Once Craved. Blake Pierce

doubted whether even she or April could handle Gabriela’s original Guatemalan recipes.

      When Gabriela finished setting out the food for all three of them, she said to Riley, “The gentleman is guapo, no?”

      Riley felt herself blush. “Handsome? I hadn’t noticed, Gabriela.”

      Gabriela let out a burst of laughter. She sat down to eat with them and started to hum a little tune. Riley guessed that it was a Guatemalan love song. April stared at her mother.

      “What gentleman, Mom?” she asked.

      “Oh, our neighbor came by a little while ago – ”

      April interrupted excitedly. “Omigod! Was it Crystal’s dad? It was, wasn’t it! Isn’t he gorgeous?”

      “And I think he is single.” Gabriela said.

      “OK, back off,” Riley said with a laugh. “Give me some room to live. I don’t need the two of you trying to fix me up with the guy next door.”

      They all dug into the stuffed peppers, and dinner was almost finished when Riley felt her phone buzz in her pocket.

      Damn it, she thought. I shouldn’t have brought it to the table.

      The buzzing continued. She couldn’t very well not answer it. Since she’d gotten home, Brent Meredith had left two more text messages, and she’d kept telling herself that she’d call him later. She couldn’t put it off anymore. She excused herself from the table and answered the phone.

      “Riley, I’m sorry to bother you like this,” her boss said. “But I really need your help.”

      Riley was startled to hear Meredith call her by her first name. That was rare. Although she felt quite close to him, he usually addressed her as Agent Paige. He was normally businesslike, sometimes to the point of being brusque.

      “What is it, sir?” Riley asked.

      Meredith fell silent for a moment. Riley wondered why he was being reticent. Her spirits sank. She felt sure that this was precisely the news she’d been dreading.

      “Riley, I’m asking a personal favor,” he said, sounding much less commanding than usual. “I’ve been asked to look into a murder in Phoenix.”

      Riley was surprised. “A single murder?” she asked. “Why would that require the FBI?”

      “I’ve got an old friend at the field office in Phoenix,” Meredith said. “Garrett Holbrook. We went to the academy together. His sister Nancy was the victim.”

      “I’m so sorry,” Riley said. “But the local police …”

      There was a rare note of entreaty in Meredith’s voice.

      “Garrett really wants our help. She was a prostitute. She just disappeared and then her body turned up in a lake. He wants us to look into it as the work of a serial killer.”

      The request seemed odd to Riley. Prostitutes often did disappear without getting killed. Sometimes they decided to do their work somewhere else. Or just quit.

      “Does he have any reason to think so?” she asked.

      “I don’t know, Meredith said. “Maybe he wants to think that in order to get us involved. But it’s true, as you know, that prostitutes are frequent targets of serials.”

      Riley knew that this was true. Prostitutes’ lifestyles made them high-risk. They were visible and accessible, alone with strangers, often drug dependent.

      Meredith continued, “He called me personally. I promised him I’d send my very best people to Phoenix. And of course – that includes you.”

      Riley was touched. Meredith wasn’t making it easy to say no.

      “Please try to understand, sir,” she said. “I just can’t take on anything new.”

      Riley felt vaguely dishonest. Can’t or won’t? she asked herself. After she had been captured and tortured by a serial killer, everyone had insisted she take a leave from work. She’d tried to do that, but found herself desperately needing to be back on the job. Now she wondered what that desperation had really been all about. She had been reckless and self-destructive and had a hell of a time getting her life under control. When she had finally killed Peterson, her tormentor, she had thought everything would be fine. But he still haunted her, and she was having new problems over the resolution of her last case.

      After a pause, she added, “I need more time off the field. I’m still technically on leave and I’m really trying to put my life together.”

      A long silence followed. It didn’t sound as though Meredith was going to argue, much less pull rank on her. But he wasn’t going to say he was OK with it, either. He wouldn’t let up the pressure.

      She heard Meredith heave a long, sad sigh. “Garrett had been estranged from Nancy for years. Now what happened to her is eating him up inside. I guess there’s a lesson there, isn’t there? Don’t take anyone in your life for granted. Always reach out.”

      Riley almost dropped the phone. Meredith’s words hit a nerve that hadn’t been touched for a long time. Riley had lost contact with her own older sister years ago. They were estranged and she hadn’t even wondered about Wendy for a long time. She had no idea what her own sister was doing now.

      After another pause, Meredith said, “Promise me you’ll think it over.”

      “I will,” Riley said.

      They ended the call.

      She felt terrible. Meredith had seen her through some awful times and he’d never shown such vulnerability toward her before. She hated to let him down. And she’d just promised him to think it over.

      And no matter how desperately she wanted to, Riley wasn’t sure she could say no.

      Chapter Three

      The man sat in his car in the parking lot, watching the whore as she approached along the street. “Chiffon,” she called herself. Obviously not her real name. And he was sure there was a lot more about her that he didn’t know.

      I could make her tell me, he thought. But not here. Not today.

      He wouldn’t kill her here today either. No, not right here so near her regular workplace – the so-called “Kinetic Custom Gym.” From where he sat, he could see the decrepit exercise machinery through the storefront windows – three treadmills, a rowing machine, and a couple of weight machines, none of them working. As far as he knew, nobody ever came here to actually exercise.

      Not in a socially acceptable manner anyway, he thought with a smirk.

      He didn’t come around to this place much – not since he’d taken that brunette who had worked here years ago. Of course, he hadn’t killed her here. He’d lured her off to a motel room for “extra services” and with the promise of a lot more money.

      It hadn’t been premeditated murder even then. The plastic bag over her head was only meant to add a fantasy element of danger. But once it was done, he’d been surprised at how deeply satisfied he’d felt. It had been an epicurean pleasure, distinctive even in his lifetime of pleasures.

      Still, in his trysts since then, he’d exercised more care and restraint. Or at least he had until last week, when the same game went deadly again with that escort – what was her name?

      Oh, yes, he remembered. Nanette.

      He’d suspected at the time that Nanette might not be her real name. Now he’d never find out. In his heart, he knew that her death was not an accident. Not really. He’d meant to do it. And his conscience was unsullied. He was ready to do it again.

      The one who called herself Chiffon was approaching about a half a block away, clad in a yellow tube top and a barely existent skirt, tottering toward the gym on impossibly high heels while talking on her cell phone.

      He really wanted to know if Chiffon was her real name. Their one previous professional encounter had been a failure – her