He guessed that the kids at the party had probably begged to keepthe party going, and Cody had caved to their wishes. But since they had allbeen there this long, maybe keeping the party going was the best thing to do.At least the kids were in the gymnasium and not out on the street.
Wightman tapped Cody’s phone number into his cell phone, planningto talk things over with the principal.
Meanwhile, Wightman felt uneasy that Agent Esmer wasn’t withAgent Paige. The two BAU agents didn’t seem to be coordinating their efforts.
That seemed odd to him—and it certainly didn’t make him feel anymore confident that this tactic was going to help them catch the Goatman.
Everything seemed to be going wrong. At this point, he could onlyhope that Paige’s odd plan to draw out a killer wasn’t going to go terriblywrong too.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
After the end of the phone call with Sheriff Wightman, Ann Mariesat in her rental car staring at Pater High School. It was dark outside now andthe school itself was an enormous silhouette. Through a row of large windows,she could see activity in the brightly lit gym. The glimpse of costumed kidsdancing and frolicking among crepe paper decorations was a rather surrealsight, but there certainly didn’t seem to be anything sinister going on.
She sighed as she remembered what the sheriff had said to herjust now.
“It will help if you can stay put and keep an eye on things atthe school.”
He didn’t sound like he thought the party was a very seriousproblem. Worse, he sounded as though he was just giving Ann Marie something tokeep her occupied while he and his cops and Agent Paige went about their moreurgent business.
Ann Marie really didn’t like how that made her feel. She’dalready had a bad day and wasn’t feeling great anyhow. But she wasn’t in anyposition to complain, since she wasn’t even supposed to be here in Winneway.Fortunately, the sheriff apparently didn’t even know that Agent Paige had senther back to Quantico. She wondered why Agent Paige hadn’t told him.
Of course, Agent Paige had no idea that Ann Marie was back intown.
Maybe I should call her and tell her.
But no, Ann Marie couldn’t see any point in doing that. AgentPaige would just get mad and tell her to leave all over again. Well, she washere now and she was going to contribute to this case in some way, even if itwas just keeping watch while nothing at all happened.
After a few more minutes, Ann Marie thought she’d go crazy justsitting in the car. Surely she could be more effective patrolling the area onfoot. She got out of the car and walked across the street.
As she continued along the sidewalk in front of the school, shewas met by a man with four costumed little kids, obviously outtrick-or-treating.
She took out her badge and waved it at them.
“FBI,” she said. “You’re not supposed to be out here. There’s acurfew, you know.”
The man looked a bit ashamed of himself.
“I just thought … well, since you’ve got a suspect … everythingwould be safe and …”
Ann Marie grumbled, “Yeah, well, there’s a curfew anyway. Youshould know that. Head on home.”
“We’ll do that,” the man promised.
Ann Marie watched as the man hurried away with the children. Butthey were barely out of sight when she spotted another group oftrick-or-treaters farther down the street.
Some curfew, she thought. None of these people seemed torealize they were possible targets.
It’s like we rang the dinner bell, she thought.
We’re just telling the killer, “Come and get it.”
Somewhat guiltily, she couldn’t help feeling vindicated forhaving objected to this plan from the start. She’d felt in her gut that givingthe public the impression that the killer had already been caught was a bigmistake.
As she’d said to Agent Paige, “We’re playing games with adangerous killer.”
But Agent Paige hadn’t listened. Ann Marie wondered—did hersenior partner wish she’d listened now? Did she realize she’d made a mistake?If so, might all be forgiven if she called to tell Riley she was back?
No, she decided. That woman just plain doesn’t like me.
And she knew that bothered her a lot more than it ought to. AgentPaige had been right in what she’d said about her earlier.
“Being liked is really important to you, isn’t it?”
Yes, it was, Ann Marie had to admit. Wanting to be liked hadalways seemed perfectly normal to her. Why wouldn’t anybody want to be liked?
But, she realized now, she might need to give that question somethought. If wanting to be liked drove her behavior, could it become a problem?
After her altercation with Agent Paige, she’d done as she wastold and driven all the way back to Quantico. But after she’d parked and walkedtoward the BAU building, she simply couldn’t force herself to go inside.Instead, she’d gotten back into the car and returned here.
Why was that? At the time she’d told herself that she hatedleaving in the middle of a case, that she really wanted to finish the job she’dstarted. She’d convinced herself that returning was the right thing to do.
Now she realized that she’d just been too chicken to go into thebuilding and report to Agent Meredith, telling him the truth about why AgentPaige had sent her back. That would have meant admitting that she had failedher first test as a new agent. It probably would have meant facing herinevitable termination as an agent.
Worse, it would have meant feeling that nobody liked her.
Ann Marie was catching on that this was maybe her fatalweakness—not just in trying to be an FBI agent, but in anything else she mighttry to do with her life. She thought that maybe she still had a lot of growingup to do. She needed some time to think about all that …
Suddenly a shrieking
