CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Staking out Adam’s old home meant waiting. Waiting, and watching, with Paige hoping that she was right this time.
The day wore on with Paige and Christopher in Adam Riker's old house. Paige found herself walking through it, hoping that it would give her some improved sense of who Adam was. She wasn't getting much. She’d been back to her notes several times, looking through the interviews, trying to find other possibilities, but he’d mentioned this place several times. It meant something to him.
The renovations meant that the house wasn't the same one it would have been when Adam was a child. She tried to imagine it as it might have been then, but it was hard. The house they were in was clean and modern, and that meant that it was hard for Paige to make the leap to how Adam's home had once looked.
Paige wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Part of her had always thought that coming to the house would give her a sense of Adam. She'd thought that maybe she'd be able to feel him there in the lines of the place, but the truth was that she felt nothing.
"It's really just us?" she asked, as Christopher paced the place, obviously anxious as he waited for the possibility of Adam arriving. “No vans of agents sitting outside?”
"After the last time, I don't think I can swing another full stakeout," Christopher said.
Paige knew that was her fault. They'd only spent last night staking out George Riker's address because Paige had been so certain that Adam would show up there. They'd all wasted their time, and Adam had been in Sara Langdon's office instead, murdering her.
If they couldn’t get backup now, it was because she was the one who’d cried wolf, however much she’d thought she was right at the time. She just hoped that she was right this time. It was why she kept going back to her notes, checking other possibilities. As far as Paige could see, though, this was the last major link to Adam’s past left, now that they had his uncle watched and Adam had killed two women that he had a history with.
"It's not your fault," Christopher said, obviously guessing that Paige was thinking about it again. "You gave it your best shot; you just happened to guess wrong."
Paige wished that she could think of it as something to be put aside that easily, rather than as yet another failure.
She went to sit on the front porch, trying to ignore the smell of fresh paint. She could have done more. She could have expected more. She could have been better.
Paige was sure that Christopher had told her that it wasn't her fault again, but she had missed it. She was too busy staring out of the window waiting for Adam.
"I wasn't thinking straight," she said. "George Riker felt like the obvious choice, and I just... I should have been more careful."
"Well, that's the risk we take," Christopher said. "Look, you need to focus on something else for a while."
"Like what?" Paige asked. It wasn’t as if there was a lot to do other than think while they waited.
"Well, there's the possibility that a dangerous psychopath might be coming through the door later. Do you know how to shoot?"
That question caught Paige by surprise. She shook her head.
"Seriously?" Christopher asked.
"I've never needed to," she said. It wasn’t something she’d ever had any interest in.
"Well, let's rectify that. We might be facing off against a killer. I'm not going to have you in the middle of that without being able to protect yourself."
"Now?" Paige asked. "What about if Adam shows up?"
"Then we deal with him," Christopher said. "It's something you need to know, and there's no time like the present."
Paige didn't think that was such a good idea, but she followed the FBI agent as he led the way to the kitchen, grabbing a couple of bottles of beer from the refrigerator. Since they were stuck there without obvious supplies, Paige guessed that it made a kind of sense to use what was there. No doubt the FBI would pay the family back later.
After that, Paige followed Christopher as he went out to his car. He got out a box of bullets, drew his service weapon, and then led her out into the yard beyond the house.
He set up the bottles on a tree stump at one end of the garden, leaving Paige at the other. He walked back to her and handed her the gun, carefully.
"Okay, this is a berretta, 9mm. I want you to hold it as you might do to shoot something. The safety is currently on, see it here."
Paige did as Christopher instructed, then he took the gun back.
"Keep your finger clear of the trigger till you're ready to shoot."
He showed her how to hold the gun, how to line up the sights on the target and how to pull the trigger.