Once Gone (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #1)

by Blake Pierce

  Chapter 22

  In spite of Riley’s calls, no answer came from Marie. There were no sounds in the house other than those she made herself. The place felt empty. She made her way up the stairs and turned carefully into an open doorway.

  As she turned the corner, Riley’s breath stopped in her throat. She felt as if the world were collapsing beneath her.

  There was Marie: suspended in mid-air, hanging by her neck from a cord tied to a light fixture on the high ceiling. An overturned stepladder lay on the floor.

  Time seemed to stop as Riley’s mind rejected reality.

  Then her knees buckled and she caught herself against the door frame. She let out a long harsh sound.

  “NOOOO!”

  She dashed across the room, turned the ladder upright and scrambled up on it. She wrapped an arm around Marie’s body to relieve the pressure and fingered Marie’s neck, searching for any sign of a pulse.

  Riley was sobbing now. “Be alive, Marie. Be alive, goddammit.”

  But it was too late. Marie’s neck was broken. She was dead.

  “Christ,” Riley said, collapsing back onto the ladder. Pain surged up from somewhere deep in her abdomen. She wanted to die here, too.

  As moments passed, Riley became dimly aware of sounds downstairs. The first responders had arrived. A familiar emotional mechanism kicked in. Basic human fear and grief gave way to a cold, professional efficiency.

  “Up here!” she shouted.

  She wiped her sleeve across her face to blot the tears.

  Five heavily-armed, Kevlar-clad officers charged up the stairs. The woman in front was visibly surprised to see Riley.

  “I’m Officer Rita Graham, the team chief,” she said. “Who are you?”

  Riley got off the ladder and flashed her badge. “Special Agent Riley Paige, FBI.”

  The woman looked uneasy.

  “How did you get here before we did?”

  “She was a friend of mine,” Riley said, fully in professional mode now. “Her name was Marie Sayles. She called me. She told me something was wrong, and I was already on the way when I called 911. I didn’t get here on time. She’s dead.”

  The responder team quickly checked and confirmed Riley’s declaration.

  “Suicide?” Officer Graham asked.

  Riley nodded. She had no doubt at all that Marie had killed herself.

  “What’s this?” the team leader asked, pointing at a folded notecard sitting on an end table next to the bed.

  Riley looked at the card. Written in a barely legible scrawl was a message:

  This is the only way.

  “A suicide note?”

  Riley nodded again grimly. But she knew that it wasn’t the usual kind of suicide note. It wasn’t an explanation, and it certainly wasn’t an apology.

  It’s advice, Riley thought. It’s advice for me.

  The team took pictures and made notes. Riley knew that they would wait for the coroner before removing the body.

  “Let’s talk downstairs,” Officer Graham said. She led Riley down to the living room, sat down on a chair, and gestured for Riley to sit down too.

  The curtains were still drawn and no lights were on in the room. Riley wanted to throw open the curtains and let in some sunlight, but she knew better than to change anything. She sat down on the sofa.

  Graham turned on a table lamp beside her chair.

  “Tell me what happened,” the officer said, taking out a notepad and a pencil. Although she had the toughened face of a seasoned cop, there was a sympathetic look in her eyes.

  “She was the victim of an abduction,” Riley said. “Almost eight weeks ago. We both were victims. You may have read about it. The Sam Peterson case.”

  Graham’s eyes widened.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “The guy who tortured and killed all those women, the guy with the blowtorch. So that was you—the agent who escaped and blew him up?”

  “Right,” Riley said. Then, after a pause, she said, “The trouble is, I’m not sure I really did blow him up. I’m not positive that he’s dead. Marie didn’t believe that he was. That’s what finally got to her. She just couldn’t take not knowing. And maybe he was stalking her again.”

  As Riley continued her explanation, the words flowed automatically, almost as if she’d learned the whole thing by heart. She now felt completely detached from the scene, listening to herself report how this horrible thing had happened.

  After helping Officer Graham get a handle on the case, Riley told her how to contact Marie’s next of kin. But as she talked, anger was building beneath her professional veneer—a cold, icy anger. Peterson had claimed another victim. Whether he was dead or alive didn’t matter. He’d killed Marie.

  And Marie had died absolutely certain that Riley was doomed to be his next victim, whether by his hand or her own. Riley wanted to take hold of Marie and physically shake this wretched idea out of her head.

  This is not the only way! she wanted to tell her.

  But did she believe that? Riley didn’t know. There seemed to be too damned much she didn’t know.

  The coroner arrived while Riley and Officer Graham were still talking. Graham got up and went to meet him. Then she turned to Riley and said, “I’ll be upstairs for a few minutes. I’d like you to hang around and fill me in a bit more.”

  Riley shook her head.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said. “There’s someone I need to talk to.” She pulled out her card and put it down on the table. “You can get in touch with me.”

  The officer began to object, but Riley didn’t give her a chance; she got up and walked out of Marie’s dark home. She had urgent business.