CHAPTER THREE
By the time Agent Christopher Marriott of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit arrived at St Just’s, it was already awash with blue lights, a sea of police swarming the place as they searched the surrounding area for any sign of Adam Riker.
Christopher could have told them that they were wasting their time. If one of the facility’s killers had a plan good enough to get him out of the building, they weren’t going to find him anywhere nearby. He wasn’t going to break out, and then sit there waiting in the surrounding bushes for someone to find him.
He pulled up in his Pontiac and unfolded his six-foot-four frame from the driver’s seat, stretching out as he surveyed the surrounding police, trying to work out who was in charge there. He pulled his FBI issue jacket tighter around his broad shoulders and pulled a cap down over his sandy hair against the cold of the night.
He strode over to the spot where police tape cordoned off a space in the parking lot, because that appeared to be the current focal point of attention. A forensic team was working there already, with a couple of uniformed cops making sure that no one breached the perimeter of the tape. They were needed, because somehow, there were already camera crews and reporters out there, all pushing to get the closest view of what was happening. News of the escape had traveled fast.
“Can you tell us what’s going on, Agent?” a female reporter asked, and then looked closer at him, as if just noticing his square jaw and boyish good looks for the first time. “Maybe we can get an interview with you on camera. I’m sure it will love you.”
And Christopher was sure that he would hate every moment of it. He definitely had no interest in taking the time to do so. His bosses had told him plenty of times that he needed to try being nicer to the press, but Christopher had never been that good at listening to his superiors. Only his impressive clean up rate kept them from transferring him out of the BAU completely. It was certainly the only part that mattered to him.
Still, he’d learned a few stock phrases to say at times like this.
“Details will be released in due course,” Christopher said, stepping past the reporter without stopping. There were more of the reporters in the way, but he timed the moment a gap opened up between them like a quarterback making a run and managed to slip through without one of them managing to get a question off.
He wasn’t surprised to see a couple of US marshals there among the police, apparently directing things. Manhunts were what they did best, after all. In this case, though, they were going to need him, and the particular expertise that the BAU could bring to the table.
“What’s the FBI doing here?” one of them asked. He was a short man at least ten years older than Christopher’s thirty-two, with a barrel chest and a thinning hairline; he didn’t look entirely happy to see Christopher there.
“Agent Marriott, BAU. Since there’s now a serial killer on the loose, that makes it my department’s responsibility.”
Just saying the words brought with them a thread of worry for Christopher at the thought of Adam Riker being out there. Tonight, a man was on the loose who should never have seen daylight again, a man who represented the worst of the worst, and whose freedom meant that no one would be safe until he was caught again.
The pressure of being the one who had to catch Riker was there on Christopher’s shoulders almost from the moment that he thought it. At the same time, though, he could feel the rising excitement of the chase. Men like Adam Riker were the reason why he’d joined the BAU in the first place.
“Are you going to get in our way?” the marshal asked, obviously assuming that the involvement of the BAU would only complicate his efforts.
Christopher was already shaking his head, though. He’d encountered this kind of resistance before. “You do your thing. I’m not going to argue when you’re the best ones for a full-scale man hunt. Set up roadblocks, scour the places he might have gone, but when he avoids all of that-”
“He won’t.”
There was a certainty to the words that Christopher found completely misplaced. He kept going.
“When he does, that’s where I come in. Now, what exactly happened here? How did he escape from the facility?”
The marshal didn’t look happy about it, but at least he answered the question. “He had help. The facility’s cameras have him walking out with this guard.” He gestured to the body lying there, still being worked on by the forensic team. “Somehow, he persuaded this guard to break him out. Why would anyone even do anything like that?”
“Money, threats, promises,” Christopher said. “To understand exactly what combination, I’d have to know more about the guard. From his file, Riker is highly manipulative.”
He was the kind of man who could persuade almost anyone to do what he wanted; he had manipulated many of his victims into positions they couldn’t escape from.
“Is that the kind of high-level analysis they teach you at Quantico?” the marshal scoffed.
Christopher ignored him. He’d run into plenty of people who felt that the BAU was nonsense, not real investigative work. Besides, he guessed that the other man was picking a fight because he was worried. He had to know as well as Christopher did that they were playing catch up with a serial killer at this point.
“Where’s the head of the facility?” Christopher asked. If he was going to get ahead of Riker, then he needed to get some kind of insight into the serial killer’s mind.
“That would be Dr. Neil.” The marshal gestured to a spot where a white haired, older civilian in a sharp suit was standing in the parking lot, watching proceedings with a worried expression.
Christopher went over to the man. This close, he looked tired, and very slightly bedraggled around the edges, with uncombed hair, and one cuff of his shirt not quite fastened correctly. Christopher had the impression that he’d come out in a rush, probably after a panicked phone call from the facility to let him know that Riker had escaped.
“Dr. Neil?” he said. “I’m Agent Marriott, with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit.”
“The FBI?” Christopher saw Dr. Neil’s eyes widen slightly at the announcement, but then the older man nodded as he started to understand. “Yes, of course you’re here. I don’t know what to tell you, though, Agent. I only just got here myself. I got a call when I was at home.”
“But presumably you’ve already gathered some information about what’s going on?” Christopher said. He couldn’t imagine the head of the facility rushing here and then not asking his staff what was happening. They would probably tell him things in the immediate aftermath that might take hours for the police to get out of anyone.