Once Taken

Meredith nodded and said nothing. Riley knew he was waiting for her to speak. Doubtless he had also heard about her belief that Peterson had been the intruder. He was giving her a chance to voice her opinion. But she was sure that Meredith wouldn’t be any more inclined than anybody else to agree with her about Peterson.

“Well, I’d better be going,” he said. “Let me know whenever you’re up for coffee or lunch.”

“I’ll do that.”

Meredith paused and turned back toward Riley.

Slowly and carefully, he said, “Do be careful, Agent Paige.”

Riley detected a world of meaning in those words. Not long ago, another higher-up in the agency had suspended her for subordination. She’d been reinstated, but her position could be still tenuous. Riley sensed that Meredith was giving her a friendly warning. He didn’t want her to do anything to jeopardize herself. And raising a lot of fuss about Peterson might cause trouble with those who had declared the case closed.

As soon as she was alone, Riley went to her filing cabinet and pulled out the thick file on the Peterson case. She opened it up on her desk and browsed through it, refreshing her memory about her nemesis. She didn’t find much that was helpful.

The truth was that the man remained an enigma. There hadn’t even been any records of his existence until Bill and Riley finally tracked him down. Peterson might not even be his real name, and they’d turned up several different first names supposedly connected with him.

As Riley looked through the file, she came across photographs of his victims – women who had been found in shallow graves. They had all borne burn scars, and the cause of death had been manual strangulation. Riley shuddered with the memory of the large, powerful hands that had caught her and caged her like an animal.

Nobody knew just how many women he had killed. There might be many more corpses yet to be found. And until Marie and Riley had been captured and lived to tell about it, nobody knew about how he liked to torment women in the dark with a propane torch. And nobody else was willing to believe that Peterson was still alive.

The whole thing was really getting her down. Riley was known for her ability to get into the minds of killers – an ability that sometimes scared her. Even so, she’d never been able to get into Peterson’s mind. And as of right now, she felt that she understood him even less.

He had never struck Riley as an organized psychopath. The fact that he left his victims in shallow graves suggested quite the opposite. He was no perfectionist. Even so, he was meticulous enough not to leave clues behind. The man was truly paradoxical.

She remembered something that Marie had said to her shortly before her suicide …

“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.”

He wasn’t a ghost, and Riley knew it. She was sure – more sure than ever – that he was out there, and that she was his next target. Even so, he might as well be a ghost as far as she was concerned. Aside from herself, nobody else even believed that he existed.

“Where are you, you bastard?” she whispered aloud.

She didn’t know, and she had no way to find out. She was completely stymied. She had no choice but to let the whole thing go for now. She closed the folder and put it back in its place in her filing cabinet.

Then her office phone rang. She saw that the call was coming through on a line shared by all the special agents. It was the line that the BAU phone bank used to forward appropriate call-ins to agents. As a rule of thumb, whichever agent picked up such a call first would take the case.

Riley glanced around at the other offices. Nobody else seemed to be in at the moment. The other agents were all either taking a break or out working other cases. Riley answered the phone.

“Special Agent Riley Paige. What can I do to help you?”

The voice on the line sounded harried.

“Agent Paige, this is Raymond Alford, Chief of Police in Reedsport, New York. We’ve got a real problem here. Would it be okay for us to do this by video chat? I think maybe I could explain it better. And I’ve got some images that you’d better see for yourself.”

Riley’s curiosity was piqued. “Certainly,” she said. She gave Alford her contact information. A few moments later she was talking to him face to face. He was a slender, balding man who appeared to be well along in years. At the moment, his expression was anxious and tired.

“We had a murder here last night,” Alford told her. “A real ugly one. Let me show you.”

A photograph came up on Riley’s computer screen. It showed what appeared to be a woman’s body hanging from a chain over railroad tracks. The body was wrapped in a multitude of chains, and it seemed to be oddly dressed.

“What’s the victim wearing?” Riley asked.

“A straitjacket,” Alford said.

Riley was startled. Looking closer at the photograph, she could see that it was true. Then the picture disappeared, and Riley found herself face to face with Alford again.

“Chief Alford, I appreciate your alarm. But what makes you think this is a case for the Behavioral Analysis Unit?”

“Because this exact same thing happened very near here five years ago,” Alford said.

An image appeared of another woman’s corpse. She, too, was chained all over and bound in a straitjacket.

“Back then it was a part-time prison worker, Marla Blainey. The MO was identical – except that she was just dumped on the riverbank, not hung up.”

Alford’s face reappeared.

“This time it was Rosemary Pickens, a local nurse,” he said. “Nobody can imagine a motive, not for either of the women. They were both well-liked.”

Alford slumped wearily and shook his head.

“Agent Paige, my people and I are really out of our depth here. This new killing must be a serial or copycat. The trouble is, neither of those makes any sense. We don’t get that kind of problem in Reedsport. This is just a little Hudson River tourist town with a population of about seven thousand. Sometimes we have to break up a fight or fish a tourist out of the river. That’s about as bad as things usually get here.”

Riley thought about it. This actually did look like a case for the BAU. She really ought to refer Alford directly to Meredith.

But Riley glanced toward Meredith’s office and saw that he hadn’t returned yet. She’d have to alert him about this later. In the meantime, maybe she could help a little.

“What were the causes of death?” she asked.

“Throats slashed, both of them.”

Riley tried not to show her surprise. Strangulation and blunt force strike were far more common than slashing.

This seemed to be a highly unusual killer. Even so, it was the kind of psychopath that Riley knew well. She specialized in just such cases. It seemed a shame that she wasn’t going to be able to bring her skills to this one. In the wake of her recent trauma, she wouldn’t get the assignment.

“Have you taken the body down?” Riley asked.

“Not yet,” Alford said. “She’s still hanging there.”

“Then don’t. Leave it there for now. Wait till our agents get there.”

Alford didn’t look pleased.

“Agent Paige, that’s going to be a tall order. It’s right next to the train tracks and it can be seen from the river. And the town doesn’t need this kind of publicity. I’m under a lot of pressure to take it down.”

“Leave it,” Riley said. “I know it’s not easy, but it’s important. It won’t be long. We’ll get agents there this afternoon.”

Alford nodded in mute compliance.

“Have you got any more photos of the latest victim?” Riley asked. “Any close-ups?”