Once Craved (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #3) by Blake Pierce Read Free Book Online Page A

the bed. April was sounding just like a mother herself.
    Maybe a little
parental lecture is just what I need, Riley thought.
    April sat down next
to Riley.
    “Did I ever tell you
about my friend Angie Fletcher?” April said.
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Well, we used to be
tight for a while but she changed schools. She was really smart, just one year
ahead of me, fifteen years old. I heard that she started buying drugs from this
guy everybody called Trip. She got really, really into heroin. And when she ran
out of money, Trip put her to work as a hooker. Trained her personally, made
her move in with him. Her mom’s so screwed up, she barely noticed Angie was
gone. Trip even advertised her on his website, made her get a tattoo swearing
she was his forever.”
    Riley was shocked. “What
happened to her?”
    “Well, Trip
eventually got busted, and Angie wound up in a drug rehab center. That was just
this summer while we were in Upstate New York. I don’t know what happened to
her after that. All I know is that she’s just sixteen now and her life is
ruined.”
    “I’m so sorry to
hear that,” Riley said.
    April groaned with
impatience.
    “You really don’t
get it, do you, Mom? You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You’ve spent
your whole life stopping this kind of thing. And you’ve put away all kinds of
guys like Trip—some of them forever. But if you stop doing what you do best,
who’s going to take over for you? Somebody as good at it as you? I doubt it,
Mom. I really doubt it.”
    Riley fell silent
for a moment. Then with a smile, she squeezed April’s hand tightly.
    “I think I’ve got a
phone call to make,” she said.

Chapter Seven
     
    As the FBI jet
lifted off from Quantico, Riley felt sure that she was on her way to face yet
another monster. She was deeply uneasy at the thought. She had been hoping to
stay away from killers for a while, but taking this job had finally seemed like
the right thing to do. Meredith had been clearly relieved when she’d said she
would go.
    That morning, April
had left on her field trip, and now Riley and Bill were on their way to
Phoenix. Outside the airplane window the afternoon had turned dark, and rain
streaked across the glass. Riley stayed strapped into her seat until the plane
had made its way through rough-and-tumble gray clouds and into clearer air above.
Then a cushiony surface spread out beneath them, hiding the earth where people
were probably scurrying about to stay dry. And, Riley thought, going about
their everyday pleasures or horrors or whatever lay in between.
    As soon as the ride
smoothed out, Riley turned to Bill and asked, “What have you got to show me?”
    Bill flipped open
his laptop on the table in front of them. He brought up a photo of a large
black garbage bag barely submerged in shallow water. A dead white hand could be
seen poking out of the bag’s opening.
    Bill explained, “The
body of Nancy Holbrook was found in an artificial lake in the reservoir system
outside of Phoenix. She was a thirty-year-old escort with an expensive service.
In other words, a pricey prostitute.”
    “Did she drown?”
Riley asked.
    “No. Asphyxiation
seems to have been the cause of death. Then she was stuffed into a heavy-duty
garbage bag and dumped into the lake. The garbage bag was weighted with large
rocks.”
    Riley studied the
photo closely. A lot of questions were already forming in her mind.
    “Did the killer
leave any physical evidence?” she asked. “Prints, fibers, DNA?”
    “Not a thing.”
    Riley shook her
head. “I don’t get it. The disposal of the body, I mean. Why didn’t the killer
go to just a little more trouble? A freshwater lake is perfect for getting rid
of a body. Corpses sink and decompose fast in fresh water. Sure, they might
resurface later on because of bloating and gases. But enough rocks in the bag
would solve that problem. Why leave her in shallow water?”
    “I guess it’s up to
us to figure that out,” Bill