Once Cold

“I can’t help them, Mommy!” Riley cried. “I’m just a little girl!”

Mommy smiled.

“No, you’re not just a little girl, Riley. You’re all grown up. Turn around and look.”

Riley turned and found herself looking into a full-length mirror.

It was true.

She was a woman now.

And the voices were still calling out …

“Help us! Please!”

Riley’s eyes snapped open again.

She was shaking even more than before, and gasping for breath.

She remembered something that Paula Steen had said to her.

“My daughter’s killer will never be brought to justice.”

Paula had also said …

“It was never your case to begin with.”

Riley felt a new sense of determination.

It was true – the Matchbook Killer hadn’t been her case before.

But she could no longer leave it to the past.

At long last, the Matchbook Killer had to be brought to justice.

It’s my case now, she thought.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Riley had no more nightmares that night, but even so her sleep was restless. Surprisingly, she felt wide awake and energized when she got up the next morning.

She had work to do that day.

She got dressed and went downstairs. April and Jilly were in the kitchen eating a breakfast that Gabriela had made for them. The girls both looked sad, but not as devastated as they’d been yesterday.

Riley saw that a place had been set at the table for her, so she sat down and said, “Those pancakes look wonderful. Pass them over, please.”

As she ate her breakfast and drank coffee, the girls began to look more cheerful. They didn’t mention Ryan’s absence, instead chatting about other kids at school.

They’re tough, Riley thought.

And they’d both gotten through their share of tough times before now.

She was sure that they’d pull through this crisis about Ryan as well.

Riley finished her coffee and said, “I do have to get to the office.”

She stood up and kissed April on the cheek, and then Jilly.

“Go catch some bad guys, Mom,” Jilly said.

Riley smiled.

“I’ll be sure to do that, dear,” she replied.

*

As soon as she got to her office, Riley opened up computerized files on the twenty-five-year-old case. As she scanned old newspaper stories, she remembered reading some of them when they had first appeared. She’d been a teenager at the time, and the Matchbook Killer had seemed like the stuff that nightmares were made of.

The murders had happened here in Virginia near Richmond, with just three weeks in between each death.

Riley opened up a map and found Greybull, a small town off of Interstate 64. Tilda Steen, the last victim, had lived and died in Greybull. The other two murders had taken place in the towns of Brinkley and Denison. Riley could see that all the towns lay within about a hundred miles of each other.

Riley closed the map and looked at the newspaper stories again.

One banner headline screamed …

MATCHBOOK KILLER CLAIMS THIRD VICTIM!

She shuddered a little.

Yes, she remembered seeing that headline from many years ago.

The article went on to describe the panic that the murders had struck throughout the area – especially among young women.

According to the article, the public and the police were both asking the same questions:

When and where was the killer going to strike next?

Who was going to be his next victim?

But there had been no fourth victim.

Why? Riley wondered.

It was a question that law enforcement had failed to answer.

The murderer had seemed like a ruthlessly motivated serial killer – the type who was likely to keep right on killing until he was caught. Instead, he had simply disappeared. And his disappearance had been as mysterious as the killings themselves.