Page 50 of Once Vanished
“Don’t tell me I’m not thinking clearly,” she snapped.“Don’t patronize me.”
The flash of anger surprised him, though it shouldn’t have.They were both raw, flayed by stress and fear and the horror of Susan Martinez’s death—another life lost because of Leo’s obsession.
“I’m not patronizing you,” Bill said, keeping his voice even with effort.“I’m pointing out that neither of us has slept in two days.We’re not at our best.”
Riley’s shoulders sagged, the fight draining out of her.“I know.I’m sorry.I just...”She rubbed at her eyes.“I keep seeing Susan’s face.The way she looked at me right before...”
Her voice caught, and a silence ensued.
“Mike said these would help us sleep,” Riley finally said, pulling a small bottle of pills from her pocket that she and Bill had picked up at a drugstore on the way home from the police station.She shook one out into her palm.“Gabriela took one, and I’m going to take one.You should too.”
In spite of his own earlier observation that they all needed sleep, Bill shook his head.“I don’t want to drug myself… “
“What do you want to do, then?”Riley challenged.“Sit up all night staring at the wall?That won’t help Jilly.”
The truth was, Bill didn’t know what he wanted to do.His mind felt foggy, disconnected from his body.The exhaustion was bone-deep, but the thought of sleep—of surrendering consciousness, of perhaps dreaming of Jilly in danger, of Susan bleeding out—was unbearable.
“I’ll be up later,” he said, avoiding a direct answer.
Riley studied him for a long moment, then swallowed her pill with a sip of water from a glass on the table.“You’re making a mistake,” she said softly.“We both need to be functional tomorrow.”
She turned to leave, hesitated, then moved toward him.For a moment, Bill thought she might embrace him, might bridge the strange new gap that had formed between them.Instead, she merely touched his arm, a brief pressure of fingertips.
“Try to rest,” she said, and then she was gone.
Bill stood alone, listening to the sounds of the house.Normal sounds, domestic sounds, incongruous with the horror of their situation.
He sank back into his chair, suddenly too tired to remain standing.His thoughts circled like vultures, returning again and again to Susan Martinez, to Jilly, to his own inadequacy in the face of Leo’s perfect planning.
Riley was handling this better than he was.She was shaken, yes—devastated, even—but still functioning, still thinking clearly enough to know they needed rest.While he was...what?Falling apart?Coming undone at the seams?
The last time he had felt this untethered was after Lucy Vargas’s death, after he had mistakenly shot Stanley Pope.He remembered sitting alone in his apartment, his service weapon heavy in his hand, the barrel cold against his temple.He had come so close then—closer than he had ever admitted to Riley, even during those painful sessions with Mike Nevins.
Now he found himself wondering: how much would it take to push him back to that edge?How much more loss could he endure before the abyss opened beneath him again?
Not much,he feared.Not much at all.
His phone rang, the sound startling in the quiet room.Bill glanced at the screen.Unknown Caller.His finger hovered over the decline button, but something—intuition, perhaps, or resignation—made him answer instead.
“Jeffreys,” he said, his voice rough.
“Hello, Special Agent Bill Jeffreys.”
The voice was calm, pleasant even, with the faintest hint of amusement threading through it.Bill had never heard it before, but recognition slammed into him like a physical blow that knocked the air from his lungs.
Leo Dillard.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Bill’s grip tightened around the phone as the voice slithered into his ear.Leo Dillard.The monster who had taken Jilly, who had nearly killed Stanley Pope, and had slashed Officer Martinez’s throat and left her to bleed out on cold concrete.Bill’s mouth went dry, his free hand clutching the edge of the table.
“Nothing to say, Agent Jeffreys?”Leo’s voice carried a pleasant lilt, as though they were old friends catching up after a long separation.“I admit I expected more from you.Perhaps a threat?A demand?At the very least, a hello would be polite.”
“What do you want?”The words emerged as a rasp, barely recognizable as his own voice.
“That’s better,” Leo said.“Now, I know what you’re thinking.You’re assuming this call is being monitored.That was the moment I dialed your number; some technician at the FBI started tracing it.That every word we exchange is being recorded and analyzed by your colleagues.”A soft chuckle.“But that’s not true this time.”
Bill’s eyes darted to his laptop, sitting closed on the table.He should open it.Send a message to Hogue now, while Leo is talking.