He ended the call.
Riley felt about to hyperventilate from frustration. She struggled to calm herself. There had to be some way to handle this.
Who else could she call?
Could she try contacting Walder himself, try to make him understand her theory?
Impossible, she thought. He’ll never listen.
And even if she could make him listen, she’d lose precious time in the effort.
But who else was there?
Bull Cullen?
No, the very idea of trying to persuade him was laughable. He wouldn’t even take her call, much less seriously listen to her.
Who, then?
Of course! The Detroit police.
They could catch Eggers as soon as the train arrived there.
She quickly found the phone number and punched it into her cell phone.
When a voice answered, she said, “I need to talk to whoever is in charge there right now.”
“How can I help you?”
“This is Riley Paige with the FBI. I’m calling to report—”
The voice interrupted, “Wait a minute! Riley Paige? The FBI woman I saw on the news today, the one who screwed up so bad in Wisconsin?”
She heard him call out to someone else nearby, “Hey, guys! I’ve got that batshit crazy FBI woman on the line!”
Riley felt her face redden with rage and humiliation.
She wondered—how long would it take to undo the damage her reputation had taken during this case?
She ended the call. What else could she do?
She sat down slowly behind her desk, trying to collect her nerves.
It’s up to me, she thought. I’ve got to stop him myself.
Nobody else is going to.
She ran a computer search for plane schedules and found what she needed. If she left right now, she could catch a late-night commercial flight from Reagan International Airport. She’d arrive at Detroit’s Wayne County Airport about an hour and a half later—before Eggers’s train reached that city.
She could stop him right then and there at the Detroit train station.
She wondered …
Should I contact Bill and Jenn?
Of course, she realized. They at least deserved to know what she was trying to do. She typed a text message to both of them that included a link to the article she’d found. She briefly explained her theory and gave them her flight schedule.
She scribbled a note to her sleeping family explaining that she had gone away to work on the case again. She grabbed her gun and car keys, left the note on the living room coffee table, and raced out the front door.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
When Riley arrived at the flight desk, she was breathless from haste and anxiety, and her head was spinning with dangerous scenarios and possibilities. Her mind boggled at the realization that had sent her here—and with thoughts of what she was going to have to do to stop Mason Eggers from killing again.
She kept telling herself …
I won’t know exactly what I have to do until I have to do it.
Just when she finished buying her ticket, she heard a familiar voice behind her.
“Hey, Riley!”
It was Bill’s voice.
She turned and gasped aloud as she saw Bill and Jenn hurrying toward her.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
Bill grinned at her as Jenn started to buy her own ticket.
“What do you think we’re doing? You didn’t think we’d let you go alone, did you?”
“But how did you …?”
Riley was about to ask Bill how he and Jenn had gotten here so quickly. But of course, the answer was obvious. It was a shorter drive for them from Quantico than it was for her from Fredericksburg. As soon as they’d read her message, they’d gotten together and driven straight here.
Riley felt overwhelmed. Their arrival here was much, much more than she had dared to hope for. She couldn’t find words to begin to express her gratitude.
She wouldn’t have to do this alone after all.
Later, she thought. After we’ve caught the killer.
When all three agents had their tickets, they hurried to the departure gate, where the plane was already boarding. They showed their badges to the flight attendant and told her that they’d need to deplane as soon as possible after landing in Detroit. The attendant quickly found them three seats together near the door. Jenn sat between Bill and Riley.
The three agents were still winded when the plane took off a few minutes later.
“So,” Riley said breathlessly, “you believe my theory.”
Bill and Jenn looked at each other, as if surprised by the question.
Bill said, “Hey, that article you linked us to was pretty convincing.”
Jenn added, “And the victims all resemble his wife so strongly. It’s surely no coincidence. And now, this is the anniversary of her suicide.”
Riley shook her head and said, “I wish I could get someone else to believe me. And I’ve still got all kinds of questions of my own …”
When the plane reached cruising altitude, Jenn got on the Internet to do some research.
She said, “I’m finding out more about Mason Eggers. He left Dunmore soon after his wife’s death, then moved to Chicago where he became a railroad cop. He never remarried.”
Bill asked, “Has he ever had any trouble with the law?”
“Just the opposite,” Jenn said. “He had a distinguished career with the railroad police and got several commendations. As far as I can tell, he’s never hurt a fly.”
New doubts started to creep into Riley’s mind.
“I can’t make sense of that,” she said. But then she remembered the feeling she’d had that something had gone wrong in the man’s mind. She added, “He seems to have gone through some kind of serious psychiatric change. Schizophrenia, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Bill said. “But as I understand it, schizophrenia typically starts in late adolescence or early adulthood—not in old age.”
Jenn’s fingers danced on her tablet computer as she brought up more information.
She said, “Schizophrenia is rare at that age, but not unheard of. It’s sometimes called very-late-onset schizophrenia when it occurs after the age of sixty. But older people can suffer from delusions, hallucinations, and mental confusion for other reasons. There’s a condition called Charles Bonnet Syndrome that involves visual hallucinations. And of course, he might be suffering from some physiological brain disorder—brain cancer, maybe, or early stages of Alzheimer’s or even Parkinson’s. There really are lots of reasons why his mental health might be failing.”
The three agents thought in silence for a few moments.
Finally Bill said, “It’s still hard to understand his behavior—as it relates to us, I mean. I know he put us onto that stakeout as a ruse. But some of his suggestions seem to have been genuine, even helpful—like how he listens to scanners to figure out freight train schedules. And the last town, Dermott—it really does begin with a D, following the alphabetical pattern he described.”
Again, Riley felt an alarming surge of uncanny empathy with Eggers.
She said, “Part of him wants somebody to stop him, and part of him wants to get away with his murders. Part of him is trying to help us, part of him is trying to trick us. He’s at war with himself. As lucid as he seems in person, he’s slipping into some kind of dementia, and he doesn’t know which he wants more—to go free or to face justice.”
Bill scratched his chin and looked at Riley.
“I’m just wondering one thing,” he said to her. “What made you look for that news story in the first place? Checking into that kind of ancient history is a pretty big intuitive leap—even for you.”
Riley gulped. She couldn’t very well tell him about Aunt Cora’s phone call.
She stammered, “It—it was just a wild hunch.”
Jenn locked eyes with Riley. The younger agent looked worried.
Riley was sure …
Jenn has guessed what happened.