like forever, all the while wondering what was going on just outside.