Page 7 of Once Hidden
“Nothing.”Meredith's expression darkened.“Which doesn't bode well for Morris and Lindeen.”
Riley studied the code again.Numbers that held meaning, puzzles left deliberately.Someone who wanted to be clever.Someone who wanted them to work for answers.
“I want you both in Talomaska Crossing,” Meredith said.“Lindeen's disappearance is more recent.Start there, then move on to Bundydale.Captain Travis Hodge from the Virginia State Police will meet you at the local station.He's coordinating the ground search in both locations.He’s also put out a state-wide bulletin alerting delivery drivers to possible danger.”
Riley was already building the mental framework that might eventually lead to insight.She knew from experience that the answers rarely came all at once—they accumulated slowly, piece by piece, until the moment when everything suddenly connected.
“Agent Esmer,” Meredith said, “would you mind giving me a minute with Agent Paige?There's something else I need to discuss with her.”
Ann Marie was professional as always despite the curiosity that briefly flashed in her eyes.“Of course.I'll wait in the hall.”
As the door closed behind her partner, Riley felt a bit tense.Private conversations with Meredith weren’t always pleasant.She watched him return to his chair behind the desk, his expression unreadable as he regarded her across the polished surface.
“What is it?”she asked, when the silence had stretched long enough.
Meredith leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk, and Riley prepared herself for whatever was coming next—something he hadn't wanted to share with Ann Marie present.
CHAPTER THREE
Silence fell over Meredith's office after Ann Marie closed the door behind her.Chief Brent Meredith sat studying the grain of his desk, his dark angular features composed, his broad frame still as stone in the morning light.
Riley just waited.She'd known Meredith long enough to recognize when something significant lurked beneath his professional demeanor, and whatever it was this time was sufficiently serious to require her young partner’s absence.
Meredith finally looked up, his dark eyes meeting hers directly.
“First, I want to apologize,” he said.
Riley tilted her head slightly.“For what?”
“For dragging you into this case.”He gestured toward the door through which Ann Marie had just left.“I know you're supposed to be on break from teaching.You had plans.”
Riley shrugged.The canceled getaway with Bill had stung, but she understood the demands of the job better than most.But it wasn’t like Meredith to get apologetic about such things.
What’s really bothering him?she wondered.
“It's fine, Chief.You don't need to apologize.”
“I wouldn't have called you in if I didn't think your particular skills were needed,” Meredith continued.“These abductions—there's something about them that feels...orchestrated.Deliberate in a way that suggests we're dealing with someone who wants to be understood, but only on their own terms.It's the kind of mind that operates in odd ways that some agents just can't get a fix on.”
“My particular skills,” Riley repeated.They both knew what he meant—her ability to immerse herself in a killer's mind, to see the world through their distorted lens.It had helped solve cases that might otherwise have remained unsolved.
“We both know you're one of the best at getting inside these people's heads,” Meredith said simply.
“And we both know that's not always a good thing.”
Meredith nodded, acknowledging the double-edged nature of Riley's gift.“How's the teaching going?”he asked, shifting topics with the smoothness of someone who had navigated countless difficult conversations.
Riley settled back in her chair.“I like it.The students are bright, eager.Most of them, anyway.It's different from fieldwork.More structured.Safer.”Then she thought of Leo Dillard, a student whose obsession with her had spun into something dangerous last year, threatening her family.“Usually safer,” she corrected herself.
“But?”Meredith prompted, reading her tone accurately.
“But even so, I do sometimes miss being in the field full-time.The immediacy of it.The sense that every hour matters.”
“Think you might want to go back to that?Give up teaching, I mean?”
Riley swallowed hard.It wasn’t a question she felt at all ready to answer, not even to herself.
“I—I don’t know, sir.”
