Waiting

CHAPTER SIX

When Jake Crivaro pulled up to the apartment building, Riley Sweeney was already waiting outside. Jake noticed that she looked more than a little pale as she got into the car.

“Not feeling well?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Riley said.

She doesn’t look fine, Jake thought. She doesn’t sound fine, either.

Jake wondered if maybe she’d partied too hard last night. These young interns did that sometimes. Or maybe she’d just had too much to drink right at home. She’d certainly seemed discouraged when he’d dropped her off yesterday—and small wonder, after the chewing out he’d given her. Maybe she’d tried to drown her sorrows.

Jake hoped his protégé wasn’t too hung over to function.

As he pulled away from the building, Riley asked …

“Where are we going?”

Jake hesitated for a moment.

Then he said, “Look, we’re going to start from scratch today.”

Riley looked at him with a vaguely surprised expression.

He continued, “The truth is, what you did yesterday—well, it wasn’t entirely a screw-up. You found the Madison brothers’ drug money. And that burner phone turned out to be plenty useful. It had some important phone numbers in it, which made it possible for the cops to round up a few gang members—including Malik Madison, the brother who was still at large. It was stupid of them to buy a prepaid phone and not dump it after using it. But I guess they just didn’t think anybody was going to find it.”

He glanced her way and added, “They were wrong.”

Riley just kept staring back at him, as if she was having trouble understanding what he was saying.

Jake resisted the impulse to say …

“I’m really sorry I gave you such a hard time.”

Instead he said, “But you’ve got to follow instructions. And you’ve got to respect procedure.”

“I understand,” Riley said tiredly. “Thanks for giving me another chance.”

Jake growled under his breath. He reminded himself that he didn’t want to give the kid too much encouragement.

But he did feel bad about how he’d treated her yesterday.

I’m overreacting to things, he thought.

He’d pissed off some colleagues at Quantico by pushing for Riley to get into the program. One agent in particular, Toby Wolsky, had wanted his nephew Jordan to be an intern this summer, but Jake had gotten Riley in instead of him. He’d thrown his considerable credentials into that effort and called in a couple of favors owed him.

Jake didn’t think much of Wolsky as an agent, and he had no reason to think his nephew had any potential to speak of. But Wolsky had friends in Quantico who were now unhappy with Jake.

In a way, Jake could understand why.

For all they knew, Riley was just some ordinary college psych graduate who’d never even thought about getting into law enforcement.

And the truth was, Jake didn’t know much more about her either—except that he’d seen her instincts at work, up close and personal. He remembered vividly how readily she’d understood the killer’s thoughts back in Lanton, with just a little coaching from him. Aside from himself, Jake had seldom met anyone with those kinds of instincts—gut-level insights that very few other agents could even understand.

Of course, he couldn’t discount the possibility that what she’d done in Lanton had been little more than a fluke.

Maybe today he’d get a better idea of what she could do.

Riley asked again …

“Where are we going?”

“To a murder scene,” Jake said.

He didn’t want to tell her anything more until they got there.

He wanted to observe how she reacted to a really bizarre situation.

And from what he’d heard, this murder scene was about as bizarre as a murder scene could get. He’d gotten called about it just a little while ago himself, and he was still having trouble believing what he’d been told.

We’ll see what we see, I guess.

*

Riley thought maybe she was feeling a bit better as she rode along with Agent Crivaro.

Still, she wished he’d tell her what this was all about.

A murder scene, he said.

That was more than she’d bargained for in the summer program—let alone on her second day. Yesterday had been unexpected enough.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

But she was pretty sure that Ryan wouldn’t like the idea at all.

She realized she hadn’t yet told Ryan that she was shadowing Jake Crivaro. Ryan wouldn’t approve of that either. Ryan had mistrusted Crivaro from the start, especially for the way he had helped Riley get a glimpse into a killer’s mind.

She remembered what Ryan had said about one of those episodes …

“Are you telling me that FBI guy—Crivaro—played mind games with you? Why? Just for fun?”

Of course Riley knew that Crivaro hadn’t put her through all that “just for fun.”

He’d been dead serious about it. Those experiences had been absolutely necessary.

They had helped make it possible to eventually catch the killer.

But what am I in for now? Riley wondered.