Once Hunted (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 5) by Blake Pierce

Author:Blake Pierce [Pierce, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

*

About three hours later, Worland’s police chief Lonny York was driving Riley, Bill, Huang, and Creighton through Elbow Lake State Park. Chief York was an enormous bear of a man approaching retirement age. Although the park’s trees were barren this time of year, Riley could see that the forest must look glorious in spring and fall. She saw no snow anywhere.

As they approached their destination, Riley looked at her watch.

Time’s up, she thought a bit wryly.

The deadline for catching Hatcher was passing at that very moment. Riley more than half expected her phone to ring, and for Walder to call and goad her about her failure. But no, she figured Walder would save his gloating for when she got back to Quantico.

As they neared the lake, Chief York pointed to one of the many cabins they had been passing.

“That’s where the killer stayed,” he said. “He’d been renting the place since Saturday morning.”

As York parked the SUV in front of the cabin, Riley considered Rhodes’ timeline. He must have driven here and rented this place shortly after he’d attacked April. He’d apparently spent a leisurely day here, and then killed Kirby Steadman the next morning, just yesterday. Now he was gone and he’d left no clues to his direction.

The five people got out of the SUV and headed straight toward the cabin, which was wrapped like a boxed gift in yellow police tape. They ducked under the tape and entered the cabin.

Riley looked around. With its smoky pine aroma, it reminded her of the cabin where her father had lived during his last years in the mountains of Virginia. The place didn’t evoke pleasant memories, but she knew that it must seem charming to tourists who rented it.

Riley saw signs of fingerprint powder here and there.

“Did you find any prints?” she asked York.

“Yeah, lots of them,” York said. “He made no effort to wipe the place down. Of course, he must have been in kind of a hurry to get out of here. It’s been too soon for us to match the prints to anybody.”

Riley had no doubt that at least some of the prints would belong to Orin Rhodes. But she wondered if Shane’s prints might show up as well.

Riley, Bill, Huang, and Creighton looked around for a few moments. There wasn’t much to see. Aside from fingerprints, the cabin’s last occupant seemed to have left nothing behind.

She noticed several brochures lying on the dresser. They were the usual tourist stuff, advertising things visitors might like to see. But then she took a closer look. Three of them featured South Carolina tourist sites, two beach resorts and this very place, Elbow Lake State Park. The other two were about places in Florida, a historical and ecological preserve at Jacksonville and Everglades National Park down near Miami.

“Do the cabins always provide this kind of information for visitors?” she asked York.

“I don’t know,” the chief replied. “But they look pretty ordinary.”

“They’re probably not important,” she said, but she tucked the brochures into her bag.

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