Page 43 of Once Vanished
Riley nodded, her eyes meeting his.For a moment, something unspoken passed between them—concern, resolve, the understanding that came from years of facing danger together.
“Always am,” she replied, though they both knew that wasn’t entirely true.
With a final nod to the assembled team, Riley turned and began walking toward the main building.As she approached, the building seemed to grow larger, more imposing—a decaying monument to industrial ambition, now reclaimed by neglect and time.
A rusted metal door stood partially ajar on the east side, as if Leo had deliberately left it open for her.Riley paused beside it, listening.The wind whispered around the corners of the building, carrying the faint scent of stagnant water and corroded metal.From somewhere inside came the steady drip of water against concrete.
Drawing her weapon, Riley pushed the door open wider with her foot and stepped inside.The air was immediately cooler, heavy with moisture and the musty scent of abandonment.Weak daylight filtered through dirt-encrusted windows high overhead, casting long shadows across debris-strewn floors.
She moved cautiously through what appeared to have been an administrative area, now stripped of anything valuable—empty desk frames stood like skeletons, filing cabinets lay toppled and rusted, their contents long since looted or destroyed by the elements.Water damage had caused sections of the ceiling to collapse, creating precarious obstacles of twisted metal and crumbling plaster.
Making her way toward the location of the dot on her cellphone map, Riley went deeper into the building.Her footsteps echoed in the cavernous space, announcing her presence.Leo would know she was coming.That was part of his plan.But how could he not also expect the SWAT team—or at least the possibility?Did he also have plans for that eventuality?
A wide corridor stretched before her, lined with smaller maintenance rooms.At its end, a set of double doors stood closed.Riley approached slowly, her senses hyper alert for any sign of movement or sound beyond the doors.
As she reached them, she paused, pressing her ear against the metal surface.From within came the faint sound of movement—the scrape of a shoe against concrete, a muffled whimper.
Someone was alive in there.
Riley took a deep breath, centering herself.Whatever awaited her beyond those doors, she needed to be fully present, fully in control.She couldn’t afford to be distracted by memories of Peterson or fears for Jilly.For the next few minutes, she had to be nothing but an agent doing her job.
With one fluid movement, she pushed the door open and stepped inside, her weapon raised and ready.
She found herself inside what appeared to be the pump room.The space was enormous—a cathedral to industrial function, its ceiling rising three stories above a floor crowded with massive machinery.Huge pumps, pipes, and control panels filled the space, their once-gleaming surfaces now dull with rust and grime.Catwalks crisscrossed the upper levels, providing maintenance access to the higher components.Shafts of dusty light penetrated through skylights, illuminating swirling motes of dust in the otherwise dim interior.
And there, in the center of it all, stood Leo Dillard.
He looked different than he had in the classroom—harder, more feral.His neat academic appearance had been replaced by something more predatory.His dark hair was still perfectly styled, his clothes still impeccable, but something in his stance, in the cold calculation of his eyes, revealed the monster that had always lurked beneath the polished surface.
Before him, kneeling on the concrete floor with her hands bound behind her back, was Officer Susan Martinez.A gag covered her mouth, but her eyes were wide with fear and desperate hope as they fixed on Riley.Leo held a knife to her throat, its blade gleaming in the diffused light.
Riley froze, a wave of dizzying déjà vu sweeping through her.She had been in a situation like this one before.
Then Leo spoke the exact words that a killer had said to her years ago: “You can save her life, or you can catch me.Pick one, Agent Paige.But not both.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Leo’s smile was cold as he pressed the knife against Susan Martinez’s throat.The blade caught the weak afternoon light filtering through the waterworks’ grimy windows, a deadly glint against the officer’s pale skin.Riley stood fifteen feet away, her service weapon drawn but useless.Time stretched, distorted—that peculiar sense suspension that often happened in moments of crisis.
The words that he had just spoken seemed to echo through the air …
“You can save her life, or you can catch me.Pick one, Agent Paige.But not both.”
The same words.
The exact same words Garrett Voss had spoken fourteen years ago, when he’d held Officer Dana Chen with a blade to her throat.Riley had made her choice then—had pursued Voss as he fled, believing Chen’s wound to be superficial.But Voss had known exactly where to cut, the precise depth needed to ensure a fatal outcome that would unfold gradually, giving him just enough time to escape.
Chen had bled out before the paramedics arrived.Riley had caught Voss two days later, but the victory had been hollow, tainted by the knowledge that a woman with a husband and two children had died because Riley had calculated wrong.
And now here was Leo, recreating that moment right down to the words.A test she had failed once before.
“This brings back memories, doesn’t it?”Leo’s voice was gentle, almost intimate.“I always wondered what it was like for you that day.The moment of choice.Did you hesitate?Did you know, even as you ran after Voss, that you might be making a fatal mistake?”
Riley’s hands felt leaden, her vision blurring at the edges.She hadn’t slept since the night before last.The exhaustion was a physical presence dragging at her limbs.She needed to focus, to think clearly, but her mind kept skittering sideways, caught in the double image of then and now—Chen’s terrified eyes superimposed over Susan Martinez’s.
“I did my research, Riley,” Leo continued, almost conversational.“Officer Dana Chen.Thirty-four.Two children.Husband was a firefighter.The wound didn’t look that bad at first, did it?Just enough blood to be concerning, not enough to seem immediately life-threatening.Quite the miscalculation on your part.”
Riley swallowed hard at how Leo twisted the knife in a wound she’d tried so hard to heal.She was aware of the earpiece nestled against her skin, the tiny microphone at her collar.Bill, Hogue, the entire SWAT team—they were listening, positioned around the perimeter of the old waterworks facility where Leo had instructed her to come alone.Another echo of the past; another demand she had pretended to follow while secretly bringing backup.