Were she and her ex-husband more alike than she wanted to admit?

She tried to convince herself otherwise. Unlike Ryan, she was taking care of her family. Later today, the girls and Gabriela would all be home and they’d have dinner together. Maybe this weekend Blaine and Crystal would join them.

That thought reminded Riley that Blaine had been a little bit reserved toward her ever since the whole thing with Ryan had happened. Riley could understand why. Riley hadn’t wanted to talk to Blaine about the visit afterward—it seemed too intimate and personal—and it was only natural that Blaine had felt uncomfortable about it.

She had an urge to phone him right now, but she knew that Blaine was putting in a lot of hours catching up with things at his restaurant now that their vacation was over.

So now here Riley was, feeling terribly alone in her own house …

Just like Ryan.

She couldn’t help feeling a little guilty toward her ex-husband—although she couldn’t imagine why. Nothing that was wrong in his life was her fault. Even so, she more than half-wanted to give him a call, find out how he was doing, maybe commiserate with him a little. But of course, that was an incredibly stupid idea. The last thing she wanted to do was give him any false signals that they might get together again.

As the soap opera characters argued, wept, slapped each other, and jumped in out of bed with each other, something occurred to Riley.

Sometimes her own life at home, her family and relationships, didn’t seem any more real to her than what she was watching on TV. The actual presence of her loved ones tended to distract her from her deep-seated sense of isolation. But even just a few hours by herself in the house was enough to painfully remind her of how truly alone she felt inside.

There was an empty place inside her that could only be filled by …

What, exactly?

By work.

But how meaningful was her work, to herself or to anybody else?

Again she remembered something her father had said in that dream …

“It’s a damn crazy useless life you’ve got—seeking justice for people who’re already dead, exactly the people who don’t need justice anymore.”

She wondered …

Is that true?

Is what I do really useless?

Surely not, since she often stopped killers who would certainly have killed again if they could have.

She saved lives in the long run—just how many lives, she couldn’t begin to imagine.

And yet, in order for her to even have a job to do, somebody had to kill, and somebody had to die …

It always starts with death.

And more often than not, her cases continued to nag at her and haunt her even after they were solved, after the killers were slain or brought to justice.

She turned off the television, which was only irritating her now. Then she sat back and closed her eyes and thought about her most recent case, that of a serial killer down in Georgia.

Poor Morgan, she thought.

Morgan Farrell had been married to a wealthy but abusive man. When he’d been brutally stabbed to death in his sleep, Morgan had been sure she was the one who had killed him, even though she couldn’t remember the deed.

She was sure she’d forgotten about it because of pills and alcohol.

And she’d been proud of what she’d thought she’d done. She’d even called Riley by phone to tell her so …

“I killed the bastard.”

Morgan had been innocent, as things turned out. Another deranged woman had killed Morgan’s husband—and several other equally abusive husbands.

The woman, who had suffered at her own late husband’s hands, had been on a vigilante mission to free other women from that pain. Riley had stopped her just before she could mistakenly kill a man who wasn’t guilty of anything except loving his disturbed, delusional wife.

Riley replayed the scene in her mind, after she’d fought the woman to the ground and was putting her in handcuffs …

“Adrienne McKinney, you’re under arrest.”

But now Riley wondered …

What if everything could have ended differently?

What if Riley been able to save the innocent man, explain to the woman the mistake she’d made, and then simply let her go?

She’d have kept on killing, Riley thought.

And the men she killed would have deserved to die.

So what kind of justice had she really carried out that time?

Riley’s heart sank, and she remembered again her father’s words …

“It’s a damn crazy useless life you’ve got.”

On one hand, she was desperately trying to live the life of a mother raising two daughters, the life of a woman in love with a man she hoped to marry. At times, that life seemed to be actually working out for her, and she knew she would never stop trying to be good at it.

But as soon as she found herself alone, that ordinary life seemed unreal.

On the other hand, she struggled against awful odds to bring down monsters. Her work was intensely important to her, even though it all too often began and ended in pure futility.

Riley felt perfectly miserable now. Despite the early hour, she was tempted to pour herself a stiff drink. As she resisted that temptation, her phone rang. When she saw who the caller was, she breathed a huge sigh of relief.

This was real.

She had work to do.

CHAPTER NINE

During her drive to the BAU building, Riley realized that her feelings were mixed about getting back to work. When Meredith had called her, she’d known by his tone of voice that he wasn’t in a good mood.

He hadn’t offered any details. He’d just said that he was calling a meeting of her team about some new developments. She’d been relieved to get out of the house and head for Quantico. Now she found herself wondering what Meredith was mad about.

About a week and a half ago, he had suggested that she go down to Rushville, Mississippi, to check on a murder that had just happened there. Riley had told him no.

But he hadn’t seemed angry with her then. In fact, he’d been downright apologetic for bothering her.

“I’m sorry I bothered you,” he’d said. “Keep on enjoying your vacation.”

Something had changed since then.

Whatever that change was, it probably meant that she had real work to do. Riley’s spirits lifted as she pulled up in front of the big white building that held the Behavioral Analysis Unit. She realized that it felt like coming home.

After she parked her car, Riley opened the trunk and took out her go-bag, which she kept always ready. She knew it was likely that she was about to head out on a new case.

When she walked into the conference room, the meeting was just getting underway. Riley’s two partners, Bill Jeffreys and Jenn Roston, were sitting across the table from Special Agent Brent Meredith, the team chief.

As always, Meredith cut a daunting figure, with his big frame and his black, angular features.

But today he looked more intimidating than usual. He glowered at Riley as she took a seat at the table.

Then he snapped, “How was your vacation, Agent Paige?”

His sharp words cut Riley. Instead of responding to Meredith’s question, she returned his gaze and said firmly, “I’m ready to get back to work.”

Meredith nodded with sullen approval.

Then he said, “Now that we’re all here, let’s get started.”

Glancing among his three colleagues, Meredith added, “I kept thinking about the murder down in Rushville, Mississippi—the one the local cop there called us about. I asked Agent Jeffreys here to do a little research on it. He did, and now he’s thinking maybe we should look into it after all. Would you care to explain, Agent Jeffreys?”

“Certainly,” Bill said as he stood up walked over to the screen in front of the room. Bill had been Riley’s partner and close friend for many years, and Riley was happy to see him here. He was about her age, a solid, striking man with touches of gray in his dark hair.

Bill clicked a remote and a couple of images appeared on the screen. One was of a taciturn-looking man in his fifties. The other was of the same man’s corpse stretched out on hardwood floor with a single brutal deep, roundish wound in his forehead.

Pointing to the images, Bill explained …

“Gareth Ogden was killed in his home in Rushville eleven days ago. The murder took place at about eight-thirty in the evening. He was killed by a single hammer blow to the forehead.”

Looking at Riley and Jenn, Meredith added, “This was the murder that the local cop there called the BAU about. She was very insistent, and I wound up talking to her myself. She was concerned about the resemblance of Ogden’s killing to the unsolved murders of an entire family that happened in Rushville some ten years ago.”

“That’s right,” Bill said. “I started looking into it, and this is what I found.”

Bill clicked the remote again, and a new set of images came up. A man and a woman lay in a blood-drenched bed, their skulls literally pulverized. The other two victims, killed in an identical manner, lay in their own beds—one a teenaged boy, and the other a girl who looked about ten or twelve years old.

Bill explained …

“While the Bonnett family lay asleep, an intruder crept into their home. First he bludgeoned the daughter, Lisa, to death in her bedroom. After that he crept to the room where her brother, Martin, lay asleep, and killed him too. Finally, he made his way to the parents’ bedroom. He bashed Leona Bonnett’s head in while she slept. Her husband, Cosmo, appears to have been awakened, and a brief struggle ensued before he became the final victim.”

Jenn Roston squinted at the screen and said, “It’s shocking, sure. But if there’s a connection between the murder of the family and Ogden’s death, I’m not sure I see it—aside from the weapon used.”

Riley nodded in approval. Jenn was a young African-American woman who had already proven herself to be a remarkably capable agent during her short time at the BAU. Riley and Jenn had worked together on several cases. Their relationship had been rocky at first but a lot of trust had soon grown between them.

Meredith said, “Explain, Agent Roston.”

Jenn pointed to the grisly images on the screen and said, “The Bonnett murders were remarkably brutal. It looks like each of their heads was repeatedly bashed, blow after blow. The killings were clearly carried out in a rage, for deeply personal reasons. Agent Jeffreys, could you show us those other pictures again?”

Bill clicked the remote, and the pictures of Ogden appeared.

Jenn pointed to the photo of his dead body and said, “Ogden’s murder was swift and clean by comparison. He died from what looked like a single hammer blow to the forehead. No rage was involved. His killing seems coldblooded and … what’s the word I’m looking for? Almost surgical.”

Riley was intrigued, and what Jenn was saying made sense to her.

“Yes, and murders with a hammer are actually pretty common,” Riley said. “It could be just a coincidence.”

Meredith asked Bill, “How big a town is Rushville?”

Bill said, “It’s just a little town on the Gulf coast, with a population of about sixty-five hundred. That’s part of what bothers me. They normally get virtually no violent crime there—just some aggravated assaults, burglary and thefts, and stolen cars. So if it is