Page 41 of Once Broken
“Look,” Hayes said, his voice dropping into something that sounded almost like an apology.“I need you and Agent Esmer at the scene.Now.Whatever’s happening here, it’s beyond anything I’ve dealt with before.These...theatrical murders.”
“We’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she promised.“Text me the exact address.”
“I’ll be waiting at the entrance,” Hayes replied, then disconnected.
Riley set the phone down on the bathroom counter and splashed cold water on her face, forcing her mind to compartmentalize.One crisis at a time.Here in Atlanta, someone was murdering people in ways that evoked cinematic deaths.Back in Virginia, Leo Dillard remained a threat to April.Both situations demanded her complete attention, an impossible division that left her feeling insufficient.
Her phone buzzed with Hayes’ text containing the address.Then Riley called Ann Marie’s room.
The younger agent answered on the third ring, her voice alert despite the early hour.“Esmer.”
“There’s been another murder,” Riley said without preamble.“Crystal Keene at The Velvet Screen theater.Hayes wants us there ASAP.”
“I’ll be ready in five,” Ann Marie replied, no trace of smugness in her voice despite their theories being confirmed.Like Riley, she understood that being right about murder predictions was a hollow victory.
“Meet me in the lobby,” Riley instructed before ending the call.
She quickly brushed her teeth and changed into black slacks and a navy blouse.Professional.Authoritative.A costume in its own way, armor against the world’s darkness.She gathered her weapon, badge, and the small notebook she always carried, tucking them into appropriate pockets and holsters.The familiar weight of the gun against her hip provided its usual cold comfort—a reminder of both her authority and its limitations.A gun was useless to a life already taken, no help against threats hundreds of miles away.
Riley checked her phone once more for messages from Bill or April.Nothing new since their video call last night.She told herself this was good news—no crisis had erupted overnight—but the silence offered little reassurance.Absence of evidence wasn’t evidence of absence, especially when it came to someone like Leo Dillard.
With a final glance around the hotel room to ensure she hadn’t forgotten anything essential, Riley hurried out of her room.As the elevator descended toward the lobby, her mind was already imagining the scene that awaited them.Crystal Keene chained to a projector, another life extinguished to satisfy some decades-old grievance.
And perhaps most disturbingly, the killer seemed to be following a script that only they fully understood.
***
In a short time, Riley was driving the sedan through Atlanta’s empty pre-dawn streets.Beside her, Ann Marie studied something on her phone, the blue light illuminating her features in the darkened car.The city seemed suspended in that liminal space between night and morning—when most of the nocturnal had gone to rest but most of the diurnal had yet to stir—lending an eerie stillness to their journey.
“He should have listened to us yesterday,” Ann Marie said, breaking the silence.She looked up from her phone, where she’d been reviewing notes onThe Broken Window.“If Hayes hadn’t been so fixated on Hartley, maybe Crystal Keene would still be alive.”
Riley slowed for a red light despite the absence of other traffic.“We should have pushed harder,” she countered.“Insisted on pursuing the HUAC connection even without his approval.”
“You think he would have budged?”Ann Marie asked, skepticism evident in her tone.
“Probably not,” Riley admitted.“But we could have kept digging independently.”
The light changed, and Riley pressed the accelerator, the car’s engine humming as they continued through the sleeping city.
Behind her professional focus, fragments of her interrupted dreams flickered through her mind.She couldn’t recall the specifics, only the overwhelming sense of dread, the way her subconscious had merged her anxieties about April with the dangers of the current case.In the dream, the face of Leo Dillard had somehow blended with the faceless killer they pursued in Atlanta, both threats somehow becoming a single menace.
Riley tightened her grip on the steering wheel.Compartmentalization had always been her strength—the ability to seal off personal concerns while working a case, to prevent emotional contamination of her professional judgment.But those boundaries were eroding, the walls between her roles as mother and FBI agent becoming increasingly permeable.
“Riley?”Ann Marie’s voice cut through her thoughts.“You okay?”
“Fine,” Riley replied automatically, then caught herself.Ann Marie deserved better than platitudes.“Just finding it harder than usual to keep the personal and professional separate.”
Ann Marie nodded, understanding in her eyes.“With Leo Dillard targeting April while we’re hundreds of miles away, I’d be more concerned if you weren’t struggling with that.”
The GPS directed them to turn right, and Riley guided the car onto a narrower street lined with older buildings.Up ahead, she saw the flashing lights of police vehicles, their red and blue pulses marking the location of The Velvet Screen.
“Looks like the whole department showed up,” Ann Marie observed as they approached.
Riley pulled up behind a crime scene van, taking in the organized chaos before them.Uniformed officers maintained a perimeter with yellow tape, keeping at bay the small cluster of early-rising journalists who had somehow already caught wind of the story.Crime scene technicians in white coveralls moved between vehicles and the theater entrance, carrying equipment and evidence bags.
As promised, Detective Hayes stood waiting at the entrance, his posture tense, shoulders hunched against the morning chill—or perhaps against the weight of his professional miscalculation.He straightened when he spotted them, raising a hand in acknowledgment.
“Agents,” he greeted as they approached, his face haggard under the harsh lights.The confidence he’d projected yesterday had evaporated, replaced by the grim determination of a man forced to recalibrate his entire understanding of a case.“Appreciate you coming so quickly.”
