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Once Gone
Chapter 21
Riley struggled against traffic while trying to keep Marie on the phone. She drove through an intersection after a yellow light switched to red; she was driving dangerously and she knew it. But what else could she do? She was in her own car, not an agency vehicle, so she had no lights and siren.
“I’m hanging up, Riley,” Marie said for the fifth time.
“No!” Riley barked yet again, fighting down a surge of despair. “Stay on the phone, Marie.”
Marie’s voice sounded weary now.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said. “Save yourself if you can, but I really can’t do this. I’m through with this. I’m going to stop it all right now.”
Riley felt ready to explode from panic. What did Marie mean? What was she going to do?
“You can do this, Marie,” Riley said.
“Goodbye, Riley.”
“No!” Riley shouted. “Just wait. Wait! It’s all you have to do. I’ll be right there.”
She was driving much faster than the flow of traffic, wending among the lanes like a madwoman. Several times, other drivers honked at her.
“Don’t hang up,” Riley demanded fiercely. “Do you hear me?”
Marie said nothing. But Riley could hear her sobbing and keening.
The sounds were perversely reassuring. At least Marie was still there. At least she was still on the phone. But could Riley keep her there? She knew that the poor woman was plummeting into an abyss of pure animal terror. Marie no longer had a rational thought in her head; she seemed to be almost insane with fear.
Riley’s own memories swarmed into her mind. Terrible days in a beastlike state in which the world of humanity simply didn’t exist. Total darkness, the feeling of the very existence of a world outside of the darkness slipping away, and a complete loss of any sense of the passage of time.
I’ve got to fight it, she told herself.
The memories enveloped her…
With nothing to hear or see, Riley tried to keep her other senses engaged. She felt the sour taste of fear back in her throat, rising up in her mouth until it turned into an electrical tingling on the tip of her tongue. She scratched at the dirt floor she was sitting on, exploring its dampness. She sniffed the mold and mildew that surrounded her.
Those sensations were all that still kept her in the world of the living.
Then in the midst of the blackness, came a blinding light and the roar of Peterson’s propane torch.
A sharp bump shook Riley out of her hideous reverie. It took her a second to realize that her car had struck against a curb and that she was in danger of veering into oncoming traffic. Horns blared.
Riley regained control of her car and looked around. She wasn’t far from Georgetown.
“Marie,” she shouted. “Are you still there?”
Again, she heard only a muffled sob. That was good. But what could Riley do now? She wavered. She could call for FBI help in D.C., but by the time she explained the problem and got agents sent to the address, God only knew what would happen. Besides, that would mean ending the call with Marie.
She had to keep her on the phone, but how?
How was she going to pull Marie out of that abyss? She had almost fallen into it herself.
Riley remembered something. Long ago, she had been trained in how to keep crisis callers on the line. She’d never had to use that training until now. She struggled to remember what she was supposed to do. Those lessons had been so long ago.
Part of a lesson came back to her. She was taught to do anything, say anything, to keep the caller talking. It didn’t matter how meaningless or irrelevant it might be. What mattered was that the caller kept hearing a concerned human voice.
“Marie, there’s something you need to do for me,” Riley said.
“What’s that?”
Riley’s brain was rushing frantically, making up what to say as she went along.
“I need for you to go to your kitchen,” she said. “I want you to tell me exactly what herbs and spices you’ve got in your rack.”
Marie didn’t answer for a moment. Riley worried. Was Marie in the right state of mind to go along with such an irrelevant distraction?
“Okay,” Marie said. “I’m going there now.”
Riley breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps this would buy her some time. She could hear the clinking of spice jars over the phone. Marie’s voice sounded truly strange now – hysterical and robotic at the same time.
“I’ve got dried oregano. And crushed red pepper. And nutmeg.”
“Excellent,” Riley said. “What else?”
“Dried thyme. And ground ginger. And black peppercorns.”
Marie paused. How could Riley keep this going?
“Have you got curry powder?” Riley asked.
After a clink of bottles, Marie said, “No.”
Riley spoke slowly, as if giving life-and-death instructions – because really, she was doing exactly that.
“Well, get a pad of paper and a pencil,” Riley said. “Write that down. You’ll need to get it when you buy groceries.”
Riley heard the sound of scribbling.
“What else have you got?” Riley asked.
Then came a deathly pause.
“This is no good, Riley,” Marie said in a tone of numb despair.
Riley stammered helplessly. “Just – just humor me, okay?”
Another pause fell.
“He’s here, Riley.”
Riley felt a rock-hard knot in her throat.
“He’s where?” she asked.
“He’s in the house. I get it now. He’s been here all along. There’s nothing you can do.”
Riley’s thoughts churned as she tried to make sense of what was happening. Marie might be slipping into paranoid delusions. Riley understood this all too well from her own struggles with PTSD.
On the other hand, Marie might be telling the truth.
“How do you know that, Marie?” Riley asked, looking for an opportunity to pass a slow-moving truck.
“I hear him,” Marie said. “I hear his footsteps. He’s upstairs. No, he’s in the front hallway. No, he’s in the basement.”
Is she hallucinating? Riley wondered.
It was entirely possible. Riley had heard more than her share of nonexistent noises in the days after her abduction. Even recently she sometimes couldn’t trust her five senses. Trauma played awful tricks on the imagination.
“He’s everywhere in the house,” Marie said.
“No,” Riley replied firmly. “He can’t be everywhere.”
Riley managed to pass a sluggish delivery truck. A sense of futility was rolling over her in what felt like tidal waves. It was a terrible feeling, almost like drowning.
When Marie spoke again, she was no longer sobbing. She sounded resigned now, even mysteriously tranquil.
“Maybe he’s like a ghost, Riley. Maybe that’s what happened when you blew him up. You killed his body but you didn’t kill his evil. Now he can be in a whole lot of places at once. Now there’s no stopping him, ever. You can’t fight a ghost. Give it up, Riley. You can’t do anything. I can’t either. All I can do is not let the same thing happen to me again.”
“Don’t hang up! I need you to do something else for me.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Marie said, “What? What now, Riley?”
“I need you to stay on this line, but I need you to call 911 on your landline.”
Marie’s voice turned into a slight growl. “Jesus, Riley. How many times do I have to tell you that I cut off my landline?”
In her confusion, Riley had forgotten. Marie actually sounded a little irritated. That was good. Anger was better than panic.
“Besides,” Marie continued, “what good’s it going to do to call 911? What can they do to help me? Nobody can help. He’s everywhere. He’ll get me sooner or later. He’ll get you too. We both might as well give up.”
Riley felt stymied. Marie’s delusions were taking on an intractable logic of their own. And she didn’t have time to persuade Marie that Peterson was not a ghost.
“We’re friends, aren’t we, Marie?” Riley finally said. “You once told me that you’d do anything for me. Was that true?”
Marie started crying again.
“Of course it’s true.”
“Then hang up and call 911. There doesn’t have to be a reason. It doesn’t have to do any good. Just do it because I want you too.”
A long pause fell. Riley couldn’t even hear Marie breathing.
“I know you want to give up, Marie. I understand. That’s your choice. But I don’t want to give up. Maybe it’s stupid, but I don’t. That’s why I’m asking you to call 911. Because you said you’d do anything for me. And I want you to do it. I need you to do it. For me.”
The silence continued. Was Marie even still on the line?
“Do you promise?” she asked.
The call ended with a click. Whether Marie would call for help or not, Riley couldn’t leave anything to chance. She picked up her cell phone and punched in 911.
“This is Special Agent Riley Paige, FBI,” she said when the operator answered. “I’m calling about a possible intruder. Someone extremely dangerous.”
Riley gave the operator Marie’s address.
“We’ll have a team there right away,” the operator said.
“Good,” Riley said, and ended the call.
Riley then tried Marie’s number again, but got no response.
Someone has to get there in time, she thought. Someone has to get there right now.
Meanwhile, she struggled against a renewed flood of dark memories. She had to get control of herself. Whatever was about to happen next, she needed to keep her wits about her.
When Marie’s red brick townhouse came into view, Riley felt a surge of alarm. No emergency vehicles had yet arrived. She heard police sirens wailing in the distance. They were on their way.
Riley double-parked her car and dashed for the front door, realizing she was the first responder. When she tried the doorknob, the door swung open. But why was it unlocked?
She stepped inside and drew her gun.
“Marie!” Riley called out. “Marie!”
No answer came.
Riley knew for certain that something awful had happened here – or was happening right now. She stepped further into the front hallway.
“Marie!” she called again. The house remained silent.
The police sirens were louder now, but no help had yet arrived.
Riley was starting to believe the worst now – that Peterson had been here, and perhaps still was here.
She made her way along the dimly lit hallway. She kept calling Marie’s name as she studied every door. Might he be in the closet to the left? What about the bathroom door over to the right?
If she encountered Peterson, she wouldn’t be taken by him again.
She would kill the bastard once and for all.
Chapter 22
In spite of Riley’s calls, no answer came from Marie. There were no sounds in the house other than those she made herself. The place felt empty. She made her way up the stairs and turned carefully into an open doorway.
As she turned the corner, Riley’s breath stopped in her throat. She felt as if the world were collapsing beneath her.
There was Marie: suspended in mid-air, hanging by her neck from a cord tied to a light fixture on the high ceiling. An overturned stepladder lay on the floor.
Time seemed to stop as Riley’s mind rejected reality.
Then her knees buckled and she caught herself against the door frame. She let out a long harsh sound.
“NOOOO!”
She dashed across the room, turned the ladder upright and scrambled up on it. She wrapped an arm around Marie’s body to relieve the pressure and fingered Marie’s neck, searching for any sign of a pulse.
Riley was sobbing now. “Be alive, Marie. Be alive, goddammit.”
But it was too late. Marie’s neck was broken. She was dead.
“Christ,” Riley said, collapsing back onto the ladder. Pain surged up from somewhere deep in her abdomen. She wanted to die here, too.
As moments passed, Riley became dimly aware of sounds downstairs. The first responders had arrived. A familiar emotional mechanism kicked in. Basic human fear and grief gave way to a cold, professional efficiency.
“Up here!” she shouted.
She wiped her sleeve across her face to blot the tears.
Five heavily-armed, Kevlar-clad officers charged up the stairs. The woman in front was visibly surprised to see Riley.
“I’m Officer Rita Graham, the team chief,” she said. “Who are you?”
Riley got off the ladder and flashed her badge. “Special Agent Riley Paige, FBI.”
The woman looked uneasy.
“How did you get here before we did?”
“She was a friend of mine,” Riley said, fully in professional mode now. “Her name was Marie Sayles. She called me. She told me something was wrong, and I was already on the way when I called 911. I didn’t get here on time. She’s dead.”
The responder team quickly checked and confirmed Riley’s declaration.
“Suicide?” Officer Graham asked.
Riley nodded. She had no doubt at all that Marie had killed herself.
“What’s this?” the team leader asked, pointing at a folded notecard sitting on an end table next to the bed.
Riley looked at the card. Written in a barely legible scrawl was a message:
This is the only way.
“A suicide note?”
Riley nodded again grimly. But she knew that it wasn’t the usual kind of suicide note. It wasn’t an explanation, and it certainly wasn’t an apology.
It’s advice, Riley thought. It’s advice for me.
The team took pictures and made notes. Riley knew that they would wait for the coroner before removing the body.
“Let’s talk downstairs,” Officer Graham said. She led Riley down to the living room, sat down on a chair, and gestured for Riley to sit down too.
The curtains were still drawn and no lights were on in the room. Riley wanted to throw open the curtains and let in some sunlight, but she knew better than to change anything. She sat down on the sofa.
Graham turned on a table lamp beside her chair.
“Tell me what happened,” the officer said, taking out a notepad and a pencil. Although she had the toughened face of a seasoned cop, there was a sympathetic look in her eyes.
“She was the victim of an abduction,” Riley said. “Almost eight weeks ago. We both were victims. You may have read about it. The Sam Peterson case.”
Graham’s eyes widened.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “The guy who tortured and killed all those women, the guy with the blowtorch. So that was you – the agent who escaped and blew him up?”
“Right,” Riley said. Then, after a pause, she said, “The trouble is, I’m not sure I really did blow him up. I’m not positive that he’s dead. Marie didn’t believe that he was. That’s what finally got to her. She just couldn’t take not knowing. And maybe he was stalking her again.”
As Riley continued her explanation, the words flowed automatically, almost as if she’d learned the whole thing by heart. She now felt completely detached from the scene, listening to herself report how this horrible thing had happened.
After helping Officer Graham get a handle on the case, Riley told her how to contact Marie’s next of kin. But as she talked, anger was building beneath her professional veneer – a cold, icy anger. Peterson had claimed another victim. Whether he was dead or alive didn’t matter. He’d killed Marie.
And Marie had died absolutely certain that Riley was doomed to be his next victim, whether by his hand or her own. Riley wanted to take hold of Marie and physically shake this wretched idea out of her head.
This is not the only way! she wanted to tell her.
But did she believe that? Riley didn’t know. There seemed to be too damned much she didn’t know.
The coroner arrived while Riley and Officer Graham were still talking. Graham got up and went to meet him. Then she turned to Riley and said, “I’ll be upstairs for a few minutes. I’d like you to hang around and fill me in a bit more.”
Riley shook her head.
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “There’s someone I need to talk to.” She pulled out her card and put it down on the table. “You can get in touch with me.”
The officer began to object, but Riley didn’t give her a chance; she got up and walked out of Marie’s dark home. She had urgent business.
* * *
An hour later, Riley was driving west through the Virginia countryside.
Do I really want to do this? she asked herself again.
She was exhausted. She hadn’t slept well last night, and now she had been through a waking nightmare. Thank goodness she’d talked with Mike in between. He had helped steady her, but she was sure he’d never approve of what she was going to do now. She wasn’t altogether sure she was fully in her right mind.
She was taking the quickest route from Georgetown to Senator Mitch Newbrough’s manor house. That narcissistic politician had a lot to answer for. He was hiding something, something that might lead to the real killer. And that made him partly responsible for this new victim.
Riley knew that she was headed for trouble. She didn’t care.
It was late afternoon when she pulled into the circular drive in front of the stone mansion. She parked, got out of the car, and walked up to the enormous front doors. When she rang the doorbell, she was greeted by a formally dressed gentleman – Newbrough’s butler, she assumed.
“What may I do for you, ma’am?” he asked stiffly.
Riley flashed her badge at him.
“Special Agent Riley Paige,” she said. “The Senator knows me. I need to talk with him.”
With a skeptical look, the butler turned away from her. He raised a walkie-talkie to his lips, whispered, and then listened. The butler turned back toward Riley with a rather superior smirk.
“The Senator does not wish to see you,” he said. “He’s quite emphatic about it. Good day, ma’am.”
But before the man could shut the doors, Riley pushed straight past him and strode on into the house.
“I’m going to notify security,” the butler called after her.
“You go right ahead and do that,” Riley shouted over her shoulder.
Riley had no idea where to look for the Senator. He could be anywhere in the cavernous mansion. But she figured it didn’t matter. She could probably get him to come to her.
She headed into the living room where she had met with him before and plopped herself down on the huge couch. She fully intended to make herself right at home until the Senator showed himself.
Only a few seconds passed before a big man clad in a black suit stepped into the room. Riley knew by his manner that he was the Senator’s security man.
“The Senator has asked for you to leave,” he said, crossing his arms.
Riley didn’t budge from the couch. She looked the man over, assessing just how much of a threat he really was. He was big enough to probably be able to remove her by force. But her own self-defense skills were very good. If he took her on, more than one of them was going to get pretty badly hurt, and doubtless some of the Senator’s antiques would be damaged.
“I hope they told you that I’m FBI,” she said, locking eyes with him. She doubted very much that he’d actually draw his weapon on an FBI agent.
Not easily intimidated, the man stared back at her. But he didn’t move toward her.
Riley heard footsteps approaching behind her, and then the sound of the Senator’s voice.
“What is it this time, Agent Paige? I’m a very busy man.”
The security man stepped aside as Newbrough walked in front of her and stood there. His photogenic politician’s smile had a sarcastic cast to it. He was silent for a moment. Riley sensed right away that they were about to engage in a battle of wills. She was determined not to move from the couch.
“You were wrong, Senator,” Riley said. “There wasn’t anything political about your daughter’s murder – and nothing personal either. You gave me an enemies list, and I’m sure you passed along that same list to your lapdog at the Bureau.”
Newbrough’s smile twisted into a slight sneer.
“I take it you mean Special Agent in Charge Carl Walder,” he said.
Riley knew that her choice of words was rash and that she’d live to regret it. But right now she didn’t care.
“That list was a waste of the Bureau’s time, Senator,” Riley said. “And meanwhile another victim has been abducted.”
Newbrough stood firmly rooted to his spot.
“I understand that the Bureau has made an arrest,” he said. “The suspect has confessed. But he hasn’t said much, has he? There’s some connection to me, you can be sure of it. He’ll tell all in due time. I’ll make sure that Agent Walder follows through on it.”
Riley tried to hide her amazement. After yet another abduction, Newbrough still considered himself to be the primary target of the killer’s wrath. The man’s ego was truly outrageous. His capacity to believe that everything was about him had no limits.
Newbrough tilted his head with seeming curiosity.
“But you seem to be blaming me somehow,” he said. “I take umbrage at that, Agent Paige. It’s not my fault that your own fecklessness has led to the capture of another victim.”
Riley’s face tingled with rage. She didn’t dare reply. She’d say something far too rash.
He walked over to a liquor cabinet and poured himself a large glass of what Riley assumed to be extremely expensive whiskey. He was obviously making a point of not asking Riley if she wanted a drink.
Riley knew that it was high time for her to get to the point.
“The last time I was here, there was something you didn’t tell me,” she said.
Newbrough turned to face her again, taking a long sip from his glass.
“Didn’t I answer all your questions?” he said.
“It’s not that. You just didn’t tell me something. About Reba. And I think it’s time you did.”
Newbrough held her in a penetrating stare.
“Did she like dolls, Senator?” Riley asked.
Newbrough shrugged. “I suppose all little girls do,” he said.
“I don’t mean as a little girl. I mean as an adult. Did she collect them?”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”
Those were the first words Newbrough had said so far that Riley truly believed. A man this pathologically self-centered knew little about anybody else’s likes and interests – not even those of his own daughter.
“I’d like to talk to your wife,” Riley said.
“Certainly not,” Newbrough snapped. He was adopting a new expression now – one that Riley had seen him use on television. Much like his smile, this expression was carefully rehearsed, undoubtedly practiced thousands of times in a mirror. It was meant to convey moral outrage.
“You really have no decency, do you, Agent Paige?” he said, his voice shaking with calculated anger. “You come into a house of grief, bringing no comfort, no answers to a bereaved family. Instead you make veiled accusations. You blame perfectly innocent people for your own incompetence.”
He shook his head in a gesture of injured righteousness.
“What a mean, cruel little woman you are,” he said. “You must have brought terrible pain to a great many people.”
Riley felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. This was a tactic she hadn’t been prepared for – a complete turning of the moral tables. And he’d hit her own genuine guilt and self-doubt.
He knows exactly how to play me, she thought.
She knew that she had to leave right now or she’d do something she’d regret. He was practically goading her in that direction. Without a word, she got up from the couch and walked out of the living room toward the front entrance.
She heard the Senator’s voice call after her.
“Your career is over, Agent Paige. I want you to know that.”
Riley brushed past the butler and charged out the front door. She got in her car and started to drive.
Waves of rage, frustration, and exhaustion crashed over her. A woman’s life was at stake, and nobody in the world was rescuing her. She was sure that Walder was just expanding the search area around Gumm’s apartment. And Riley was sure they were looking in the wrong place. It was up to her to do something. But she no longer had any idea what to do. Coming here certainly hadn’t helped. Could she trust her own judgment anymore?
Riley hadn’t driven for more than ten minutes before her cell phone buzzed. She looked down at it and saw that it was a text from Walder. She had no trouble guessing what it was about.
Well, she thought bitterly. At least the Senator didn’t waste any time.
