CHAPTER ELEVEN
Paige had never been inside an FBI office before. It was a far cry from the small, cramped police department she'd been to before, after her father's death, let alone the institutional feel of the places that she worked in as a psychologist.
The building had a marble floor and a huge lobby that reminded Paige of an upscale hotel rather than the place where federal agents carried out their duties.The people walking by wore suits rather than uniforms, making it hard to guess which of them were agents like Christopher and which were support staff. It all felt very orderly compared to a police station, too. This wasn’t the kind of place that saw screaming drunks brought in. The crimes it investigated were bigger, and while they caused their own ripples, Paige got no sign of them in the reception area.
Christopher led her to a reception desk to get ID, then up a couple of flights of stairs to his office. That office took up a corner of the building, had a view of the city from a dozen tall windows, and was furnished in rich wooden tones. Paige kept waiting for Christopher to tell her that there'd been some kind of mistake, because it seemed like the kind of place someone far more important might have been given.
In spite of the décor, the office wasn’t large, and there was a sense of clutter to it, as if Christopher had too many things to deal with all at once. There were rows of bookshelves along one wall, and Paige found herself glancing over at the titles, trying to get a sense of the kind of man Christopher was.
Appropriately enough for a man who was part of the BAU, there were plenty of books on psychological profiles and serial killers of the past. There were also field manuals, and a few reference books, mostly on legal procedure. They were all neatly shelved in what appeared to be alphabetical order. That said to Paige that Christopher was a man who liked to do things correctly, and who didn’t like to cut corners. It also made her wonder about the current clutter in the rest of his office.
“Please excuse the mess,” he said, obviously seeing Paige looking around. “It’s just, with this landing on my plate so suddenly, there has been no time to deal with anything else. Catching Adam Riker takes priority even over getting things in order.”
“You like having things in order?” Paige asked, glad that her guess about him had come through, even if her one about Adam hadn’t.
Christopher offered her a smile. “Who doesn’t, but we’re not here to profile me.”
That was a fair point. They were there to try to catch a killer. Even so, Paige couldn’t help asking the obvious question.
“Do you do a lot of profiling?” She gave the books on the subject a pointed glance. If Christopher was a profiler himself, then why did he need her around?
“Oh, those aren’t so I can profile anyone myself,” Christopher said, with an amused look. “Those are so that I can understand half the reports that cross my desk from the actual profilers.”
Paige had the feeling that he was being too modest, but she was willing to let that go.
“So why the BAU?” she asked. “Why here, if that’s not your skillset?”
She saw Christopher shrug. “It’s a chance to catch the worst of the worst, often in situations where we don’t have a lot of physical evidence to go on initially. The work we do helps us catch killers who otherwise might go on to hurt many more people.”
The way that Adam had killed Eloise Harper. The way he might go on to kill other people if they didn’t stop him. If she didn’t stop him.
The strength of that thought caught Paige by surprise. She was just a psychologist who had worked with Adam. It wasn’t her responsibility to catch him. That was down to the FBI, to people like Christopher. Paige tried to tell herself that none of this was her fault.
Yet Paige couldn’t help feeling a flash of guilt about the way Adam had gotten out, and of fear that he’d learned so much about her. What if he decided to stalk her? What if he decided, after Eloise, that Paige was the next piece of unfinished business he needed to take care of? She even felt guilty for guessing so badly about where Adam was going to try to hide out.
“This is going to be ok,” Christopher said, obviously spotting some of her worry. “We’re going to catch him.”
“We struck out on the farm,” Paige replied. She balled her hands into fists at that thought. “I struck out.”
She’d wasted both of their time with something that she’d half remembered, assuming that Adam was just going to blunder back to his bolt hole, forgetting that he’d told Paige all about it. Of course, Adam was also going to remember that he’d mentioned it in one of his sessions. Of course, he was going to go somewhere else rather than letting himself be caught so easily. Paige had treated him like he was stupid, and it had left them another step behind him.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Christopher said. “You provided me with a solid lead. It just didn’t pan out. At the very least, it means that we’ll be able to monitor the old house now, making sure that he doesn’t come back. The one thing that I am worried about is that you didn’t stay put when I told you to wait behind when I was chasing the guy.”
“I had to help,” Paige said. “Otherwise, I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”
Christopher stood up then. “You are helping. You’re providing me with information about Adam Riker that I couldn’t get anywhere else.”
“But I could do that from anywhere.”
“Not if you can’t see what’s happening on the ground. Are you telling me that you want to go home, Paige?”
Paige hesitated. Was that what she wanted? No, she couldn’t, not when Adam was still out there. If she sat back and did nothing, and then he killed again, she would feel as if it were her fault, not just his.
Besides, with Adam still out there, Paige felt as if the safest place to be was right at Christopher’s side. Not at home, just waiting for Adam to come for her.
“No, I don’t. I’m just surprised you’re not off pursuing some other lead, rather than spending your time going around with me, following my guesses about where Adam might be. I can’t be your best shot at this.”
“We don’t have other leads,” Christopher said. He waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, I’ve got local police and state troopers out looking for Adam, and there are lines people can call to report a sighting, but we both know that he’s too clever to be caught that way. If that were going to happen, it would have already.”