Once Cold

Oh, there’s been a mistake, all right, Riley thought.

“You’re not answering my question,” she said.

Ryan was starting to sound angry now.

“What if I am seeing someone else? Riley, we never made any agreement to be exclusive.”

Riley was stunned. No, she couldn’t remember them making any such agreement. But even so …

“I just assumed – ” she began.

“Maybe you assumed too much,” Ryan interrupted.

Riley tried to fight down her temper.

“What’s her name?” she asked.

“Lina.”

“Is it serious?”

“I don’t know.”

The phone was shaking in Riley’s hand.

She said, “Don’t you think it’s about time you made up your mind?”

A silence fell.

Finally, Ryan said, “Riley, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this. I need some space. This whole family thing – I thought I was ready for it, but I wasn’t. I want to enjoy my life. You should take some time to enjoy your life too.”

Riley could hear an all-too-familiar tone in his voice.

He’s back in playboy mode again, she thought.

He was relishing his new liaison, pulling away from Riley and his family. He’d seemed like a changed man recently – more committed and responsible. She should have realized all along that it wouldn’t last. He hadn’t changed at all.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked.

Ryan sounded relieved to be getting his feelings out at last.

“Look, this whole thing of going back and forth between your house and mine – it’s not really working for me. It feels too temporary. I think I’d better leave.”

“April’s going to be upset,” Riley said.

“I know. But we’ll work something out. I’ll keep spending time with her. And she’ll be OK. She’s been through worse.”

Ryan’s glibness was making Riley angrier by the second. She felt ready to explode.

“And what about Jilly?” Riley said. “She’s become very fond of you. She’s come to count on you. You help her with lots of things, like her homework. She needs you. She’s going through so many changes, and it’s hard for her.”

There was another pause. Riley knew that Ryan was getting ready to say something she really wasn’t going to like.

“Riley, Jilly was your decision. I admire you for it. But I never signed up for it. Somebody else’s troubled teenager is too much for me. It’s not fair.”

For a moment, Riley was too furious to speak.

Ryan was back to thinking about no one’s feelings but his own.

The whole thing was hopeless.

“Come over here and get your things,” she said through clenched teeth. “Be sure to come when the girls are in school. I want everything of yours out of here as soon as possible.”

She hung up the phone.

She got up from her desk and paced the room, seething with anger.

She wished she had some outlet for her rage, but there wasn’t a thing she could do right now. She was in for a sleepless night of it.

But tomorrow, she could do something to let off steam.

CHAPTER FOUR

Riley knew that an attack was coming, and it was going be up close and sudden. And it could come from anywhere in these labyrinthine spaces. She worked her way carefully along a narrow hallway of the abandoned building.

But memories from last night kept intruding …

“I need some space,” Ryan had said.

“This whole family thing – I thought I was ready for it, but I wasn’t.”

“I want to enjoy my life.”

Riley was angry – not just with Ryan, but with herself for letting such thoughts distract her.

Stay focused, she told herself. You’ve got a bad guy to take down.

And the situation was grim. Riley’s younger colleague Lucy Vargas had already been wounded. Riley’s longtime partner Bill Jeffreys had stayed with Lucy. They were both around a corner behind Riley, holding off approaching shooters. Riley heard a three-round burst from Bill’s rifle.

With danger lurking ahead of her, she couldn’t look back to see what was happening.

“What’s your situation, Bill?” she called out.

Now she heard a series of semiautomatic shots.

“One down, two more to go,” Bill called to her. “I’ll take these guys out, no problem. And I’ve got Lucy covered, she’ll be OK. You keep your eyes forward. That guy in front is good. Real good.”

Bill was right. Riley couldn’t see the shooter up ahead, but he’d already hit Lucy, who was an excellent markswoman herself. If Riley didn’t take him out, he was likely to kill all three of them.