Page 3 of Once Marked (Riley Paige #19)

“I’m teaching two classes, Chief Meredith,” Riley said, despite the sudden rush of possibilities swirling in her mind. “I can’t just—”

“Jerry Langham covered for you last time,” Meredith cut in. “He did well, didn’t he?”

She hesitated. Jerry had indeed stepped up previously to teach her class for her; there was no reason he couldn’t do so again. She glanced at Bill.

“Go,” he urged. “You need this.” It wasn’t that she required his permission, but the words were an affirmation of her options.

“Alright,” she conceded.

“Good,” Meredith said, sounding satisfied. “I’m emailing you the case files now. Review them as soon as you can. Special Agent Esmer will explain everything on your way. She’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Esmer?” Riley repeated in surprise. “Isn’t she still partnered with Agent Pickens?”

“Agent Pickens is...indisposed,” Meredith replied. “You’ll get the details from her.”

“And we’re going right now?”

“You’ll have to be on this case first thing in the morning. It’s about a five-hour drive. Best that you get there tonight to get a good start tomorrow.”

“Understood,” she replied. Her mind was already racing ahead, piecing together fragmented possibilities.

“Be safe, Agent Paige,” Meredith added before ending the call, leaving a silence that buzzed with unsaid words.

Bill squeezed her shoulder, and Riley offered him a tight smile. “Jerry can handle your classes.” Bill’s voice was practical and reassuring.

“Let’s hope he’s not miffed about the short notice,” Riley muttered as she dialed Jerry Langham’s number.

Her call was answered by a cheerful, “Langham here.”

“Jerry, it’s Riley. I need a favor.”

“Riley!” Jerry’s voice crackled through the receiver, warm and a bit amused. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

She plunged into her request, the urgency clear in her tone.

“Again, so soon?” Jerry’s voice held a hint of amusement. “Sure, I can cover your classes for the next few days. What’s going on?”

“Meredith wants my input on a case in the Outer Banks,” Riley responded, her mind already ticking through the logistics of departure. “Thanks, Jerry. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Anything for you, Riley. Say no more, your classes are covered. Just bring me back some good stories, alright?” The line went dead.

There was no turning back now. The stillness of the evening was gone, replaced by a current of kinetic energy that seemed to spark through the room.

Riley turned and saw that Jilly was standing there looking at her curiously.

“What’s going on?” she demanded. “I was in the hallway right upstairs and heard a voice talking loud on the phone, so I came on down. That was your boss, wasn’t it?”

“This is just another short trip,” Riley reassured her daughter. “A consulting gig, but Ann Marie is picking me up soon.”

Jilly bounced on the balls of her feet, excitement clear in the tilt of her smile. “You’re gonna catch the bad guys again, right, Mom?”

“Sure will try to help with that, honey,” Riley responded, her heart tugging at the sight of her daughter’s enthusiasm.

“Like a superhero,” Jilly declared, her admiration clear in her wide eyes.

Riley chuckled softly, touched by the comparison, though she felt anything but heroic. In those moments, she saw the world through Jilly’s resilient spirit—a world where right always triumphed, and darkness was just another shadow to outshine.

“Promise me you’ll be safe,” Jilly said, her youthful exuberance tempered with a hint of worry.

“I promise,” Riley vowed.

Then Gabriela appeared from the kitchen. She had obviously heard what was going on too.

“Hay que comer,” Gabriela insisted. “You must eat.”

Thrusting a box into Riley’s hands, she added with clear disapproval, “You haven’t even had your dinner.”

“Gracias,” Riley said, accepting the package. She’d learned long ago that arguing with Gabriela’s practicality was a fruitless endeavor.

“Be careful,” Gabriela added, her eyes betraying a glint of concern beneath her stoic exterior.

As the sound of a car horn sliced through the evening air outside, Riley gathered her essentials—badge, gun, notepad, tablet, and cell phone.

Each item was a familiar touchstone, grounding her in the reality of her profession.

She stooped to scoop up her go-bag, an old companion from countless cases before.

It held the basics—clothes, toiletries, extra shoes—the tangible pieces of a life temporarily suspended for the call of a case.

Bill gave her a long, hard kiss, then stepped back to let her go. She knew he would be lonely tonight but that he’d take care of Jilly and her concerns. Gabriela would get Jilly off to school in the morning just as she always did.

Riley shouldered her bag, then her hand found Bill’s for a brief moment.

“Thanks,” she murmured. “And remember, it’s just consulting,” she added for both their sakes. But even as she said it, she felt the pulse of adrenaline in her veins.

He nodded, understanding perfectly. “Just take good care of yourself, for me,” he said.

As Riley turned away, her mind was already shifting gears into investigator mode. She stepped outside, and the door closed behind her with a soft click, sealing off the comforting hum of home.

Ann Marie was sitting in her car, engine running, so Riley hurried to join her.

“Hey,” Riley greeted the younger agent, sliding into the passenger seat. She put her bag on the floor and held the box in her lap. The click of the seatbelt was a definitive sound, a seal on her commitment to the case ahead.

Sniffing the air, Ann Marie inquired, “Food?”

“Of course, and Gabriela always packs enough for a small army.”

“Good, then we won’t have to make any stops,” the young agent said, heading the car on their way.

“Ann Marie, what’s going on with Grady?” Riley asked.

“Grady... he’s retiring. Early-onset Parkinson’s,” Ann Marie disclosed, her voice tinged with sadness.

“Damn,” Riley muttered, taken aback by the news. “That’s tough. I’ve always respected him.” Pickens had been among the best; his absence would leave a void not easily filled.

“He was an incredible partner, even in the short time we worked together. We were really starting to click as partners, you know?” Ann Marie’s voice cracked slightly.

Riley reached over, placing a comforting hand on Ann Marie’s arm. “It’s hard to find that a really good connection in our line of work,” she said softly.

“Riley, I wish...” Ann Marie started, then sighed, letting the sentence hang unfinished. “Never mind. It’s not practical.”

“What?” Riley asked.

Ann Marie’s voice softened. “I wish... I mean, it sounds selfish, but I really wish we could be partners, you and me. You know, permanently.” Her admission, candid and unexpected, sounded like a confession.

Riley turned to look at Ann Marie, whose eyes remained fixed on the street ahead.

“Ann Marie,” Riley began, her voice low, touched with the warmth of shared understanding, “you’re an incredible agent.

You’ll find the right partner. But my life, it’s here and now, with teaching, with my family.

” She felt the pull of two worlds, the echo of adrenaline that came with fieldwork, and the gentle tug of home. “This is just a temporary assignment.”

“I know,” Ann Marie muttered, then focused on her driving.

The quiet hum of the engine and the steady blur of streetlights slipping past provided a backdrop to Riley’s thoughts.

She recognized a familiar twinge of excitement stirring within her.

She was back in the game, and her instincts were already kicking into high gear.

The city lights began to fade into the rearview mirror as Ann Marie navigated the car onto the open highway. Riley unfolded the neat package of foil-wrapped tacos Gabriela had hastily prepared. Handing one over to Ann Marie, she watched as her colleague took a bite.

“Mmm,” Ann Marie hummed appreciatively, her eyebrows arching in surprise. “This is delicious. What’s inside? Or is it better not to know?”

Riley chuckled lightly at her comment before answering, “Shredded chicken. Gabriela cooked it for tonight’s dinner – a traditional Guatemalan stew with bell peppers and onions. But it turns out just as well when tucked into tortillas.”

She pulled out two travel mugs and opened the tops.

“Coffee, she said. “And I guarantee it’s strong enough to keep us awake for the trip.”

As they snacked in silence, Riley thought of Bill and Jilly at home, enjoying the dinner along with Gabriela.

For a long moment, she wished she was back there with them, but then she turned her mind back to the case.

As the car ate up the miles, she let herself sink into the embrace of that old, familiar excitement.

“Let’s see what Meredith sent me,” Riley said. She switched on the tablet to check her email, its screen casting a pale glow in the darkening car. “I know you’ve already been filled in on some of the details.”

“The case involves two women’s bodies found on the Outer Banks beaches,” Ann Marie said, as she navigated the darkening highway. “The most recent one was discovered by a jogger near Kitty Hawk at dawn today. Her name was Billie Shearer. A local hotel owner. Married, two kids.”

“Billie Shearer,” Riley repeated under her breath, letting the name settle in her mind, a placeholder for the life snuffed out too soon.

She looked at the crime scene photos, stark and unforgiving in their clarity. Billie Shearer lay in an almost peaceful repose on a lounge chair, dressed in a style reminiscent of another era. Her swimwear, a high-cut neon pink one-piece, stood out against the muted tones of the beach.

“Her attire is odd,” Riley murmured, looking closely at the swimsuit. “It’s like the killer is staging a scene from another era.”

“That’s right,” Ann Marie said. “And the swimsuit wasn’t her own. It was the same with the earlier victim, Julie Sternan. Forty-three, a high school teacher, dedicated to her students.”

Riley studied the second image on her tablet.

Sternan, captured forever in that moment, was clad in a turquoise one-piece swimsuit embellished with striking, geometric designs.

The style of the swimsuit hinted at an even earlier time than the other victim’s attire - it echoed the fashion trends of perhaps the 1920s.

She also noticed a resemblance between the two women, both of whose hair was rather sloppily cut short, and whose faces were both long with high cheekbones.

“Vintage swimwear again,” she observed.

“And not her own,” Ann Marie reiterated.

“It’s a deliberate choice. A statement.”

“Looks like that to me too.”

“Any last known whereabouts?” Riley pressed.

“Julie Sternan left work, told her husband she’d be home after a quick swim. Never arrived.” Ann Marie replied. “Billie Shearer was on her way to a meeting of the local board of commissioners, but she didn’t show up. Both of their bodies were found the morning after their disappearances.”

Then Riley read the strangest bit of information that Meredith had provided.

“But this says they were freshwater drownings,” she said with a frown.

“Exactly,” Ann Marie confirmed.

“Doesn’t add up. Why go to the trouble of positioning them by the sea?”

“Exactly,” Ann Marie repeated, her tone subdued. “And that retro look with both of them ... it has to signify something, right?”

“Perhaps a message or signature,” Riley considered, her profiler instincts kicking in.

The image before her wasn’t just a photograph; it was a puzzle piece, a window into a disturbed mind.

Two women connected by two different kinds of water, their lives stolen and displayed like mannequins in a twisted scenic storefront.

“First thing tomorrow,” Ann Marie announced, breaking the silence that had settled between them, “we’re meeting Sheriff Beeler at police headquarters HQ in Teomoc.”

Riley nodded, absorbing the information and filing the name away in her memory. The sheriff probably knew his jurisdiction well, could provide context to the cold facts laid bare on her screen.

“Local insight could make all the difference,” she conceded.

“But Beeler’s probably out of his depth and he knows it, which is why he’s called us in.

Two murders, both bizarrely out of place.

And the possibility of a predator on the loose—it’s more than just bad timing with the tourist season not quite over yet. ”

She knew that Teomoc was a place of small-town charm and tourist allure.

She understood that the local law enforcement on the Outer Banks, grappling with the needs of tourists and a budget stretched too thin, was signaling a red flag.

They needed help—FBI assistance—and not just because their resources were limited, but due to the dark cloud of fear that a serial killer might be at work in the Outer Banks.

Riley felt a familiar prickle at the back of her neck—a sense that these murders were only the beginning of something intricate and sinister.

She scrutinized the information again. What could those oddly dated swimsuits signify? A killer’s signature, or a red herring meant to mislead?

To answer those questions, Riley knew that she would have to find her way into yet another murderer’s mind. She had built her FBI career on her ability to connect with that kind of darkness. Was she skilled enough, strong enough, to do that again?