Read Once Gone for Free Online Page A

pair of rough tire tracks. The vehicle bounced along jarringly, then came to a stop about a quarter of a mile into the dense woods.
    He switched off the ignition, then turned toward Riley and looked at her with concern.
    “You sure you want to do this?” he asked.
    She knew exactly what was worrying him. He was afraid she’d flash back to her traumatic captivity. Never mind that this was a different case altogether, and a different killer.
    She nodded.
    “I’m sure,” she said, not at all convinced that she was telling the truth.
    She got out of the car and followed Bill off the road onto a brushy, narrow path through the woods. She heard the gurgling of a nearby stream. As the vegetation grew thicker, she had to push her way past low-hanging branches, and sticky little burrs started bunching up on her pants legs. She was annoyed at the thought of having to pick them off.
    At last she and Bill emerged onto the creek bank. Riley was immediately struck by what a lovely spot it was. The afternoon sunlight poured in through the leaves, mottling the rippling water with kaleidoscopic light. The steady gurgling of the stream was soothing. It was strange to think of this as a gruesome crime scene.
    “She was found right here,” Bill said, leading her to a broad, level boulder.
    When they got there, Riley stood and looked all around and breathed deeply. Yes, she had been right to come here. She was starting to feel that.
    “The pictures?” Riley asked.
    She crouched beside Bill on the boulder, and they started leafing through a folder full of photographs taken shortly after Reba Frye’s body had been found. Another folder was stuffed with reports and photos of the murder she and Bill had investigated six months ago—the one that they had failed to solve.
    Those pictures brought back vivid memories of the first killing. It transported her right back to that farm country near Daggett. She remembered how Rogers had been staged in a similar manner against a tree.
    “A lot like our older case,” Riley observed. “Both women in their thirties, both with little kids. That seems to be part of his MO. He’s got it in for mothers. We need to check with parenting groups, find out if there were any connections between the two women, or between their kids.”
    “I’ll get somebody on it,” Bill said. He was taking notes now.
    Riley continued poring through the reports and photos, comparing them to the actual scene.
    “Same method of strangulation, with a pink ribbon,” she observed. “Another wig, and the same type of artificial rose in front of the body.”
    Riley held up two photographs side by side.
    “Eyes stitched open, too,” she said. “If I remember right, the technicians found that Rogers’s eyes had been stitched postmortem. Was it the same with Frye?”
    “Yeah. I guess he wanted them to watch him even after they were dead.”
    Riley felt a sudden tingle up her spine. She’d almost forgotten that feeling. She got it whenever something about a case was just about to click and make sense. She didn’t know whether to feel encouraged or terrified.
    “No,” she said. “That’s not it. He didn’t care whether the women saw him.”
    “Then why did he do it?”
    Riley didn’t reply. Ideas were starting to rush into her brain. She was exhilarated. But she wasn’t yet ready to put any of it into words—not even to herself.
    She laid out pairs of photographs on the boulder, pointing out details to Bill.
    “They’re not exactly the same,” she said. “The body wasn’t as carefully staged back in Daggett. He’d tried to move that corpse when it was already stiff. My guess is this time he brought her here before rigor mortis set in. Otherwise he couldn’t have posed her so …”
    She suppressed the urge to finish the sentence with “nicely.” Then she realized, that was exactly the kind of word she’d have used when she was on the job before her capture and torture. Yes, she was getting back into the