Once Taken (13 page)

“What river?” Bill asked.

“The Anacostia. I’ve never been there but I know it’s in that district.”

The woman brought up a map on her computer.

“There,” she said, pointing to where she thought the suspect might be. “From what he said, I’d say that’s where he was probably going. Somewhere around there, in the Northeast and on the other side of the river.”

Riley thanked the woman, who unlocked the door and let them outside.

“I might be wrong,” the woman said. “It might not be the man in your picture.”

“It was him, all right,” Bill said. “Don’t let him in if he returns here. Call the cops.”

She shook her head and closed the door again.

Riley was already walking back to where they’d parked the car. Bill caught up with her and said, “I’m going to run that name just in case anything comes up.”

When they reached the SUV, Riley got into the driver’s seat while Bill spent a few moments connecting to BAU. Soon he looked up at Riley with a surprised expression.

“A man named Bruce Staunton recently changed his mailing address,” Bill said.

“Where’s the new one?”

After a few more seconds, Bill told her, “It’s right in the area that the grocery store woman just told us about.”

“Then let’s go.” Riley started the car.

“Not so fast,” Bill said. “There’s something not right here. That was awfully easy. Peterson’s a smart guy. He had to know we might come around here asking about him. Still, he told his employer where he was moving, and he even changed his mailing address so we could find it? What are we supposed to make of that?”

Riley didn’t reply. She just put the SUV in reverse and backed it out of the parking space. Then she turned it facing the street.

“You direct, I’ll drive.”

Bill was right, and she knew it. Peterson had given the woman this information for one of two reasons. He was either trying to throw her off the scent, or he was drawing her into a trap.

Riley hoped he was drawing her into a trap. She would be more than ready for him.

“Turn left in fifty feet,”
the female GPS voice said.

As Bill switched on his turn signal, Riley felt oddly comforted by the voice. The sense that someone knew where they were going relieved her stomach-wrenching fear and dread just a little.

She’d tried figuring out the way with a map before they’d started driving. She was normally very good with maps, but her mind kept filling up with terrible images of April in captivity and Peterson taunting her with a propane torch. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t figure out a feasible route. Bill had insisted on using the GPS and now the friendly voice was taking care of things.

Soon after the turn, the SUV crossed a bridge over the river. They were well into the Northwest now.

“We’re getting close,” Bill said.

But close to what?
Riley wondered.

It was still very dark outside, and the rain was now heavy and steady. She had no idea how April was being held, but she knew that rescuing her wasn’t going to be easy. She wondered yet again whether she and Bill shouldn’t call in a SWAT team. They still didn’t know if the address they’d gotten for so-called Bruce Staunton was correct. Besides, if it was, it was best not to have a small army storming the place. It might be the surest way to get April killed.

If she wasn’t dead already.

The thought was unbearable. Riley had to put it out of her mind. It couldn’t be true. She wouldn’t let it be true.

“Turn right. You have reached your destination.”

“Damn,” Bill murmured.

Riley shared his discouragement. It wasn’t a house at all, just an all-night convenience store. Its glaring interior light jarred against the rainy darkness. Bill parked the SUV. They both got out of the vehicle and opened umbrellas.

“I don’t think it’s a total fail,” Riley said. “It’s unlikely he’d give this random address if he’d never spent any time in the area. He’s not here, I’m sure of it. But I also think he’s been here. I think he’s in the area. He likes to taunt, after all. He likes to let us know he’s not afraid of us, and that he’s smarter than us. Thus he would give an address that’s not where he lives—but close to it.”

Bill sighed.

“At least it’s open,” Bill said. “Let’s go in and ask some questions.”

“You go ahead,” Riley said. “I want to look around a bit.”

“Okay,” Bill said. He went on inside the store.

Riley stood in the parking lot, surveying the area. She saw that they had arrived in a middle-class family neighborhood, with small houses bunched close together. Across the street, the block was comprised entirely of row houses. A couple of the homes were lighted even at this hour. Riley guessed that commuters were getting ready to drive to work.

Where and how could Peterson be holding April in such a densely populated area? A neighborhood where everybody probably knew everybody else?

This isn’t right,
she thought.

Still, her every instinct told her that Peterson hadn’t misled them—not completely. Perhaps it was only wishful thinking, but Riley was sure that Peterson had set a trap for her, and that she was getting closer and closer to finding out where it was. A part of him, after all, wanted to confront her.

Bill came out of the store, splashing through rain puddles as he trotted toward Riley.

“The guy in there thinks he recognizes the face,” he said. “He thinks he’s seen him around a construction site near the river.”

Riley felt encouraged.

“Let’s check it out.”

She and Bill climbed back into the SUV.

“The guy said this street takes you there,” Bill added.

As they drove, Riley’s alertness sharpened. The area seemed less populated and more promising. It ought to be easy to spot an abandoned house—someplace isolated, where no one could hear a woman’s desperate cries for help.

When they reached the chain link fence surrounding the construction site, Riley said, “Stop here.”

Bill stopped the car, and they got out, opening their umbrellas. A large sign on the fence announced the construction of a new apartment complex. There were only a few inhabited homes nearby. The area reminded Riley of the tenement where she had been held. She felt her heartbeat quicken.

“I think we’re close,” she said to Bill. “Look how much more isolated this is.”

Bill shook his head. “I don’t know, Riley. It seems that way at night, but look at all this equipment. By day these grounds are crawling with construction workers. Do you see any place where Peterson could be holed up?”

Riley looked all around. This part of the site was lighted, but she couldn’t see anybody anywhere.

“There must be a night watchman around somewhere,” Bill said. “Maybe he can tell us something.” He pointed. “Let’s go around to the other side of the site. We might find him there.”

Just then, Riley heard what sounded like kids’ voices. It was a startling sound at this hour, in the dark and the rain. She turned and saw a group of kids standing under an awning near the construction site.

“You go ahead,” she said to Bill. “I’m going to talk to these kids.”

Bill walked away, and Riley approached the group of teenagers. There were seven of them, a mixed bunch—black and white, male and female. They were trying their best to look like gangsters and thugs, dressed in the proper attire and smoking cigarettes. She also caught a whiff of pot.

Riley pulled the flyer with the pictures of Peterson out of her bag. She displayed it to the kids as she approached.

“Have any of you ever seen this man?” she asked.

One of the kids swaggered toward her. He looked like the oldest, and he seemed to fancy himself the group’s leader. Riley noticed him give a silent signal to the biggest kid, who started to move around her. She knew that she needed to watch her back.

“What are you, some kind of cop lady?” the older kid asked.

Riley pulled out her badge.

“That’s what I thought,” the boy said with a sneer. “What makes you think we’re gonna go talking to cops?”

“An innocent girl is missing,” Riley said. “She’s being held near here by a psychopath. She’s probably being tortured. She’s going to be killed soon if I don’t find her.”

She held the picture closer to the kid who had approached her.

“Have you seen him?” she asked.

The boy sneered again. “If I did, why would I tell you?”

“Better not do her that way, Mayshon,” a younger black girl said. “She probably ain’t here alone.”

The boy laughed sourly.

“So what?” he said. “We ain’t done nothing wrong.”

Riley noticed the boy nod ever so slightly, and she knew it was a signal to the bigger kid who was now behind her.

Riley whipped around and caught the bigger kid by the wrist as he raised a knife toward her. She grabbed his arm in a lock and twisted his arm sharply as she pulled it up behind his back. She knew she could easily break it.

And yet, despite how much he may have hurt her, she didn’t want to hurt him. He was big and strong, but he was still just a kid.

He dropped the knife and groaned in agony, writhing, unable to get free.

The other kids stood there, wide-eyed, staring back in panic and surprise.

“I wasn’t going to do nothin’!” the big kid called out. “Don’t bust my arm!”

Riley was fuming. She imagined what this boy might have done to someone else who was not as capable as she.

“I could send you to jail for that,” she hissed in his ear. “For a long, long time.”

The boy whimpered, while the other kids shifted uncomfortably. A few of them turned and bolted.

“I’m sorry, lady!” he whimpered. “I’ll never do it again.”

Riley finally sighed sharply and released her grip. She had to remind herself that this was not the enemy she was after—and that sometimes, mercy is the greatest gift she could give someone. She had to give it out while she could; she did not know if she would have any left for the man who had her daughter.

As soon as she let go the boy turned and ran, and Riley reached down and picked up the knife. She stared back at the leader, the only boy left, who looked too scared to run.

“Get out of my sight,” Riley sneered.

The boy finally bolted.

When Riley saw they were long gone, she folded the blade and pocketed it. She heard a noise and was surprised to see the girl who’d spoken had stayed behind. She emerged from the shadows and stared back at Riley with an awed expression.

“That was cool,” she said. “I never seen a lady do nothing like that. Don’t mind them, they’re just assholes. Who is this girl you’re talking about?”

“She’s my daughter,” Riley said. “She’s fourteen.”

Riley could tell her words got to her. She guessed that this girl was about April’s age.

“I seen him—the man in the pictures,” she said. “I think he lives near here.”

She pointed.

“Over that way, past all this building stuff, almost at the river. It’s not far. It’s a little house, the only one over there. Last I saw, he drove a big Cadillac.”

Riley’s heart quickened. She started to walk in that direction.

“Come on,” she said to the girl. “Show me.”

But the girl hung back.

“Uh-uh,” the girl said. “This is where I get off. Last time I got too close to that place, he pulled a gun on me.”

Without another word, she broke into a trot toward the bus shelter. She stopped midway and turned back toward Riley.

“He’s a mean son of a bitch,” she yelled.

“I know,” Riley whispered to herself.

She went back toward the SUV to get a flashlight. She also wanted to get the Remington. She was pretty sure she was going to need it.

He might not even have to kill me,
April thought.
Maybe I’ll just die anyway.

It was pitch dark under the wooden deck. Rain was beating against the floorboards above her and dripping between the cracks. It had been raining off and on for hours, and the ground beneath her had turned to mud. Even though it was a warm August night, she was soaked to the skin, and she shivered from the wetness. And she was very hungry and thirsty.

After night had set in, Peterson had crept under the deck with her several times, holding a plate of food while he waved the lighted propane torch to warn her away from it. He’d chuckled cruelly at her hopeless attempts to grab at the food with her two bound wrists.

So now she knew that this was exactly the kind of torture Mom had endured at his hands. But Mom had gotten away from him once. Could she do that too?

At least the rain was keeping him away for now. He had been in the house for a while and she hadn’t heard a sound from him. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe now would be her chance to escape.

April’s hands and feet had turned numb again from being bound by the plastic restraints. As she’d done many times before, she rubbed and twisted her ankles and wrists to get some circulation going. After a moment of sharp, icy tingling, she got some feeling back again.

She rolled through the mud toward the square of lattice that he always opened and closed. She couldn’t see it in the dark, but she knew exactly where it was—at a corner of the deck away from the house.

She pushed against the lattice with her feet. It was no good. It was too solid in that spot. Peterson must have unlatched and relatched hooks or bolts whenever he came and went. She couldn’t hope to open them from inside, not with her hands bound.

Still unable to see anything at all, she rolled back toward the house until she bumped against the cinderblock foundation. She thought the lattice might be weaker where it butted up against the house. She fingered its edges, finding out exactly where it was nailed to a thick wooden post next to the house. Then she stretched out and pushed against the upper corner with her feet.

She gasped when she felt the lattice budge a little. It was looser here!

She pushed again. It didn’t move much, but she heard the sharp, noisy sound of wood cracking. She froze with fear. Could Peterson hear her in the house? How could he
not
hear her? In her fearful and exhausted state, the noise seemed to be almost deafening to her.