Page 21 of Once Silenced

“Right,” Riley acknowledged, her gaze drifting across the landscape, already cataloging tasks.“I’ll check into a motel for the night …”

But then she had another thought.“Sir, I’m going to need a partner for this.”She bit her lip, an unspoken hope lingering.In the silence that followed, she could almost hear Bill’s calm reassurances, his steady presence grounding her in ways no one else ever had.

“Someone will be there,” Meredith finally said, and before she could respond, the line went dead, leaving her with the echo of his words.

As the connection ended, Riley stared at the phone in her hand, its screen dark and inscrutable.

“Someone?”she muttered.

She missed Bill already—the way he shared her thoughts without needing them spoken aloud.But there was work to be done, and personal longing had no place in the equation.As she contemplated the unknown variables facing her, she wondered how she would manage in this new situation.

Who was coming to work with her?Would they understand her methods?Could they keep pace?Would whoever it was always have her back?

CHAPTER NINE

Equations snaked down the laptop screen in neat progressions, each one a masquerade of academic innocence.They were simple enough to be dismissed by any unsuspecting eye as classroom assignments, yet a different purpose lay within their ordered lines.

The man at the computer tapped a steady rhythm on the keyboard.His laptop’s glow was the sole light inside the motel room now that the last breath of daylight glimpsed through a gap in the curtains had faded away.He knew that the world outside moved on, oblivious to his efforts.But he had no need for the outside right now.At this moment his work was here, within these four walls.

The room around him was still, except for the intermittent hum of the aging air conditioner.He reveled in the silence, the isolation that allowed his mind to roam unfettered.With every problem solved, every solution found, he felt a sharp thrill.Each equation was a step on the course he’d chosen, a path designed for retribution.He knew the significance of what he was crafting, the meaning of numbers that would soon be pinned to flesh.It was a message only few could decipher, a secret hidden in plain sight.

This ritual was more than preparation; it was an unspoken pact with a ghost of his past.His mother had understood the elegance of numbers, their power to conceal and reveal.Now, as he wove two crucial equations into the mundane arithmetic, he felt her influence guiding him, an invisible hand steadying his own.

He tapped the final key with a sense of ceremony.He had created two quiz sheets with separate problems to solve forx.The answers to all of those problems but two were whole numbers.The other two were 37.12 and -78.52—unremarkable to the unwary, but loaded with intent to those who caught their significance.Those equations, seemingly sterile and impersonal, were built into his vengeful narrative.

At his signal, the printer whirred to life.The first sheet emerged, warm with the heat of creation, springing from a story untold, a narrative written in blood.As the second worksheet fell into the out-tray, a smile played at the corner of his lips.He imagined the confusion, the frowns as police detectives and FBI agents poured over these clues, the grim realization dawning upon them that these were not mere academic exercises.Calculations and equations, the language of his twisted inheritance, would be theirs to decipher.He wondered if they felt the same thrill that darted through his veins when solving his mother’s cryptic challenges.

He paused, leaning back in his chair to consider the fruits of his labor.It was all coming together, a symphony of chaos orchestrated by his own hand.The opening notes had already been played to perfection.

The new quiz sheets lay printed out, their surfaces littered with numbers and symbols.They seemed innocuous, educational even.And that was the beauty of it—the deceptive simplicity that masked a horror.Crisp and white against the dim glow of the motel room, these worksheets were more than mere paper; they were fragments of his mother’s legacy, coded messages from a son to the world about the injustices she had suffered.

His gaze traced over the algebraic equations, each one a masterstroke of misdirection.To an untrained eye, they would seem like schoolwork, but to him, they were a challenge to those who dared unravel their message.The game exhilarated him, this test of wits between himself and the investigators hot on his trail.This wasn’t merely about vengeance, after all; it was an intellectual crusade, a validation of the dark education imparted by his mother’s twisted tutelage.

He rose, stretching limbs stiffened by hours of immobility.As he turned on the lamp on the bedside table, his gaze landed on the framed photograph he’d put there.His mother’s eyes were watching, her presence a constant reminder of the oath he’d taken.Her features are fixed in an expression both severe and satisfied—a reflection of her indomitable will.

“I’m keeping my promise,” he whispered into the quiet room.Her stern expression seemed to nod in approval, and with that silent benediction, he turned away.There was work yet to be done, and the night was waiting.

Even so, his mind wandered, unbidden, to a memory—a younger version of himself in the passenger seat of his mother’s car, her hands gripping the wheel.The world outside blurred into green and brown as they drove through the Virginia countryside, transporting a woman’s body to its final resting place.

They had made two such trips back in those days, each time at a place remote and silent.Once the bodies were buried, she’d handed him a map and compass, her eyes glinting with the thrill of sharing her secret craft.

“Find where we are,” she’d challenged.He had not understood then how deeply the roots of her vengeance had burrowed into their family tree, but he had felt pride in deciphering the coordinates she demanded of him.It was more than a game; it was her legacy.

“Latitude and longitude,” she had said, the words cutting through the cabin’s stillness.His young hands had worked nimbly with pencil and paper, tracing invisible lines across the map that intersected at points only they would understand.The figures he calculated were imbedded in his memory, coordinates that marked the gravesites of Patricia Warren and Clive Brown—the beginning of a saga written in soil and blood.

“Your tale will echo through their ranks,” he murmured, almost affectionately.His words were a solemn oath to the woman who had taught him the cruel calculus of retribution.She was more than a memory—she was the catalyst of his every action, the architect of this grand design.He felt her presence envelop him, lending strength to the resolve that coursed through his veins.

The glow from the laptop screen waned as he closed the lid, a task completed.His lips curled into a faint smile—a private triumph over a game well-played.

He knew that by now, Garrett Fenn and Margaret Whitfield’s lifeless forms had been found, each with a worksheet pinned to them like a student’s homework returned for parental review.The numbers scrawled on those pages pointed to a place in Blue Ridge Wilderness Park where earth and decay had kept Patricia Warren’s secrets for two decades.

Outside, evening had crept into night, and soon would come the time for action.That very night, he would pluck another soul from the world, extinguish another life to illuminate his mother’s tale.The appropriate worksheets lay ready, those sterile rows of numbers concealing the chaos they represented.The latitude—37.12—was more than a geographic marker; it was a signal that would lead them, perplex and provoke them.

He arranged the printed sheets neatly, a final act of order before chaos was unleashed.He imagined the scene that would unfold: the discovery, the shock, the flurry of activity as authorities swarmed like so many insects to a flame.They would find the worksheet, and with it, the clue to his next act.

Each murder was a tribute, a twisted homage to the woman who sharpened his intellect and bent it to her will.This kill would bring him one step closer—one whisper nearer—to completing the story they shared.

As the night deepened further and the hour drew near, he steadied himself for what lay ahead.His mother’s gaze captured in frozen time of photograph watched silently as her son readied himself to step out into night as the instrument of her unyielding spirit.

---