Once Cold

by Blake Pierce

  Riley knew that there was simply no escaping the truth.

  Her motives were completely selfish.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to do otherwise.

  She began to drive north, following the spoken GPS directions.

  *

  For the next hour and a half, Riley drove steadily northward on the interstate that ran through the Shenandoah Valley. The Forsyth Ski Resort was on the slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, almost at the West Virginia state line.

  When she arrived on the grounds, she saw that it was the kind of winter resort that relied on artificial snow to fill out the season. She noticed a vacant golf course as she drove along. Doubtless the place offered other recreational activities for tourists and vacationers.

  Right now it appeared to be in between seasons.

  Would Byron Chaney be working here even so?

  She desperately hoped that this wasn’t going to be a wasted trip.

  She walked into the spacious front lobby of the main building. A kindly-looking middle-aged woman was at the front desk. Riley quickly decided that things might go better if she appeared to be here in an official capacity. So she pulled out her badge and introduced herself to the woman.

  Riley said, “I’m looking for a former Marine, a veteran who might be working here. His name is Byron Chaney.”

  The woman looked a little worried.

  “Is he in some kind of trouble?” she asked.

  Riley had no idea how to answer that question.

  Instead she said, “I need to talk to him about a case I’m following up on.”

  The woman seemed slightly puzzled.

  “Are you sure you’ve got the right person?” she asked.

  “Is he here?”

  “Yes, I’m sure he is. Byron lives right here on the grounds. He’s sort of our handyman—odd jobs, cleaning up, repairs, working on the grounds, that kind of thing. But he hasn’t been off this property for years. I don’t understand how he could help you.”

  Riley was starting to realize that the woman felt protective of Byron Chaney. She wondered why.

  “It’s an old case,” Riley said.

  The woman said nothing for a moment. She seemed very reluctant.

  Finally she pointed outside.

  “You’ll most likely find him in his room. It’s over there in the maintenance building—a little door around on the far side next to our equipment storage area.”

  Riley thanked the woman and walked across well-kept grounds to the maintenance building. She went around the structure and found big garage-type doors on the back. A smaller door had a sign on it that read “EMPLOYEES ONLY.”

  She knocked on the door.

  She got no answer, then knocked again.

  A scratchy, rough voice called out from inside.

  “Who is it? What do you want?”

  A shudder ran through Riley’s body.

  She remembered the man in the candy store saying to her mother …

  “Give me your money.”

  Was this the same voice, weathered with age?

  She didn’t yet know.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Riley felt dizzy with apprehension. Was her mother’s killer on the other side of that door?

  “Who is it?” the voice called again.

  Riley wavered.

  How should she introduce herself?

  Should she say right away that she was an FBI agent?

  Finally she called out, “I just want to talk to you.”

  “Like the sign says, ‘employees only.’”

  Not knowing what else to say, Riley simply replied, “Please.”

  A silence followed.

  “Come on in,” the man finally said.

  Riley opened the door onto a large, damp space filled with equipment and storage of one kind or another—lawn machinery, garden tools, piles of boxes on pallets. She didn’t see anybody at first.

  “In here,” the voice said.

  Riley turned and saw an open door that led into a small room. She went to the doorway.

  The man was sitting on a cot wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. He looked old—probably older than he really was, Riley guessed. He was bulky and muscular, but looked oddly frail and fragile somehow. His hair was cut in much the same military-style buzz cut that her father’s had always been. His heavily lined face had a dull, grayish cast to it.

  The room was dimly lit, with no windows. Everything was extremely neat, and very sparse. A handful of books on a small table stood tidily between two bookends. A small throw rug on the floor was placed squarely next to the cot.

  Riley immediately noticed the absence of any pictures or photographs.

  The man was staring at an old black-and-white TV that was sitting on a wooden bench at the end of the cot. A soccer game was playing, but the sound was off.

  “What do you want?” the man asked without looking at Riley. His voice was hoarse and scratchy. She stepped inside.

  “Are you Byron Chaney?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  Riley decided that he wasn’t going to talk to her unless she gave him an official reason. She took out her badge.

  “I’m Special Agent Riley Paige with the FBI,” she said.

  The man turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were deep set and dead looking. His expression showed just a hint of worried surprise.

  Riley took another step forward and sat down on a stool near his cot

  “You’ve got the wrong guy,” he said.

  “You don’t know what I’m here about,” Riley said.

  “Whatever it is, you’ve got the wrong guy. Those days are long behind me.”

  Those days? Riley wondered.

  What did he mean by “those days”?

  She folded her hands to keep them from shaking. They felt damp and clammy. As the moments passed, it seemed more and more certain to Riley that this man was her mother’s killer.

  The man said, “Look, I’ve been straight for years. I’ve worked hard to turn things around, my life and all. And these people here at the Forsyth, they’re kind to me, they take care of me. What you see in this room—this is all I’ve got in the whole wide world. I’m asking you, please don’t take it all away.”

  Riley didn’t speak for a moment.

  Then she asked, “Did you serve in the Marines? Romeo Company, Eleventh Battalion, Thirtieth regiment?”

  Byron Chaney nodded silently.

  “Did you serve with Captain Oliver Sweeney?”

  A strange, stricken look crossed Byron’s face.

  “He was my commander. He was my …”

  His voice faded and he looked away. Riley sensed that he was about to say “friend.” But for some reason, he couldn’t say the word aloud.

  She wondered why.

  Then he said in a low voice, “Wait a minute.”

  He turned his head slowly toward her.

  “Riley? You said your name’s Riley?”

  Riley nodded.

  A hint of a smile flickered on his face.

  “Oh, I should have recognized you right away. But I guess you don’t remember me. No, of course not, you were too little. You used to call me ‘uncle.’”

  Suddenly, a tumble of events played out in Riley’s mind.

  She was very young, playing games with a man who had a merry, contagious laugh.

  He’d taken her to a circus. Her mother had been there too. And her sister.

  Riley gasped.

  “Uncle By,” she said aloud.

  The sudden memories were strong, but they were hard to believe. This man who was now so ravaged had once been charming and handsome. He’d been in their lives for such a short time … she’d been so young … she hadn’t thought about him for all these years.

  His smile spread wide.

  Yes, she could glimpse him in that smile, the man he had once been.

  “An FBI agent!” he said in an awed whisper. “Oh, your daddy must be so proud!”
>
  Riley felt a hard lump form in her throat.

  “Byron, Daddy died. He had cancer.”

  Byron face sagged with shock.

  “When?” he asked.

  “Last November.”

  He lowered his head.

  “I hope he’s finally at peace,” he said.

  Riley felt as though her whole world was whirling around her, changing by the second.

  Nothing in her life seemed real.

  Was it really possible that this man had killed her mother?

  Now she couldn’t imagine that it was true.

  And yet, she sensed that he was harboring some kind of dark secret.

  She spoke slowly and carefully.

  “Byron, I didn’t come here on a case. This isn’t an official visit. It’s personal.”

  Byron looked up at her again with a curious expression.

  Riley said, “I’m trying to find out who killed my mother.”

  Byron looked like he’d been jolted by an electric shock. Tears started to form in his eyes.

  “Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord,” he said.

  His voice sounded thick and heavy with guilt.

  “Was it you?” Riley asked, her own voice quavering. “Did you shoot her?”

  Byron was stammering between sobs.

  “It was … I can’t … I don’t …”

  Riley couldn’t breathe at all now.

  She knew she was about to find out something she might really not want to know.

  And she knew that once she learned the truth, she wouldn’t be able to drive it from her mind.

  She’d have to live with it for the rest of her life.

  She wanted to get up from the stool and run out of the room. But she felt completely paralyzed.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  Byron wiped his nose and eyes with his sleeve. He tried to pull himself together.

  “Riley, your daddy was a good man. But he was a hard man too. He couldn’t help it, ’Nam made him that way. He was in command there. He had to give all kinds of awful orders. And sometimes he had to decide who lived and who died—even among his own men. Soldiers hated him for it, except me. I guess I was the only one who understood. I was his only real friend.”

  Byron groaned.

  “I got a bad leg wound, and I got an honorable discharge and came home. When your daddy came back from his tour, he and I stayed close. I got to know Karen, and your big sister, and you. I got to be like one of the family. But …”

  He stopped.

  “Please try to tell me,” Riley said.

  Byron cleared his throat noisily.

  “I could see what the war had done to him. He was drinking a lot in those days. And I saw how he was treating your sister, hitting her for no reason at all. He treated your mother badly too. Oh, it broke my heart.”

  Byron shook his head.

  “Then Oliver got called back for duty, this time in Lebanon. And when he went away—well, I guess your mother and I realized that we’d fallen in love without even knowing it. We got romantically involved.”

  Riley’s mouth dropped open in shock.

  She’d never in her wildest dreams imagined that such a thing had happened.

  Byron continued, “I wanted to make everything right. I wanted her to leave Oliver. I wanted to marry her. I loved Oliver like a brother, but he was bad for her, and I was sure I could be good for her. And your sister, Wendy—oh, she was a wild one, but I had a good way with her. I knew I could be a good father to both of you.”

  He fell silent for a moment.

  “Karen thought about it—I think she thought about it hard. But in the end … she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let him down that way. She couldn’t turn her back on him. And she ended it between us. And then …”

  He choked back a gasp.

  He said, “I can’t help thinking … I got her killed.”

  Riley shivered all over.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “He found out when he was overseas—about me and Karen. I don’t know how. I guess one of his buddies around town wrote to him about it. He didn’t pull the trigger. He wasn’t even in the country. But I’ve always wondered … did he arrange it? Did he make it happen?”

  At that moment, Riley felt something far beyond mere horror. A tingling blackness rose up inside her. She realized that she was on the verge of fainting.

  She struggled to stay conscious. She had to hear this story out to the end.

  Byron said, “When he came back from Lebanon, I thought maybe he’d kill me too, and I half hoped that he would. Instead he just pushed me away, never spoke to me again. That was worse. My life went to pieces after that. I drank, fought, stole, did time in jail. It took years and years before I got straight again. And now … here I am.”

  His voice trailed off, and he gazed off into space, as if lost in the past.

  As Riley stared at him, his face seemed different to her now.

  It was as if the years dropped away, and this ravaged old man became the charming, generous, good-hearted young veteran he once was—the man her mother had fallen in love with.

  The man that Mother might have married, she realized.

  What would life have been like if that had happened?

  Wendy might not have left.

  And Wendy and Riley might both have called this man “Daddy.”

  It staggered her imagination.

  Just then someone called from outside the door. Riley recognized the voice of the woman who had greeted her in the lobby.

  “Byron, we’ve got a plumbing problem. Could you come and help us out?”

  Byron called back, “Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

  He got up from his cot and walked toward the door.

  Suddenly, it was as if Riley weren’t even there.

  “Byron …” Riley said.

  He shook his head.

  “Forget about this,” he said without looking at her. “Forget everything I said.”

  Riley held out her card.

  “Take this,” she said. “Call me if you remember anything.”

  He took the card without a word. Then he left the room and walked away.

  Riley sat on the stool for a whole minute in a state of shock. Then she managed to collect her wits, leave that building, and go back to her car.

  As she started to drive, she kept hearing Byron’s voice.

  “Forget everything I said.”

  Riley wished she could. But that was never, ever going to happen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Darkness closed in around Riley as she drove toward Fredericksburg. It was a clear night with stars and a bright moon. But even so, Riley felt as if it were the blackest night she’d ever known.

  She clutched the steering wheel to steady herself.

  Home, she kept thinking. I’ve got to get home.

  But she had a weird and terrible feeling that she had no home to go back to. It seemed like everything she’d known about her life was a lie.

  Her head was flooded with images and memories of her childhood.

  But were any of them real?

  She almost lost control of her car and veered off the road. She knew she couldn’t keep driving like this.

  Besides, it suddenly occurred to her that she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since early that morning, and only a roll then.

  I’ve got to stop somewhere, she thought. I’ve got to get control of myself.

  Riley pulled off the highway into a truck stop. She got out of the car and walked unsteadily inside, sitting in the first booth she came to. She ordered a sandwich and coffee, forgoing the beer she really wanted.

  Waiting for her food, she tried to assess all that had happened.

  She simply couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

  How had she even gotten started down this desperate road in search of her mother’s killer?

  Then she remembered Hatcher’s message.

  “Deny thy father and r
efuse thy name.”

  That’s where it had all begun. And now that she had a moment to put the pieces of the puzzle all together, she realized that Hatcher had known all along exactly where his clue would take her—into ever deeper doubts and uncertainties.

  She shuddered at the thought.

  But why? she wondered.

  Why had he led her into this purgatorial state of doubt about everything in her world?

  He must have had some reason.

  After all, Shane Hatcher styled himself as her mentor—both as a detective and as a human being.

  He must have intended all this as some kind of lesson.

  Riley’s food arrived. As she sipped her coffee and nibbled listlessly on her sandwich, she kept wondering.

  Maybe Hatcher wanted her to learn that not all riddles have answers. If so, he’d taught her that lesson much too well.

  She felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into despair.

  Even as Riley shook her head and told herself to snap out of it, she knew that this was too much to handle on her own. She had to talk about it with somebody. But who?

  The girls were out of the question. April was dealing with too much as it was, and Jilly wasn’t ready to delve deep into the history of her new family. Obviously Ryan wasn’t an option, and Riley didn’t yet know Blaine well enough. It was too much of a burden to put on Gabriela. And how could she talk with Bill about it, when she was working on a case with him and wasn’t supposed to be trying to solve this mystery at all?

  But one person came to mind.

  She had known a DC forensic psychiatrist named Mike Nevins for many years. He sometimes consulted on BAU cases, and Riley had found him a valuable resource. He was also a close friend who had helped her recover from PTSD after an especially traumatic case.

  She took out her phone and started to dial his office. But then she remembered—Mike wouldn’t be in his office at this time on a Saturday night. He’d surely be at home.

  She had his emergency number. But did this qualify as an emergency?

  Riley quickly assessed her own state of mind.

  She was shaking all over, on the verge of tears.