by L E Fraser
He tried to obey the commanding voice without success. He felt as if he were tumbling into a warm bath. The sensation was pleasant—comforting, even—and he experienced a wonderful sense of euphoria.
A hard slap across his face jerked him awake. He blinked and Ophelia’s face gradually came into focus.
“Stay still,” she ordered sternly.
He felt her fingers probe his head. Sudden, intense pain caused him to yelp and struggle, but she shoved her shoulder against his chest to keep him immobile and continued her examination.
“I think your skull is fractured at the occipital lobe.” She tenderly moved his head to the side. “You may also have a temporal fracture. There’s blood in your left ear. I need you to move as little as possible.” She gently reached behind him.
Something sharp dug into the skin on his wrists and his hands jerked up and down. Eli’s lethargic brain tried to make sense of what was happening. His arms thumped against his thighs. She must have found his knife and cut the restraints.
“Who did this to you?” she asked.
“There was a girl,” he said slowly. “Her name was Bethany.”
Ophelia stood and crossed the room to peer into the mouth of the tunnel. “Bethany attacked you?”
“No, he took her.”
“Who took her?”
Eli moaned as shards of glass impaled his brain and roaring white noise filled his head. “The fox,” he murmured.
It was then that Eli realized he might not make it. If he died before he shared what he knew, they’d never find Bethany.
“I heard the sex trader on the phone,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “He said they would get a good price at auction. He drugs the girls with ketamine and takes them.” Speaking was excruciating and he paused to catch his breath.
“Ketamine?” she asked. “Are you sure?”
“That is also how he subdues witnesses to the abductions. Bethany’s tolerance to ketamine must be high, because she saw him take her friend. The fox knows Bethany can identify him.” He forced the words from his dry lips. “That is why he took her and sold her.”
Her eyes widened and she stood, grasping his knife limply in her hand. “He abducts our patients?”
“He sells them to a human trafficking ring,” Eli said, wishing she’d free his legs. “He also caters to men’s perverted fetishes. The fox uses ketamine to keep Fadiya deluded so he can prostitute her.”
“The ketamine is so he can sell Fadiya for sex?” Tears congested Ophelia’s voice.
“I would recognize his voice,” he said.
She made a strangled sound and backed away from him. “No. It can’t be.”
Eli slumped against the wall. He knew he had to keep fighting to stay alive. He was the only one who could identify the fox’s voice.
“What have I done?” Ophelia moaned. “What did he make me do?”
She screamed and pounded her fist against the wall. Eli cringed as the pressure in his head tightened.
“What the hell is going on?” A tall man in a white lab coat stood in the doorway.
Eli searched his brain to try to place him. He remembered a picture on one of Danny’s multiple HD monitors. Ah, this was Dr. Mathias Beauregard, the psychiatrist they had manipulated to check Eli into the lockdown unit.
Mathias stared at Eli and shock slackened his face. His eyes pivoted to Ophelia. “What the hell have you done?”
“You sick piece of shit,” she growled. “You’re a sex trader.”
His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed with confusion. “What are you talking about?”
With a howl, she charged forward, grabbed the doctor by the throat, and shoved him against the wall. “You made me drug those girls so you could sell them to the highest bidder. You made me a filthy accomplice to rape and slavery.”
Mathias threw her off him and staggered back, clutching his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He pointed at Eli, who cowered against the wall. “Why is he down here?” Mathias demanded.
Ophelia thrust her hand into the pocket of her sweater. “You made me give Fadiya ketamine so you could sell her to degenerates,” she said in a dead voice. “You’re contemptible, worse than your abomination of a brother.”
Mathias snorted in disdain. “I’m not the criminal here, Blu. You’re the one who strung up Annalise Huang. You’re the one who shot Harold Taylor.” Scorn dripped from every word. “Need I go on about the countless others you executed? You’re the murderer.” He jabbed his finger into her chest. “And don’t forget I have evidence of your crimes here and in Louisiana.”
Bit by bit, the truth slowly penetrated the haze of fear and pain that shrouded Eli’s mind: Ophelia had killed Annalise Huang and Harold Taylor. She was the vigilante Reece was hunting.
“Y’all are going to ride the needle back home in Louisiana,” Mathias drawled. “And when they lift the curtain, I’ll have a front row seat to avenge my brother’s murder.”
“Your brother raped and brutalized Pearl,” Ophelia said evenly. “And you watched.”
He laughed. “I wasn’t there.” His tone smoothly melded amusement together with contempt. “I worried what I’d catch.”
Unadulterated rage froze Ophelia’s face into a hideous mask that made the hair stand up on Eli’s arms.
“Pearl saw you at the Crawfish Festival. You and your brother murdered my sister.” Her calm voice was an eerie juxtaposition to the murderous rage that twisted her facial features.
The corner of Mathias’s mouth lifted in amusement. “You still don’t get it, Blu. My father was Virgile’s partner.” He leaned into her face. “You should have held out your hand. He would have paid you off, the same as he did for the families of all the other girls. Your sister would have had the best medical care money could buy. Instead, your junkie pa butchered her. That’s on you, not my brother.”
Ophelia took a step back and bumped into Eli’s splayed legs. He pulled them up to his knees, trying to make himself as small and invisible as possible. Could he make it to the chute that led to the surface and escape while they fought? His vision doubled and he saw two dark holes in the back wall.
“Pearl saw you,” Ophelia insisted.
The doctor shook his head with a sneer. “She saw my father talking to the man who ran the tourist booth. Remember the guy in the pork pie hat who shoved your pa?” he asked pleasantly. “My father paid him to make a scene before your idiot sister identified him.” He laughed. “It was entertaining to watch your retard sister squawking like a lunatic and your one-legged pa splayed useless on his ass.”
“You’re a vile man,” Ophelia whispered.
Mathias dismissed her by turning his back and speaking to Eli. “Let’s get you upstairs,” he said merrily. “The right cocktail of drugs and you won’t remember any of this.”
Eli’s eyes widened as Ophelia crept up behind the doctor and jammed the knife into the side of his neck. She twisted Mathias’s body around to face her and smiled. She drove the knife to the hilt and then slashed it across his neck in a single fluid motion.
Blood shot in an arcing stream from the severed carotid artery and spattered Eli’s face . Mathias pressed his hand against his neck and staggered back. He fell to his knees and uttered a hideous gurgling sound deep in his throat. He pitched sideways. His hand fell away from the gaping wound in his neck and glanced off Eli’s calf.
Eli scooted back, staring in revulsion as blood pooled around the doctor’s head and stained his lab coat maroon.
Ophelia crouched beside Mathias, on the opposite side of the blood. “I failed Pearl a long time ago, but it’s over now. We’re finally free of your family’s evil.”
Eli stared into Mathias’s dead eyes. His heart hammered in synchronicity to the pounding in his skull.
Ophelia looked up at him. “This was murder for the greater good,” she said. “You see that don’t you?”
He avoided her eyes and tried to
keep his expression agreeable. He must have failed because Ophelia turned away.
“You don’t understand.” She released a trembling sigh and turned back to face him. “Not yet, but I hope you will.” She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him.
Eli swallowed hard and ran his tongue over his dry lips. His eyes flickered aimlessly around the room.
“Will you listen to Pearl’s story?” she asked softly, moving the knife to her left hand and absently wiping the doctor’s blood from her right.
Eli’s heart lurched into his throat, rendering him mute. He nodded.
“I am not seeking forgiveness,” she said. “Judge me harshly, if it pleases you. Decide that only a monster is capable of what I’ve done.” Ophelia folded the bloody knife and handed it to him.
Confused, he took it with a shaking hand and set to work cutting the restrains from his ankles.
“My name is Blu,” she said. “I am the omnipotent judge and executioner of the unworthy.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The Journal
LIFE ALWAYS COMES full circle. Pearl has delivered to me this young man with spiky brown hair, eyes that never settle, and facial scars that bear testament to someone’s appalling inhumaneness. Eli’s fingers tap the rhythm of his words as he speaks to me. I cherish the gesture. It transports me to a time when the last vestiges of a sunset flickered through the branches of an ancient bald cypress, and Pearl’s white skirt twirled as she spun in the fading light.
I have patiently explained to this special young man my raison d’être. This entitled society we live in has enabled passive cruelty, I told him. At accidents and crime scenes, the desensitized masses hold phones high to immortalize the suffering of strangers. Everyone is eager to post a video that attracts millions of views, and gruesome misery draws the highest engagement.
What I have done is murder for the greater good.
Eli doesn’t condone the acts I’ve committed. There is judgment and horror undulating beneath his surface veneer of understanding. To him, I am an abomination. Yet, he believes I am innocent of conspiring with Dr. Beauregard to enslave and prostitute our patients.
I am not blameless. The ones Mathias prostituted, such as Fadiya, I administered the mind-altering drugs to. Fadiya could neither defend herself against the sexual assaults nor speak of the atrocities perpetrated against her. Because of the drugs I administered to her. Aazar could not protect his beloved sister. Because of the drugs I administered to her.
I made a pact with the devil, ignorant of Mathias’s true motivation, yet my actions make me complicit in rape, kidnapping, and sex slavery. I am those girls’ faceless demon. I have paradoxically evolved into the worst of those I hunt. I will never claw free from this mire of shame.
My father believed that one day I would find someone who would understand what I had to do in Louisiana. I’ve honoured my promise to him. Over the years, I have written my family’s story in this leather journal he gave me. Now I’m giving it to you, Sam. Perhaps my father was right and you have the capacity to understand what I had to do.
Your fiancé trusts in the sanctity of our flawed judicial system, and he has built his career within those hallowed halls. Like my father’s world, I suspect that Reece’s too is black and white. There is right. There is wrong. They never intertwine. What they do not see is that society teeters on a gossamer string suspended between the two. Sometimes, to achieve justice and bend the string closer to the side of humanity, one must have the courage to embrace immorality.
Albert Einstein said: ‘The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.’
I did something.
I must hurry now because time is running out. Pearl’s siren song lures me home to Louisiana, to a time when my father’s body was whole, my mother’s mind was strong, and our bayou oasis was benign. My family beckons to me from the high porch of our Acadian house. Sunshine glimmers through the lacy Spanish moss that droops from the twisted branches of our bald cypress tree. Pearl’s hair gleams in the brilliance of the dappled sunlight, and her fingers rise against the azure heavens to tap the rhythm of her siren song.
My sweet Pearl, we’ll lie together in our mud boat with our arms entwined again and drift soundlessly across the placid surface of the Teche. You’ll count the fluffy clouds and I’ll stroke your silken cheek, until the frogs’ requiem lulls us to sleep. We’ll be as we were when innocence reigned and happiness fortified our delicate wings of hope. We’ll never be broken again.
Watch for me now, mon chère. I’m flying o’er the bayou to you.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Sam
SAM HAD LEFT Reece in Eli’s room with Inspector Mansfield and a forensic team. In her opinion, it was a waste of time. Eli had texted Danny that he was in pursuit of the intruder, meaning forensics wouldn’t find anything useful in the room. Danny was in the security office with Saul, searching for data obstruction that could explain why none of the security cameras had caught Eli traversing the stairwell. The clinic’s security team, with the help of a slew of officers, were searching the hospital. So far, no one had found any sign of Eli. Sam’s sense of impending doom grew with every minute that passed. The only person who might be able to identify the hooded assailant was Bethany. Sam had hunted every nook and cranny of the hospital to no avail. Bethany had vanished.
Sam exited the withdrawal unit after questioning the residents again regarding Bethany’s disappearance. The girls’ reluctant, monosyllable answers to her question had left her uneasy. She couldn’t shake the sense they were terrified that someone would catch them talking with her.
As she loitered in the lobby, fighting exhaustion and trying to figure out next steps, Dr. Beauregard’s practicum student, Doug Sullivan, rushed over.
“What’s going on in here?” he asked breathlessly. “There are police officers at every exit and they won’t let me leave.”
“A patient is missing,” Sam said.
He blinked slowly, reminding her again of an owl. “But we’re staff. Surely we can leave,” he complained. “This doesn’t make sense.”
It made perfect sense to her. The clinic was a crime scene, so everyone—including the staff—was a potential suspect.
Rather than enlightening him on police procedures, she asked, “Have you seen Bethany?”
Doug shoved his wire-framed glasses up the bridge of his upturned nose and his lips thinned. “No. Why would I?”
“She’s your patient.”
“Well, no. I haven’t seen her.” He assessed the melee around him with distaste. “The presence of all these cops is intrusive. It’s not good for our patients.” He tugged nervously on the tip of his ear. “I have to leave, I have an appointment.”
Doug’s whiny tone and agitated body language implied he was more concerned about himself than with their patients. An appointment at four o’clock in the morning was a ridiculous excuse, but Sam understood that being forcibly confined upset people.
“When was the last time you saw her?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Bethany,” she said impatiently.
Doug folded his arms across his thin chest. “This afternoon at our session. She wanted to leave.” He sighed dramatically. “I bet she did. You know, before the cops arrived. The girls in rehab leave all the time.” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, as if a patient vanishing was a regular occurrence. “Surely they’re not here looking for Bethany.”
“They aren’t here for her,” Sam said, disturbed by his lack of empathy toward his patient.
“How long are they going to force us to stay here?” he asked again.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Doug’s thin lips pursed as he stroked his scraggly beard. “Dr. Beauregard asked me to come in and check on something,” he said distractedly. “Look, I really need to leave. As a PI, you must have some clout. Can you talk t
o them about letting me go?”
Sam heard footsteps behind her and turned to find Danny.
In way of introduction, she said, “This is Danny, a business associate. Doug is a practicum student.”
“I need to speak with you. It’s important.” Danny stared pointedly at Doug.
He slow blinked at her and brushed his hair off his forehead.
“In private,” Danny added.
“Doug, talk to security,” Sam suggested. “They might have an idea of when we can go.”
“This all seems over the top for one patient,” he grumbled. “Ophelia probably didn’t latch his door properly and the rich kid walked out.” He turned with a sulky expression and stomped toward the elevators.
Danny scowled after him. “What a sweetheart,” she said, with sarcasm dripping from her words. “He’s probably super insecure with those ugly Vulcan ears. He should grow out his hair.”
Sam’s eyes followed Doug as he strode through the lobby. Something he’d said was bothering her. It lay just beyond her exhaustion. Whatever her subconscious had picked up was putting her cop sense on high alert.
“According to the keycard data, Ophelia accessed the stairwell exit from the lockdown unit just before Eli texted me,” Danny said. “But here’s the weird part. The data overlaps, putting her in two places at once. It has her opening doors in the stairwell and simultaneously opening Fadiya’s room door,” she said.
“Someone cloned her card,” Sam guessed.
“That’s my assumption,” Danny agreed. “There’s something else. I tried to tell you at the loft but Reece lost his shit before I could.”
Sam watched Doug enter the elevator. The floor numbers decreased as the elevator dropped. It stopped at the basement level. The security office was on the fourth floor, near the executive offices. Maybe Doug thought he could bypass the police and sneak out through the underground parking garage.
“Ophelia was beside or near every one of Reece’s victims in Cardoon,” Danny stated. “The facial recognition algorithm pulled all five of Reece’s suspected victims. Ophelia was at Cardoon every single time.”