Taking

And maybe with good reason, Riley thought.

The two men in the front seats weren’t talking about road trips and other trivia now. Harry had turned off his steady flow of inane chatter and gotten back to the topic that was most on his mind.

“You know, I’m starting to come up with a theory about those two murders,” he said. “Want to hear it?”

Riley heard Jillian let out a gasp. She knew the woman must be worried that her husband would renege on his promise not to get mixed up in the case at the last possible minute.

Looking irritated, Crivaro just grumbled inaudibly.

Riley got the distinct feeling that his intended answer was “no.” But Harry was clearly determined to talk about his theory anyway.

“I think—no, I’m almost sure—the killer is a camper, someone who hops from campground to campground.”

“Someone like you?” Crivaro asked wryly.

Harry chuckled and said, “Yeah, like me except for the years spent catching slime like that. But in a way, yeah, you’re kind of right. The killer has to be someone who blends right in with the whole campground culture. Campgrounds have got to be where he stalks his victims.”

Crivaro shook his head. “I don’t know, Harry …”

Harry ignored him and babbled on about his theory. Riley felt as though she could understand Crivaro’s skepticism. Even if Harry was right and the two murders were connected, that certainly didn’t mean the killer had “stalked” anybody. She knew that some murders were spontaneous acts that resulted from chance encounters. Besides, wouldn’t most campers travel in groups, or at least in pairs? The idea of a psychotic camper prowling the nation’s campgrounds seemed a bit farfetched.

Finally Harry said, “Now, Jake, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but …”

Riley could see Crivaro wince at those words. He grumbled again, “It’s not actually my job.”

That didn’t even slow Harry down. He continued, “I think you and your partner should start going to campgrounds, ask the people there a lot of questions. Sooner or later you’ll get just the clue you need.”

Crivaro rolled his eyes, and Riley couldn’t help but sympathize.

Still not noticing Crivaro’s dismay, Harry kept right on.

“Mind you, you and your partner can’t just march into a campground looking like you do right now. Hell, you’ve got ‘FBI’ written all over you. I know campers, and most of them are perfectly friendly, and they’ll talk to you no matter who you are. But we do get all kinds of people out there. Some of them are more—what’s the word?”

“Reserved,” Jillian grumbled. “Some of them are just shy.”

“Yeah, that’s it, shy,” Harry said. “Some of them really like to keep to themselves. And if any of those shy ones know anything, they’ll skitter off the second they catch sight of you. I guess what I’m saying is, the two of you have got to go undercover, pretend to be campers yourselves. You can say you’re the girl’s uncle or something like that. Sure, you know how to do that, but for here it might be harder than it sounds. First of all, you’ve got to get new clothes, dress more like Jillian and me. And you’ll need your own trailer or RV …”

At that point Crivaro interrupted loudly. “Harry, I can’t go buying a camper.”

“Yeah, I know, but you can rent one,” Harry informed him. “They’ve got to be available around here. Just make sure it looks halfway decent, not some piece of junk. Some of the better motor home campgrounds won’t even let an old or beat-up camper in. I’m sure the Tunsboro police chief can tell you someplace where you can find just what you need.”

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?

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