“I just came to say goodbye,” Mommy said with a smile.
Riley struggled to understand what was happening.
Then she remembered …
Mommy had been shot to death right before Riley’s eyes in a candy store when Riley was only six years old.
But here Mommy was, looking exactly the same as when Riley had last seen her alive.
“Where are you going, Mommy?” Riley asked. “Why do you have to go?”
Mommy smiled and touched the glass that stood between them.
“I’m at peace now, thanks to you. I can move on now.”
Little by little, Riley started to understand.
Not long ago, she had tracked down her mother’s killer.
He was now a pathetic old vagrant living under a bridge.
Riley had left him there, realizing that his life had been punishment enough for his terrible crime.
Riley reached out and touched the glass that separated her from Mommy’s hand.
“But you can’t go, Mommy,” she said. “I’m just a little girl.”
“Oh, no, you’re not,” Mommy said, her face radiant and blissful. “Just look at yourself.”
Riley looked at her own reflection in the mirror next to Mommy.
It was true.
Riley was a grown woman now.
It seemed strange to realize that she was now much older than her mother had lived to be.
But Riley also looked tired and sad in comparison with her youthful mother.
She’ll never grow any older, Riley thought.
The same was not true for Riley.
And she knew that her world was full of trials and challenges still to be endured.
Was she ever going to get any rest from it? Would she ever be at peace for the rest of her life?
She found herself envying her mother’s timeless, eternally peaceful joy.
Then her mother turned and walked away, disappearing into the infinite tangle of reflections of Riley.
Suddenly there came a terrible crash, and all the mirrors shattered.
Riley was standing in near-total darkness, up to her ankles in broken glass.
She gently pulled her feet out one by one, then tried to make her way through the wreckage.
“Watch your step,” said another familiar voice.
Riley turned and saw a rugged old man with a lined, hard, and weathered face.
Riley gasped.
“Daddy!” she said.
Her father smirked at her surprise.
“You hoped I was dead, didn’t you?” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
Riley opened her mouth to contradict him.
But then she realized he was right. She hadn’t grieved when he had died last October.
And she certainly didn’t want him back in her life.
After all, he’d scarcely ever said a kind word to her in all his days.
“Where have you been?” Riley asked.
“Where I’ve been all along,” her father said.
The scene began to change from a vast expanse of broken glass to become the outside of her father’s cabin in the woods.
He was now standing on the front stoop.
“You might need my help on this case,” he said. “It sounds like your killer’s a soldier. I know a lot about soldiers. And I know a lot about killing.”
It was true. Her father had been a captain in Vietnam. She had no idea how many men he’d killed in the line of duty.
But the last thing she wanted was his help.
“It’s time for you to go,” Riley said.
Her father’s smirk twisted into a sneer.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I’m just settling in.”
His face and body changed shape. In a matter of moments, he was younger, stronger, dark-skinned, even more menacing than before.
He was now Shane Hatcher.
The transformation struck Riley with terror.
Her father had always been a cruel presence in her life.
But she was coming to dread Hatcher even more.
Much more than her father ever did, Hatcher had some kind of manipulative power over her.
He could make her do things that she’d never imagined she’d do.
“Go away,” Riley said.
“Oh, no,” Hatcher said. “We’ve got a deal.”
Riley shuddered.
We’ve got a deal, all right, she thought.
Hatcher had helped her find her mother’s killer. In return, she allowed him to live in her father’s old cabin.
Besides, she knew she owed him. He’d helped her solve cases – but he’d done much more.
He’d even saved her daughter’s life along with that of her ex-husband.
Riley opened her mouth to speak, to protest.
But no words came out.
Instead, it was Hatcher who spoke.
“We’re joined at the brain, Riley Paige.”
Riley was awakened by a sharp jolt.
The plane had landed in the San Diego International Airport.
The morning sun was rising beyond the runway.
The pilot spoke over the intercom, announcing their arrival and apologizing for the bumpy landing.
The other passengers were gathering their belongings and preparing to leave.
As Riley groggily got up and pulled down her bag from the overhead luggage compartment, she remembered her disturbing dream.
Riley was hardly superstitious – but even so she couldn’t help but wonder …
Were the dream and the rough landing somehow portents of things to come?
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was a bright, clear morning by the time Riley got into her rental car and drove out of the airport. The weather really was wonderful, with a temperature in the comfortable sixties. She realized that it would make most people think of enjoying the beach or at least lying beside a pool somewhere.
But Riley felt a lurking apprehension.
She wondered wistfully if she could ever come to California just to enjoy the weather – or go to any other place to relax.
It seemed that evil awaited her wherever she went.
The story of my life, she thought.
She knew she owed it to herself and her family to break out of this pattern – to take some time off and take the girls somewhere just for the sheer joy of it.
But when was that ever going to happen?
She