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

by Blake Pierce

  Chapter 25

  Riley’s cell phone buzzed early the next morning. She was sitting at her coffee table, looking at the map she had followed yesterday, planning a new route for today. When she saw that the call was from Bill, her nerves quickened. Would this be good or bad news?

  “Bill, what’s going on?”

  She heard her former partner sigh miserably.

  “Riley, are you sitting down?”

  Riley’s heart sank. She was glad that she was sitting down. She knew now that Bill’s tone of voice could only mean one terrible thing, and she felt her muscles weaken with dread.

  “They’ve found Cindy MacKinnon,” Bill said.

  “And she’s dead, isn’t she?” Riley said with a gasp.

  Bill said nothing for a moment. But his silence answered Riley’s question. Riley felt tears welling up—tears of shock and helplessness. She fought against them, determined not to cry.

  “Where did they find her?” Riley asked.

  “Pretty far to the west of the other victims, in the national forest, almost to the West Virginia line.”

  She looked at her map. “What’s the nearest town?” He told her and she found the approximate location. It wasn’t inside the triangle made by the other three sites where bodies had been found. But still, there must be some sort of relationship with the other sites. She couldn’t quite place what it was.

  Bill continued describing the discovery.

  “He put her next to a cliff in an open area, no trees around it. I’m at the scene right now. It’s horrible. He’s getting bolder, Riley.”

  And acting faster, Riley thought with despair. He’d only kept this victim alive for a few days.

  “So Darrell Gumm really is the wrong guy,” Riley said.

  “You’re the only one who said so,” Bill replied. “You were right.”

  Riley struggled to comprehend the situation.

  “So has Gumm been released?” she asked.

  Bill grunted with annoyance.

  “Not a chance,” he said. “He’ll be facing obstruction charges. He’s got a lot to answer for. Not that he seems to care. But we’ll try to keep his name out of the news as much as we can. That amoral prick doesn’t deserve the publicity.”

  A silence fell between them.

  “Damn it, Riley,” Bill said at last, “if only Walder had listened to you, maybe we could have saved her.”

  Riley doubted that. It wasn’t as if she’d had any solid leads of her own; but maybe with all that redirected manpower, something could have been turned up in those precious hours.

  “Have you got any photos?” she asked. Her heart was pounding.

  “Yeah, Riley, but—”

  “I know you’re not supposed to show them to me. But I’ve got to see them. Could you send them to me?”

  After a pause, Bill said, “Done.”

  A few moments later, Riley was looking at a series of ghastly images on her cell phone. The first was a close-up of that face she had seen in a picture just a few days back. Then the woman had been beaming with love over a happy little girl and her brand new doll. But now that face was pallid, its eyes stitched open, a hideous smile painted over its lips.

  As she looked through more pictures, she saw that the display was a match for how Reba Frye’s corpse had been arranged. All of the details were there. The pose was precise. The body was naked and splayed, sitting stiffly upright like a doll. An artificial rose was on the ground between her legs.

  This was the killer’s true signature, his message. This was the effect he’d wanted to achieve all along. He’d achieved mastery with his victims number three and four. Riley knew perfectly well he was all ready to do it again.

  After looking at the pictures, Riley got back on the phone with Bill.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice choked with horror and sadness.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said. “But have you got any ideas at all?”

  Riley ran the images she had just seen through her mind.

  “I assume the wig and rose are the same as the others,” she said. “The ribbon, too.”

  “Right. They look the same.”

  She paused again. What clues could Bill’s team hope to find?

  “Did you get the call early enough to check for tracks, footprints?” she asked.

  “The scene was secured early this time. A ranger spotted her and called the Bureau directly. No local cops tromping around. But we didn’t find anything useful. This guy is careful.”

  Riley thought hard for a few moments. The photos had showed a woman’s body sitting in the grass, leaning against a rock formation. Questions were buzzing through her mind.

  “Was the body cold?” she asked.

  “It was by the time we got to it.”

  “How long do you think it had been there?”

  She could hear Bill thumbing through his notebook.

  “I don’t know for sure, but she was put into this pose soon after death. According to discoloration, within a few hours. We’ll know more after the coroner gets to work.”

  Riley felt her familiar impatience well up. She wanted to get a clearer sense of the killer’s chronology.

  She asked, “Could he have posed her where he killed her and then brought her to the location after the body was in rigor mortis?”

  “Probably not,” Bill said. “I don’t see anything awkward about the position. I don’t think she could have already been stiff before he brought her here. Why? Do you think he brought her here and then killed her?”

  Riley closed her eyes and thought hard.

  Finally she said, “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “He killed her wherever he kept her and then brought her to the site. He wouldn’t have brought her there alive. He wouldn’t want to struggle with a human being in his truck or on the site.”

  Her eyes still shut tight, Riley reached inside herself for a sense of the killer’s mind.

  “He would only want to bring the raw materials for the statement he was making,” she said. “Once she was dead, that’s what she was to him. Like a piece of artwork, no longer a woman. So he killed her, washed her down, dried her, prepared the body just the way he wanted it, all covered with Vaseline.”

  The scene was starting to play out in her imagination in vivid detail.

  “He got her to the location when rigor mortis was setting in,” she said. “He timed it perfectly. After killing three other women, he understood just how that would work. He made the onset of rigor part of his creative process. He posed her as she hardened, little by little. He molded her like clay.”

  Riley found it hard to say what she saw happening next in her mind—or the killer’s mind. The words came out slowly and painfully.

  “By the time he’d finished sculpting the rest of her body, her chin still rested on her chest. He felt the muscles of her shoulders and neck, sensing the exact state of remaining pliability, and tilted the head up. He held it there until it stiffed. It might have taken two or three minutes. He was patient. Then he stepped back and enjoyed his handiwork.”

  “Jesus,” Bill murmured in a hushed, shocked voice. “You’re good.”

  Riley sighed bitterly and didn’t reply. She didn’t think she was good—not anymore. All she was good at was getting into a sick mind. What did that say about her? How did it do anybody any good? It certainly hadn’t helped Cindy MacKinnon.

  Bill asked, “How far away do you think he holds the victims while they’re still alive?”

  Riley did some swift mental calculations, visualizing a map of the area in her head.

  “Not very far from where he posed her,” she said. “Probably under two hours away.”

  “That still covers a lot of territory.”

  Riley’s spirits were ebbing by the second. Bill was right. She wasn’t saying a single thing that could be any help.

  “Riley, we need you back on this case,” Bill said.

  Riley groan
ed under her breath.

  “I’m sure Walder doesn’t think so,” she said.

  I don’t think so, either, she thought.

  “Well, Walder’s wrong,” Bill said. “And I’m going to tell him he’s wrong. I’m going to get you back on the job.”

  Riley let Bill’s words sink in for a moment.

  “It’s too much of a risk for you,” she said at last. “Walder’s liable to fire you too if you make waves.”

  Bill stammered, “But—but Riley—”

  “No ‘buts,’ Bill. If you get yourself fired, this case will never get solved.”

  Bill sighed. His voice was tired and resigned.

  “Okay,” he said. “But have you got any ideas at all?”

  Riley thought for a moment. The abyss she’d been peering into for the last couple of days yawned wider and deeper. She felt what little was left of her resolve slipping away through her fingers. She’d failed, and a woman was dead.

  Still, maybe there was one more thing she could do.

  “I have some ideas brewing,” she said. “I’ll let you know.”

  As they ended the call, the smell of coffee and fried bacon reached Riley from the kitchen. April was in there. She’d been making breakfast ever since Riley had gotten out of bed.

  Without even being asked! Riley thought.

  Maybe spending time with her father was making her appreciate Riley, at least a little. April never liked having to be around Ryan. Whatever the reason, Riley was grateful for even the smallest comfort on a morning like this.

  She sat there thinking about what to do next. She’d been planning to drive west again today, following the new route she’d mapped out. But she felt defeated, completely beaten down by this terrible turn of events. Yesterday she hadn’t been at her best, and had even succumbed to that drink in Glendive. She couldn’t do the same thing today, not in her present state of mind. She’d surely make mistakes. And too many mistakes had been made already.

  But the location of the store was still important—maybe more important than ever. The killer would target his next victim there, if he hadn’t already. Riley got on her computer and composed an email for Bill, with a copy of her map attached.

  She explained to Bill which towns and which stores ought to be checked. Bill himself should probably stay focused on finding the killer’s house, she wrote. But maybe he could persuade Walder to send someone else along Riley’s route—as long as Walder didn’t find out that it was her idea.

  She sat there, staring at the map again and again, and slowly she began to spot a pattern she had not seen before. It was not that the sites related to each other, but that they were spread out in a lopsided fan from another mark on her map—the area enclosed by the four women’s addresses. As she studied it, it made her more convinced than ever that the selection of victims was centered around some particular place that they all went, a particular doll store. And wherever the killer took his victims, it probably wasn’t a long distance from where he first saw them.

  But why hadn’t she been able to find the store? Was she taking the wrong approach? Was she so stuck on a single idea that she couldn’t see any other clues? Was she just imagining a pattern that was leading her completely astray?

  Riley scanned her map and sent it along to Bill with her notes.

  “Breakfast is ready, Mom.”

  As she sat down with her daughter, Riley found herself fighting back tears again.

  “Thank you,” she said. She began to eat silently.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” April asked.

  Riley was surprised at the question. Did she hear a note of concern in her daughter’s voice? The girl was still pretty taciturn with Riley most of the time, but at least she hadn’t been openly rude for a few days.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Riley said.

  “That’s not true,” April said.

  Riley said nothing in reply. She didn’t want to drag April into the horrible reality of the case. Her daughter was troubled enough already.

  “Was that Bill on the phone?” April asked.

  Riley nodded silently.

  “What did he call about?” April asked.

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  A long silence fell between them. They both kept on eating.

  Finally April said, “You keep trying to get me to talk to you. That cuts both ways, you know. You never talk to me, not really. Do you ever talk to anybody anymore?”

  Riley stopped eating and stifled a sob as it rose up in her throat. It was a good question. And the answer was no. She didn’t talk to anybody at all, not anymore. But she couldn’t bring herself to say so.

  She reminded herself that it was Saturday, and she wasn’t taking April to school. And she’d made no plans for April to stay with her father. And even though Riley wasn’t going to drive west in search of clues, there was still something she had to do.

  “April, I’ve got to go somewhere,” she said. “Will you be okay here by yourself?”

  “Sure,” April said. Then, in a truly sad voice, she asked, “Mom, could you at least tell me where you’re going?”

  “I’m going to a funeral.”