Once Lured. Blake Pierce

Meara began to regain consciousness, she was jolted by a deafening barrage of noise. It seemed like every kind of sound she could imagine. There were gongs, bells, chimes, birdcalls, and sundry melodies as if from a dozen music boxes. They all seemed deliberately hostile.

      She opened her eyes, but nothing came into focus. Her head was splitting with pain.

      Where am I? she wondered.

      Was it somewhere in Dublin? No, she was able to put together just a bit of chronology. She’d flown here two months ago, started working as soon as she got settled. She was definitely in Delaware. With an effort, she remembered stopping to help a man with his car. Then something had happened. Something bad.

      But what was this place, with all its horrible noise?

      She became aware that she was being carried like a child. She heard the voice of the man who was carrying her, speaking above the racket.

      “Don’t worry, we got here on time.”

      Her eyes began to focus. Her vision was filled by a staggering number of clocks of every conceivable size, shape, and style. She saw massive grandfather clocks flanked by smaller clocks, some of them cuckoo clocks, others with little parades of mechanical people. Still smaller clocks were ranged across shelves.

      They’re all sounding the hour, she thought.

      But in all the noise, she couldn’t begin to pick out the number of gongs or bells.

      She turned her head to see who was carrying her. He looked down at her. Yes, it was him – the man who had asked for her help. She’d been a fool to stop for him. She’d fallen into his trap. But what was he going to do to her?

      As the noise from the clocks died away, her eyes went out of focus again. She couldn’t keep them open. She felt her consciousness fading.

      Got to stay awake, she thought.

      She heard a metallic rattling, then felt herself lowered gently to a cold, hard surface. There was another rattling, followed by footsteps, and finally by a door opening and closing. The multitude of clocks kept ticking.

      Then she heard a pair of female voices.

      “She’s alive.”

      “Too bad for her.”

      The voices were hushed and hoarse. Meara managed to open her eyes again. She saw that the floor was gray concrete. She turned painfully and saw three human forms seated on the floor near her. Or at least she thought they were human. They seemed to be young girls, teenagers, but they were gaunt, little more than skeletons, their bones showing clearly beneath their skin. One seemed barely conscious, her head hanging forward and eyes staring at the gray floor. They reminded her of photos she’d seen of prisoners in concentration camps.

      Were they even alive? Yes, they must be alive. She’d just heard them both speak.

      “Where are we?” Meara asked.

      She barely heard the hissed response.

      “Welcome,” one of them said, “to hell.”

      CHAPTER ONE

      Riley Paige didn’t see the first punch coming. Still, her reflexes responded well. She felt time slow down as the first jab flashed toward her stomach. She backed away from it perfectly. Then a broad left hook came toward her head. She jumped to the side and dodged it. When he closed in with a final jab to her face, her guard went up and she took the punch to her gloves.

      Then time resumed its normal pace. She knew the combination of blows had come in less than two seconds.

      “Good,” Rudy said.

      Riley smiled. Rudy was dodging and weaving now, more than ready for her attack. Riley did the same, bobbing, faking, trying to keep him guessing.

      “No need to hurry,” Rudy said. “Think it through. Think of it like a game of chess.”

      She felt a twinge of annoyance as she kept her lateral motion going. He was going easy on her. Why did he have to go easy on her?

      But she knew that it was just as well. This was her first time in the sparring ring with an actual opponent. Until now, she’d been testing her combinations on a heavy bag. She had to remember that she was just a beginner at this form of fighting. It really was best not to hurry.

      It had been Mike Nevins’s idea for her to take up sparring. The forensic psychiatrist who consulted with the FBI was also Riley’s good friend. He had gotten her through a lot of personal crises.

      She’d recently complained to Mike that she was having trouble controlling her aggressive impulses. She was losing her temper frequently. She felt on edge.

      “Try sparring,” Mike had said. “It’s a great way to let off steam.”

      Right now she felt pretty sure that Mike was right. It felt good to be thinking on her feet, dealing with real threats instead of imagined ones, and it was relaxing to be dealing with threats that weren’t actually deadly.

      It was also good that she’d joined a gym that got her away from Quantico headquarters. She spent too much time there. This was a welcome change.

      But she had dawdled too long. And she could see in Rudy’s eyes that he was preparing for another attack.

      She mentally chose her next combination. She popped abruptly toward him for her attack. Her first punch was a left jab, which he dodged and countered with a right cross that grazed her sparring helmet. She followed in less than a second with a right jab, which he took to his glove. In a flash she launched a left hook, which he dodged by lurching to the side.

      “Good,” Rudy said again.

      It didn’t feel good to Riley. She hadn’t landed a single punch, while he had clipped her a little even while defending himself, and she was starting to feel irritation building up. But she reminded herself of what Rudy had told her at the very start …

      “Don’t expect to land a lot of punches. Nobody really does. Not with sparring, anyway.”

      She was watching his gloves now, sensing that he was about to launch another attack. But just then, a strange transformation took place in her imagination.

      The gloves turned into a single flame – the white hissing flame of a propane torch. She was caged in darkness again, the prisoner of a sadistic killer named Peterson. He was toying with her, making her dodge the flame to escape its searing heat.

      But she was tired of being humiliated. This time she was determined to strike back. When the flame leaped toward her face, she simultaneously ducked and launched a fierce jab that didn’t connect. The flame hooked around to her, and she countered with a cross that also didn’t connect. But before Peterson could make another move, she threw an uppercut, and she felt it smash into his chin …

      “Hey!” Rudy shouted.

      His voice brought Riley back to her present reality. Rudy was stretched out on his back on the mat.

      How did he get down there? Riley wondered.

      Then she realized that she’d hit him – and hit him hard.

      “Oh my God!” she shouted. “Rudy, I’m sorry!”

      Rudy was grinning and getting back on his feet.

      “Don’t be,” he said. “That was good.”

      They resumed sparring. The rest of the session was uneventful, and neither of them landed any punches. But now the whole thing felt good to Riley. Mike Nevins was right. This was just the therapy she needed.

      All the same, she kept wondering when she’d ever be able to shake off those memories.

      Maybe never, she thought.

*

      Riley cut enthusiastically into her steak. The chef at Blaine’s Grill did a great job with several less conventional dishes, but today’s workout at the gym had left her hungry for a good steak and a salad. Her daughter, April, and her friend Crystal had ordered burgers. Blaine Hildreth, Crystal’s father, was