Once Lured

by Blake Pierce

  Walder jumped up from his chair, looking anything but pleased to see Riley.

  “Agent Paige, what part of ‘you’re off the case’ don’t you understand?” he snapped.

  Riley flashed him a mock-pleasant smile as she took a seat beside Bill.

  “You folks just go on like I’m not here,” she said. “I’ll catch up on my own.”

  Leonard Ralston stared at her for a moment. She’d met him a few times, and she’d never showed him much respect. He had the youthful good looks and tousled hair of a TV personality. In fact, she’d seen him on talk shows, hawking his many books about all the criminal cases he’d solved with his hypnotic prowess. Riley had never found any of those stories very persuasive.

  A voice recorder was on the table in front of him.

  “Start the recording where you left off,” Walder told him, sitting back down.

  Bill whispered to Riley, “We left off with her remembering how she escaped. She climbed up through a window to get out of the basement.”

  Ralston pushed the button and the recording resumed.

  The first voice she heard was Ralston’s.

  “Are you tired? Do you want to take a break?”

  Riley then immediately recognized Meara Keagan’s Irish-accented voice. She sounded sleepy and hesitant, obviously in a hypnotic trance.

  “No. Let’s keep going. I want to keep going.”

  Then came Ralston’s voice again.

  “Do you see houses? Buildings?”

  Riley’s skepticism kicked in hard. Those sounded like leading questions.

  “Yes,” Meara replied. “A building. A big building. I got out through the window of the building. The building must have a basement.”

  For all her fogginess, Meara sounded eager. Riley could visualize what was going on. She’d seen Ralston demonstrate his prowess on TV. It always seemed to work best on young women. Ralston cut a dashing and charismatic figure, and it seemed to Riley that women sometimes felt an unconscious desire to please him.

  “How tall is the building?” Ralston asked.

  Meara’s reply came without delay.

  “Four stories, I think. No, five. I’m pretty sure it’s five. I can see that it’s right on the Six O’clock Highway.”

  Meara’s voice continued.

  “It has a place to eat. Yes, a restaurant, there on the ground floor, above the basement. It has a gift shop. I think there are clocks in the gift shop. Cuckoo clocks…all kinds of clocks. Some with dancing dolls.”

  Ralston turned off the recording and looked around the room smugly.

  “That’s as far as I’ve been able to get her so far,” he said. “But with another session—”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Walder said. “This information is exactly what we need. Excellent work, Dr. Ralston.”

  Ralston leaned back in his chair, smiling that photogenic smile of his.

  “I must say, I’m pretty proud of these results,” he said. “And knowing that it helps your investigation—well, it’s a validation of my work.”

  Walder drummed his fingers on the table.

  “So now we know that the women have been held in a five-story building with a restaurant and a gift shop. A gift shop with clocks in it. And it’s on the so-called Six O’clock Highway. It shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  Emily Creighton nodded in enthusiastic agreement. But Riley detected a level of uncertainty among the others. As for herself, she certainly felt more than a little bit doubtful.

  “There’s something wrong here,” Lucy said. “We’ve canvassed all over Ohlman, looking for the lair. I’m sure there aren’t any five-story buildings in this little town.”

  Walder thought for a moment.

  “Well, then it’s not in Ohlman,” he said, sounding as if he’d come to a very sage conclusion. “Show us a map of the area, Chief Franklin.”

  Franklin brought up a map on the room’s large monitor. He pointed to a stretch of highway. As soon as it appeared, Franklin spoke up.

  “Hold it. I know the place she’s talking about. It’s called the Serenity Café and Gift Shop.”

  He pointed to a place on the map.

  “It’s a touristy place up north along the Six O’clock Highway. It’s closer to Westree than here. I’ve been there a few times. The gift shop has got clocks in it. And the guy who owns it—well, I don’t know his name, but he looks exactly like Meara’s description of the killer. Medium build, dark hair, brown eyes.”

  Walder snapped his fingers triumphantly. “Bingo. We’ve found him. The killer’s keeping his women close to where Meara Keagan was first abducted.”

  Riley couldn’t believe her ears.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “No one asked for your opinion, Agent Paige,” Walder said. “In fact, it’s time for you to leave.”

  But Riley ignored him. She pointed at the map.

  “The place you’re talking about is miles north of here. Meara got hit by a car right near here. How did she get this far south?”

  A silence fell in the room.

  Finally, Emily Creighton said, “She didn’t remember anything after she got out of that basement. Maybe she hitchhiked. Doesn’t that make sense? She wanted to get as far away from where she was held as possible. The driver may never have known anything about her, what she’d been through. And now she doesn’t remember that part.”

  Ralston said, “Well, with maybe a little more work—”

  “I said that won’t be necessary,” Walder said.

  Craig Huang was looking far from convinced.

  “Maybe we’d better track down that driver before we jump to conclusions,” he said.

  Walder snapped at Huang in a scolding tone.

  “We don’t have time for that, Agent Huang,” he said. “He’s likely to be holding other women in that basement. He might be getting ready to kill one as we speak. Chief Franklin, how soon can we get a search warrant?”

  Franklin didn’t have to stop to think.

  “I’ll call Judge Weigand right away. I can get it in minutes.”

  Walder nodded enthusiastically.

  “Great. Do it. Then get a team together. We’re going to put this bastard away once and for all.”

  The meeting broke up, and everyone started preparing for the raid.

  Bill took Riley aside.

  “Riley, you’ve really got to get out of here,” he said. “Go back home. Walder will fire you for sure if you don’t.”

  Riley didn’t reply.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Bill said.

  Just then Walder’s voice called out, “Agent Jeffreys! Get over here! Help us plan the raid.”

  Bill shook his head at Riley and walked away.

  Riley had already made her mind up. She sure has hell wasn’t going home. She wanted to be there to see what became of this raid. Maybe if it was the disaster she expected, someone would listen to what she knew about this killer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  In her own car, Riley followed the group of police vehicles speeding on their way north. She had no idea how the raid was going to end, but it was too important for her to miss. She didn’t care what Walder had to say about it—or even Bill, for that matter.

  Orders be damned, she thought.

  After a while, the vehicles pulled off the Six O’clock Highway onto a service road lined with small businesses. Sure enough, standing among them was a five-story building. On the bottom floor was a sign that clearly read Serenity Café and Gift Shop.

  Riley slowed her car as the vehicles ahead of her parked in front of the building. Led by Walder and Chief Franklin, Bill and Lucy got out, followed by Emily Creighton and Craig Huang and several Ohlman cops, all well-armed and wearing Kevlar vests. Riley had also put on her own vest before the drive.

  When she stepped out of her car, Walder caught sight of her right away. He stared daggers at her but said nothing. She knew he didn
’t want to make a scene about it right now, with locals and tourists on the site.

  There’ll be time to fire me later, she thought wryly.

  It was early on a Saturday afternoon, and the little business strip was fairly busy. Pedestrians stood staring at the cops’ ominous approach. Some hurried away, while others stayed to watch from a safe distance.

  While the local officers took positions, Riley joined up with Bill, Franklin, Lucy, Creighton, and Huang alongside the building. There was a row of basement windows along the ground.

  “It does have a basement,” Walder announced. “This could be the place.”

  But the panes were too filthy to see inside.

  Questions started coming into Riley’s mind. In this fairly busy area, how likely was it that captives were being held in that basement? Meara’s description of her captivity made no mention of being bound and gagged, only caged. And other women had been caged with her. Wouldn’t their screams have been heard? Still, it looked like the basement was big, taking up the building’s entire foundation. In such a large space, Riley had to admit that it wasn’t completely impossible that women had been held there.

  And as deeply as she disliked Walder, she hoped that he was right this time. With a quick raid, whoever might be imprisoned down there could be set free. Still, she was worried about how hastily this operation had been set up. Even if this was the right place, things could very easily go wrong.

  Walder starting giving orders.

  “Jeffreys, Vargas, Creighton, Huang—we’re all going in the front.”

  He glanced again at Riley. From his expression, Riley knew that he realized that commanding her to stay out would only hold things up. And he knew there was no point in trying to talk her out of joining them.

  Weapons drawn but held low, the seven agents walked around to the front of the building. The gift shop was to the left of the restaurant, and items for sale were on display in the window. Riley looked them over. In the recorded interview Meara had described “Cuckoo clocks…all kinds of clocks. Some with dancing dolls.”

  Sure enough, there were clocks here. They looked cheap, but the plastic cuckoo clocks seemed to fit Meara’s description. And there were some dancing dolls on top of music boxes. Could this be the right place after all? She hurried to catch up with the others.

  Their weapons still lowered, the group followed Walder through the front door. The stout hostess at the front podium turned pale and gasped with shock when she saw them. The quaint, touristy café was almost full of lunch customers, some of whom reacted with alarm. One woman actually screamed and an elderly man looked like he might be in danger of a heart attack.

  “There’s no cause for panic, everybody,” Walder yelled. Then, turning to Craig Huang, he said, “Get the customers out of here in an orderly manner.”

  Huang moved among the tables, carrying out Walder’s order.

  Walder called out, “Who’s the owner?”

  A frightened-looking man stepped forward. Riley immediately saw that he more or less matched Meara’s description of her captor—white, medium height, strong build, dark hair, brown eyes. On the other hand, she’d glimpsed at least two male customers who could fit that description just as well. It was a pretty ordinary image.

  “I’m the owner,” the man said.

  “What’s your name?” Walder barked.

  “Ike Middleton,” the man said.

  Walder pushed the man so that he stood with his arms against the wall.

  “We’ve got a warrant to search the premises,” Walder said. “How do we get to your basement?”

  “The door’s in the back, all the way through the kitchen in the back room,” Middleton said. “But I don’t understand. Will somebody tell me what’s going on?”

  Walder didn’t reply. Emily Creighton began to frisk him for weapons.

  “Creighton, Vargas, hold him right here,” Walder said. “Jeffreys, let’s you and me go downstairs.”

  Riley noticed that Walder was simply ignoring her, making no attempt to keep her out of the action. That was just as well, since she had no intention of not going down to that basement with them.

  She followed Bill and Walder through a pair of swinging doors into the kitchen, where a couple of cooks and a busboy stood slack-jawed with shock. Then they pushed through another pair of swinging doors into a back room with a dishwasher, where they found the basement door.

  “Holster up,” Walder said, putting away his own gun. “We won’t need weapons.”

  Bill obeyed, and so did Riley. Even though she agreed with Walder this time, she thought he sounded much too sure of himself. Indeed, the whole operation smacked to her of overconfidence.

  Walder opened the basement door and turned on the light switch. Then he led the way through the door. They walked down the wooden stairs into a large, musty, gray basement. Gift items, including three clocks, hung on the wall next to the stairs.

  At the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves facing a maze of stacked-up boxes resting on wooden pallets.

  “Let’s split up,” Walder said, pointing in different directions for Bill and Riley.

  Riley went in her designated direction, following a narrow aisle between stacks of boxes and then along a far wall. She found absolutely nothing but more boxes. She turned back and rejoined Bill at the base of the stairs.

  Then they heard Walder call “Here!” His voice cracked with excitement.

  Riley and Bill hurried to join him.

  Walder was standing in front of an area that was separated by a tall chain-link fence. The gate was secured by a padlock.

  The area beyond the fence appeared to hold more boxes.

  “It just looks like storage for costlier items,” Bill suggested.

  “Something must be hidden beyond those boxes,” Walder growled.

  He drew his gun and blew the padlock off the gate.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Walder yanked the gate open and charged on inside. As Riley and Bill followed, he disappeared behind a pile of boxes. Then they heard him yell.

  “Damn it!”

  Riley caught up with Walder and looked around. There was nothing back there at all—just a patch of bare, concrete floor in an empty, cobweb-infested corner. Riley knew that there was nowhere else to look in this basement. She glanced at Bill, who just shrugged.

  Walder put his gun back in his holster.

  Frantic footsteps were storming down the stairs. As Riley and the others came out of the fenced area, Emily Creighton rushed toward them, her weapon drawn. Craig Huang was standing on the stairs, also prepared for action. Riley realized they had heard the shot fired when Walder destroyed the padlock.

  “Is somebody down?” Creighton asked sharply.

  Walder shook his head.

  “Holster up,” he said. “We’re fine.”

  But he didn’t look fine. He stared at the floor, his teeth clenched in anger. Riley was pretty sure that he was remembering what he’d said at the station.

  “Bingo. We’ve found him.”

  And also what he’d said when she’d expressed her doubts.

  “No one asked for your opinion, Agent Paige.”

  Walder was so furious and embarrassed that he couldn’t even look at the others, especially not her.

  “Come on,” Walder growled. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They went back up the stairs, then through the stock room and kitchen into the restaurant. Lucy Vargas was still holding Ike Middleton at gunpoint with his hands against the wall.

  “Let him go,” Walder said to Vargas.

  Lucy holstered her gun, and Ike Middleton stepped away from the wall, looking thoroughly shaken.

  Riley shared in the disappointment at not finding any captives. At the same time, something new was bothering her. Meara hadn’t simply imagined the existence of this place. Everything here fit her description perfectly—the five-story building, the restaurant, the gift shop with clocks and dancing dolls. Could this place s
till somehow be connected with her captivity?

  While Walder offered his abject apologies to Ike Middleton, Riley went to the front door and looked out over the people scattered outside. They all stared at her with puzzled, frightened expressions.

  “It was an unfortunate misunderstanding, folks,” she called out. “We’re terribly sorry. If you’ll just hang around for a few moments, we’ll wrap things up.”

  A baffled murmur passed among the onlookers.

  Riley saw the stout hostess standing nearby and walked up to her.

  “You work here, don’t you?” Riley asked.

  The woman nodded.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Louise Bader.”

  Riley took her gently by the arm.

  “Come on inside,” she said. “Maybe you can help us with something.”

  They went back into the restaurant. Ike Middleton was sitting alone at a table, still looking thoroughly stunned. Walder was huddled in conversation with Bill, Lucy, and the other two agents. Riley led the hostess over to them and introduced her.

  Then she turned to the owner.

  “Mr. Middleton, perhaps you could also join us.”

  The owner walked up to the group with a slightly unsteady gait.

  Riley took out her cell phone and brought up a picture of Meara Keagan.

  “Does this face look familiar to either of you?” Riley asked.

  Middleton scratched his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m afraid my memory for faces really sucks.”

  But Louise Bader’s face showed a flash of recognition.

  “I’ve seen this picture before,” she said. “When was it? Oh, yes—it was Tuesday or Wednesday, some cops came around looking for some woman. I didn’t recognize the face then, but …”

  She peered more closely at the photo.

  “Oh, my God. I think I do recognize her now. There was a young woman who came in here with friends a couple of weeks ago. Her hair was different and she was wearing glasses, which was why I didn’t recognize her in the photo last time. She had some kind of accent. Ike, do you remember now? She was really nice. We both noticed her and talked about her.”