Once Lured. Blake Pierce

do his old job if he was ever needed again.

      “Well, I’m glad you were able to talk yourself in here,” she said.

      “You shouldn’t be surprised,” Jake said. “I’m at least as smooth a talker as that bastard Mullins.”

      “Your statement really helped,” Riley said.

      Jake shrugged. “Well, I wish I could’ve gotten a rise out of him. I’d love to have seen him lose it in front of the parole board. But he’s cooler and smarter than I remember. Maybe prison has taught him that. Anyway, we got a good decision even without getting him to freak out. Maybe he’ll stay behind bars for good.”

      Riley didn’t say anything for a moment. Jake gave her a curious look.

      “Is there something you’re not telling me?” he asked.

      “I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Riley said. “If Mullins keeps racking up points for good behavior, his early release will probably be mandatory in another year. There’s nothing you or I or anybody can do about it.”

      “Jesus,” Jake said, looking as bitter and angry as he had all those years before.

      Riley knew just how he felt. It was heartbreaking to imagine Mullins going free. Today’s small victory now seemed much more bitter than sweet.

      “Well, I’ve got to be going,” Jake said. “It was great seeing you.”

      Riley sadly watched her old partner walk away. She understood why he wasn’t going to hang around to indulge in negative feelings. That just wasn’t his way. She made a mental note to get in touch with him soon.

      She also tried to find a bright side to what had just happened. After fifteen long years, the Bettses and the Harters had finally forgiven her. But Riley didn’t feel as if she deserved forgiveness, any more than did Larry Mullins.

      Just then, Larry Mullins was led out in handcuffs.

      He turned to look at her and smiled wide, mouthing his evil words silently.

      “See you next year.”

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      Riley was in her car and headed back home when she got the call from Bill. She put her phone on speaker.

      “What’s going on?” she asked.

      “We’ve found another body,” he said. “In Delaware.”

      “Was it Meara Keagan?” Riley asked.

      “No. We haven’t identified the victim. This is just like the other two, only worse.”

      Riley let the facts of the situation sink in. Meara Keagan was still being held captive. The killer might be holding other women captive as well. It was all but certain that the killings would continue. How many killings was anybody’s guess.

      Bill’s voice was agitated.

      “Riley, I’m losing my mind here,” he said. “I know I’m not thinking straight. Lucy’s a great help, but she’s still awfully green.”

      Riley understood perfectly how he felt. The irony felt palpable. Here she was beating herself up about the Larry Mullins case. Meanwhile in Delaware, Bill felt as if his own past failure had cost a third woman her life.

      Riley thought about the drive to wherever Bill was. It would probably take nearly three hours to get there.

      “Are you finished there?” Bill asked.

      Riley had told both Bill and Brent Meredith that she would be in Maryland today for the parole hearing.

      “Yeah,” she said.

      “Good,” Bill said. “I’ve sent a helicopter to pick you up.”

      “You what?” Riley said with a gasp.

      “There’s a private airport near where you are. I’ll text you the location. The chopper is probably there already. There’s a cadet on board who’ll drive your car back.”

      Without another word, Bill ended the call.

      Riley drove in silence for a moment. She had been relieved when the hearing had ended during the morning. She wanted to be home when her daughter got out of school. There had been no more arguments yesterday, but April hadn’t said much at all. This morning Riley had left before April was awake.

      But the decision had obviously been made for her. Ready or not, she was on the new case. She would have to talk to April later.

      But she didn’t have to think long before it seemed perfectly right. She turned her car around and followed the directions Bill had sent her. The surest cure for her feeling of failure would be to bring another killer to justice —real justice.

      It was time.

*

      Riley stared down at the dead girl lying on the wooden bandstand floor. It was a bright, cool morning. The bandstand was housed in a gazebo right in the center of the town square, surrounded by nicely kept grass and trees.

      The victim looked shockingly like the girls in the photos Riley had seen of the two victims from earlier months. She was lying face up and so emaciated that she appeared to be positively mummified. Her dirty, torn clothing might have once fit but now looked grotesquely large on her. She bore old scars and more recent wounds from what looked like the lashes of a whip.

      Riley guessed that she was about seventeen, the age of the other two murder victims.

      Or maybe not, she thought.

      After all, Meara Keagan was twenty-four. The killer might be changing his MO. This girl was too wasted away for Riley to be able to determine her age.

      Riley was standing between Bill and Lucy.

      “She looks like she was starved more than the other two,” Bill remarked. “He must have kept her for a lot longer.”

      Riley heard a world of self-reproach in Bill’s words. She looked at her partner. The bitterness showed in his face as well. Riley knew what Bill was thinking. This girl had surely been alive and held captive when he’d investigated this case and come up with nothing. He was blaming himself for her death.

      Riley knew that he shouldn’t blame himself. Even so, she didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. Her own regrets about the Larry Mullins case still left a bad taste in her mouth.

      Riley turned around to take in her surroundings. From here, the only completely visible structure was the courthouse across the street – a large brick building with a clock tower. Redditch was a charming little colonial town. Riley wasn’t really surprised that the body could have been brought here in the dead of night without anybody noticing. The whole town would have been fast asleep. The square was lined with sidewalks, so the killer hadn’t left any footprints.

      The local police had taped off the square and were keeping onlookers away. But Riley could see that some press had gathered outside the tapes.

      She was worried. So far, the press hadn’t caught on that the two previous murders and Meara Keagan’s disappearance had all been connected. But with this new murder, somebody was liable to connect the dots. The public would know sooner or later. Then the investigation would become a lot more difficult.

      Standing nearby was Redditch’s police chief Aaron Pomeroy.

      “How and when was the body found?” Riley asked him.

      “We’ve got a street cleaner who goes out to work before dawn. He found her.”

      Pomeroy looked badly shaken. He was an overweight, aging man. Riley figured that even in a little town like this, a cop his age had handled a murder or two somewhere along the line. But he’d probably never dealt with anything this disturbing.

      Agent Lucy Vargas crouched beside the corpse and studied it closely.

      “Our killer’s awfully confident,” Lucy said.

      “How do you figure?” Riley asked.

      “Well, he’s putting the bodies out