Taking

Riley couldn’t help but smile a little. The idea of going camping with Crivaro and pretending to be his niece seemed silly to her.

We’d never fool anybody, she thought.

She realized that Harry’s nonstop advice just showed how excited he was about this case. Jillian’s grim silence told her that Harry’s wife was well aware of his state of mind.

As Harry kept rattling on and on about how Riley and Crivaro should go about investigating the case, he was driving past golf resorts and dude ranches just outside the town of Tunsboro.

When they pulled into Tunsboro itself, it looked to Riley like an old-time Western town that someone had unsuccessfully tried to dress up for modern times. Buildings with square false fronts lined the main street. A row of rickety tin porch roofs held up by heavy wooden poles stretched in front of the buildings. In spite of some fresh paint here and there, none of it looked ready for the soon-to-come year 2000.

In fact, it was the concrete sidewalk, paved street, stoplights, and especially the cars that seemed weirdly out of place.

Harry parked outside the police station, which was just another old-fashioned business front.

He turned to look at Riley and Crivaro.

“I don’t suppose Chief Webster will be expecting you. I didn’t say anything about contacting the BAU. At least he knows me from talking with me on the phone. Maybe I should come on inside with you and—”

Jillian interrupted sharply. “Don’t even think of it, Harry.”

Harry looked at his wife with a pleading expression.

“I’ll just be a minute, honey,” he said.

“You won’t be just a minute, and you know it. We’re letting your friends off right here, and then we’re going straight back to get our camper and driving on to the Coronado Forest. That’s all there is to it.”

“But honey—”

“No ‘buts,’ Harry. If you go into that police station, I’m going to take this truck and drive right on without you.”

Harry sighed and forced a laugh.

He said to Crivaro and Riley, “Well, you heard the missus. Like I said, a tight leash. We’ll be going now. Good hunting, you two. And thanks again for looking into this.”

As Riley and Crivaro climbed down out of the truck, she heard Harry mutter, “I wouldn’t mind if you’d let me know how things go.”

“Don’t!” Jillian remarked sharply.

Riley and Jake stood there and watched Harry and his wife drive out of town.

It felt very strange to Riley to be here, suddenly stranded in the middle of this odd little town.

Crivaro was apparently feeling the same way. He looked at the ground and shuffled his feet and shook his head.

“This is crazy,” he said. “We’ve got no business being mixed up in this.”

Riley laughed and said, “Well, it wasn’t exactly my idea.”

Then she felt a possibility taking shape in her mind.

“Besides,” she added, “for all we really know, Harry’s right about everything.”

Crivaro glared at her and growled, “Well, he’s not right about you and me going camping. That’s just too damned ridiculous. We’ve got to draw the line somewhere.”

“I agree,” Riley said.

Crivaro turned and headed toward the building.

“Come on, let’s introduce ourselves to the chief,” he said.

They walked on into the little police station, where a receptionist sent them on into the Chief Everett Webster’s office. They found him sitting on the edge of his desk talking to another cop. The conversation seemed serious.

Riley was sure that they were talking about the recent murder.

When Riley and Crivaro produced their badges and introduced themselves, Webster’s mouth dropped open.

“Good Lord,” he said. “What the hell are you federal folks doing here?”

Crivaro said, “We understand you found a murdered woman on a hiking trail near here.”

Webster said, “Yeah, but there’s no call for the FBI to come out here about that. It’s a local thing and we can handle it.”

Then he squinted at Riley and Crivaro and said, “Wait just a minute. You’re not here on account of that nut job from Colorado, are you? The guy who called trying to convince me there was some connection between this murder and another one a year ago?”

Crivaro shrugged. “We’re just here to check things out.”

Webster shook his head, then said to the other cop, “Wally, could you give us the room for a few minutes?”

Wally nodded and left the office.

Webster began to pace in front of his desk. He struck Riley as a rather unsightly man, with a huge jutting chin and a sloping forehead that made him look like some sort of caveman. But his eyes seemed alert and fairly intelligent.

He said to Riley and Crivaro, “Look, I don’t know how that guy talked the FBI into sending you two out here, but it really is a wasted trip, and I’m sorry you got put to the trouble. My boys and I can handle this.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Crivaro said in a pleasant voice. “Still, as long as we’re here, maybe you can tell us whatever you know about the murder. We’re in the Behavioral Analysis Unit, and it sounded like this killer is kind of unusual. We just thought we might be able to help out here.”

Webster shrugged and said, “BAU? Well, it’s an odd case, I have to admit. Brett Parma was the victim’s name. I just got off the phone trying to find out more about her.”

Webster picked up some notes that were lying on his desk and peered at them through his reading glasses.

He said, “It seems she worked as a receptionist in a doctor’s office up in North Platte, Nebraska. She came down here for a three-week vacation. She’d stayed at the Wren’s Nest Campground near here for a couple of nights, then checked out of there on Saturday. That was the last anybody saw of her—at least until a hiker ran across her body yesterday evening on a hiking trail. Apparently she had a reservation at the Beavertail Campground, also pretty close by. But she never got there.”

Webster set the notes back down again and said, “The weird thing is, she wasn’t killed right there on the hiking trail. It seems she was slashed up elsewhere and bled to death. Then her body was dumped on the trail.”

Webster crossed his arms and added, “Look, I don’t mind telling you, I take it kind of personal when somebody gets murdered in my jurisdiction. It’s bad for tourism, and tourism’s pretty much Tunsboro’s whole economy—at least since the mines shut down ages ago. My boys and I sure as hell plan to crack this case soon. No offense, but I’d just as soon not have any interference from Quantico.”

Crivaro nodded. “I understand, and I respect that. But as long as we’re here, do you mind if my partner and I have a look at the crime scene? We’ll be able to tell pretty much at a glance whether we’ve got any business here or not—and we probably don’t. Then we can get right out of your hair.”

Webster visibly relaxed a little. “Sounds like a plan,” he said. “As it happens, I was just getting ready to drive back out there myself. You two can come along for the ride.”

Riley and Jake followed Webster out of the building, then got into his car with him.

As Webster drove them out of town, Riley thought about how he’d said Brett Parma had died.

“She was slashed up elsewhere and bled to death.”

Riley shivered as she remembered the last grim case she and Crivaro had worked on together—the case of the barbed wire killer. His victims, too, had bled slowly to death, and that similarity unsettled her.

She also thought about what Crivaro had said just now.

“We can get right out of your hair.”

She wondered—had he really meant it?

Riley had no idea whether Harry might be right and the two murders might be connected. But one thing was absolutely certain—a woman had recently been brutally murdered right near here.

Could they just walk away from that?

Were they really going to fly back to Quantico without even trying to solve it?

She was beginning to find that hard to imagine.

But what if Crivaro insists?

She’d have to go along with whatever he decided, and he hadn’t shown any real interest in this case.

Maybe that was because Special Agent Jake Crivaro had seen so many deaths in his long years with the BAU.

Well, she thought, Special Agent Riley Sweeney has seen more murders than most people her age.

And she wasn’t ready to give up on this one.

CHAPTER SEVEN

As Chief Webster drove the police car out of Tunsboro, Riley felt her expectations rising. But she had to wonder …

Is it just me?

She’d seen no hint of interest in Agent Crivaro’s face. Now, sitting up front next to the chief, he actually looked bored.

Doesn’t Crivaro care about this case at all? Not even after dragging both of us this far across the whole country?

With a sigh, Riley settled into the back seat. She hoped her partner would perk up once they reached the crime scene.

Webster asked Crivaro, “That Harry Carnes fellow—the guy who called me—do you happen to know him?”

“A little,” Crivaro replied.

Riley realized that Crivaro didn’t want to admit that he and Riley had come out here as a personal favor for an old friend of his. It was probably just as well to let Webster think they’d actually been officially sent here by the BAU.

“Well, he’s sure got himself a motor mouth,” Webster said. “I barely got a word in the whole time I talked to him.”

Riley noticed a slight grin flicker across Crivaro’s face. It was easy to guess what he was thinking …

“Motor mouth” is right.

Harry had talked almost nonstop during the whole time they’d spent with him.

Webster added, “He sounded like some kind of conspiracy freak, the way he went on and on about that woman who got killed in Colorado. That’s quite some theory he’s got—that the same killer has struck again, some eight hundred miles away and a whole year later. You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Crivaro let out a noncommittal grunt.

Webster laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d guess Harry Carnes to be a Tunsboro native. We’ve got old-timers who spin tall tales like that. You know, there’s a legend about our little town that’s been told since our mining days. They say that anybody who takes a sip of water from Saguaro Creek never speaks a word of truth for the rest of his days. He just keeps telling crazy stories forever.”

Webster wagged his finger at Crivaro. “Don’t get me wrong, that legend’s got nothing to do with me. I’m a transplant, born and raised in Texas. And I drink bottled water, so I’m pretty truthful mostly. To a fault, some might say.”

Webster’s tone darkened as he said …

“And the truth is, I don’t like folks getting murdered around here. I don’t like it one little bit.”

Riley remembered what he’d said back at the station.

“I take it kind of personal when somebody gets murdered in my jurisdiction.”

He’d also told them …

“No offense, but I’d just as soon not have any interference from Quantico.”

Webster seemed like a stubborn, single-minded man, and that worried Riley a little. She could understand his determination to solve the case without outside help. But from her own experiences, she knew how a murder case could turn into a personal vendetta. Crivaro had been trying to teach her not to let such feelings get the best of her. Little by little, she was coming to appreciate the importance of teamwork.

She wondered—how well did Webster understand that?

Did he grasp how helpful she and Crivaro could be to him right now?

Most of all, she wondered …

Does this man know he might be seriously out of his depth?

If this killer was anything like the ones she and Crivaro had dealt with before, a small-town police department didn’t have the expertise, resources, or experience needed to catch him.

Riley had to stop her racing thoughts. So far, she had no reason to believe they were investigating a deadly serial killer. Crivaro certainly didn’t seem to think so.

She forced herself to turn her attention away and gaze out the car window.

The landscape had changed.

During the drive from Phoenix to Tunsboro, they’d passed mainly through developed areas—resorts and golf courses and the like. Now Webster had taken a road that wasn’t heavily traveled, and she was getting her first real look at the Southwestern desert.

She didn’t much like it.

The vast stretches of rocky, tan soil and dull green brush were punctuated only by tall, featureless cactuses. Even the intense blue sky seemed somehow harsh and unforgiving.

Growing up as Riley had in rural Virginia, she was accustomed to green vegetation, rolling hills, and especially trees.

There wasn’t a tree anywhere in sight.

Just why tourists like Harry and Jillian came here to enjoy this scenery was a mystery to her.

She reminded herself that at least the weather was pleasant. Chief Webster had the car windows rolled down, and the air was fresh, dry, and surprisingly cool for midday—not at all humid, like it often was in Virginia.

Soon Riley saw a couple of vehicles parked on the side of the road up ahead. Webster pulled over and stopped behind them,

One of the vehicles was another police car, and the other was a beat-up van. A couple of cops were leaning against the police car, smoking cigarettes.

A weathered sign nearby read “Wren’s Nest Hiking Trail.”

Webster explained to Riley and Crivaro as they got out of the car, “I left a couple of my guys here to watch over things. We’ve already checked out what we could from here. Didn’t find anything useful. I was just about to get a tow truck to take the van in. Then you guys showed up, so I figured I could leave it all in place a little longer.”

Riley and Crivaro followed Webster over to the van. Its back doors were wide open, and Riley could see a mattress on the floor littered with some camping gear. As they looked inside, Webster said …

“You can see that the poor kid wasn’t a seasoned camper. It looks like she bought some second- or third-hand old van, took out the back seats, and didn’t do much more to convert the vehicle than throw a mattress on the floor. A pretty Spartan get-up. She depended a lot on campground facilities.”

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