Once Pined. Blake Pierce

that maybe there wouldn’t be. Who was going to write it, after all?

      He’d been all alone in the world, at least as far as she knew. One wife was dead, another had left him, and his two children wouldn’t speak to him. He’d said barely a word to her about anybody else – friends, relatives, business colleagues.

      Who cares? she wondered.

      She felt a familiar bitter rage rising in her throat.

      Rage against all the people in Cody Woods’ life who didn’t care whether he lived or died.

      Rage against the smiling staff at Signet Rehab, pretending that they liked and would miss Hallie Stillians.

      Rage against people everywhere, with their lies and secrets and meanness.

      As she often did, she imagined herself soaring over the world upon black wings, wreaking death and destruction upon the wicked.

      And everybody was wicked.

      Everybody deserved to die.

      Even Cody Woods himself had been wicked and deserved to die.

      Because what kind of man had he been, really, to leave the world with no one to love him?

      A terrible man, surely.

      Terrible and hateful.

      “Serves him right,” she growled.

      Then she snapped out of her anger. She felt ashamed to have said such a thing aloud. She didn’t mean it, after all. She reminded herself that she felt nothing but love and goodwill toward absolutely everybody.

      Besides, it was almost time to go to work. Today she was going to be Judy Brubaker.

      Looking in the mirror, she carefully made sure that the auburn wig was properly aligned and that the soft bangs hung naturally over her forehead. It was an expensive wig and no one had ever caught on that it wasn’t her own hair. Beneath the wig, Hallie Stillians’ short blond hair had been dyed dark brown and trimmed into a different style.

      No sign of Hallie remained, not in her wardrobe and not in her mannerisms.

      She picked up a pair of stylish reading glasses and hung them on a sparkly cord around her neck.

      She smiled with satisfaction. It was smart to invest in the proper accessories, and Judy Brubaker deserved the best.

      Everybody loved Judy Brubaker.

      And everybody loved that song that Judy Brubaker often sang – a song she sang aloud as she dressed for work …

      No need to weep,

      Dream long and deep.

      Give yourself to slumber’s sweep.

      No more sighs,

      Just close your eyes

      And you will go home in your sleep.

      She was overflowing with peace, enough peace to share with all the world. She’d given peace to Cody Woods.

      And soon she’d give peace to someone else who needed it.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Riley’s heart pounded and her lungs burned from breathing hard and fast. A familiar tune was stuck in her head.

      “Follow the yellow brick road …”

      As tired and winded as she was, Riley couldn’t help but be amused. It was a cold early morning, and she was running the six-mile outdoor obstacle course at Quantico. The course was nicknamed, of all things, the Yellow Brick Road.

      It had been called that by the US Marines who had built it. The Marines had placed yellow bricks to mark every mile. FBI trainees who survived the course were given a yellow brick as their reward.

      Riley had won her yellow brick years ago. But every now and then, she ran the course again, just to make sure that she was still up to it. After the emotional stress of the last couple of days, Riley needed some full-on physical exertion to clear her head.

      So far, she had overcome a series of daunting obstacles and had passed three yellow bricks along the way. She had climbed over makeshift walls, pulled herself over hurdles, and leaped through simulated windows. Just a moment ago she had pulled herself up a sheer rock face by a rope, and now she was lowering herself back down again.

      When she hit the ground, she looked up and saw Lucy Vargas, a bright young agent she enjoyed working and training with. Lucy had been glad to be Riley’s workout partner this morning. She stood panting at the top of the rock face, looking down at Riley.

      Riley called up to her, “Can’t keep up with an old fart like me?”

      Lucy laughed. “I’m taking it slow. I don’t want you to overdo it – not at your age.”

      “Hey, don’t hold back on my account,” Riley yelled back. “Give it all you’ve got.”

      Riley was forty, but she had never let her physical training lapse. Being able to move fast and strike hard could be crucial when battling human monsters. Sheer physical force had saved lives, including her own, more than once.

      Even so, she wasn’t happy when she looked ahead and saw the next obstacle – a shallow pool of freezing cold, muddy water with barbed wire hanging over it.

      Things were about to get tough.

      She was well bundled for winter weather and was wearing a waterproof parka. But even so, the crawl through the mud was going to leave her soaked and freezing.

      Here goes nothing, she thought.

      She threw herself forward into the mud. The icy water sent a severe shock through her whole body. Still, she forced herself to start crawling, and she flattened herself as she felt the barbed wire scrape her back slightly.

      A gnawing numbness kicked in, triggering an unwanted memory.

      Riley was in a pitch-dark crawlspace under a house. She had just escaped a cage where she had been held and tormented by a psychopath with a propane torch. In the darkness, she’d lost track of how long she’d been in captivity.

      But she’d managed to force the cage door open, and now she was crawling blindly in search of a way out. It had rained recently, and the mud underneath her was sticky, cold, and deep.

      As her body grew ever more numb from the cold, a deep despair crept through her. She was weak from sleeplessness and hunger.

      I can’t make it, she thought.

      She had to force such ideas out of her mind. She had to keep crawling and searching. If she didn’t get out, he’d eventually kill her – just as he’d killed his other victims.

      “Riley, are you OK?”

      Lucy’s voice snapped Riley out of her memory of one of her most harrowing cases. It was an ordeal that she would never forget, especially because her daughter later became a captive to the same psychopath. She wondered if she would ever be entirely free of the flashbacks.

      And would April ever be free of those devastating memories?

      Riley was back in the present again, and she realized that she’d crawled to a halt under the barbed wire. Lucy was right behind her, waiting her for her to finish this obstacle.

      “I’m OK,” Riley called back. “Sorry to hold you up.”

      She forced herself to start crawling again. At the water’s edge, she scrambled to her feet and gathered her wits and her energy. Then she took off down the wooded trail, certain that Lucy wasn’t far behind her. She knew that her next task would be to climb across a rough hanging cargo net. After that, she still had almost two miles to go, and more than a few really tough obstacles to overcome.

*

      At the end of the six-mile course, Riley and Lucy stumbled along arm-in-arm, panting and laughing and congratulating each other over their triumph. Riley was surprised to find her longtime partner waiting for her where the trail ended. Bill Jeffreys was a strong, sturdy man of about Riley’s age.

      “Bill!”