Once Gone

“He keeps calling,” Marie said again. “He calls and breathes and hangs up. I know it’s him. He’s alive. He’s still stalking me.”

Riley felt a cold, creeping dread.

“It’s probably just an obscene phone caller,” she said, pretending to be calm. “But I can get the Bureau to check it out anyway. I can get them to send out a surveillance car if you’re scared. They’ll trace the calls.”

“No!” Marie said sharply. “No!”

Riley stared back, puzzled.

“Why not?” she asked.

“I don’t want to make him angry,” Marie said in a pathetic whimper.

Riley, overwhelmed, feeling a panic attack coming on, suddenly realized it had been a terrible idea to come here. If anything, she felt worse. She knew she could not sit in this oppressive dining room a moment longer.

“I’ve got to go,” Riley said, talking. “I’m so sorry. My daughter’s waiting.”

Marie suddenly grabbed Riley’s wrist with surprising strength, digging her nails into her skin.

She stared back, her icy blue eyes holding such intensity that it terrified Riley. That haunting look seared into her soul.

“Take the case,” Marie urged.

Riley could see in her eyes that Marie was confusing the new case and Peterson, blurring them together into one.

“Find that son of a bitch,” she added. “And kill him for me.”

Chapter 5

The man kept a short but discreet distance from the woman, glancing her way only fleetingly. He placed a few token items into his handbasket so that he’d look like just another shopper. He congratulated himself on how inconspicuous he was able to make himself. No one would guess his true power.

But then again, he’d never been the kind of man who attracted much attention. As a child, he’d felt practically invisible. Now, at long last, he was able to turn his own innocuousness to his advantage.

Just a few moments ago, he had stood right next to her, scarcely more than two feet away. Rapt in choosing her shampoo, she hadn’t noticed him at all.

He knew plenty about her, though. He knew her name was Cindy; that her husband owned an art gallery; that she worked in a free medical clinic. Today was one of her days off. Right now she was on her cell phone talking with somebody – her sister, it sounded like. She was laughing at something the person was saying to her. He burned red with anger, wondering if she were laughing at him, just as all the girls used to. His fury increased.

Cindy wore shorts, a tank top, and expensive-looking running shoes. He’d watched her from his car, jogging, and waited until she’d finished her run and came into the grocery store. He knew her routine for a non-working day like this. She’d take the items home and put them away, take a shower, then drive to meet her husband for lunch.

Her good figure owed a lot to physical exercise. She was no more than thirty years old, but the skin around her thighs wasn’t tight anymore. She’d probably lost a lot of weight at one time or another, perhaps pretty recently. She was undoubtedly proud of that.

Suddenly, the woman headed toward the nearest cash register. The man was taken by surprise. She had finished shopping earlier than usual. He rushed to get in line behind her, almost pushing another customer aside to do so. He silently berated himself for that.

As the cashier rang up the woman’s items, he inched up and stood extremely close to her – close enough to smell her body, now sweaty and pungent after her vigorous jog. It was a smell that he expected to become much, much better acquainted with very soon. But the smell would then be mixed with yet another odor – one that fascinated him because of its strangeness and mystery.

The smell of pain and terror.

For a moment, the lurker felt exhilarated, even pleasantly light-headed, with eager anticipation.

After paying for her groceries, she pushed her cart out through the automatic glass doors and out into the parking lot.

He felt no hurry now about paying for his own handful of items. He didn’t need to follow her home. He’d been there already – had even been inside her house. He had even handled her clothing. He’d take up his vigil again when she got off work.

It won’t be long now, he thought. Not long at all.

* * *

After Cindy MacKinnon got into her car, she sat there for a moment, feeling shaken and not knowing why. She remembered the weird feeling she’d just had back in the supermarket. It was an uncanny, irrational feeling of being watched. But it was more than that. It took her a few moments to put her finger on it.

Finally, she realized it was a feeling that someone had meant her harm.

She shivered deeply. During the last few days, that feeling had been coming and going. She chided herself, sure that it was completely groundless.

She shook her head, ridding herself of any vestiges of that feeling. As she started her car, she forced herself to think of something else, and she smiled at her cell phone conversation with her sister, Becky. Later this afternoon, Cindy would help her throw a big birthday party her three-year-old daughter, complete with cake and balloons.

It would be a beautiful day, she thought.

Chapter 6

Riley sat in the SUV beside Bill as he shifted gears, pushing the Bureau’s four-wheel-drive vehicle higher into the hills, and she wiped her palms on her pants legs. She didn’t know what to make of the sweatiness, and she didn’t know what to make of being here. After six weeks off the job, she felt out of touch with what her body was telling her. Being back felt surreal.

Riley was disturbed by the awkward tension. She and Bill had barely spoken during their hour-plus drive. Their old camaraderie, their playfulness, their uncanny rapport – none of that was there now. Riley felt pretty sure she knew why Bill was being so aloof. It wasn’t out of rudeness – it was out of worry. He, too, seemed to have doubts about whether she should be back on the job.

They drove toward Mosby State Park, where Bill had told her he had seen the most recent murder victim. As they went, Riley took in the geography all around her and slowly, her old sense of professionalism kicked in. She knew she had to snap out of it.

Find that son of a bitch and kill him for me.

Marie’s words haunted her, drove her on, made her choice simple.

But nothing seemed that simple now. For one thing, she couldn’t help worrying about April. Sending her to stay at her father’s house wasn’t ideal for anybody involved. But today was Saturday and Riley didn’t want to wait until Monday to see the crime scene.

The deep silence began to add to her anxiety, and she desperately felt the need to talk. Wracking her brain for something to say, finally, she said:

“So are you going to tell me what’s going on between you and Maggie?”

Bill turned to her, a surprised look on his face, and she couldn’t tell if it was due to her breaking the silence, or her blunt question. Whichever it was, she immediately regretted it. Her bluntness, many people told her, could be off-putting. She never meant to be blunt – she just had no time to waste.

Bill exhaled.

“She thinks I’m having an affair.”

Riley felt a jolt of surprise.

“What?”

“With my job,” Bill said, laughing a bit sourly. “She thinks I’m having an affair with my job. She thinks I love all this more than I love her. I keep telling her she’s being silly. Anyway, I can’t exactly end it – not my job, anyway.”

Riley shook her head.