Page 51 of Once Hidden
There was a rustling sound as the phone changed hands.
“Mom?”April’s voice came through, sounding hesitant.
“Hi, honey.Everything OK?”
“Yeah, um...”April paused.“I just wanted to tell you that Ethan is back from Philadelphia.We talked, and we’ve made up.”
Riley felt a twinge of motherly concern.“That’s good.I’m glad you worked things out.”
“Yeah, me too.”April’s voice brightened.“I was thinking maybe I could bring him by sometime?So, you could meet him?”
The request caught Riley by surprise.April had never offered to introduce a boyfriend to the family before.“I’d like that,” she said carefully.“When I get back from this case, we can set something up.”
“Great!”April sounded genuinely pleased.“Be safe, OK?”
“Always am,” Riley promised.“Love you.”
“Love you too.Here’s Bill again.”
Bill came back on the line.“Everything all right?”he asked.
“Fine,” Riley said.“Interesting that April wants to introduce her boyfriend to the family.”
“That’s new,” Bill agreed.“Must be getting serious.”
“Maybe.”Riley wasn’t sure how she felt about that.“I should get some sleep.Long day tomorrow.”
“Call when you can,” Bill said.“Good night, Riley.”
“Good night.”
After ending the call, Riley set her phone on the nightstand and began her nightly routine.She laid out fresh clothes for tomorrow, organized her notes for the morning, and took a quick shower in the bathroom’s cramped stall.
As she settled into bed, her mind drifted between the two worlds she inhabited—the one filled with shallow graves and cryptic messages from killers, and the one where her daughter wanted to bring home a boyfriend.The contrast never ceased to unsettle her.How many times had she gone from discussing murder to discussing mundane family matters in the span of a single conversation?
It was like living with one foot in the darkness and one in the light.Most people never had to navigate that divide, never had to compartmentalize the way she did.Bill understood it because he lived it too.It was one of the countless threads that bound them together.
She switched off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness except for the faint glow of lights outside the curtained window.In the quiet, she could hear the steady hum of the air conditioner and, beyond that, the occasional passing car on the nearby highway.
Tomorrow she and Ann Marie would drive to Hartsfield and visit Raven’s Leap Cliff, where Jay Bartlett had fallen to his death five years ago.She would stand where Tony had stood, look down at the same rocks that had claimed his brother’s life, and try to understand how that moment had transformed grief into a compulsion to kill.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The miniature chess set looked too elegant for the little table in Tony Bartlett’s shabby motel room.Each piece was a warrior in a war Tony had been fighting since his brother’s death.Outside, the June night pressed hot against the single window, its glass smudged with the residue of previous tenants’ breaths and fingerprints.Tony’s eyes flicked between the board and the empty chair across from him, where Jay sat waiting.Though dead for five years, Jay’s presence was as real to Tony as the peeling wallpaper and the hum of the struggling air conditioner.
“Your move,” Tony said, his voice barely audibles above the mechanical whir.
Jay didn’t respond—he never did, not with words that anyone else could hear—but Tony saw his brother’s fingers hover over a knight.Then he obeyed his brother’s will by decisively sliding it forward in an L-shape that threatened Tony’s bishop.The move was aggressive, like all of Jay’s plays had been tonight.
Tony studied the board, the same travel set they’d carried on countless adventures throughout Virginia’s landscape.Before they got it, they used to improvise create makeshift chess boards and pieces with whatever they found at hand—with floor scratches and stones and such.This set’s magnetized pieces had survived rock climbing expeditions, overnight camps in the woods, and rain-soaked hikes through dense forests.The familiar worn edges of the folding board told a history of brotherly competition, of minds equally matched in their understanding of strategy and risk.
“You’re playing like you’ve got something to prove,” Tony murmured, moving his bishop to safety.He glanced up at the clock on the nightstand: 11:17 p.m., June 19th.It was the night of his first failure to fill another shallow grave.
Jay’s next move came swiftly—a rook sliding across the board, setting up a trap that Tony barely spotted in time.
“I know, I know,” Tony said, leaning back in his chair.“I messed up.I couldn’t finish at Quayle Hill.The delivery man got away.”
His twin’s face remained impassive, but Tony felt the weight of disappointment radiating from the empty chair.Jay had always been the more daring of the two, taking risks that made even Tony’s heart race.Now, five years after Jay’s fall, that daring had hardened into something colder, more demanding.
