“You’re sure? What is it, Christopher?”
“Come outside and hear it for yourself.”
He led the way back outside, in the direction of the squad cars. The police officers were waiting there, managing to look both disapproving that Paige had run into the house and sympathetic about the reasons why she might have done it.
“Can you tell my colleague what you started to tell me before she ran inside?” Christopher asked one of the officers. He was a bulky, middle-aged man with a short beard. His name badge said that he was Officer Lane.
“We arrived about ten minutes ago. We found that the house had been broken into, with no sign of the homeowner. Her vehicle appears to be missing, and we have reason to believe that Adam Riker might have been here.”
Paige was about to ask what reason, but she realized that there was only one way that the police could have been there when she and Christopher arrived.
“Someone called you? Someone saw this happen?”
The police officer looked uncomfortable for a moment or two. “Someone claiming to be Adam Riker called 911, telling us that he was here.”
He’d called the police? That didn’t make any sense to Paige. She looked over to Christopher.
“This doesn’t fit with what Adam does,” she said. “He breaks into a house, or an office, or somewhere, and he kills his victims there. He doesn’t… what did he do? Shove my mother into her car and drive her somewhere else?”
“I don’t know,” Christopher said. “It’s a big shift in his MO, but so was his last killing. He’s doing something else here, and maybe he decided that he needed to be somewhere else in order to do it. There’s one piece of good news, though, Paige.”
“What could possibly be good about any of this?” Paige demanded.
“That he’s taken your mother rather than killing her straight away,” Christopher said.
As consolations went, it felt like a very slender one to Paige.
“Wait, you’re Paige King?” Officer Lane asked.
Paige nodded. “Yes, why?”
“The man claiming to be Adam Riker mentioned you in his message,” Officer Lane said. He looked over to Christopher, as if wanting to confirm that telling her was the right thing to do.
“Just tell us,” Christopher said.
“The message said to tell Paige King that he had taken her mother, and that she would find her in the last spot she lost someone.”
Almost as soon as the police officer said it, Paige knew where Adam was taking her mother. If he knew about her, then he knew that there was one spot that meant more in Paige’s life than any other, one spot that had changed everything for her.
“What does it mean, Paige?” Christopher asked. “It’s obvious that he thinks you know where he means.”
Paige nodded. She knew. There was no way of not knowing. This was one location that would forever be burned onto Paige’s memory.
“He’s taking her to the spot where I found my father’s body.”