Once Lured

by Blake Pierce

  She groped forward to find the killer.

  Suddenly, he struck her hard, lunging low at her legs and tackling her. She could feel that he was strong. But he was unskilled, unaccustomed to resistance from his victims. With all the force of her well-toned body and her ferocious will, she leapt back to her feet and seized him by the arm. Knowing he was disoriented by now, she swung his body as far and as hard as she could.

  She heard and felt the terrible impact of his head smashing against the wall.

  Riley staggered backward, breathing hard. At that very second, she was blinded by the brightness of the basement light.

  She heard Lucy’s voice call out from the top of the stairs.

  “Riley!”

  “I’m here, Lucy,” Riley yelled back, gasping for breath. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could see the man’s body twitch his last ounce of life away. He was bleeding from the blows of the whip, and his head bore the ugly, bloody marks of its fatal impact.

  In a moment, Lucy was by Riley’s side.

  “What did you do?” Lucy asked.

  “I gave him his own back,” she said.

  She looked at Lucy, who was rubbing the back of her head. Her face had also been cut by the man’s whip.

  “He really knocked me out for a few minutes there,” she said. “I guess he thought I was dead. But I’m tougher than he figured.”

  “He won’t hurt anybody ever again,” Riley said.

  “I just called for backup—not that we really need that now,” Lucy said with a pained smile.

  Then Lucy shook her head, looking ashamed.

  “Riley, how could I have been so stupid?” she said. “I was here. I talked to him. I should have known it was him. But when I didn’t find any women down here, I …”

  Lucy’s words faded away and her expression darkened with worry.

  “Where are the women?” Lucy asked.

  The question jolted Riley like an electric shock. Casey Phipps was dead, but his captives still had to be rescued. Now she was sure that he had never held them down in this basement. But they still had to be trapped somewhere. And they desperately needed help.

  “I’ve got an idea,” she told Lucy.

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  Riley hurried up the stairs with Lucy close behind. She went out the front door and saw that the children were still in the yard next door. The little girl was watching the boys play ball.

  Riley knelt down beside the girl. The child looked at their cut faces with alarm.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about us, Libby,” Riley said. “We’re fine. But I need your help. You told me that you’d heard ghosts talking.”

  The girl nodded, looking a little frightened now.

  “Could you take me to where you heard them?” Riley asked.

  “I’m scared to,” Libby said.

  “Don’t be,” Riley said. “You’re a brave girl. And they’re not really ghosts. They’re women who need our help.”

  Just then, Riley saw police cars approaching from down the street.

  “You stay here and tell them what happened,” she told Lucy.

  She said to the child, “We’ve got to hurry.”

  *

  The little girl led Riley around the back of the Phipps house and through the backyard. She pointed out a path that led into a wooded area.

  “Show me,” Riley said. “You’re doing great.”

  The child led Riley into the woods. Bushes encroached thickly on all sides of the path, and Riley pushed branches out of the way they hurried along. After about a hundred feet, the path opened onto a large square grassy area. Two periscope-like objects poked out of the ground.

  Now Riley understood. Years ago during the Cold War, Tyrone Phipps had built a secret fallout shelter, hoping to survive the nuclear apocalypse he so obsessively awaited.

  Riley looked quickly around until she spotted a small, rectangular mossy spot. She pulled away the moss, which had been laid down to hide a horizontal door.

  “Stay right here,” she told Libby. “I’ll be back soon.”

  Libby nodded. Riley pulled the door open and called down a short flight of stairs.

  “Is anybody here?”

  A piercing scream cut the air.

  “Here! Help us! We’re down here!”

  Riley almost smiled at the sound. It meant that the women were still alive. She hurried down the steps into a strange room filled with clocks, with a chain-link cage at the far end. A young woman had thrown herself against the links, gripping them frantically, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “Help! Help! Get us out of here!”

  Riley knew that the screaming woman was Mallory Byrd, who had been taken just yesterday and was not yet weak with starvation. But bloody streaks showed that she had felt the sharpness of her captor’s whip.

  The other woman, the one Meara had called Kimberly, was lying in a fetal position. She looked more dead than alive. Riley spotted a key ring lying on a table. Picking it up and opening the lock, she flung the cage door open and hurried inside.

  Mallory threw herself upon Riley in a spasm of wild gratitude.

  “It’s okay,” Riley said. “He can’t hurt you again.” She reluctantly pushed Mallory aside and went to check on Kimberly. She lifted up the poor woman’s head. She looked like a baby bird in a nest awaiting its mother.

  The sight was so pathetic that tears began to run down Riley’s face. She had some idea of what this woman had endured, and she again felt a deep satisfaction that the man was dead. She hugged Kimberly, being careful not to hurt the fragile creature.

  “It’s all right now,” Riley said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  Riley sat with Lucy on the porch steps of the Phipps house, recovering from their ordeal. After an ambulance had come for the women in the fallout shelter, Riley had walked back through the woods to the house. Soon the medical examiner would be here to pick up Casey Phipps’s body.

  Lucy was still berating herself for not realizing earlier that Casey Phipps was the killer.

  Riley put a comforting hand on Lucy’s shoulder.

  “We’re all only human,” she said. “He had the whole town fooled. Nobody knew.”

  Lucy looked into Riley’s eyes.

  “Yeah, but if you’d been here doing the canvassing, would you have known right away?”

  Riley smiled grimly.

  “Probably,” she said. “But I’ve been doing this for a long time. Give yourself some time. Like a couple of decades, maybe.”

  Just then a vehicle pulled up and parked in front of the house. Bill and Carl Walder got out and Bill charged toward Riley. He almost threw his arms around her, but then he saw her wounds.

  “Shit, Riley,” he said. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Riley was relieved. A hug would have been quite painful at that moment.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “I wish I’d been here. I wish I’d been able to—”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. Riley understood what he was thinking. For months now, this case had been eating away at him inside. And now the whole thing had come to an end, and he hadn’t even been here.

  Riley touched his face gently.

  “It’s okay, Bill,” Riley said. “We all did it together. You can sleep easier now.”

  Just then she heard a voice call out.

  “Agent Paige!”

  She saw Walder striding toward her, his face bright red with anger. His arms were stiff at his sides, and Riley could see that he was holding something in each hand. He walked straight up to her and for a moment he just stared at her.

  Then he handed her back her gun and her badge.

  “Good job,” Walder said in a tight, bitter voice.

  Then he walked away without another word.

  It would be nice, Riley thought, if that was she last she’d see of him. But she knew she’d neve
r be so lucky.

  And that he’d always be looking for an excuse to fire her.

  CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

  April was walking alone in the night. The streetlights cast their eerie glow on a world nearly empty of activity. She felt like a scared little girl. She hated the feeling. She felt ashamed of it.

  I don’t want to feel like that anymore, she thought.

  But she was determined not to go back home—not now, maybe not ever. For now, at least, she was sure she wouldn’t be missed. Gabriela was in her basement apartment, and April was sure she’d slipped out the front door without being heard. And of course Mom wasn’t even at home.

  She kept telling herself that she hated Mom and didn’t want to see her again. Whatever Mom had said to Joel, he had refused to see April since then. What business did Mom have, wrecking her life like that?

  Anyway, she was sure that Joel still loved her as much as she loved him. What did Mom know about love? As far as April could remember, Mom hadn’t ever loved anybody like she loved Joel. Certainly her mom and dad had never felt anything like that kind of love.

  She couldn’t shake off her fear. She’d walked far enough from home now that even the idea of walking back was scary. But she had to go somewhere.

  She saw a few cars moving along a wider street up ahead. Maybe she could hitch a ride, get somebody to drive her home.

  Or maybe I could get somebody to drive me far away, she thought.

  But the thought of getting a ride from a stranger also scared her. She felt fear well up in her throat and tears burning her eyes.

  She took out her cell phone and dialed Joel’s number. She hoped that he’d finally answer after a whole day of ignoring her calls.

  To her relief, she heard his voice say, “April?”

  She sputtered, trying to keep from sobbing.

  “Joel, I’m outside alone, and I need you to come and get me.”

  “Where are you?” Joel asked.

  April looked up at the nearest street signs and told him.

  “I’ll be right there,” he said.

  *

  When Riley walked into her house that night, the first thing she did was to call out to Gabriela downstairs.

  “I’m home, Gabriela.”

  Gabriela called back, “¡Qué bueno! Did you solve the case?”

  “I did. Is everything okay here?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  Riley thanked Gabriela and sat down in the living room. She felt deeply satisfied by her day’s work. The two young women she had rescued were in the hospital. They didn’t have any life-threatening injuries, but it would take time for Kimberly to get back to full health. They would both need counseling to deal with the trauma they’d been through. Still, they were going to be fine.

  Most important, Casey Phipps was dead.

  It’s over, Riley told herself.

  She took special pleasure in fingering both her badge and her gun.

  Lots of people had wanted to give her their congratulations, including the mayor of Ohlman. But she hadn’t waited around for that. She’d driven straight home.

  Now she looked at her watch and saw that it was just turning midnight. She was glad she wasn’t in a room full of clocks noisily announcing the hour.

  She was just thinking about fixing herself a drink when her cell phone rang. Riley saw that the call was from the teenage shelter in Phoenix. When she answered, she heard the worried voice of Brenda Fitch.

  “Riley, I’m sorry to bother you so late … but have you heard anything from Jilly? I mean, has she called you or anything?”

  Riley’s heart jumped up in her throat.

  “No. Why? What’s wrong?”

  She heard an anxious sigh.

  “Jilly left here last night. We don’t have any idea where she went. We’re really worried.”

  Riley was too stunned to say anything.

  Brenda said, “If you hear anything from her, would you please let us know right away?”

  “Of course,” Riley said. “And please keep in touch with me about her.”

  They ended the call and Riley plunged from feeling wonderful to miserable. What had happened to Jilly? With no place to go, no family to care for her, where could she possibly be except back on the streets at the mercy of predatory men?

  But there was nothing she could do about it right now. Nothing at all. Still, there was one thing she could do to make herself better. She went upstairs to look in on April, who was surely asleep by now.

  But when Riley opened the door, April’s bed was empty.

  She rushed downstairs in a panic, calling out to Gabriela in the basement

  “Gabriela! April’s gone!”

  Gabriela came dashing up the stairs in her nightgown.

  “But I thought she was in bed!” Gabriela said. “She went up to bed at the usual time.”

  “You look through the house,” Riley said. She ran out onto the back deck and turned the floodlights on. April wasn’t in the back yard.

  She came back inside to find Gabriela in as much of a panic as she was. She picked up the phone and dialed April’s number. There was no answer at all—not even April’s usual outgoing message.

  “Maybe she’s at Crystal’s house,” Gabriela said.

  Riley felt a surge of desperate hope. She dialed Blaine’s number. Crystal answered the phone.

  “Crystal, is April there?” Riley demanded.

  “Isn’t she at home?” Crystal said.

  “No,” Riley gasped.

  Crystal didn’t sound groggy, as if she’d been asleep. She sounded as if she were already worried and upset.

  “We had a fight this afternoon,” Crystal said. “It was about Joel. I shouldn’t have told her what I thought about him. She said we’re not friends anymore.”

  “Okay, Crystal,” Riley said. “Please call if you hear anything from her.”

  As she ended the call, Riley knew better than to hope for that. Something had gone seriously wrong. She wondered whether to call the police and get an Amber Alert out. But that wasn’t an option—not yet, anyway. April must have walked out on her own. She wasn’t kidnapped this time. Riley couldn’t report her as a runaway until after some time passed.

  I’ve got to go look for her, she thought.

  She decided to start at Joel’s house.

  *

  April felt very mellow. The pill Joel had given her had wiped away all of her anxieties. She was so glad to be here with him. This time they weren’t at his house but at some friend’s house.

  She and Joel were stretched out together on a bed. A few other people walked by the open door.

  April watched as he manipulated her cell phone.

  “What’s your password?” he asked.

  She smiled. “What do you think?” she said.

  He smiled back. Of course it was easy for him to guess that it was his own name. He punched in the password.

  “What are you doing?” April asked.

  “Turning off the GPS. We don’t need your Nazi-mom storming in here.”

  April giggled.

  She started to say that she would have to get home soon, because Gabriela would panic if she found her gone. But she found that she didn’t really care about that. Besides, she was having trouble saying anything complicated.

  In a few moments Joel put down the phone.

  “All safe now,” he said.

  Just then a man April didn’t know peered in through the open door. He had a questioning look on his face, and she saw that he held a wad of cash in his hand. He looked over April as if she were something to be bought, and she didn’t like the look.

  “Soon,” Joel told him.

  The man went away.

  “Soon what?” April asked.

  “Nothing,” Joel said. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  April lay back and watched as Joel struck a match and lit a candle on a little table next to the bed. His face looked beautiful in the warm light. She tr
ied to focus on what she’d just been worrying about, but already her mind drifted onto other things.

  April just watched as though she was in a dream.

  “I feel like a point of light,” she said.

  “You’re glowing,” Joel said, smiling. “And soon you’re going to feel like a star in the sky.”

  She watched contentedly as Joel puttered about, heating something in a metal spoon over the candle flame.

  She felt that she was watching from a distance as he wrapped something around her arm—and then pushed the needle into her flesh.

  Then she let out an astonished gasp as she felt her body disappear. She’d never felt anything like this in her life. She didn’t want to quit feeling this way.

  Not ever, she thought.

  COMING SOON!

  Book #5 in the Riley Paige mystery series!

  In the meantime, please enjoy BEFORE HE KILLS, book #1 in the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series!

  BEFORE HE KILLS

  (a Mackenzie White Mystery--Book #1)

  From #1 bestselling author Blake Pierce comes a heart-pounding new mystery series.

  In the cornfields of Nebraska a woman is found murdered, strung up on a pole, the victim of a deranged killer. It doesn’t take long for the police to realize a serial killer is on the loose—and that his spree has just begun.

  Detective Mackenzie White, young, tough, smarter than the aging, chauvinistic men on her local force, finds herself called in grudgingly to help solve it. As much as the other officers hate to admit it, they need her young, brilliant mind, which has already helped crack cold cases that had left them stumped. Yet even for Mackenzie this new case proves an impossible riddle, something the likes of which she—and the local force—have ever seen.