Free Once Taken by Blake Pierce Page B

April typed:
    I want to talk.
    Riley’s heart surged with unexpected emotion.
    Me too, she typed. Could you wait till I get back to my room?
    April’s next text took her thoroughly by surprise.
    Not on the phone. Right here. Come home and let’s talk.
     

Chapter 12
    Riley came to a stop on the Amtrak platform. She still had doubts about what she was doing, even though she and Lucy had talked it through more than once. They both felt sure that nothing more was going to happen here in Reedsport. The chain killer had struck in two different towns, and whenever he killed again it was likely to be somewhere else.
    “I still don’t know about this, Lucy,” Riley said. “I don’t usually leave a case in progress.”
    “It’s okay,” Lucy replied with a hint of exasperation. “I know what to do. Interview everybody I can. Go to the funeral in case he’s there. Check out who sends flowers.”
    At that moment, the conductor called out, “All aboard!”
    Riley said, “If anything important happens, I’ll come right back.”
    “Go,” Lucy said firmly.
    “Thanks,” Riley replied.
    The little BAU jet that had brought them to Reedsport had left almost immediately after their arrival, so it wasn’t a travel option this time. Lucy had offered to drive Riley to Albany to catch a flight home, but Riley had chosen the train instead. It would take her right to Quantico, with just a change in New York City. The trip would give her a chance to go over her files and consider the mind of a killer.
    She climbed up into the spacious business class car and took her seat. She had two big chairs to herself, giving her room to spread out as much as she wanted to. She looked out the window as the train started to pull out of the station. Lucy was nowhere in sight. Riley knew that she was headed straight back to work.
    She tilted the chair into a reclining position and started to relax. The steady, friendly rumbling and soothing vibration of the train car helped Riley begin to process information with her customary mental skill. To begin with, there was the question of just why the killer had starved both victims. Of course he must have meant to weaken them. Riley also felt pretty sure that he had probably been starved earlier in his own life and felt compelled to inflict the same suffering on others.
    But now something else occurred to her. Feeding the women would have meant acknowledging their humanity. In doing that, he might run the risk of feeling sympathy for them. They were of use to him only as objects, as symbols of whatever had hurt or enraged him in the past.
    Riley breathed deeply. Yes, she beginning to feel connected with him—much more than she had at either crime site.
    He’s human, she thought. He’s all too human.
    He was not some cold and unfeeling sociopath. He was likely to be capable of sympathy and even kindness. Those were the very qualities that he feared most about himself, because they might well be his undoing.
    Riley closed her eyes. She could feel the staggering effort it took for him to suppress his human qualities. And weak as he was, how long he could handle the strain and effort of being a murderous animal? All he knew was that he had no choice.
    Something else began to make more sense to her. The shocking staging of his most recent murder, with the body hanging where everyone could see it, was not just an attempt to shock the world. It was also for his own benefit. He had a need to convince everybody—including himself—that he was far more savage than he appeared to be.
    As his desperation mounted, Riley knew, his crimes were likely to become ever more outrageously vicious. He couldn’t allow himself to display the slightest telltale hint of mercy or humanity. He must do his best to become a monster beyond even his own imagining.
    The steady click-clacking of train wheels was having a pleasantly hypnotic effect. Riley hadn’t thought she was tired, but now she realized she’d been under