Once Craved (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #3) Read Free Page A

mattered at the moment. A rebound relationship was the very last
thing she needed right now. Her life required some serious sorting out, and she
was just beginning to make progress in that direction.
    Still, it had been
nice to spend a few minutes talking to an attractive man, and a relief to
finally have neighbors—and pleasant ones at that.
     
    *
     
    When Riley and April
sat down at the table for dinner, April couldn’t keep her hands off her
smartphone.
    “Please stop
texting,” Riley said. “It’s supper time.”
    “In a minute, Mom,”
April said. She kept right on texting.
    Riley was only
mildly irritated by April’s display of teen behavior. The truth was, it
definitely had an upside. Riley was doing great at school this year and making
new friends. As far as Riley was concerned, they were a much better bunch of
kids than April had hung out with before. Riley guessed that April was now
texting with a boy she was interested in. So far, though, April hadn’t
mentioned him.
    April did stop
texting when Gabriela came in from the kitchen with a tray of chiles rellenos.
As she set the steaming, lusciously stuffed bell peppers on the kitchen table,
April giggled mischievously.
    “Picante enough,
Gabriela?” she asked.
    “Sí,” Gabriela said, also giggling.
    It was a running
joke among the three of them. Ryan had disliked foods that were too spicy.
Actually, he couldn’t eat them at all. As far as April and Riley were
concerned, hotter was better. Gabriela no longer had to hold back—or at least
not as much as she used to. Riley doubted whether even she or April could
handle Gabriela’s original Guatemalan recipes.
    When Gabriela
finished setting out the food for all three of them, she said to Riley, “The
gentleman is guapo, no?”
    Riley felt herself
blush. “Handsome? I hadn’t noticed, Gabriela.”
    Gabriela let out a
burst of laughter.She sat down to eat with them and started to hum a
little tune. Riley guessed that it was a Guatemalan love song. April stared at
her mother.
    “What gentleman,
Mom?” she asked.
    “Oh, our neighbor
came by a little while ago—”
    April interrupted
excitedly. “Omigod! Was it Crystal’s dad? It was, wasn’t it! Isn’t he gorgeous?”
    “And I think he is
single.”Gabriela said.
    “OK, back off,”
Riley said with a laugh. “Give me some room to live. I don’t need the two of
you trying to fix me up with the guy next door.”
    They all dug into
the stuffed peppers, and dinner was almost finished when Riley felt her phone
buzz in her pocket.
    Damn it, she thought. I shouldn’t have
brought it to the table.
    The buzzing
continued. She couldn’t very well not answer it. Since she’d gotten home, Brent
Meredith had left two more text messages, and she’d kept telling herself that
she’d call him later. She couldn’t put it off anymore. She excused herself from
the table and answered the phone.
    “Riley, I’m sorry to
bother you like this,” her boss said. “But I really need your help.”
    Riley was startled
to hear Meredith call her by her first name. That was rare. Although she felt
quite close to him, he usually addressed her as Agent Paige. He was normally
businesslike, sometimes to the point of being brusque.
    “What is it, sir?”
Riley asked.
    Meredith fell silent
for a moment. Riley wondered why he was being reticent. Her spirits sank. She
felt sure that this was precisely the news she’d been dreading.
    “Riley, I’m asking a
personal favor,” he said, sounding much less commanding than usual. “I’ve been
asked to look into a murder in Phoenix.”
    Riley was surprised.
“A single murder?” she asked. “Why would that require the FBI?”
     “I’ve got an old
friend at the field office in Phoenix,” Meredith said. “Garrett Holbrook. We
went to the academy together. His sister Nancy was the victim.”
    “I’m so sorry,”
Riley said. “But the local police …”
    There was a rare
note of entreaty in Meredith’s