Ballard grunted loudly. “You’re sorry?” he said. “Sorrydon’t cut it. I went to school, I know my rights. The law can’t come bustinginto somebody’s house without a warrant. It’s illegal.”
Riley shrugged slightly.
“Yeah, and so is hunting over your limit,” she said. “I guessthat makes us just about even. I’m sure neither of us wants to make a big dealout of things. Let’s just call it a night, OK?”
Without another word, she walked out of the house with Ann Mariefollowing her.
As they headed back down the road by the beams of theirflashlight, Ann Marie chattered disapprovingly.
“Where are we going? We’ve got to ask him more questions!”
“Like what?”
“Like where he was when Allison Hillis disappeared or—”
Riley interrupted, “That man didn’t kill anybody.”
“How do you know?”
Riley groaned aloud and said, “His alibis are going to check out.Besides, didn’t you hear what I said back there? His freezer is stuffed full ofdeer meat. That freezer was the only reason we suspected him in the firstplace. He’s not a killer, just some jerk who keeps a smelly hunting lodge.”
“Oh,” Ann Marie mumbled sheepishly.
Riley felt her frustration rising as they walked in silence for afew moments.
Finally she said in a voice tight with anger, “Ann Marie, we’vegot some things we need to discuss.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The tension between Riley and Ann Marie was palpable. They walkeda little farther along the dark dirt road without talking.
Finally Riley spoke up, “Just what the hell happened back there?”
“I’m sorry,” Ann Marie said. “I screwed up.”
“I’ll say you screwed up,” Riley said. “But I need to hear yourversion of it.”
Ann Marie sighed deeply.
Then she said, “It was dark. I heard a noise out on the porch. Ithought someone was out there. I wasn’t sure.”
Riley said, “And you didn’t call out to whoever it was?”
“No.”
“You didn’t announce that you were FBI?”
“I was too scared.”
Riley struggled to imagine the incident from Ann Marie’s point ofview. She found it hard to do.
“So you thought you might be in danger?” Riley asked.
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t draw your weapon?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Ann Marie’s voice sounded choked with emotion.
“I don’t know. I just froze, I guess.”
“Froze?” Riley said. “Ann Marie, you were trained—no, you were drilledon what to do in these situations. Are you telling me you just forgoteverything you’d learned at the academy?”
“I remembered,” Ann Marie said. “I just … well, froze. I was justso scared. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
Riley found it hard to control the anger in her voice.
“How can I know it won’t happen again? Suppose we’d been right,and the killer really lived there, and it was him you heard on thatporch. What do you think would have happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Riley scoffed. “Well, I’m pretty sure I do know. You’dhave gotten killed. And I might well have gotten killed as well. We both couldhave ended up missing and buried somewhere, like that girl we saw earliertoday.”
They’d arrived back to the gate at the end of the drive. Theysqueezed between the gate and the fence again and continued walking toward thecar.
Riley shook her head. “Ann Marie, I can’t train you from scratch.I’ve got to be able to count on you when the going gets tough. You need to beready to do this job. Do you think you are ready?”
“I think so,” Ann Marie said.
She doesn’t sound very sure of herself, Riley thought.
They got into the car, and Riley started driving them back toWinneway. They didn’t say another word to each other during the whole drive.They found the motel that Sheriff Wightman had recommended and checked in.
As they walked toward their rooms, Ann Marie said, “Agent Paige,please let me finish this case. You have no idea what becoming a BAU agentmeans to me. I’ll do better. I promise.”
“We’ll see,” Riley replied sternly.
Ann Marie ducked her head and hurried off to her room.
Riley went inside her own room and stood there for a momenttrying to decide what to do next. She knew that her first order of business wasto report in to Brent Meredith. After all, when she and Ann Marie had met withhim this morning, he hadn’t believed this was going to turn out to be a realBAU case. She remembered what he’d said.
“You’ll probably go there and turn right around and come backagain.”
Riley didn’t think things were turning out that way after all. Itwas true that they had only one murder to investigate. But the killer’s oddmessages combined with the sense of him that she’d experienced in the park hadher intuitions tingling. She felt a rising suspicion that this “Goatman” was atrue serial killer, the kind of monster she had dedicated her career tohunting. She couldn’t give up on this case until she found him and stopped himfrom killing again.
It was too late to phone Meredith, so she opened her laptop andwrote him an email reporting much of what had happened today.
Then she threw herself on the bed. It was very late, and it hadbeen a long, discouraging day. She felt tired, and unsure what to do next. Shehad half a mind to call Meredith first thing in the morning and tell him thatAnn Marie just wasn’t cut out to be a BAU agent.
But the rookie’s plea echoed through Riley’s mind.
“Please let me finish this case. You have no idea whatbecoming a BAU agent means to me.”
Riley scoffed aloud to herself.
I’ve got no idea, huh?
Did the girl really think no other rookie agent had ever felt thesame way—the same depth of commitment, the same feeling of being called to anoble task?
But Riley found it hard not to sympathize with her. Sheremembered something else Ann Marie had said earlier today about the choice she’dmade to go into law enforcement, and how her father had disapproved.
“He always wanted me to take over the family business someday.”
She knew it was no small thing to defy a father’s expectations.
Ann Marie might seem like a shallow twit, but Riley figured theremust be grit and commitment somewhere inside her.
Maybe she deserves another chance.
Besides, now that Riley had some time to think, she
