Agent Paige looked if she’d blurted out something she hadn’tmeant to say.
Suddenly, everything made much more sense to Ann Marie. She knewthat Agent Paige was used to working with a highly experienced partner who wasvery nearly as brilliant as she herself was. Their partnership itself had beensomething of a legend at the academy.
“I’m not Agent Jeffreys,” Ann Marie said.
Agent Paige winced sharply and looked away from Ann Marie.
Ann Marie said, “Look, I don’t know why you’re not working withAgent Jeffreys on this case. But it wasn’t my idea, and you know it. And itwasn’t my idea for you to get stuck with a rookie like me.”
Agent Paige looked both hurt and angry now.
“This isn’t going to work,” Agent Paige murmured tensely. “We’veboth done our best, but we can’t do this together. It will just slow everythingdown and there’s no time for that.”
“What are you saying?” Ann Marie asked.
Agent Paige was silent for a moment.
“I saw a car rental place just down the street,” she said. “Didyou notice it too?”
Ann Marie nodded.
Agent Paige said, “Then I think you should walk on over there andrent a car and drive back to Quantico.”
Ann Marie could barely believe her ears.
“Do you really mean that?” she said with a gasp.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get a reimbursement from the Agency,” AgentPaige added.
Their eyes locked again for a few seconds. Then, without anotherword, Ann Marie turned away had stormed back down the hallway. She could hearAgent Paige open the door to the conference room and then close it behind heras she joined the sheriff inside.
Ann Marie strode down the hall, her throat tight and her eyesstinging.
Don’t cry, she told herself.
Don’t cry until you get out of this building.
There would be plenty of time to cry during the drive back toQuantico.
*
As soon as Ann Marie walked away from her, Riley felt a pang ofregret. She knew she’d said some things she shouldn’t have said.
Why? she wondered.
What got into me? Why was I so hard on her?
She knew she’d been right about one thing. There was no time towork it out. She and the sheriff had set an audacious plan in motion and theyhad to stay on top of it. That was more urgent than a rookie’s hurt feelings.
She hurried back into the conference room, where Wightman wasseated and waiting at the table. He looked surprised to see that she was alone.
“Agent Esmer won’t be joining us,” Riley said.
Sheriff Wightman nodded uncertainly. To Riley’s relief, he seemedto realize that she didn’t want him to ask any questions about what had justhappened.
Grateful that the man seemed able to read her expression and bodylanguage, she sat down with him at the conference table and they began to poreover their plans.
Wightman unfolded a map and they discussed how to deploy thelocal police throughout Winneway, especially the Aurora Groves neighborhood. Wightmandrew lines on the map, sectioning the town into specific areas for small groupsof cops to patrol.
At one point Wightman asked, “How sure do you feel about this?Are you really convinced that the Goatman maniac will show himself tonight?”
Riley nodded. She knew that her strategy was partially based on aprofiler’s basic training in criminal behavior. But it also came from herpersonal sense of the killer. This wasn’t as strong an impression as she’d hadin some cases, but she’d learned over many years that she could usually trusther intuition. Others on the case hadn’t experienced anything like thatpersonal ability of hers, and she usually didn’t even try to explain it tothem.
She just replied, “Quite sure. If we’ve played our cards right,he’s gnashing at the bit right now. He’ll defy the curfew, hoping to findsomeone else who is defying it too.”
Wightman grunted and said, “Yeah, well, he can count on that.There are always a few smart asses out there who think it’s cool to ignore myorders. I just hope the killer doesn’t find any of those people before we findhim.”
I hope so too, Riley thought.
She couldn’t deny that her plan had its risks.
Maybe that was one of the reasons she’d gotten mad at Ann Marieright now.
“We’re playing games with a dangerous killer,” Ann Mariehad said.
And of course she’d been absolutely right. And of course it wasthe last thing Riley had wanted to hear.
Still, the more she and Wightman discussed the plan together, themore sense it made. Wightman had already told the media that he would have copson patrol enforcing the curfew. But only a few cops in uniform would be doingthat. Most of the force would be out in plainclothes, and they’d constitute thereal dragnet. With some luck, the killer would never catch on that a dragnethad been set for him until he was actually captured.
If, as Riley suspected, the killer was flustered and was going toget uncharacteristically sloppy, they had a better than even chance of catchinghim.
When they finished making their plans, Wightman left theconference room to set up a conference with his cops. Riley found herselfsitting alone, thinking again about her unpleasant altercation with Ann Marie.She wondered again just why she had been so harsh with the kid.
She remembered Ann Marie saying, “Why don’t you like me, AgentPaige?”
Riley realized it was actually a pretty good question.
Ann Marie seemed to charm everybody else she met.
Maybe that’s the problem, Riley thought.
As far as she was concerned, a BAU agent had no business tryingto be likeable all the time. Every successful agent Riley had known had beenrough around the edges at the very least, and sometimes downright disagreeable.
Most of all, they didn’t have the luxury of caring aboutbeing liked.
I was right to send her packing, Riley thought.
Maybe it was for her own good.
And anyway, Riley felt better about the prospect of not havingAnn Marie around to distract and annoy her. Something big was coming up tonight,and Riley knew that she had to be at the top of her game.
But I could also use a partner, she thought.
Her heart lightened as something occurred to her.
Why not ask Bill?
She picked up her phone
