Page 10 of Once Silenced

The refusal stung, but Riley nodded sharply, the soldier in her acknowledging the command, even as the investigator raged against it.

“Understood, sir,” she managed, her voice clipped.

Meredith looked weary as he leaned back in his chair, massaging the bridge of his nose.

“How’s your family, Agent Paige?”Meredith asked, shifting the conversation to a more personal note.

Riley smiled faintly.“The girls are doing well.April’s getting ready for her first year at Jefferson Bell University, and Jilly is doing well in school.”

Meredith nodded approvingly, his stern features softening slightly.“That’s good to hear.And now, if you’ve got nothing else to discuss…”

“Thank you for your time, Agent Meredith,” Riley said as she ended the conversation and turned on her heel, stepping into the cool corridor that felt suddenly oppressive.The conversation with Meredith had gone as she had feared, and her disappointment was strong.

Walking more slowly, Riley made her way back to her own office in the Academy building, where theories and profiles lined the walls, and also relics of cases she and Bill had solved together.But today, those solved cases didn’t offer her their usual feeling of satisfaction.Her connection to Mrs.Whitfield wasn’t just a thread to the past; it was a call to action, a debt of honor she owed to the woman who had once opened her eyes to the power of logic and numbers.

Briefly, she considered the problems of breaking protocol—accessing the details of the investigation directly.Meredith would disapprove strongly.But her decision was soon made.

With her next class looming, she knew she didn’t have much time.Riley turned to her computer, and with a few decisive strokes, she bypassed the layers of digital bureaucracy to access the restricted files.

As the images flickered to life on her screen, a visceral reaction clenched her gut.Mrs.Whitfield’s lifeless form sat upright in a chair of her home.Riley’s gaze lingered on the familiar features, now marred by the violence of her passing.

She zoomed in on the photographs, her attention drawn to the stark white sheet pinned to Mrs.Whitfield’s back.Hoke had been right; the worksheet was there, its equations a jarring contrast to the tragedy depicted.

Next, Riley opened the digital file bearing Professor Fenn’s name.The same clinical sterility of crime scene photographs greeted her, but it was one similarity that ensnared her focus—the quiz sheet pinned to the victim’s back.It was identical in form to the one on Mrs.Whitfield: a simple white page with a header indicating algebra, blank spaces for the student to write their name and date, and a different numbered list of equations below that.

There were also separate documents, photocopies that fully displayed the two individual sheets.The numbers swam before Riley’s eyes, taunting her with their hidden significance.She reached for a notepad, scribbling down the details, her mind already turning over the possibilities.

She leaned closer to her monitor, squinting at the screen as if proximity could grant her clarity.

“Could you be a message?”she murmured, tracing a finger along the glass that shielded the digital image from her touch.

She tried to work through an equation, her fingers stumbling over the keys as she attempted to coax her rusty math skills back to life, trying to recall the steps involved in solving for x.Her attempts were clumsy, her knowledge rusted from years of disuse, buried under layers of criminal psychology and behavioral analysis.Frustration pricked at her as she realized she was ill-equipped to untangle this aspect of the killer’s puzzle without assistance.

The numbers blurred before her eyes, symbols of a language she once spoke fluently but had since forgotten.They teased her, whispering secrets she couldn’t decipher, holding answers just out of reach.

“Damn it,” she said softly.

She knew that there was every likelihood that these sheets were nothing more than what they appeared to be—generic worksheets with no hidden message at all, pinned to the bodies in a gesture of crude mockery, just as Hoke had supposed.But her gut told her otherwise, and the image of Mrs.Whitfield’s body was seared into her consciousness, daring her to look closer, to find the message hidden within the numbers.

She was sure that answers to those equations must contain clues.The notion was wild, yet there was a connection here, a pattern she needed to uncover.But to do so, she would have to venture beyond her own current limitations.Re-learning basic algebra would take too long.She had to reach out, seek help in a realm she’d abandoned.She found the decision both humbling and oddly exhilarating.

She would find someone who could navigate these numerical waters, someone who could help her translate the killer’s cryptic choice of communication.

Closing her eyes briefly, Riley let go of her pride and prepared to delve into her past.Somewhere in the depths of her memory, among lessons learned and paths crossed, lay the key to unlocking the algebraic riddle before her.She would find it, she vowed silently, for Mrs.Whitfield, for Professor Fenn, and for the justice they deserved.

A small smile played on her lips as an idea formed.She knew exactly who had the necessary skills to help her decipher these equations.

CHAPTER FIVE

When Rilfivey opened the door of her townhouse and stepped inside, it was very quiet.Seeing no one in the nearby rooms, she called up the stairwell, “April, Jilly, can you come down here?”

Sounds from upstairs told her the girls were on their way.Then she went into the kitchen to check in with Gabriela, who glanced up from where she stood at the counter.

“I’m fixing some snacks for you girls,” she announced in her accented voice, her eyes meeting Riley’s with a knowing look.

“Thanks, Gabriela,” Riley said, “we’ll be working at the dining room table for a little while.I’ll have it cleared in time for dinner.”

She walked back through the living room into the dining room, where the big wooden table often served as a makeshift command center.She put her bag down and took out printed copies of the quiz sheets that had been left with the murder victims.

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