Once Cold

CHAPTER SIX

Blaine Hildreth felt a rush of conflicting emotions as he made his way through the crowd. He had spotted Riley Paige when she stood up to cheer. She looked as vital and striking as ever, and he found himself automatically going toward her at the halftime break. Now she was looking back at him as he approached, but he couldn’t tell much from her expression.

How did she feel about seeing him?

And how did he feel about seeing her?

Blaine couldn’t help flashing back to a traumatic day more than two months ago …

He was sitting in his own living room when he heard a terrible racket next door.

He rushed over to Riley’s townhouse and found the front door partially open.

He charged inside and saw what was going on.

A man was attacking April, Riley’s daughter. The man had thrown April on the floor, and she was squirming and twisting, beating him with her fists.

Blaine rushed toward them and pulled the attacker off April. He struggled with the man, trying to subdue him.

Blaine was taller than the attacker, but not stronger, and not nearly as agile.

He kept swinging his fists at the man, but most of his blows missed, and the ones that connected made no apparent impact.

Suddenly, the man landed a crashing punch to Blaine’s abdomen. The wind exploded out of Blaine’s lungs. He buckled over and couldn’t breathe.

Then the attacker delivered a swift kick to his face …

… and the world went black.

The next thing Blaine knew, he was in the hospital.

And now, as he was approaching Riley, Blaine was shaking a little from the memory.

He tried to steady himself.

When he reached Riley, he didn’t know what to do. Shaking hands seemed a bit ridiculous. Should he give her a hug?

He saw that Riley’s face was red with embarrassment. She didn’t seem to know what to do either.

“Hi, Blaine,” Riley said.

“Hi.”

They stood there staring at each other for a moment, then laughed a little at their own awkwardness.

“Both of our girls are playing well today,” Riley said.

“Yours especially,” Blaine said.

April’s goal early in the game had really impressed him.

“Are you here with anybody?” Riley asked.

“No. And you?”

“Just Jilly,” Riley said. “You don’t know her, I guess. Jilly is … well, it’s a long story.”

Blaine nodded.

“I’ve heard about Jilly from my daughter,” he said. “Adopting her is really a great thing to do.”

Blaine remembered something else Crystal had told him. Riley was trying to get back together with Ryan. Blaine wondered how that was going. Ryan wasn’t here at the game, anyway.

Rather shyly, Riley said, “Listen, we’re sitting up in the back of the stands. We’ve got some extra room. Would you like to watch the rest of the game with us?”

Blaine smiled.

“I’d like that,” he said.

They made their way to the bleachers and climbed up to the back. A thin young girl smiled as she saw Riley approach. But she didn’t look happy when she noticed that Blaine was with her.

“Jilly, this is my friend Blaine,” Riley said.

Without saying a word, Jilly got up from the bench and started to walk away.

“Sit with us, Jilly,” Riley said.

“I’m going to sit with my friends,” Jilly said, pushing past them and continuing down the stairs. “They can squeeze me in.”

Riley looked shocked and dismayed.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Blaine. “That was very rude.”

“It’s OK,” Blaine said.

Riley sighed as they both sat down.

“No, it’s not OK,” she said. “A whole lot of things aren’t OK. Jilly’s mad because I’m sitting with someone who’s not Ryan. He had moved back in with us, and she’d gotten very attached to him.”

Riley shook her head.

“Now Ryan’s moving out again,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to tell the girls yet. Or maybe I just haven’t found the nerve. They’re both going to be crushed.”

Blaine felt a little relieved that Ryan wasn’t in the picture. He had met Riley’s handsome ex-husband a couple of times, and the man’s arrogance had put him off. Besides that, he had to admit, he was hoping that Riley was free of romantic relationships.

But he felt also guilty for reacting that way.

The game quickly started again. Both April and Crystal were playing well, and Blaine and Riley cheered from time to time.

But through it all, Blaine kept thinking about the last time he’d seen Riley. It was soon after he returned home from the hospital. He’d knocked on her door to tell her that he and Crystal were moving away. Blaine had given Riley a lame excuse. He’d said that the townhouse was too far from the restaurant that he owned and managed.

He’d also tried to make it sound like the move was no big deal.

“It’ll be like nothing has changed,” he’d told her.

It wasn’t true, of course, and Riley hadn’t bought it.

She’d been visibly displeased.

This seemed like as good a time as any to broach the subject.

In a hesitant voice, he said, “Listen, Riley, I’m sorry about how things were the last time I saw you. When I told you we were moving, I mean. I wasn’t at my best.”

“No need to explain anything,” Riley said.

But Blaine felt very differently.

He said, “Look, I think we both know the reason Crystal and I moved.”

Riley shrugged.

“Yeah,” Riley said. “You were scared for your daughter’s safety. I don’t blame you, Blaine. I really don’t. You were only being sensible.”

Blaine didn’t know what to say. Riley was right, of course. He’d been scared for Crystal’s safety, not his own. He was also scared for Crystal’s mental well-being. Blaine’s ex-wife, Phoebe, was an abusive alcoholic, and Crystal was still dealing with the emotional scars of that relationship. She didn’t need any new traumas in her life.

Riley knew all about Phoebe. She’d actually rescued Crystal from one of Phoebe’s drunken rages.

Maybe she really does understand, he thought.

But he couldn’t tell how she really felt.

Just then, their daughters’ team scored another goal. Blaine and Riley clapped and cheered. They watched the game in silence for a few moments.

Then Riley said, “Blaine, I admit I was disappointed with you when you moved. Maybe even a little angry. I was wrong. It wasn’t fair of me. I’m sorry about what happened.”

She paused, then continued.

“I felt terrible about what happened to you. And guilty. I still do. Blaine, I – ”

For a moment, she seemed to struggle with her thoughts and feelings.

“I can’t help but feel that I bring danger to everyone who crosses my path. I hate that about my job. I hate that about myself.”

Blaine started to object.

“Riley, you mustn’t – ”

Riley stopped him.

“It’s true, and we both know it. If I were my neighbor, I’d want to move too. At least, as long as I had a teenager in the house.”

At that moment, a play went wrong for their daughters’ team. Blaine and Riley groaned along with the rest of the home crowd.

Blaine was starting to feel somewhat reassured. Riley sincerely didn’t seem to hold his moving against him – at least not anymore.

Could they reawaken the interest they once had for each other?

Blaine gathered up his nerve and said, “Riley, I’d love to treat you and your kids to a dinner at my restaurant. You can bring Gabriela too. She and I could swap Central American recipes.”

Riley sat quietly for a moment. She looked almost as if she hadn’t heard.

Finally she said, “I don’t think so, Blaine. Things are just too complicated right now. Thanks for asking, though.”

Blaine felt a pang of disappointment. Not only was Riley turning him down, but she didn’t seem to be leaving any future possibilities open.

But there was nothing to be done about it.

He watched the rest of the game with Riley in silence.

Riley was still thinking about Blaine over dinner that evening. She wondered if maybe she’d made a mistake. Maybe she should have accepted his invitation. She liked him and missed him.

He’d even invited Gabriela, which was sweet. As a restaurateur, he had appreciated Gabriela’s cooking in the past.

And Gabriela had made a typically delicious Guatemalan meal tonight – chicken in onion sauce. The girls were enjoying it and chattering about this afternoon’s soccer victory.

“Why didn’t you come to the game, Gabriela?” April asked.

“You’d have enjoyed it,” Jilly said.

“Sí, I enjoy the futbol,” Gabriela said. “Next time I will come.”

This seemed to Riley like a good time to mention something.

“I’ve got good news,” she said. “I talked to my Realtor today, and she thinks that selling your grandfather’s cabin should bring in quite a bit of money. It should really help with college plans – for both of you.”

The girls were pleased and talked about that for a while. But soon Jilly’s mood seemed to darken.

Finally Jilly asked Riley, “Who was that guy at the game with you?”

April said, “Oh, that was Blaine. He used to be our neighbor. He’s Crystal’s dad. You’ve met her.”

Jilly ate in sullen silence for a few moments.

Then she said, “Where’s Ryan? Why wasn’t he at the game?”

Riley gulped anxiously. She’d noticed earlier that Ryan had come to the house during the day to take his things. It was time to tell the girls the truth.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell everybody,” she began.

But she had trouble finding the right words.

“Ryan … says he needs some space. He’s – ”

She couldn’t bring herself to say more. She could see by the girls’ faces that she didn’t need to. They understood all too well what she meant.

After a few seconds of silence, Jilly burst into tears and fled the room, hurrying upstairs. April quickly followed to console her.

Riley realized that April was accustomed to Ryan’s on and off attentions. These disappointments must still hurt, but she could handle them better than Jilly could.

Sitting at the table with only Gabriela, Riley started feeling guilty. Was she completely incapable of maintaining a serious relationship with a man?

As if reading her thoughts, Gabriela said, “Stop blaming yourself. It is not your fault. Ryan is a fool.”

Riley smiled sadly.

“Thanks, Gabriela,” she said.

It was exactly what she needed to hear.

Then Gabriela added, “The girls need a father figure. But not someone who will come and go like that.”

“I know,” Riley said.

Later that evening, Riley looked in on the girls. Jilly was in April’s room, silently doing homework.

April looked up and said, “We’re OK, Mom.”

Riley felt a flood of relief. As sad as she felt for both girls, she was proud that April was comforting Jilly.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said, and quietly closed the door.

She thought that April would talk to her about Ryan whenever she felt ready. But Jilly might have a harder time of it.

As she went back downstairs, Riley found herself thinking about what Gabriela had said.

“The girls need a father figure.”

She looked at the phone. Blaine had made it clear that he would like to get their relationship going again.

But what would he actually expect of her? Her life was packed full with kids and work. Could she really include anyone else in it right now? Would she just disappoint him?

But, she admitted, I do like him.

And he clearly liked her. Surely there had to be room in life for…

She picked up the phone and dialed Blaine’s home number. She was disappointed to get his answering machine, but not surprised. She knew that his work at the restaurant often kept him away from home at nights.

At the sound of the beep, Riley left a message.

“Hi, Blaine. This is Riley. Listen, I’m sorry if I acted a little distant at the game this afternoon. I hope I didn’t seem rude. I just want to say, if your dinner offer still stands, count us in. Give me a call whenever you can to let me know.”

Riley immediately felt better. She went to the kitchen and poured herself a drink. As she sat sipping it on the living room couch, she found herself remembering her conversation with Paula Steen.

Paula had seemed at peace with the fact that her daughter’s killer would never be brought to justice.

“It’s nobody’s fault, and I don’t blame anybody,” Paula had said.

Those words now troubled Riley.

It just seemed so unfair.

Riley finished her drink, took a shower, and went to bed.

She’d barely fallen asleep when the nightmares started.

Riley was just a little girl.

She was walking through some woods at night. She was scared, but she wasn’t sure why.

After all, she wasn’t really lost in the woods.

The woods were close to a highway, and she could see cars going back and forth. The glow from a streetlight and a full moon both lit her way among the trees.

Then her eyes fell on a row of three shallow graves.

The dirt and stones that covered the graves were shifting and heaving.

Women’s hands clawed their way out of the graves.

She could hear their muffled voices say …

“Help us! Please!”

“I’m just a little girl!” Riley answered tearfully.

Riley snapped awake in bed. She was trembling.

It’s just a nightmare, she told herself.

And it wasn’t especially surprising that she’d dream about the Matchbook Killer’s victims the night after she’d talked to Paula Steen.

She took several long, deep breaths. Soon she felt relaxed again, and her consciousness started to fade into sleep.

But then …

She was still just a little girl.

She was in a candy store with Mommy, and Mommy was buying her lots of candy.

A scary man wearing a stocking over his head came toward her.

He pointed a gun at Mommy.

“Give me your money,” he told Mommy.

But Mommy was too scared to move.

The man shot Mommy in the chest, and she fell down right in front of Riley.

Riley started screaming. She whirled around looking for someone to help.

But suddenly, she was in the woods again.

The women’s hands were still groping out of the three graves.

The voices were still calling …

“Help us! Please!”

Then Riley heard another voice beside her. This one sounded familiar …

“You heard them, Riley. They need your help.”

Riley turned and saw Mommy. She was standing right there, her chest bleeding from her bullet wound. Her face was deathly pale.

“I can’t help them, Mommy!” Riley cried. “I’m just a little girl!”

Mommy smiled.

“No, you’re not just a little girl, Riley. You’re all grown up. Turn around and look.”

Riley turned and found herself looking into a full-length mirror.

It was true.

She was a woman now.

And the voices were still calling out …

“Help us! Please!”

Riley’s eyes snapped open again.

She was shaking even more than before, and gasping for breath.

She remembered something that Paula Steen had said to her.

“My daughter’s killer will never be brought to justice.”

Paula had also said …

“It was never your case to begin with.”

Riley felt a new sense of determination.

It was true – the Matchbook Killer hadn’t been her case before.

But she could no longer leave it to the past.

At long last, the Matchbook Killer had to be brought to justice.

It’s my case now, she thought.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Riley had no more nightmares that night, but even so her sleep was restless. Surprisingly, she felt wide awake and energized when she got up the next morning.

She had work to do that day.

She got dressed and went downstairs. April and Jilly were in the kitchen eating a breakfast that Gabriela had made for them. The girls both looked sad, but not as devastated as they’d been yesterday.

Riley saw that a place had been set at the table for her, so she sat down and said, “Those pancakes look wonderful. Pass them over, please.”

As she ate her breakfast and drank coffee, the girls began to look more cheerful. They didn’t mention Ryan’s absence, instead chatting about other kids at school.

They’re tough, Riley thought.

And they’d both gotten through their share of tough times before now.

She was sure that they’d pull through this crisis about Ryan as well.

Riley finished her coffee and said, “I do have to get to the office.”

She stood up and kissed April on the cheek, and then Jilly.

“Go catch some bad guys, Mom,” Jilly said.

Riley smiled.

“I’ll be sure to do that, dear,” she replied.

As soon as she got to her office, Riley opened up computerized files on the twenty-five-year-old case. As she scanned old newspaper stories, she remembered reading some of them when they had first appeared. She’d been a teenager at the time, and the Matchbook Killer had seemed like the stuff that nightmares were made of.

The murders had happened here in Virginia near Richmond, with just three weeks in between each death.

Riley opened up a map and found Greybull, a small town off of Interstate 64. Tilda Steen, the last victim, had lived and died in Greybull. The other two murders had taken place in the towns of Brinkley and Denison. Riley could see that all the towns lay within about a hundred miles of each other.

Riley closed the map and looked at the newspaper stories again.

One banner headline screamed …

MATCHBOOK KILLER CLAIMS THIRD VICTIM!

She shuddered a little.

Yes, she remembered seeing that headline from many years ago.

The article went on to describe the panic that the murders had struck throughout the area – especially among young women.

According to the article, the public and the police were both asking the same questions:

When and where was the killer going to strike next?

Who was going to be his next victim?

But there had been no fourth victim.

Why? Riley wondered.

It was a question that law enforcement had failed to answer.

The murderer had seemed like a ruthlessly motivated serial killer – the type who was likely to keep right on killing until he was caught. Instead, he had simply disappeared. And his disappearance had been as mysterious as the killings themselves.

Riley began to pore over old police records to refresh her memory.

The victims didn’t seem to be connected in any way. The killer had used much the same MO for all three murders. He’d picked up young women in bars, driven them to motels, and killed them. Then he’d buried their bodies in shallow graves not far from the murder scenes.

The local police had had no trouble locating the bars where the victims had been picked up and the motels where they had been killed.

As some serial killers do, he had left clues for the police.

With all of the bodies, he had left matchbooks from the bars and notepaper from the motels.

Witnesses at the bars and motels were even able to give fairly good descriptions of the suspect.

Riley pulled up the composite sketch that had been created years ago.

She saw that the man looked fairly ordinary, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. As she read witness descriptions, she noticed a few more details. Witnesses had mentioned that he looked strikingly pale, as if he worked at a job that kept him indoors and out of the sun.

The descriptions hadn’t been very detailed. Even so, it seemed to Riley as though the case shouldn’t have been all that tough to crack. But somehow it had been. The local police never found the killer. The BAU took over the case, only to conclude that the killer had either died or left the area. Continuing the search nationwide would be like looking for a needle in a haystack – a needle that might not even exist.

But there had been one agent, a master at cracking cold cases, who had disagreed.

“He’s still in the area,” he had told everybody. “We can find him if we just keep looking.”

But his bosses hadn’t believed him, and they wouldn’t back him up. The BAU had let the case go cold.

That agent retired from the BAU years ago and moved to Florida. But Riley knew how to get in touch with him.

She reached for her desk phone and dialed his number.

A moment later, she heard a familiar rumbling voice. Jake Crivaro had been her partner and mentor back when she joined the BAU.

“Hello, stranger,” Jake said. “Where the hell have you been? What have you been doing with yourself? You don’t call, you don’t write. Is that any way to treat the lonely, forgotten old buzzard who taught you everything you know?”

Riley smiled. She knew he didn’t mean it. After all, they’d seen each other fairly recently. Jake had even come out of retirement to help her with a case just a couple of months ago.

She didn’t ask, “How have you been?”

She remembered his litany the last time she’d asked.

“I’m seventy-five years old. I’ve had both knees and a hip replaced. My eyes are shot. I’ve got a hearing aid and a pacemaker. And all my friends except you have croaked. How do you think I’ve been?”

Asking him would only get him started complaining all over again.

The truth was, he was still physically spry, and his mind was as sharp as ever.

“I need your help, Jake,” Riley said.

“Music to my ears. Retirement stinks. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking into a cold case.”

Jake chuckled a little.

“My favorite kind. You know, cold cases were a specialty of mine back in the day. They still are, as a kind of hobby. Even in retirement, I can collect and review stuff that nobody solved. I’m a regular packrat that way. Do you remember that ‘Angel Face’ killer in Ohio? I solved that one a couple of years ago. It had been cold for more than a decade.”

“I remember,” Riley said. “That was some good work for an over-the-hill old codger.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere. So what have you got for me?”

Riley hesitated. She knew that she was about to stir up unpleasant memories.

“This case was one of yours, Jake,” she said.

Jake fell silent for a moment.

“Don’t tell me,” he finally said. “The Matchbook Killer case.”

Riley almost asked, “How do you know?”

But it was easy to guess the answer.

Jake was obsessed with past failures, especially his own. Doubtless he was keenly aware of the anniversary of Tilda Steen’s death. He’d probably also noted the anniversaries of the other victims’ deaths. Riley guessed that they probably haunted him every year.