by Brenda Novak
Lara didn’t give him a chance to go into it, anyway. She said a fast good-bye and hung up.
He was still holding the phone, wondering if he should’ve told her, regardless, when the door banged open and Shorty’s sister, Molly, marched in, carrying a white sack that smelled like food. “I saw your truck out front.”
“I was just leaving.” He put the phone down and started to go around his desk when she stopped him.
“Oh no you don’t. You’re not getting away from me that easily. I know you’re going through hell, Benjamin Murphy, and I feel sorry for you. God knows I do. But you’re not doing Evelyn any favors by running yourself into the ground. She needs you to be sharp.” She tapped her head with her finger. “To think clearly. To make the hours you do work more effective. And in order to do that, you have to eat.”
He tried to wave her away. He still had all those boxes waiting for him at home. “I’ll grab something at the house,” he said, but she wouldn’t budge from the doorway.
She held up the sack. “You’re going to eat now, so you might as well sit down. I’ve brought you some of my homemade chili. I know you like it. You order it all the time. So don’t give me any trouble.”
To be honest, Amarok was more tired than he was hungry. He’d ignored the complaints of his empty stomach for so long the hunger pains had gone away.
Still, he figured he wasn’t going to get an easier meal. So he took the sack, returned to his desk and wolfed it down in a matter of minutes. “Thank you.” Finished, he tossed the empty bowl and plastic spoon in the wastebasket and tried again to leave.
“Not yet,” she said. “Now you’re going to sleep for a few hours. And I’ll sit at your desk and watch that phone like a hawk, ready to snap it up on the first ring. If anyone tries to call that has anything to do with the investigation, I’ll wake you. You have my word.”
“Molly—”
“Don’t Molly me,” she said, reacting to the no in his voice. “I’ve been taking care of that stubborn brother of mine long enough to know how to handle a muleheaded man. You trust me to stay vigilant and get you right away, don’t you?”
“Of course, but—”
“Uh uh uh! Then don’t argue.” She motioned to the couch. “Just lie down right there.”
“Molly, really. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But there’s no way I can rest right now. I’ll grab a nap once I go through Evelyn’s old files, okay? That can’t take too long.”
“It’ll take a lot longer than it should if you’re in this condition.”
“I’m not as bad off as I look.”
“Well, that’s good to hear, because you look like death warmed over.”
“I’ll take a nap later this afternoon.” He tried to circumvent her, but she grabbed hold of him.
“No,” she insisted. “I’m not buying that. Either you lie down right here and rest, or I’ll call Shorty and he’ll bring some of the men to hog-tie you.”
Amarok gaped at her. “You can’t be serious.”
Her eyebrows, which looked like they’d been drawn in with a dark pencil, slid up menacingly. “I am absolutely serious. You wouldn’t want to take valuable time away from those who are searching so hard to find Evelyn, now, would you?”
No. He didn’t want to do that, especially when even Makita seemed to agree with her. The dog merely lifted his head at the exchange and then put it down again.
Amarok realized he could continue to fight, waste time and resources he needed being stubborn and stupid, or he could get some rest while his friends and loved ones were doing all they could to help him.
He glanced over at the couch. He hated to succumb to his exhaustion, preferred to keep fighting. But he was afraid he’d miss something important if he didn’t rest at least enough to bring his brain out of this fog. “Okay,” he said, relenting.
“That’s what I want to hear. There you go,” she said, and gave him a little push in the right direction, like a mother might give to her sleepy boy.
Amarok would’ve smiled at that. He was six foot two, hardly little. But he was too upset to enjoy the humor of it.
Giving himself permission to sleep for an hour, just enough to provide his mind and body with a quick break, he lay down on the couch and drifted off so quickly he didn’t even know when Molly draped a blanket over him until the phone rang and he felt her jiggling his shoulder.
Anchorage, AK—Thursday, 4:30 p.m. AKDT
“What’s wrong with you?”
When he heard that question, Jasper peered out through the bars of his cell to find the man in the cage across from him watching him closely. A new inmate who’d arrived only two months ago, Roland Holmes was like a praying mantis. He blended in, waited for what he wanted to come to him—and then he could be lethal.
Jasper was cautious around him. Unlike the many braggarts he’d encountered since coming to Hanover House, Roland never said much about himself or his crimes, never talked about the killing that’d gotten him incarcerated.
But Jasper had heard what the others had to say about him. He’d bludgeoned his old man to death when he was only fifteen. The judge had gone easy on him because his father had been such an abusive prick, but Roland hadn’t stopped there. He’d killed three inmates while he was in prison—for attempting to gang-rape him, unless that was just a rumor that enhanced the story—and when he got out at thirty-four he killed his mother’s new husband because the dude wouldn’t allow him to see her for fear he was too “dangerous.”
The inmates respected him. Truth be told, Jasper did, too. But he tried not to show it. Roland hated men who raped and tortured women—and if he learned you’d ever harmed a child, you were as good as dead. Jasper had once heard him mutter that going after such easy and innocent prey was like killing a household cat instead of having the balls to try for bigger game and that put whoever made such a mistake in the same category as his father.
But he didn’t understand. Jasper didn’t go after women because he was afraid of men. He had no sexual interest in men, gained no pleasure at the thought of torturing or killing them—not unless they were all he had to choose from.
Anyway, even Evelyn seemed to respect Roland, probably because he’d contacted her from wherever he was serving time before this and asked to come to Hanover House. Told her he wanted to know why he did what he did, why he didn’t fear the consequences as he should and why he couldn’t cope more effectively with his impulses.
“Nothing’s wrong with me.” Jasper wanted to tell Roland to mind his own business, but no one talked to Roland that way. If he did, Roland would simply bide his time until the perfect moment—and then he’d use a shiv. That was exactly the kind of excuse Roland was looking for from a man he’d already marked as having “broken the rules of engagement.”
“You’ve been pacing like an angry cat.”
Why was he always thinking of cats? “So? I’m anxious. You’ve never been anxious?”
“Not without cause. You didn’t have anything to do with Dr. Talbot’s abduction, did you?”
It would be a death sentence to say yes and Jasper knew it. “No.”
“You’re sure? Because she’s pregnant. You know that.”
Of course he knew that. How could he miss it? No doubt she loved that he had a front-row seat to her pregnancy because it symbolized her happiness and everything he’d tried to take away from her. “I’m fully aware of that fact.”
“I’m glad, because I’d hate to have a problem between us.”
Jasper felt hatred begin to uncoil like a venomous snake in the pit of his stomach. There was going to come a time when he and Roland had a serious disagreement. He could feel it in his bones. He’d tried to stand clear, but if Roland was going to pick a fight in spite of that, Jasper would gladly accept the challenge. “Like I said, I had nothing to do with it. That’s the thing. If I had nothing to do with it, who did?”
Roland flicked something out of his teeth. “I guess we’ll just have to
wait and see if Sergeant Murphy can figure it out.”
“I guess so,” Jasper said, but it had been two and a half days since Evelyn went missing. What were the chances she was even alive at this point?
The thought of her being killed by someone else bothered him tremendously. If she was dead, she’d won for good. He’d never be able to even the score.
So he had no intention of sitting back and waiting for Amarok. He’d already started a little investigation of his own. He just wished the wheels he’d put in motion would turn faster.
Hilltop, AK—Thursday, 5:30 p.m. AKDT
“Who are you?” Amarok had been out of action for three hours—far longer than he’d wanted to be, but once he’d closed his eyes he hadn’t heard a thing, hadn’t even dreamed. He’d slept so deeply he would’ve liked to continue floating in oblivion for a week or more. But he didn’t feel rested. He was so groggy he could hardly comprehend what the female voice on the other end of the line was trying to tell him.
“My name’s Chastity Sturdevant. I live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.”
He could hear the midwestern accent. “And you’re calling me, why?”
“Because Jasper Moore asked me to.”
“The Jasper Moore who’s a serial killer and a psychopath? The one who’s locked up at Hanover House right now?”
“He’s not as bad as you’re making him sound,” she said.
“Then you’re seriously deluded.” Amarok was too tired to be diplomatic.
“That’s what you think, I guess. Anyway, Jasper and I have been writing each other for a while now. We’re … um … friends.”
Her hesitation defining the relationship suggested they were more. What she didn’t understand was that at least a dozen other women probably thought he was falling in love with them. “I don’t understand why he’d give you my number.”
“He didn’t. I had to look it up. But in the e-mail I received from him, he asked me to drive over and give you a call if I couldn’t find that zombie-making bastard.”
“Find who?” he asked, coming to his feet.
“Lyman Bishop!”
Amarok felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “You’re in Minnesota?”
“Yeah. Took me four hours to get here, and it’s all for nothing. I just left Beacon Point Mental Hospital. He’s not there.”
“That’s not true,” Amarok argued. “I’ve checked myself.”
“Then you’d better check again, because I just tried to visit him and they told me he was no longer a patient.”
“That’s because they can’t give out any information. They can’t even let on that he’s a patient.”
“You don’t understand. I slipped past the security desk at the door and went up in the elevator. I asked a nurse at some nurses’ station where my ‘father’ was—said he was supposed to be on the third floor, but I couldn’t find him—and she looked in her computer. She said she didn’t show him as a patient anymore.”
“Where did he go?”
“How am I supposed to know? The nurse had no idea.”
“That can’t be true,” Amarok insisted, but the doubt she’d placed in his mind was quickly turning his stomach to acid.
“If you say so. I don’t even know the dude, so I don’t care. I was just helping out my boyfriend. Anyway, I’ve gotta go. I have another long drive ahead of me.”
There was a snapping sound that led him to believe she was chewing gum. “How old are you?” he asked before she could hang up.
“Eighteen.”
She said that with a touch of belligerence, as if she was also saying, I’m old enough to do what the hell I want.
“If you’re smart you’ll stay away from Jasper and anyone like him,” Amarok said. “You’ve heard what he did to his high school girlfriend, haven’t you?”
“He hates Evelyn,” she said with a shrug in her voice. “He would never do that to me.”
“Don’t be stupid. He would if he had the chance,” Amarok said, and disconnected.
“What is it?” Molly was still there, watching him closely. “Anything that could help Evelyn?”
“Depends.” If Lyman Bishop was involved in Evelyn’s abduction, maybe Amarok could track him in some way. Lyman didn’t have any family to speak of and probably very few friends, but everyone needed money. He might be able to trace him through bank or credit card transactions.
Amarok looked up the number for Beacon Point and called them. It took twenty minutes of wrangling with different nurses and supervisors, but eventually he learned what “Chastity” had been trying to tell him: Lyman Bishop wasn’t at Beacon Point anymore—and no one could say where he’d gone.
Anchorage, AK—Thursday, 11:00 p.m. AKDT
Evelyn had made her situation even worse!
Now she was going to die in this cooler—the long, slow way. It had been hours and hours since she’d stabbed the muscular man with the scar over his eye, and no one had come. She’d had no water, no food, hadn’t heard a sound.
Had she killed him? Or had he taken off without telling anyone where to find her?
If he were around, she would’ve expected some sort of reprisal, unless neglecting her and letting her die of thirst or starvation was it.
When she couldn’t bear to look at her surroundings any longer, she summoned the energy to get to her feet and dip her jacket in the toilet water so she could clean herself up. She wiped down the walls next. Being stranded in such a terrifying situation was difficult enough; she didn’t need to see those red droplets every time she opened her eyes, didn’t need to feel the blood drying on her face and arms.
Once both she and the walls were clean, she began to feel slightly better, despite the hunger pangs in her stomach, and used the plastic bowl that had once held oatmeal to scoop more water out of the toilet so she could rinse the floor. She pushed the blood, oatmeal and water mixture to the drain with her feet. Then she scrubbed the blood out of her blanket, rinsed out her jacket and used it to clean what she could of the mattress.
While she waited for everything to dry, she sat on the floor near the door and thought about her mother, father and only sibling. Her mother, who’d suffered from depression for years, had improved so much since Jasper had been caught. Her whole family had turned a corner and begun to heal, really heal, for the first time since Jasper attacked her more than two decades ago. She hated to imagine them hearing that she was missing again—hated what it would do to them.
Her sister was even more pregnant than she was, due any day. Evelyn had promised Brianne she’d fly home when Brianne had her baby and spend a couple of weeks, so everyone was expecting to see her soon.
As a family, they had so much to look forward to. New babies—her parents’ first grandchildren. A wedding. Although Brianne’s boyfriend had left her for someone else before either one of them knew about the baby and she’d been devastated by the rejection, she’d managed to rebound, slowly, over time. Until this happened, everything had been looking up. Now her family might get word of her abduction or, worse, her death—which also meant the death of her baby—in the same week or month they welcomed their first grandchild into the world.
She wished there were some way to leave them a message, to tell them that she wanted them to be happy eventually no matter what happened. She felt terrible knowing her choices had made things so hard for them, especially because she didn’t see where she could’ve handled her life any differently. If she hadn’t gone into psychiatry and focused on psychopathy, she would never have met Amarok. And it was him, as well as her knowledge and determination, who’d saved her from Jasper. Since she’d ultimately won that battle, maybe she’d bought herself some extra time she wouldn’t have had otherwise.
She hoped they’d be able to look at her life and death that way.
She wiped the tear that threatened to drip off her chin and leaned her head against the wall. She’d never dreamed she’d wish to see Lyman Bishop, but he could easily be the only person in
the world who knew where she was.
And if he didn’t get here soon, she’d have no chance at all.
13
Anchorage, AK—Friday 11:00 a.m. AKDT
Evelyn’s head pounded as she sat on the floor and stared into the toilet. Could she drink the water?
When she’d first been put in here, she’d thought she could never do it, not after what she’d been through before. She’d become somewhat of a germophobe since Jasper, particularly careful with her food. Her water was always rigorously filtered, her food never more than a day old. Everything, even her clothes, was washed in water that came through the same filter as the water she drank, and while Amarok loved a big, juicy steak, most of the time she couldn’t stomach the thought of red meat. Occasionally, she’d crave a burger, but other times the smell alone turned her stomach, and it had been that way ever since Jasper had tried to force her to eat the roasted limb of one of her best friends.
The only thing that’d made healing possible was that she’d refused what he gave her, spat it out and retched every time he tried to shove it back in her mouth. He’d beaten her senseless for defying him. But she never gave in, and she felt that stubbornness was part of the reason he’d never forgotten her. There’d been some things he couldn’t force her to do, no matter what the cost, and he both admired and hated her for it. From what he’d said since, she was the only woman he hadn’t been able to break.
She pictured him sitting in his cell at Hanover House and wondered what he was thinking about her sudden disappearance. He was probably jealous and angry that someone else had managed to accomplish what he’d tried to do last winter. He was unrealistic enough to believe he was going to get out of Hanover House one day and have another chance. Grandiose sense of self was a common characteristic among psychopaths.…
Having him at Hanover House, where she worked and could speak to him at will, had also helped her put him and her ordeal into perspective. When he was at large, her mind had played tricks on her, had used her fear to imbue him with almost supernatural capabilities—the ability to be in two places at once, the ability to see through walls, to read her mind, et cetera. Every night after work, she’d have to check all the closets, behind every door, even small spaces where someone his size wouldn’t fit. And if she was alone, she’d tense at every sound, even the familiar ones.