Once Cold

by Blake Pierce

  Riley looked at her watch as she walked to her own car. If she went home right now, she’d be there in time for dinner. She wavered. She told herself that she could go talk to Floyd Britson some other time.

  But when? she wondered.

  She had no idea how much time she was still going to have to spend working on the Matchbook Killer case.

  She also had a strange, irrational feeling that this visit couldn’t wait.

  She got into her car, took out her cell phone, and typed a quick text message to April.

  Plz tell Gabriela I’ll be late for dinner.

  She sent the message and sat staring at her cell phone for a moment, then typed.

  Not very late I hope.

  Then she typed …

  I’m sorry.

  She started her car and drove out of the parking lot.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  By the time Riley pulled into the town of Innis, she was in the grip of powerful and confusing expectations.

  What might she learn from Floyd Britson?

  Would it help put her mind at ease?

  Or would she be better off not learning it at all?

  She saw that Innis was a pleasant little town littered with historical markers and other vestiges of its colonial past. The building that housed Eldon Gardens Assisted Living looked startlingly modern in the midst of older structures. It also looked more like a nice hotel than Riley had expected.

  Riley parked and walked into a spacious lobby, which was decorated here and there with flower arrangements.

  She approached the female receptionist and said, “I’d like to talk to a resident of yours. His name is Floyd Britson.”

  The woman gave Riley a quizzical look.

  “I don’t believe you’re a member of the family,” she said.

  Riley wondered how she could seem so certain.

  She also wondered what to say.

  Should she try to bluff her way in by claiming to be a distant relative?

  Riley swallowed a sigh of despair. One way or the other, she was going to have to be deceptive.

  It was getting to be too much of a habit.

  She took our badge and showed it to the woman.

  “I’m Special Agent Riley Paige, FBI. I’m working on a case. I’d like to talk to Floyd Britson. I think he might be able to help with my investigation.”

  The woman looked genuinely puzzled now.

  “Mr. Britson? Are you sure?”

  Riley nodded.

  “I can’t imagine how he could be any help, but …”

  The woman paused, then said, “Well, since it’s official business, I’ll take you to him.”

  As the woman led Riley through the building, Riley found the place strangely unsettling.

  It wasn’t disagreeable—far from it. Everything was almost breathtakingly pleasant, immaculately tidy and neat, all in restful pastel colors. And the seniors she walked by looked perfectly happy, and their voices were hushed and gentle.

  So what was it that bothered her here?

  She quickly realized—it was because she knew she would be perfectly miserable here. So much order, so much neatness, would be a nightmare for her. She’d probably lose her mind if she ever had to live in a place like this.

  She thought back to Byron Chaney in his spare little room.

  What little he had left in life, at least it was his own.

  Riley half hoped that she’d wind up more like Byron than the elderly people who lived here.

  The woman led Riley through an open door into a large, well-lit, comfortable room that looked like a modest hotel suite.

  An elderly man was sitting upright in a hospital bed, and a woman about Riley’s age was sitting in a chair beside him. Both were African-American. Riley breathed a small sigh of relief that she hadn’t tried to pass herself off as a blood relative.

  The man was staring off into space. The woman was quietly reading to him from the Bible.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Stafford,” the receptionist said to the woman who was reading. “This is Agent Riley Paige with the FBI. She was hoping she could talk a bit with your father.” Then the receptionist said to Riley, “This is Floyd Britson and his daughter Elaine Stafford.”

  The receptionist left the room.

  “I don’t understand,” Elaine said, putting the Bible aside.

  “I know,” Riley said. “But if I could talk to your father …”

  Elaine shook her head.

  “You can try,” she said. “But Daddy has Alzheimer’s disease. He’s not likely to be able to tell you anything you want to know.”

  Riley felt a shiver of dismayed surprise as Elaine offered her a chair.

  Riley sat down, and Elaine patiently and slowly began to speak to her father.

  “Daddy, this woman is an FBI agent. I don’t know what she wants to ask you, but I’m sure it’s important. Could you listen to her? Could you try to help her?”

  The man nodded as if he vaguely understood.

  “Mr. Britson, you were a Marine sergeant years ago, weren’t you?”

  “I was,” Floyd said with what sounded like a note of pride.

  “And you served under Captain Oliver Sweeney in the Romeo Company, right?”

  Floyd chuckled a little.

  In an oddly distant voice he said, “Ollie the Ox. Ollie Ollie Oxen Free.”

  Riley guessed that Floyd was slipping into some old memory of her father—a nickname and a well-worn joke on that nickname.

  “I’m his daughter,” Riley said.

  Floyd smiled and looked straight at her.

  “Little Riley! Goodness, how you’ve grown!”

  He remembers me, Riley thought.

  Riley tried to remember Floyd from her childhood. But whatever memories she might have once had of him seemed to be long gone.

  She asked, “Do you remember when my mother was killed? Daddy’s … Captain Sweeney’s wife?”

  Floyd looked vaguely alarmed.

  “Karen? Killed? When did that happen?”

  But then his face settled into an expression of sad realization.

  “Oh, yeah. The shooting. A little while back. Lovely woman. Awful.”

  Riley was starting to feel encouraged. Floyd didn’t seem to have any sense of time or chronology, but bits of memory did seem to be resurfacing.

  “Do you have any idea who did it? Shot her, I mean.”

  Floyd shook his head.

  “No idea. No idea at all.”

  Riley thought hard. What was the best way to nudge the truth out of this man?

  “Mr. Britson—”

  “Please, call me Floyd.”

  “Floyd, you have an old Marine friend named Byron Chaney. You got in touch with him a couple of years back. You talked to him by phone.”

  Floyd laughed softly.

  “I guess I did if you say I did. My memory’s not what it used to be. Folks tell me it’s not going to get any better.”

  “Do you remember Byron Chaney?” Riley asked.

  “Sure, I remember old By.”

  Riley took a deep breath.

  She said, “When you talked to Byron on the phone, you mentioned a fight Captain Sweeney got into.”

  Floyd chuckled again.

  “Old Ollie the Ox. Got in lots of fights. Never lost a single one of ’em.”

  “This one was especially bad,” Riley said. “He really humiliated somebody.”

  Floyd squinted, trying to remember.

  “If you say so,” he said.

  Riley stifled a sigh. She sensed that Floyd’s concentration was slipping.

  “You talked to Byron about it,” she said. “You said the man swore revenge against my father … Captain Sweeney.”

  “Maybe he did,” Floyd said, sounding more vague by the second.

  “Do you remember that man’s name?”

  Floyd fell silent. For a moment, Riley thought he’d dropped completely out of the conversation.

  Then he began to hum
a tune—a hymn, Riley felt pretty sure.

  I’ve really lost him, Riley thought.

  But finally he seemed to return to Riley’s question.

  “No, I do not,” he said.

  Riley’s heart sank.

  “Please, please, try to remember,” she said.

  Floyd’s brow knitted in deep concentration.

  “Luster,” he finally said.

  Riley felt a tingle of excitement.

  “Is that his name?” she asked.

  Floyd was quiet for a moment, then said again, “Luster.”

  “Is that his name?” Riley asked again.

  But Floyd’s head drooped forward, and his eyes completely glazed over.

  Riley desperately wanted to hear more. It took all her self-control not to shake him and try to bring him out of his trance.

  Elaine touched Riley on the shoulder.

  She said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry. But this is too much for him. Leave him be.”

  Riley sat there staring at Floyd for a moment.

  Then she handed her card to Elaine.

  “I really need to know that name,” she said. “Please contact me if he remembers anything else.”

  Taking the card, Elaine said, “I will, ma’am. But an hour from now, I doubt that he’ll remember he even talked to you. I’m really sorry.”

  Riley knew that there was nothing more to say or do here. She thanked Elaine and left the building. She got into her car and drove on home.

  *

  Later that night after the girls and Gabriela had gone to bed, Riley went to her office to mull over what she’d learned today—if she’d learned anything meaningful at all.

  She brought up the list of twenty-five vets on her computer.

  She already knew that Byron Chaney was there, and also Floyd Britson.

  But she scanned the names and saw no one named Luster.

  She was swept by a wave of confusion. Had she heard it right?

  Yes, she was sure that was the name that Floyd had said. She’d heard him say it twice.

  Then she remembered what Byron had told her on the phone earlier.

  “He mentioned your daddy getting into a fight once with another Marine …”

  Then Byron had added …

  “… not a man I knew personally.”

  Riley groaned aloud.

  Now the hole seemed glaringly obvious.

  The Marine named Luster had never been in the Romeo Company at all.

  So how on earth was Riley going to begin looking for him?

  Would she have to search through all the Marines living in Virginia who had served during those years, trying to find a man named Luster?

  Perhaps she could do that, but right now the prospect was too much for her to think about. And of course, Luster could be just a nickname.

  Besides, why was she going to all this trouble? If there was anyone in the world who knew the truth already, she knew who it was.

  It was Shane Hatcher.

  Again, she looked at the bracelet on her wrist with its tiny inscription …

  “face8ecaf”

  It was time for Hatcher to stop playing games.

  It was time for her to demand the truth from him.

  She opened up her video chat program and typed in the characters. She let the call ring for a whole minute.

  Nobody answered.

  Riley’s blood was boiling with anger. She had to restrain herself from picking up her computer and throwing it to the floor.

  That bastard, she thought.

  Why had she ever made her pact with that devil?

  And where was he right now? And what was he doing?

  Probably in Daddy’s cabin, she thought. Probably laughing at me.

  She choked down her rage, walked downstairs, and poured herself a drink.

  Tomorrow would be another day—and she’d be back at work on the Matchbook Killer case. She prayed that she, Bill, and Jake would get a break.

  She didn’t know how much more discouragement she could stand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Early the next morning, Riley was enjoying breakfast with her family when her phone rang. She still felt guilty for missing dinner the night before, and they all ate in awkward silence.

  Her heart jumped when she saw that the call was from Bill. Leaving April, Jilly, and Gabriela clustered around the kitchen table, Riley answered the phone as she got up and stepped out of the kitchen.

  “I hope you’ve got some good news,” she said.

  “I might,” Bill said. “I got to the BAU bright and early. Remember that drinking glass in the evidence locker?”

  “Yeah—the one the killer handled.”

  “Well, Sam’s team did get some good DNA off it. And they also got DNA off the plastic flower container we found at the cemetery. Those two samples definitely match.”

  Riley’s head buzzed with excitement. The killer had put flowers on Tilda Steen’s grave. He was still alive and very possibly still living in the area where he had murdered three women.

  But she remembered something Jake had told her. His incompetent partner had smeared up the fingerprints on the glass years ago.

  “What about prints on the plastic container?” Riley asked.

  “Sam’s people found some good ones. But they couldn’t match either the prints or the DNA with anything in FBI records.”

  Riley clicked away possibilities in her mind.

  “That doesn’t have to be a problem,” she said. “Not if we can locate an actual suspect. If the prints and the DNA match, we’ll have our killer. Was Sam able to narrow down the list of names?”

  Bill chuckled.

  “That’s more good news,” he said. “Sam ran James Reed and the reverse, Reed James. There are lots of guys by those names, but he only found three about the right age who have lived in that area. One of them is dead, so he’s not our guy. And we can pretty safely eliminate one of the others.”

  “Why?” Riley asked.

  “I’ll send you photos of the men right now.”

  Riley waited for a moment until an email arrived with a photo attachment. The photos were both from recent driver’s licenses. Riley immediately saw what Bill had meant. One of the men was African American. And as weird as some of the witness descriptions had been, they’d been consistent on one detail.

  The killer had pale skin.

  The other photo showed a pale man with dark hair and dark eyes.

  But did he look like the aged composite sketch Sam had given them?

  Not exactly, but close enough to get her attention.

  She asked, “Where does the lighter-skinned James Reed live?”

  “Right in Brinkley, the college town where Melody Yanovich was killed.”

  Riley was thrilled.

  “I’ll be at the BAU as soon as I can get there,” she said.

  “No need,” Bill said. “Jake and I will pick you up. Then we can drive straight to Brinkley.”

  “OK,” Riley said. “Just give me a few minutes to get ready.”

  Riley went back into the kitchen and kissed Jilly and April on the forehead.

  “Gotta go,” she said breathlessly.

  “Are you catching a bad guy today?” April asked with a smile.

  “Maybe,” Riley said, smiling back at her. “Just maybe.”

  Riley hurried off to her bedroom to get dressed.

  *

  The three agents were all in good spirits as they headed toward Brinkley. None of them had said outright that they’d found the man they were looking for, but Riley knew they were all excited at the possibility.

  Bill was driving so she got out her tablet computer and searched for the James Reed who lived in Brinkley. She found a few local news items about him.

  She read from the tablet, “James Mill Reed is an English professor at Brinkley College.”

  “How long has he been teaching there?” Jake asked.

  Riley skimmed an article.

  “F
or twenty-eight years,” she said.

  “Wow,” Bill said. “Since three years before the murders happened. He might have been one of Melody Yanovich’s teachers.”

  Riley didn’t say anything. She let that possibility sink in for a moment.

  She knew that Brinkley College used to be a women’s school.

  What kind of predator might James Reed have been all these years?

  Were the deaths of those three women the only sins in his past?

  She skimmed through more online information. She didn’t see anything about accusations of sexual harassment or any other such transgressions. Instead, she saw that he’d been honored with praise and awards during his many years at the college.

  But Riley knew that a list of tributes didn’t mean he was innocent. It might only mean that he was exceptionally cunning, cruel, and manipulative.

  She struggled to hold her anticipation in check as Bill drove them back to the pretty little college town.

  *

  When they got to Brinkley, Bill parked the car in front of James Reed’s house. It was an attractive old brick house a short distance from the campus. Riley thought it looked very suitable for a highly honored academic.

  They were greeted at the door by a slim, elegant woman with a charming smile. She appeared to be in her fifties.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  Riley and Bill produced their badges and introduced themselves, then introduced Jake.

  “Is this the residence of James Mill Reed?” Riley asked.

  The woman looked puzzled.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I’m his wife, Shanna.”

  “Is your husband at home?” Riley asked.

  “Yes. May I ask what this is all about?”

  “We’d like to talk to him, please,” Riley said.

  Shanna Reed called up the stairs.

  “Jim, there are people here to see you. I’m afraid it’s rather … urgent.”

  A few moments latter, a dapper man walked briskly down the stairs. Riley quickly tried to assess whether he resembled the aged composite sketch. The man’s brown hair was streaked with gray, and he had brown eyes. His skin was fair, but not startlingly so.

  He didn’t look unlike the sketch.

  When they all introduced themselves, Riley saw that James Reed’s face suddenly grew a full shade paler.