Free Once Gone by Blake Pierce Page A

everything.”
    A silence fell.
    “I know,” April finally said from inside her room.
    Then all was quiet. Riley wished she could see her daughter’s face. Was it possible that she heard just a trace of sympathy in those two words? No, probably not. Was it anger, then? Riley didn’t think so. It was probably just detachment.
    Riley went to the bathroom and took a long hot shower. She let the steam and the pounding hot droplets massage her body, which ached all over after such a long and difficult day. By the time she got out and dried her hair she felt better physically. But inside she still felt empty and troubled.
    And she knew that she wasn’t ready to sleep.
    She put on slippers and a bathrobe and went to the kitchen. When she opened a cabinet the first thing she saw was a mostly-full bottle of bourbon. She thought about pouring herself a straight double shot of whiskey.
    Not a good idea, she told herself firmly.
    In her current frame of mind, she wouldn’t stop with one. Through all her troubles of the last six weeks, she’d managed not to let alcohol get the best of her. This was no time to lose control. She fixed herself a cup of hot mint tea instead.
    Then Riley sat down in the living room and began to pore over the folder full of photographs and information about the three murder cases.
    She already knew quite a bit about the victim of six months ago near Daggett—the one they now knew to be the second of three murders. Eileen Rogers had been a married mother with two children who owned and managed a restaurant with her husband. And of course, Riley had also seen the site where the third victim, Reba Frye, had been left. She’d even visited Frye’s family, including the self-absorbed Senator.
    But the two-year-old Belding case was new to her. As she read the reports, Margaret Geraty began to come into focus as a real human being, a woman who had once lived and breathed. She’d worked in Belding as a CPA, and had recently moved to Virginia from upstate New York. Her surviving family aside from her husband included two sisters, a brother, and a widowed mother. Friends and relatives described her as good-natured but rather solitary—possibly even lonely.
    Sipping on her tea, Riley couldn’t help but wonder—what would have become of Margaret Geraty if she had lived? At thirty-six, life still held all kinds of possibilities—children, and so much else.
    Riley felt a chill as another thought dawned on her. Just six weeks ago, her own life story had come fearfully close to ending up in a folder just like the one now open in front of her. Her whole existence might well have been reduced to a stack of horrible photos and official prose.
    She closed her eyes, trying to shake it away as she sensed the memories come flooding back. But try as she did, she could not stop them.
     
    As she crept through the dark house, she heard a scratching below the floorboards, then a cry for help. After probing the walls, she found it—a small, square door that opened into a crawlspace under the house. She shined a flashlight inside.
    The beam fell upon a terrified face.
    “I’m here to help,” Riley said.
    “You’ve come!” the victim cried. “Oh, thank God you’ve come!”
    Riley scuttled across the dirt floor toward the little cage in the corner. She fumbled with the lock for a moment. Then she pulled out her pocketknife and pried at the lock until she forced it open. A second later, the woman was crawling out of the cage.
    Riley and the woman headed for the square opening. But the woman was scarcely out before a threatening male figure blocked Riley’s way.
    She was trapped, but the other woman had a chance.
    “Run!” Riley screamed. “Run!”
     
    Riley yanked herself back to the present. Would she ever be free from those horrors? Certainly, working on a new case involving torture and death wasn’t making it easier for her.
    Even so, there was one person she could always turn to for support.
    She got out her