Once Chosen by Blake Pierce

Author:Blake Pierce [Pierce, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2020-05-25T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Driving close behind Sheriff Wightman’s car, Riley waited for Ann Marie to answer. But the young agent just turned and looked at Riley as if she had no idea what she meant.

Of course she doesn’t, Riley realized.

She explained, “You got recruited because of a murder case you solved. I’d like you to tell me about it.”

Ann Marie laughed a little.

“Oh, that,” she said. “That was just a silly thing.”

A “silly thing”? Riley wondered. She found it weird to think of a murder case as a “silly thing.”

Ann Marie continued, “Anyway, it had to do with these twins in Georgetown …”

Riley couldn’t help but interrupt.

“Twins? Do you mean the Bristow twins case?”

“Yeah, that one,” Ann Marie said. “So you’ve heard of it?”

“Yeah,” Riley said, trying not to sound too startled—or too impressed.

There had been quite a bit of talk around Quantico last year about the Bristow case. Riley hadn’t been involved with it, but from what she’d heard, it was a peculiar one, even by her standards. She didn’t know many details about it, just that it had some kind of twist to it that investigators had almost missed.

Riley was glad that she was apparently going to hear all about it now from someone who had actually been involved. She’d never have guessed that her young partner would know anything about that semi-notorious case.

“Please fill me in,” she added.

Ann Marie shrugged. “Well, one day at Dad’s mortuary, this guy named Glenn Bristow brought his identical twin brother’s body in for cremation. They’d been rock climbing, and his brother, Ethan, had fallen to his death. Dad asked me to conduct the bereavement interview while he was preparing the body for cremation.”

She sighed happily. “I really like that part—talking to people about their grief, I mean. I’m good at it, I really know what I’m doing. I guess it’s because I’m such a people person.”

Riley wasn’t surprised to hear her say that. She remembered vividly the rookie’s skillful professionalism when she’d interviewed Allison Hillis’s mother. She also remembered finding Allison’s performance to be shallow and insincere. But Lauren Hillis hadn’t seemed to feel that way at all. Ann Marie had managed to put that bereaved woman fully at ease in a way that Riley couldn’t have pulled off.

She really is good at it, Riley had to admit to herself. A real people person.

But Riley still wasn’t sure if she herself was one of those “people” that Ann Marie did so well with.

The rookie went on, “Glenn had come to the mortuary with his wife, Barbara. They were really leaning on each other for support. In fact, Glenn seemed to be taking his brother’s death hard. They’d been pretty much inseparable their whole lives, he said.”

Riley said, “And they really were identical, right?”

“Well, to look at, yes,” Ann Marie said. “But in some ways they apparently weren’t so similar. Glenn said the whole thing was horribly ironic. Although they sometimes climbed together, it wasn’t one of Glenn’s main interests in life like it was his brother’s.

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