Once Gone by Blake Pierce Page A

domestically incompetent, both as a wife and mother. If Riley told him that she’d caught April smoking pot in the backyard, he’d feel absolutely sure of it.
    And maybe he’d be right, she thought miserably as she pushed two slices of bread down into the toaster.
    So far, Ryan and Riley had managed to avoid a custody battle over April. She knew that although he’d never admit it, Ryan was enjoying his freedom as a bachelor too much to want to be bothered with raising a teenager. He hadn’t been thrilled when Riley told him that April would be spending more time with him.
    But she also knew that her ex-husband’s attitude could change very fast, especially if he had an excuse to blame her for something. If he found out that April had been smoking pot, he might try to take her away from Riley altogether. That thought was unbearable.
    A few minutes later, Riley and her daughter were sitting at the breakfast table eating. The silence between them was even more awkward than usual.
    Finally April asked, “Are you going to tell Dad?”
    “Do you think maybe I should?” Riley replied.
    It seemed like an honest enough reply under the circumstances.
    April hung her head, looking worried.
    Then April pleaded, “Please don’t tell Gabriela.”
    The words struck Riley straight to the heart. April was more worried about their housemaid finding out than she was about what her father might think—or her own mother, for that matter.
    So things have gotten this bad, Riley thought miserably.
    What precious little that was left of her family life was disintegrating right before her eyes. She felt as if she were barely a mother at all anymore. She wondered if Ryan had any such feelings about being a father.
    Probably not. Feeling guilty wasn’t Ryan’s style. She sometimes envied him his emotional indifference.
    After breakfast, as April got ready for school, the house fell silent, and Riley began to obsess about the other thing that had happened that morning— if it had happened. What or who had caused that rattling at the front door? Had there been a rattling at the front door? Where had those pebbles suddenly come from?
    She recalled Marie’s panic over strange phone calls, and an obsessive fear was growing inside her, getting out of control. She got out her cell phone and called a familiar number.
    “Betty Richter, FBI Forensics Tech,” came the curt reply.
    “Betty, this is Riley Paige.” Riley swallowed hard. “I think you know why I’m calling.”
    After all, Riley had been making this exact same phone call every two or three days for the last six weeks now. Agent Richter had been in charge of closing up the details on the Peterson case, and Riley desperately wanted resolution.
    “You want me to tell you that Peterson’s really dead,” Betty said in a sympathetic tone. Betty was the very soul of patience, understanding, and good humor, and Riley had always been grateful to have her to talk to about this.
    “I know it’s ridiculous.”
    “After all you went through?” Betty said. “No, I don’t think so. But I don’t have anything new to tell you. Just the same old thing. We found Peterson’s body. Sure, it was burned to a cinder, but it was exactly his height and build. There’s really nobody else it could have been.”
    “How sure are you? Give me a percentage.”
    “I’d say ninety-nine percent,” she said.
    Riley took a long, slow breath.
    “You can’t make that a hundred?” she asked.
    Betty sighed. “Riley, I can’t give you a hundred percent certainty about much of anything in life. Nobody can. Nobody’s a hundred percent sure the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning. Earth might get smacked by a giant asteroid in the meantime, and we’ll all be dead.”
    Riley emitted a rueful chuckle.
    “Thanks for giving me something else to worry about,” she said.
    Betty laughed a little too. “Any time,” she said. “Glad to be of help.”
    “Mom?” April called out, ready to go to