Page 60 of Once Vanished
“Mom?”Jilly’s voice was small, uncertain, as if she couldn’t quite trust her own senses.
“I’m here, baby.”Riley reached her, gathering her into her arms with trembling hands.“I’m here.”
Jilly collapsed against her, her body suddenly boneless with relief.Riley cradled her daughter’s head against her shoulder.Jilly was alive.She was here, solid and real in Riley’s arms.
“You chose me,” Jilly whispered, her voice breaking.“I heard you.He made you choose, and you picked me.”
The guilt in her daughter’s voice cut Riley to the quick.She pulled back slightly, framing Jilly’s tear-streaked face between her palms.“Listen to me.Bill’s still in there, and I’m going to get him out.But I need you to be safe.”
Riley glanced over her shoulder to see the flash of blue and red lights of a police car rounding a corner just a block away.
“The police are coming,” she told Jilly, gently steering her toward the street.“Go to them.Tell them exactly where to find Bill—which room he’s in, where Leo is positioned, everything you know.”
“It’s a classroom at the end of the main hall,” Jilly said, her voice steadier now.“Leo has some kind of green screen set up, and Bill is—” Her voice caught.“He’s hanging, Mom.Leo had him standing on a stool, but he took it away after your call.”
Riley’s heart lurched painfully against her ribs.“Go, now.”
Jilly clutched at her arm.“You can’t go in there alone!”
“I have to.”Riley pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead.“Go to the police.Stay safe.”
Riley turned and sprinted toward the school entrance, drawing her weapon once more.The ancient door creaked as she slipped inside, the sound unnervingly loud in the silent hallway.Emergency lights cast a sickly glow over peeling paint and littered floors.
The main hallway was lined with closed doors whose small windows revealed nothing but darkness beyond.At the far end, however, a thin glow spilled from one of those windows.Riley moved swiftly but cautiously, with her weapon raised.Behind that door, Bill was fighting for his life—if he wasn’t already gone.The thought sent a surge of raw fury through her.
Not Bill.Not after everything they’d been through.
She reached the door and peeked through the window.The scene before her unfolded with nightmarish clarity: There was the chair where Jilly had been bound until moments ago.And there was Bill, suspended from a rope secured to an exposed pipe in the ceiling, his body slumped and still.Leo was standing beside him, watching with clinical detachment.
With a swift, decisive motion, Riley kicked the door open and swept into the room, her gun trained ahead of her.
“FBI!Don’t move!”
Leo’s head snapped toward her, genuine surprise registering on his handsome features.She saw his eyes flick to one side, to a gun lying on a table.
Bill’s gun,she thought, as she snapped at Leo, “Don’t.”She kept her weapon trained on his chest, her finger resting lightly against the trigger.“Cut Bill down.Now.”
He spread his hands in a gesture of resignation.“This feels familiar, doesn’t it?You’re faced with a choice—let me walk away while you save him, or watch him die while you try to capture me.”
“You’re wrong.”Riley’s voice was deadly quiet.“This time is different.”
“How so?”
“This time, I will shoot you first.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t try me.”
Leo’s expression flickered, uncertainty creeping into his eyes.
“Cut.Him.Down,” Riley repeated, each word like a bullet.
Slowly, he reached for a knife on a nearby desk and approached Bill’s suspended form.
“Don’t try anything,” Riley warned, following his every movement with her gun.
Leo sliced through the rope above the noose, and Bill collapsed to the floor in a graceless heap.Knife still in one hand, he began to edge back toward the gun on that table.