LITMIR.BIZ

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Moines. We have to get the plane fueled up and ready to go. In the meantime, don’t go too far. Takeoff will be in less than two hours.”

      Riley and Jenn left Meredith’s office. Riley went straight to her own office, sat down for a moment, and looked around aimlessly.

      Des Moines, she thought.

      She’d only been there a few times, but it was where her older sister, Wendy, lived. Riley and Wendy, estranged for years, had gotten in touch last fall when their father was dying. Wendy, not Riley, had been with Daddy when he died.

      Thinking about Wendy stirred up guilt over that as well as other disturbing memories. Daddy had been hard on Riley’s sister, and Wendy had run away when she was fifteen. Riley had been just five. After their father died, they had vowed to keep in touch, but so far that had amounted to a video chat.

      Riley knew she should visit Wendy if she had the chance. But obviously not right away. Meredith had said that Angier was an hour away from Des Moines and that the local police would pick them up at the airport.

      Maybe I can see Wendy before I come back to Quantico, she thought.

      Right now, she had a little time to kill before the BAU plane took off.

      And there was someone she wanted to see.

      She was worried about her longtime partner, Bill Jeffreys. He lived near the base, but she hadn’t seen him for several days. Bill was suffering from PTSD, and Riley knew from her own experience how tough recovery could be.

      She took out her cell phone and typed a text message.

      Thought I’d stop by for a few minutes. U home?

      She waited a few moments. The message was marked “delivered” but not yet read.

      Riley sighed a little. She didn’t have time to wait for Bill to check his messages. If she wanted to see him before she left, she had to drop by right now and just hope he was home.

*

      It was only a few minutes’ drive from the BAU building to Bill’s little apartment in the town of Quantico. When she parked her car and started toward the building, she noticed again what a depressing place it was.

      There was nothing especially wrong with it as apartment buildings went – it was an ordinary red brick building, not a tenement or anything like that. But Riley couldn’t help remembering the nice suburban home where Bill had lived until his divorce. In comparison, this place had no charm at all and now he lived alone. It wasn’t a happy situation for her best friend.

      Riley walked into the building and headed straight toward Bill’s second-story apartment. She knocked on the door and waited.

      No reply came. She knocked again and still got no response.

      She took out her cell phone and saw that the message was still unread.

      She felt a burst of worry. Had something happened to Bill?

      She reached for the doorknob and turned it.

      To her alarm, the door was unlocked, and it swung open.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      Bill’s apartment looked like it had been burglarized. Riley froze in the doorway for a moment, about to draw her gun in case an intruder was still here.

      Then she relaxed. Those things strewn about everywhere were food wrappers and dirty plates and glasses. The place was a mess, but it was a personal mess.

      She called out Bill’s name.

      She heard no answer.

      Then she called out again.

      This time she thought she heard a groan from a nearby room.

      Her heart pounded again as she hurried through the doorway into Bill’s bedroom. The room was dim and the blinds were closed. Bill was lying on the unmade bed, wearing rumpled clothes and staring up at the ceiling.

      “Bill, why didn’t you answer when I called?” she asked somewhat irritably.

      “I did,” he said in a near-whisper. “You didn’t hear me. Could you stop being so loud?”

      Riley saw a nearly empty bourbon bottle sitting on the nightstand. Suddenly the whole scene became clear. She sat down on the bed beside him.

      “I had kind of a rough night,” Bill said, trying to force a feeble chuckle. “You know what that’s like.”

      “Yeah, I do,” Riley said.

      After all, despair had driven her to her own binges and ensuing hangovers.

      She touched his clammy forehead, imagining how sick he must feel.

      “What set you off drinking?” she asked.

      Bill groaned.

      “It was my boys,” he said.

      Then he fell silent. Riley hadn’t seen Bill’s two sons for a while. She guessed that they must be about nine and eleven years old by now.

      “What about them?” Riley asked.

      “They came over to visit yesterday. It didn’t go well. The place was a mess, and I was so irritable and edgy. They couldn’t wait to go home. Riley, it was awful. I was awful. One more visit like that, and Maggie won’t let me see them again. She’s looking for any excuse to cut them out of my life for good.”

      Bill made a noise that sounded almost like a sob. But he didn’t seem to have the energy to cry. Riley suspected he’d done plenty of crying alone.

      Bill said, “Riley, if I’m no good as a father, what good am I? I’m no good as an agent, not anymore. What’s left?”

      Riley felt a stab of sadness in her throat.

      “Bill, don’t talk like that,” she said. “You’re a great father. And you’re a great agent. Maybe not today but every other day of the year.”

      Bill shook his head wearily.

      “I sure didn’t feel like much of a dad yesterday. And I just keep hearing that shot. I keep remembering running into that building, seeing Lucy lying there bleeding.”

      Riley felt her own body tremble a little.

      She, too, remembered all too well.

      Lucy had entered an abandoned building unaware of any danger, only to be taken down by a sniper’s bullet. Following close behind her, Bill had mistakenly shot a young man who had been trying to help. By the time Riley got there, Lucy had used her last ounce of strength to kill the sniper with multiple rounds.

      Lucy had died moments later.

      It had been an awful scene.

      Riley couldn’t remember many worse situations in her entire career.

      She said, “I got there even later than you did.”

      “Yeah, but you didn’t shoot an innocent kid.”

      “It wasn’t your fault. It was dark. You had no way of knowing. Besides, that kid’s doing all right now.”

      Bill shook his head. He held up a shaky hand.

      “Look at me. Do I look like the kind of guy who can ever get back to work?”

      Riley was almost angry now. He truly did look terrible – certainly not like the shrewd, brave partner she’d learned to trust with her life, nor the handsome man she’d felt rashly attracted to from time to time. And all this self-pity didn’t become him.

      But she sternly reminded herself …

      I’ve been there. I know what it’s like.

      And when she’d been like this, Bill had always been there to get her through it.

      Sometimes he’d had to be tough on her.

      She figured he needed a bit of that toughness right now.

      “You look like hell,” she said. “But the condition you’re in right now – well, you did to yourself. And you’re the only

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