by J. D. Barker
Gimble squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t follow. Are you saying he changed vehicles to commit the murders?”
“Not only did he change vehicles, but he took the time to remove the Trux Data recorder from his tractor trailer and plug it into the secondary vehicle—some kind of car, can’t tell what. When he returned after the murder, he pulled the device again and placed it back in the truck,” Sammy explained.
“Why would he do that? It just makes him look guilty. Draws a clear line right to each murder.”
“Yeah,” Sammy said. “Exactly. Doesn’t make sense for him to do it at all.”
Gimble was staring at the back of Kepler’s head again. “But if somebody wanted to frame him…” Her voice trailed off.
“Yeah.”
Gimble blew out a breath.
I don’t think he cares if you think it’s me anymore.
“Did you find any proof he has a brother?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Sammy replied. “It’s like Vela told you. There’s no record of his birth. His birth certificate was issued by Windham Hall when they brought him in at four years old. It’s very possible his mother gave birth to another child too and it was never recorded. It happens a lot, particularly with the homeless or low-income women. I couldn’t find anything to indicate where he was born. No shots—no medical records, period. Nothing for those first four years. He didn’t exist until they brought him into that orphanage.”
“That orphanage,” Gimble repeated. “Do you know if Vela’s warrant got approved?”
“He hasn’t applied for one yet. I checked the system right before I called you. Do you want me to do it?”
Gimble looked over at Vela. His eyes were still closed. She’d told him to do it for the umpteenth time back at Longtin’s cabin. “Yeah, rush it through. Call me as soon as it gets approved.”
“You got it,” Sammy said. “Oh, and boss? One other thing.”
“What?”
“Kepler’s birth certificate. The physician’s signature is Dr. Barton Fitzgerald.”
She frowned. “Are psychiatrists allowed to do that?”
“Dunno, but he did.”
The plane lurched to a stop.
Vela’s eyes snapped open.
Outside, a black SUV rolled onto the tarmac about twenty feet away. The driver got out and opened the doors.
Gimble looked over at Kepler. “Call me back when you get that, Sammy.”
“You got it.”
The call disconnected, and Gimble checked her text messages. The last one to come in was from Begley thirty-five minutes ago—
At Windham Hall with Dobbs.
She dialed him but got voice mail.
“What’s going on?” Vela asked, rolling his head, stretching.
“How far is Windham Hall from here?”
“I have no idea.”
She unbuckled her seat belt, nodded at Kepler, and stood. “Get our prisoner in the car. We’re heading there first.”
Chapter One Hundred Nineteen
Written Statement,
Megan Fitzgerald
Driving again.
Fast.
Too fast.
“Michael, slow down,” I said, barely able to hear my own voice over the straining engine.
“Don’t call me Michael,” he growled.
“Mitchell, stop!”
He slammed his foot down on the brakes, and the rear of the car fishtailed. I flew forward, but my seat belt yanked me back. Nicole Milligan thumped against the back seat. He didn’t stop, but he slowed just enough to avoid hitting a little boy on a bicycle probably on his way to school. The kid rolled off into the bushes to avoid us and held up his middle finger as we sped past.
Michael was already accelerating again.
“Where are we going?”
Houses flew past us on both sides. He was doing at least twice the speed limit through a residential neighborhood.
“Dr. Rose needed to die. I was supposed to kill her. I deserved to kill her. It was my right.” The words came from him rapid-fire. He just spat them out, not necessarily for me, just to get them out there. His hands were shaking, his face bright red. “All of them.” He fumed. “Every damn last one of them.”
“You said he kept you in a cage,” I said, attempting to change the subject, calm him somehow.
“What?”
“Dr. Bart. You said he kept you in a cage.”
His fingers drummed on the steering wheel. He didn’t look at me when he spoke, just stared ahead. “They gave you everything. You and Michael. That big house. Good schools. The perfect life. They gave you and him everything, and he locked me away in a hole.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She knew all about it. She knew everything that man did.”
“Dr. Rose?”
He nodded. “Separating us, that was her idea. That’s what he told me.”
“Separating you and Michael?”
“His plan had always been to use what he learned from Longtin to try and re-create dissociative identity disorder in someone else, but when he told Dr. Rose there were two of us but a record of only one, she told Dr. Bart and Patchen to separate us immediately, like two groups in an experiment. It was her idea to take Michael back to the house and leave me at Windham Hall. Michael and I had both suffered the same traumatic experience. He’d have two chances. That bitch not only mapped out a detailed plan to fracture what was left of our minds but also convinced Dr. Bart of what should be used as a model for each of our secondary identities. They sealed the decision the moment my twin brother and I started to lead separate lives. They’d convince me I was Michael and twist him into believing he was me. Between the three of them, they meticulously documented both our lives,” he said. “Dr. Bart would make me read Michael’s journals, listen to his interviews, relive his every experience, and repeat them back to him over and over again until he felt I was convinced it happened to me. He called me Michael, and heaven forbid I referred to myself by my real name. You heard the tapes, the horrible things he’d do. He’d put me in that room, find some way to convince me, break me, make Michael’s experiences my own…” His voice trailed off. “When he’d leave, I’d spend hours just repeating my own name, running through my day, my own experiences, as limited as they were, to try and hold on, but it became so hard. I felt myself slipping away. It was all Michael, Michael, Michael. I was kept in the dark. I ate, I slept. I was allowed to read what Michael read. I could only know what Michael knew. Live what Michael lived. They created these detailed narratives accounting for every moment of our fake lives, drilling them into our heads.” As if to punctuate this, he twisted his fist against the side of his skull, then rapped against his temple, three hard taps. “With Michael, they tried to twist him into me—forced him to believe he was Mitchell for countless sessions until neither of us knew who we were anymore.”
I found myself looking at his hair as he spoke, as he did this—his blond hair.
I had dyed Michael’s hair blond back at the motel.
He caught me looking at his hair.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty
Dobbs
Dobbs tried CPR, but he knew it was useless. Begley was gone. The bullet had gone straight through, and when he tried to roll him to get a look at the exit wound, he found a two-inch hole in the man’s back.
He set him down gently.
Dobbs’s hands were covered in blood. He wiped them on his jeans.
He heard a metal door clunk open and then close somewhere down the hall, back the way he’d come.
He scrambled to his feet, shoved his phone into his pocket, pulled his own gun, and ran toward the front door.
A light blinked off at the bottom of the stairs.
Dobbs took the steps two at a time. The light came back on about a third of the way down, tripped by a motion sensor in the far corner of the stairwell. The metal door was at the bottom. Solid steel with a push bar in the center, no window. He knelt low, squ
eezed into the corner beside it, reached up, and depressed the bar. He gave the door a hard push, then came around fast, sweeping right to left and then back again with his Glock. Although the long hallway was lit by bare fluorescent bulbs strung from the ceiling, each began to darken. First the closest to him, then the next, and the next after that, switching off in sequence.
More motion sensors.
Each set with a short timer, maybe thirty seconds.
No sign of Patchen.
The hallway seemed to stretch the length of the building with more than a dozen doors at intervals throughout, all metal, none labeled. At least, not that he could see from where he crouched.
Each door vanished with the light, swallowed by the growing grasp of total black.
The last light to remain on was two-thirds of the way down. The next light, the one hanging at the end of the hall, had never come on. Patchen had disappeared behind one of these doors. He’d gone no further. Dobbs bolted down the hall, the lights coming back on with him. A door to his left, another to his right. One on each side of the hallway.
Dobbs reached out and touched the doorknobs. Neither was warm or damp or felt different from the other. He twisted each one slightly. Both turned. His eyes quickly scanned the wall; he located the manual switch for the light above him and turned it off. Then he dropped to the ground and looked under each door.
He caught a hint of light under the door on his left a moment before it switched off, and all went dark.
His hands went to the doorknob again.
He counted to three in his head, then twisted and pulled the door open.
The motion triggered the light on that side, and it switched on again.
Stairs.
Black rubber treads dropping down into more darkness with an old black metal handrail on the wall at the right.
From somewhere in that darkness below, Patchen shouted, “I didn’t mean to shoot him! The gun just went off!”
“Then drop the gun and come up slowly with your hands on your head!” Dobbs shouted back.
Silence.
Dobbs could hear dripping water down there. It was some kind of subbasement. “Now, Patchen!” he shouted down the stairwell, tightening his grip on the Glock, pointing it into the absolute nothingness below.
When Patchen spoke, he sounded closer. “Okay. I’m coming up.”
Remaining low, Dobbs pressed into the doorjamb, tight against the wall.
The water dripped again.
Patchen fired.
The muzzle blast was a blinding white light, the sound deafening.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One
Written Statement,
Megan Fitzgerald
He ran his hand through his hair. “You left the box from the dye in your trash at the motel. I bought the same one. How does it look? I think I like being a blond.”
I wasn’t sure I believed anything he was telling me.
“I’m not him,” he said when I didn’t speak. “I can still tell the difference, even if you can’t.”
He snatched the birth certificate from my hand and shoved it into his pocket.
My eyes narrowed. “If you’re not Michael, why continue to pretend to be him? Why kill all those people and frame your own brother?”
“I didn’t exist. I still don’t. The birth certificate is the only proof I have. Michael, Michael, Michael, all those years as Michael. I had no television, no news, nothing. My life was a void. They didn’t allow me to exist. They kept me in my hole while Michael lived. While the two of you lived. They stole everything from me. Twenty-six years gone, while Michael lived. Don’t you get it? He’s had his life. It’s my turn now.” He rattled off names: “Alyssa Tepper, Darcey Haas, Issac Dorrough, Selena Hennis, Cassandra Shatley, Katrina Nickols, and the lovely Nicki Milligan bouncing around in the trunk—every single one of them helped the Fitzgeralds and Patchen cover this up. He bought them all off—a couple extra dollars in their pocket. They stole my life just as much as the Fitzgeralds did, so I stole theirs. I took it back. I made it right. If I could kill them all again, I would. What I did to them was merciful compared to what they all did to me.”
He turned to me and said something I didn’t expect. “I was there for your ninth birthday, Meg. We met four times when you were ten. Dozens more after that. We’ve eaten dinner together. As part of his therapy, Dr. Bart would sometimes bring me back to the house and I’d be Michael for the day. Those were the moments I’d live for. You were always so kind to me. Of course, you had no idea I wasn’t him. I can’t imagine what the Fitzgeralds would have done if I’d told you. If I violated the rules of their tests. I slept in Michael’s bed once. I got up in the middle of the night and crawled in beside you—do you remember that? You wrapped your arms around me, held me. You were so peaceful. To this day, I still remember the sounds you made while you were sleeping that night, each gentle breath. The warmth of your body next to mine. You have no idea how I’ve clung to that moment, how many times I forced my mind to go back to that moment to escape Dr. Bart’s torture, his sessions. You were the only bright light for me.”
He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Everything I’ve done has been for you, Meg. You’re the only thing that has ever really mattered in my life. The little life I’ve been allowed to live. And pretty soon, after Patchen is dead, when they’re all finally dead, I’ll have peace. When they find what’s left of Nicole’s body, they’ll think she’s you, and you’ll be free too. Both of us, finally. We can be happy. I promise you, I’ll make you happy.”
What did he expect me to say to that? My mind was swimming. I turned back to the window. I’d been to Windham Hall only a few times with the Fitzgeralds, but I recognized the road and I knew we were close.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two
Dobbs
The bullet struck the metal door on the opposite side of the hallway above and behind Dobbs with a loud ping, then ricocheted off to the side.
His eyes had grown used to the dark, so the white flash of the muzzle blast was blinding—a strobe that left all else dark with bright flecks floating through his vision.
Before the echo of the blast died down, Dobbs fired the Glock, four shots, then three more, all down toward the base of the stairs. Each time he pulled the trigger, his own muzzle blast added to the confusion. When he fired that seventh shot, he forced himself quickly to his feet and started down the steps two at a time, firing four more times as he went.
Motion-activated lights came on with each step, chasing him, and when he got to the bottom, he threw himself forward, leaping across the room. He crashed into some old wooden chairs stacked against the wall and fell to the ground in a heap. He shot wildly, his arm swinging from left to right in a wide arc until the gun did nothing but click.
He ejected the empty magazine from his Glock, pulled another from his back pocket, slammed it into the butt of the gun, and racked the slide, all while his eyes fought the confusion of light and dark and tried to take in the room.
Damp concrete floor. A large boiler and HVAC equipment against the wall to his left next to the stairs. There were folding tables piled high next to the chairs he was tangled up in. A large drain was at the center of the room. The entire space smelled musty.
He crouched behind the tables.
No sign of Patchen.
If he’d hit him, the man hadn’t made a sound. Dobbs didn’t see any blood on the floor.
“You have no idea what you’re stepping into, Detective. You should get out of here while you can. Just go. I’m a walking dead man. Stick around long enough, and you’ll join me.” Patchen’s voice echoed off the concrete block walls. It came from everywhere and nowhere.
The basement lights began to tick off, one at a time, thirty seconds after the last detected motion. Dobbs forced himself not to move. “You killed a federal agent, Patchen. You’re going to prison. You’ll get the needle.”
Patchen laughed. “That child is coming for me. I can feel it. A n
eedle would be a blessing. I’m more likely to eat my own gun before the day’s out.”
“I can protect you from Kepler.”
“Think so? You have no idea what Fitzgerald created.”
“Put the gun down and step out where I can see you.”
Another light went dark. Two left.
“I’ve got work to do, Detective,” Patchen replied. “And you’re slowing me down. If you don’t let me go, I’ll have no choice but to kill you. You know I will. I’ve got nothing to lose. What do you have to lose, Detective? Who’s waiting for you back in Los Angeles? Is someone going to cry when I put a hole in your chest to match your partner’s?”
The last two lights flicked off in quick succession.
The basement went totally black.
Both men went quiet.
Water dripped.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Three
Written Statement,
Megan Fitzgerald
Mitchell passed Windham Hall, his foot never leaving the gas as we flew by. He made a right turn on Graham, then another on Winton. He followed the narrow lane nearly to the end, then turned right onto an unmarked blacktop road. The surface was cracked, riddled with potholes. Weeds and long blades of grass poked up from the various openings as Mother Nature worked to reclaim the ground.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Dr. Bart never took you this way?”
I shook my head.
“I couldn’t go through the front door. Particularly at odd hours. Somebody might have seen me. There were too many children running around, too many little eyes. The adults too. The employees. They hid me from everyone. Only Michael could pass through the front door, only Michael, and I wasn’t always Michael. All my time here, and I don’t think anyone other than Patchen and the Fitzgeralds ever knew. Well, Roland too.”
“Roland Eads?”