Take You (A Rylie Wolf FBI Suspense Thriller—Book Five)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Shooting pain spiraled stars into Rylie Wolf’s vision as she stood in front of a blank wall in her apartment. She opened her mouth and let out a silent scream, punctuating it with the perfect word:

“Dammit!”

Rylie clutched her thumb as the fireworks of pain whizzed up to her elbow. She dropped the hammer, which fell on her foot. She screamed louder, then hopped around her apartment, clenching her teeth at the pain before pulling a chair out from the kitchen set and sinking down into it.

She hated this apartment. This dull, drab, old, cruddy apartment.

She looked around sourly. The place had come courtesy of the federal government, when they’d started the new field office out here in Rapid City, South Dakota. She’d heard plenty of stories about government overspending, but apparently, whoever’d decided on this place for her and the other agents in the Rapid City FBI office had missed the memo. It was a one-bedroom crap-hole in what looked like a rectangular brick prison, 1970s construction, across from a fast-food restaurant and a gas station.

It smelled. Nothing worked. It took forever to get hot water in the shower. Forever. Sometimes she’d turn on the faucet, go and heat up a frozen meal for dinner, and come back, and it still wouldn’t be warm.

It hadn’t mattered much, at first. She was so busy on cases along highway 86 that she was barely home. And Rylie had never been one to enjoy HGTV or home decorating magazines. But the past week, after closing out a case in Montana, she’d been back here, and gradually getting more annoyed by her surroundings.

Also, more antsy.

She thought that adding some nice artwork to the walls she’d freshly painted might help.

But now, as she looked at her swelling, purple fingernail, she realized she was going to need a lot more help than that.

Taking a swig of her beer, she looked over at the nail she’d barely managed to hammer into the wall. She’d measured to make sure it was exactly in the center, but now, it looked kind of . . . off.

She sighed down at the painting of the Seattle coast she’d brought with her. As bad as the experience was that had forced her to leave Seattle, she still had a soft spot for it. She’d moved out there for college, and had always considered it home—definitely more of a home than the place she lived with her father in Wyoming. She thought the painting would brighten the drab place up, make her happier. It wasn’t working. Now, she felt so far away from it, she wondered if she’d ever get back.

Drumming her hands on the table, she looked over at her phone again. No calls.

It wasn’t just the décor that had her antsy, or that her boss, Kit, hadn’t put her and her partner, Michael Brisbane, on anything exciting in over a week. It had everything to do with what she’d found at Elephant Hole, the military outpost in Montana.

All it takes is one little piece of evidence. It might be everything. The thing that cracks the case wide open.

That is what her partner had said when she’d found the piece of the rear-view mirror from a car, dusty and broken at the bottom of a dried well. They’d been led there by another piece of evidence-- a necklace her sister Maren had worn. She’d thought she’d seen a fingerprint on it, and sent it to be analyzed.

And now she was waiting. Waiting to find out if the newest piece of evidence would finally bring her some peace of mind as to what had happened to her sister, almost twenty years ago.

Had she been kidn*pped, and by whom? That question had plagued Rylie, ever since she was a child, when she found her mother, best friend, and her best friend’s mother, murdered at a campsite along the Montana-Wyoming border. After that horrific day at Story Creek, Maren, her older sister, had been declared missing, and there had been no leads, since.

It was the driving force behind why Rylie had wanted to become an FBI agent in the first place. She’d always, in her heart of hearts, hoped that she could bring some closure to herself and her estranged father, who’d suffered just as much as she had.

As she sat there, sucking on her swelling thumb, the phone rang. The number was from headquarters. She sucked in a breath and answered. “Rylie Wolf.”

“Hey, Ry, it’s Marsden.”

Marsden, lead forensics analyst. She wasted no time with small talk. “Yeah, hey, so you’re calling about the mirror? What’d you find out?”

“We were able to extract the fingerprint, and ran it through our database. We got a positive match.”

She straightened. It sounded too good to be true. After all the setbacks, they actually had an ID of a person of interest, someone who had been in the same place where Rylie’s sister had been. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, but . . . “

Of course, there had to be a “but.” Nothing could ever be easy. “Is he dead?”

“No, actually. The guy’s name is Griffin Franklin, and he’s in prison right now for another murder.”

Another murder. Of course. The person who’d done that to Maren wouldn’t be a preschool teacher. The man was a killer. This was looking better and better. Rylie didn’t want to get her hopes up, but here was a man who’d been in the same place as her sister, and had a history of violent crime. It was the best lead they’d had in, well . . . forever.

“Another murder? That’s not a but. Why is that a but?”

“Well,” Marsden said, clearing his throat. “It’s going to be a bear if you want to get in there and interview him. He’s killed several women, and he’s in maximum security at North Dakota Correctional Center now because of his violent tendencies.”

She didn’t care. This was a small obstacle to overcome in comparison to the mountain she’d just climbed. “I’ll get access.”

“Good luck with that,” Marsden said, doubtful.

“Thanks,” she said, ending the call. She didn’t have room in her life for doubt, now. As far as she was concerned, it was full speed ahead. She quickly dialed Kit, then jumped up, pacing the living room, her aching toe forgotten.

When her supervisor answered, it was with the same, no-nonsense greeting Rylie appreciated. The woman was stern, but fair and efficient, unlike her old supervisor in Seattle, Bill Matthews, who had shipped her off here just because she was a bit outspoken and irreverent. Rylie got along with Kit, at least. “Kit, here.”

“Hi, Kit, it’s Rylie,” she said.

Kit sighed. “Nothing new. Didn’t I say I’d call you if I had something for you?”

Rylie laughed. She’d been calling Kit almost every day, hoping for a new case to sink her teeth into. Instead, she and Michael had been forced to work on some dull clean-up work on a solved case in town, amassing interviews. “Yes, I know, but—"

“Have you finished those interviews?”

“Yes, all of them, but—”

“I didn’t see the reports come across my desk.”

Rylie groaned. If there was anything she hated about the job, it was writing the reports. She’d tried to pawn them off on Michael, but he’d refused. So she just had to sit behind her computer and get them done. t*****e.

“I’m working on it, but I had another question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“I need to get into North Dakota Correctional Center’s maximum security unit. I need to conduct an interview there. Can you help get me a pass?”

There was a pause. “What prisoner? This isn’t for—”

“It’s for an old case, and I have a little hunch about it. I wanted to check it out.”

“That could be tough,” she said. “What’s the prisoner’s name?”

“Griffin Franklin.”

“Griffin . . .” she murmured. She was probably writing it down. “I know him. He’s a big problem. Killed all those women in North Dakota. He’s going to be a challenge.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“The best I can do is put in for it. And we’ll see. Might take some time, if they allow it at all.”

She smiled. “Yep, that’s all I’m asking. Thanks so much.”

“Not a problem. Now . . . those reports?”

“Working on them,” she muttered.

She ended the call and tapped her fingers on the kitchen table. Then she opened her laptop, and did a quick Google search on the infamous Griffin Franklin.

A number of results popped up. The first article’s headline caught her eye: FRANKLIN SENTENCED TO 6 LIFE SENTENCES FOR MURDERS

She scanned down to the photograph of an older man in a jumpsuit, his hands tied behind his back. He was balding, and had tattoos up his neck, and a face with a very flat jaw. He looked kind of like a frog. The scowl on his face was frighteningly cold.

The crackle of thunder outside thrust her into the memory of her hiding in that spot in the RV, trying to make herself as small as possible so they wouldn’t find her. The sound of gunshots, each one making her stifle a gasp. Three shots, altogether.

Voices, then. Male. “I thought there were three?” one had said.

“Naw. Just those two.”

And then the door had slammed, and after that, nothing.

Nothing for hours and hours. Or at least, it seemed like that. Rylie had been bathed in sweat by the time she’d pulled herself out from her hiding spot. She’d crept to the dirt-crusted window over the RV’s kitchenette sink and stared out at the bodies, lying motionless in a circle. Kiki, Rose, and her mother. They’d all been shot, once, in the head.

But no Maren. Maren was gone.

She hadn’t seen either of the men. Was one of them this man, Griffin Franklin? She wished she’d been brave enough to peek out. Maybe then she’d have something to go on. But as far as she could remember, she had no memory of ever having seen them at all.

But the things the men outside had said meant something, had made Rylie think that this wasn’t just random. That the men—maybe this Griffin Franklin—knew them. Had followed them. Had maybe even interacted with her family before.

She read the article:

On Tuesday, a North Dakota judge sentenced Griffin Franklin to serve six consecutive life terms in prison, one for each of his victims, without the possibility of parole, in what police say was one of the most horrific crimes the state has ever seen.

After overwhelming evidence was presented, the jury easily found Franklin guilty of killing six women across the state over the course of a ten-year period.

South Central District Judge Morris Hastings handed down Franklin's sentence to serve the rest of his life in prison, but before hearing the judge read the verdicts, Franklin addressed the court, saying, "I can honestly tell you that I'm not a bad man, and I am at peace with the knowledge that I am innocent of these crimes."

One of Franklin's lawyers asked the judge to consider the possibility of parole when considering his sentence. However, prosecutor Max Smith said Franklin is a danger to the community and has shown no remorse for his crimes.

North Dakota doesn't have the death penalty.

She read the man’s statement, over and over again. I am innocent of these crimes.

Rylie had met a lot of criminals in her time, and she’d found that to be the true mark of a total sicko—believing and professing in one’s innocence, even when the jig was up.

Then she Googled his history, trying to find out where he’d lived twenty years ago. At first, she had no luck. But then she found an address for him, from about fifteen years ago.

Long Butte, Wyoming.

Not very far from Story Creek, where the murders had occurred.

Googling some more, she came across photos of him as a younger man, when he’d had scruffy brown hair. He was skinnier, but still a large man, with the same, dead eyes and scowl. Still, it struck no chord within her. He was a stranger.

But that didn’t mean he was innocent.

She stared at the photograph. Did he know what happened to Maren?

Now, Rylie was determined to find out. She’d get that approval if it was the last thing she did. But until then . . .

If there was someone who might remember if this man, Griffin Franklin, had been around or noticed her family all those years ago, she knew exactly who to ask.