Page 38 of Once Vanished
“We’ve got tactical support on standby, but they’ll remain at distance until we have a clearer picture of the situation.And we’re dispatching a negotiator—”
“No,” Riley interrupted.“Leo isn’t interested in negotiating with strangers.He wants me.That’s the whole point of this.”
“Paige—”
“The negotiator stays back,” Riley insisted.“Far back.If Leo sees anyone but me and Bill, we don’t know what he’ll do to Jilly.”
The silence that followed told Riley that Hogue was weighing his options.She knew the protocol—knew what the manual said about hostage situations.But this wasn’t just any hostage.And Leo wasn’t just any unsub—he was a brilliant psychopath fixated on Riley personally.
“Fine,” Hogue relented.“But I want an open line at all times.We need to hear what’s happening.”
“Agreed,” Riley said, though she had no intention of letting an open line dictate her actions if Jilly’s life was at stake.
“There’s something else you should know,” Hogue added, his tone shifting subtly.“Officer Susan Martinez of the Washington MPD didn’t report for her 7 a.m.briefing today.Her husband says she left for work on schedule, but she never arrived.Given what happened to Pope yesterday...”
Riley’s stomach clenched.“You think Leo took her.”
“It’s a working theory.Her husband seems to be in the clear … and frantic.She fits Leo’s pattern—law enforcement, relatively young.We’ve got people canvassing her route to work, checking traffic cams.So far, nothing.”
“Keep me posted,” Riley said, her mind already considering the implications.Had Leo taken Martinez as another pawn in his game?Or had he taken her for some other, more specific purpose?
“Will do.And Paige?”Hogue’s voice hardened.“Be careful.Both of you.”
The call ended, and they lapsed into silence as the landscape began to change, becoming more wooded.They were getting closer to the place where Peterson had died.Where Riley had fought desperately in the water to save April.A place she had sworn never to return to—a promise now broken by the most terrible of circumstances.
Riley checked the GPS.They were less than fifteen minutes away now.Soon they would know what Leo had planned for them.What new horror he had devised using the darkest chapter of her past as his stage?Was Jilly already there, terrified and alone?Was Leo using her to recreate some twisted version of what had happened with Peterson and April?Or was this all an elaborate diversion, designed to lure Riley away while Leo carried out some other part of his plan?
She glanced at Bill, worrying that he was as exhausted as she was.They were normally an excellent team.But how much of a toll had sleeplessness and Leo’s mind games taken on both of them?Riley only knew that they weren’t at their best.
As the trees thickened on either side of the road, Riley felt a familiar dread.What would be waiting for them when they arrived?In the place where they were headed, Riley had confronted the monster who had once tortured her and later subjected April to some of the same terror.After Riley had fired the shotgun that ended him, she’d thought she was also ending that story.But now Leo Dillard had designed some new horror using her own past as his template.
What could she hope could take place there this time—would she even find Jilly alive?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Riley and Bill hadn’t spoken much since Garner Hogue’s phone call.What was there to say?Leo had sent them chasing ghosts while Jilly remained in his grasp.And now they were driving toward a location Riley had sworn never to revisit, a place where water and blood and terror had all combined on a night she’d tried desperately to forget.
“You doing okay?”Bill asked, his voice cutting through the silence.
Riley didn’t take her eyes off the road.“Fine.”
It was a lie, and they both knew it.Nothing about this was fine.They were both like two taut strings, pulled to their limit and threatening to snap at any moment.
Neither she nor Bill had gotten any sleep since the night before last.Her youngest daughter was missing, her oldest daughter was being terrorized from afar, and a psychopath with an obsessive fixation on Riley was orchestrating it all.
“We’re about ten minutes out,” she said, more to fill the silence than to inform Bill of something he already knew.He had been there that awful night, too—arriving after it was over, finding her kneeling in the muddy shallows, April sobbing in her arms, Peterson’s body floating face-up in the current.
“If he’s there,” Bill said, “we need to be prepared for anything.”
Riley nodded, though doubt had been increasing with every mile.“I’m not sure he will be.This feels like...”
“A diversion?”Bill finished for her.
“Or worse.A mind game.”She sighed.“He’s studied me.Studied all of us.He knows exactly what buttons to push.”
The late autumn landscape slid past the windows—skeletal trees reaching toward a pewter sky.In the distance, Riley could see the river, a silver-gray ribbon winding through the landscape.Her heart quickened at the sight of it.
She slowed the car as they approached a bend in the road that she recognized with sickening clarity.This was as close as the road got to the spot they were headed toward.Now Riley pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road.She cut the engine, and the sudden silence felt oppressive.