CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Riley turned off the delivery-truck engine.
Tony Bartlett just stood there in the middle of the road, smiling with triumph.
She was sure that the homemade explosives he was wearing were enough to turn anything in its proximity into twisted metal and bloody fragments.
His thumb hovered above the cellphone secured to his wrist.
One tap, Riley knew, was all it would take.
Her mind raced through options, each one ending in disaster if she made the wrong move. Tony stood motionless, waiting, seemingly unconcerned. There was no other traffic. This stretch of highway had been empty for miles.
“Talk to me, Riley,” Ann Marie whispered from the back of the truck.
“It’s Tony Bartlett,” Riley said aloud for the whole team to hear, her eyes never leaving the man in the road.
“He’s wearing explosives. There’s a detonator strapped to his wrist—a cellphone.
Sheriff Rich, Deputy, maintain your distance.
Suspect is wearing explosives. I repeat, maintain your distance. ”
“Copy that,” came the sheriff’s response, tight and controlled. “We’re hanging back. Need backup now?”
“Negative,” Riley replied. “Any sudden moves could trigger him.” She watched as Tony began walking toward the driver’s side door, his movements unhurried, almost casual. “Stand by.”
Tony gestured for her to roll down the window. Riley hesitated for only a second before complying. The window hummed as it descended, bringing with it the scent of pine and earth—and beneath it, something chemical that made her nostrils flare.
“You’re not Dana Beaufort,” Tony said, leaning down slightly to peer closely at her. His voice was eerily calm, almost conversational. “But that’s okay. I anticipated some sort of move. A substitution was always one of several possibilities.”
“You know who I am?”
His eyes moved over her face, studying, calculating. “State police? No...” A flicker of something—respect, perhaps—crossed his features. “Federal. FBI, I’m guessing. There’s something about the way feds carry themselves.”
“Special Agent Riley Paige,” she said, seeing no reason to lie.
“Well, Special Agent Paige, you’ll do just as well as Dana would have.” Tony’s gaze dropped to her hip, then back to her face. “You’re armed, of course. I’d like you to hand me your weapon. Slowly.”
Riley reached down and removed the Glock from her ankle holster, keeping her movements deliberate and visible. She extended her gun through the window, grip first.
Tony took the gun, then bent slightly, placing it on the asphalt, just out of reach.
Riley’s mind worked furiously. This wasn’t a panicked killer making desperate last moves. Tony was methodical. He had made a careful plan, and she was now part of it.
“You didn’t come alone,” Tony continued, taking a step back from Riley’s window and glancing toward the back of the truck. “Whoever’s back there needs to step out of the vehicle. Now.”
Ann Marie didn’t need further instructions from Riley. She rolled up the back door and stepped out into open view, her hands slightly raised to show they were empty.
“Now, Agent Paige,” Tony said, his attention returning to Riley, “I’d like you to slide over to the passenger seat.”
Riley unbuckled her seatbelt and moved across the center console, aware of how vulnerable she was in that moment. Tony opened the driver‘s door and slid in beside her, the vest of explosives now terrifyingly close in the confined space.
“You’ve got earpieces,” Tony said. “Take them out and throw them out the window.”
Riley removed the earpieces and tossed them onto the road. Now it was just her and Tony Bartlett—a man who had already killed without remorse.
Tony restarted the engine, his movements as comfortable as if it were his own vehicle. He checked the mirrors, adjusted the seat slightly, and pulled back onto the highway.
“Where are we going?” Riley asked, careful to keep her tone neutral—professional curiosity rather than fear.
Tony glanced at her, a strange light in his eyes. “We’re going to follow a legend,” he said, his lips curving into a small smile. “John Raven’s legendary leap. To offset my brother’s final climb.”
Something cold settled in the pit of Riley’s stomach as understanding dawned.
“Raven’s Leap Cliff,” she said quietly, the words barely audible over the hum of the engine.
Tony’s expression was almost peaceful. “It’s only fitting that it ends there. Where he ended. Where no one else will ever climb again.”
Riley stared at the road ahead, aware that they were getting closer to the towering cliff face where Tony intended to drive them to their deaths.
She knew that Sheriff Rich’s vehicle would be following at a careful distance. He would have picked up Ann Marie, but they wouldn’t be able to intervene without risking the detonator being triggered.
The highway curved through dense Virginia forest, and Riley knew that somewhere ahead—no more than a couple of miles now—the trees would part to reveal Raven’s Leap Cliff, a sheer drop hundreds of feet down to the rocks below.
And Tony Bartlett, with his brother’s ghost driving him forward, was taking them straight toward it.