by Chris Carter
Taylor glared at him.
Lucien laughed. ‘But of course you would.’ He closed his eyes and breathed in as if his memory needed an extra burst of oxygen. When he reopened them again, they looked dead, emotionless. He began.
‘Emily Evans, thirty-three years old, from New York City. Owen Miller, twenty-six years old, from Cleveland, Ohio. Rafaela Gomez, thirty-nine years old, from Lancaster in Pennsylvania. And Leslie Jenkins, twenty-two years old, from Toronto, Canada. She was an international student back at Yale.’
Lucien paused and drew in another deep breath.
‘Would you like me to tell you how they died as well?’ His lips smirked, but his eyes didn’t.
Hunter had no intentions of sitting in that basement and listening to Lucien boost about how he had tortured and killed every one of his victims.
‘The location, Lucien, nothing more,’ Hunter said.
‘Really?’ Lucien pulled a disappointed face. ‘But it was just starting to get fun. Karen was only my second victim. I got better with each new one, believe me.’ He winked at Taylor suggestively. ‘Much better.’
‘You’re a fucking psycho,’ Taylor couldn’t contain herself anymore. She felt disgusted just looking at him.
Hunter matter-of-factly turned his head to look at her, silently pleading with Taylor not to engage.
‘You think so?’ Lucien seized the moment.
Taylor disregarded Hunter’s look. ‘I know so.’
Lucien looked like he was considering that statement for a moment. ‘You know, Agent Taylor, you really do have a problem with naivety. If you think I’m unique in the urges I have, then you’re unmistakably in the wrong profession.’ He threw a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Every single day thousands, millions of people out there have murderous thoughts. Some start having them very, very young. Every day there are people out there who in their own way consider killing their spouses, their partners, their neighbors, their bosses, their bank managers, the asshole bullies who torment their lives . . . the list goes on and on.’
Taylor glanced at Lucien as if his argument didn’t have a leg to stand on.
‘What you’re talking about are spur of the moment, heated thoughts,’ she returned calmly, emphasizing the word ‘thoughts’. ‘They are understandable, angry psychological reactions to a particular action. It doesn’t mean that any of it will ever materialize.’
‘The location, Lucien,’ Hunter intervened. For the life of him he couldn’t understand why Taylor was still feeding the fire. ‘Where are Karen’s remains?’
Lucien ignored him. Right then, he was more interested in pushing Taylor a little further.
‘Naive, naive, naive, Agent Taylor,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘With every human thought, spur of the moment or not, there’s always a risk that the thought might one day – fed by anger, hurt, disillusion, jealousy . . . there are a thousand factors that could help it grow – become much more than just a thought. It’s called the law of probability. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Your databases are overflowing with such examples. And it happens because anyone, and I mean anyone, independent of upbringing, gender, class, race, beliefs, status or anything else, could, under the right circumstances, become a killer.’
Let it go, Courtney, Hunter pleaded in his head.
Taylor didn’t. ‘You are delusional,’ she replied without thinking.
Her response only amused Lucien more.
‘I don’t think that I’m the one who’s delusional here, Agent Taylor. You see? It’s very easy for anyone to say that he or she will never cross a certain line, when that line is never presented to them.’
Lucien allowed his words to float in the air, giving Taylor a moment to digest them before moving on.
‘If one day they come face to face with such a line, they’ll sing a very different tune. Trust me on this, Agent Taylor. It was one of my experiments – presenting that line to someone who swore she could never take a life.’ Lucien looked at his nails as if considering if they needed trimming or not. ‘And, boy, did she cross it.’
Taylor choked on her own breath.
Hunter stared at him in disbelief.
‘Are you saying that you forced someone to commit murder as an experiment? To prove a point?’ Taylor asked.
Hunter had no doubt that Lucien was very capable of such an act. He was very capable of much more. But Hunter had heard enough, and despite Taylor being the lead agent in this investigation, he lifted a stop hand at her and took over.
‘The location, Lucien. Where in New Haven are those bodies?’
Lucien scratched his beard again while studying Hunter.
‘Of course I’ll tell you, Robert. I promised I would, didn’t I? But I’ve been telling you things for far too long now, and it’s my turn to ask a question again. That was the deal.’
Hunter could feel that coming. ‘Tell us where the bodies are first, then, while the FBI verifies the site, you can ask your question.’
Lucien agreed with an eye movement. ‘I can see your logic, but I’m sure that the FBI is already verifying the four names I’ve just given you.’ He looked up at the CCTV camera on the corner of the ceiling inside his cell and smiled at it. ‘Which means that I’ve already given you something to keep you busy. So now it’s my turn.’
Lucien gathered himself before staring deep into Hunter’s eyes.
‘Tell me about Jessica, Robert.’
Sixty-Eight
Back in the holding cells’ control room, once Director Kennedy heard the four names Lucien had given Hunter and Taylor, he immediately got on the phone to one of his research teams.
‘I need proof that these people are real,’ he said to the lead agent. ‘Social security numbers, driving licenses, whatever.’ He dictated the first three names with the respective ages and home towns, just as Lucien had mentioned. ‘The fourth person – Leslie Jenkins – is from Toronto in Canada. She was an international student at Yale, probably in the early 90s. Check with Yale, and if need be check with the Canadian Embassy in Washington. I also need to know if these people have been reported missing. Get back to me ASAP.’ He quickly put the phone down.
Kennedy remembered once having a conversation with a military weapons expert who had joined the FBI. They had discussed LIN grenades and charges. The weapons expert had showed him actual footage of what happens to a human body when it’s exposed to a blast of supercooled liquid nitrogen. Kennedy had probably seen more dead bodies and attended more violent crime scenes than most people in the entire FBI, but he’d never seen anything quite like that footage.
Kennedy was ready to contact the FBI field office in New Haven, Connecticut, and ask them to dispatch a team to whatever set of directions Lucien was about to give them, when Lucien changed the game and asked Hunter about Jessica.
‘Who’s Jessica?’ Doctor Lambert asked, looking at Kennedy.
Kennedy gave him a delicate headshake. ‘I have no idea.’
Sixty-Nine
While Lucien’s question resonated against the walls, Hunter felt the air being sucked out of his lungs as if somebody had just hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat. He looked at Lucien with narrow eyes, half doubting his ears.
Taylor couldn’t help but let her gaze wander over toward Hunter.
‘I’m sorry?’ Hunter said. No amount of poker face could mask his surprise.
‘Jessica Petersen,’ Lucien repeated, clearly enjoying Hunter’s reaction. The name traveled through the air slowly, like smoke. ‘Tell me about Jessica Petersen, Robert. Who was she?’
Hunter couldn’t tear his eyes away from Lucien, his brain trying hard to understand what was happening.
Police or medical records, he concluded. That’s the only possible way. Somehow Lucien gained access to either police or medical records, or both. Hunter then remembered the feeling he had when Lucien kept on asking him about his mother. Hunter felt as if Lucien already knew all the answers, and he would have, if he’d gotten his hands on police or
medical records. The medical examiner’s report would’ve stated that Hunter’s mother had died of a pain-killers’ overdose, and put the time of death sometime in the middle of the night. Finding out that Hunter’s father worked nights, and therefore wasn’t at home, wouldn’t have been very difficult. The only other person in that household at that time was a seven-year-old Robert Hunter. Lucien would’ve had no problem putting together most of what had really happened that night. He just needed Hunter to fill in the gaps.
‘Who was she?’ Lucien asked again, coolly.
Hunter blinked the blur of confusion away. ‘Someone I knew years ago,’ he finally replied in the same tone.
‘C’mon, Robert,’ Lucien shot back. ‘I know you can do better than that. And you know you can’t lie to me.’
Their stares battled for a moment.
‘She’s someone I used to date when I was young,’ Hunter said.
‘How young?’
‘Very. I met her just after I finished my PhD.’
Lucien sat back on his bed and stretched his legs in front of him, getting as comfortable as he could. ‘How long did you date her for?’
‘Two years.’
‘Were you in love?’ Lucien asked, tilting his head slightly to one side.
Hunter hesitated. ‘Lucien, what does this have to do with—’
‘Just answer the question, Robert.’ Lucien cut him short. ‘I can ask whatever I like, relevant or not, that was the deal, and right now I would like you to tell me more about Jessica Petersen. Were you in love with her?’
Taylor shifted on her chair.
Hunter’s nod was subtle. ‘Yes, I was in love with Jessica.’
‘Did you make plans to marry her?’
Silence.
Lucien’s eyebrows arched, indicating that he was waiting for an answer.
‘Yes,’ Hunter said. ‘We were engaged.’
For the briefest of moments Taylor heard Hunter’s voice croak.
‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ Lucien commented. ‘So what went wrong? I know that you aren’t married or divorced. So, what happened? How come you never married the woman you were in love with? Did she leave you for someone else?’
Hunter gambled. ‘Yes, she found someone else. Someone better.’
Lucien shook his head and noisily sucked his teeth with every head movement. ‘Are you sure you want to test me again, Robert? Are you sure you want to lie to me? Because that’s what you’re doing right now.’ Lucien’s look and voice became hard as steel. ‘And I really don’t like that.’
Taylor kept a steady face, but her eyes looked lost.
‘You know what?’ Hunter said, lifting both of his hands up. ‘I’m not talking about this.’
‘I think you’d better,’ Lucien countered.
‘I don’t think so,’ Hunter replied in the same conservative tone a psychologist would use to address a patient. ‘I was brought here because I thought I’d be helping an old friend. Someone I thought I knew. When they showed me your picture back in LA just a few days ago, I was sure that there had been some sort of bad mistake. I agreed to fly over here because I thought I could help the FBI clear all this up and prove you’re not the man they thought you were. I was wrong. I can’t help because there’s nothing to clear up. You are who you are, and you did what you did. Unfortunately, no one can change that. But you said so yourself – there’s no rush to any of this because there’s no one we can save – and when I leave, the FBI will carry on interrogating you about the location of all your victims’ remains.’
Hunter peeked at Taylor. A frown had creased her forehead after she heard the word ‘leave’.
‘They’ll just use different methods,’ Hunter continued. ‘Less conventional ones. I’m sure you know what’s coming. It might take a few days longer, but trust me, Lucien, in the end you will talk.’
Hunter got up, ready to leave.
Lucien looked as calm as he’d ever looked.
‘I would really suggest that you sit back down, old friend, because you’ve misquoted me.’
Hunter paused.
‘I didn’t say that there was no rush to any of this. I said that there was no rush in finding Susan’s remains, because you couldn’t save her anyway.’
Something in the way Lucien phrased his words made Hunter’s heartbeat stumble, pick itself up, and then stumble again.
‘And I’ve never said that you couldn’t save anyone. Because I think there’s still time.’ A tense pause as Lucien looked at his wrist, consulting his invisible watch once again. ‘I haven’t killed all the victims I’ve kidnapped, Robert.’ Lucien accompanied those words with a look so cold and devoid of feelings, it could’ve belonged to a cadaver. ‘One is still alive.’
Part Three
A Race Against Time
Seventy
Hidden location.
Three days earlier.
She coughed and spluttered awake, or at least she thought she was awake. She couldn’t really tell anymore. Her reality was as terrifying as her worst nightmares. Confusion surrounded her twenty-four hours a day, as her brain seemed to be in a constant state of haziness – half numb, half awake.
Due to the lack of sunlight, she had lost track of time a while ago. She knew she’d been locked in this stinking hell-hole for a long time now. To her it felt like years, but it could’ve been just months, or even weeks. Time just trickled by, and no one was counting.
She could still remember the night she met him in that bar on the east side of town. He was older than her, but charming, attractive, well educated, very intelligent, funny, and really knew how to compliment a woman. He made her feel special. He made her feel like she could light up the sky. At the end of the night, he put her in a cab and didn’t offer, or even suggest joining her. He was very polite and gentleman like. He did ask her for her phone number, though.
She had to admit that she was quite excited when he called just a few days later and asked her if she would like to go out for dinner with him. With a huge smile on her face she accepted.
He picked her up that evening, around 7:00 p.m., but they never made it to a restaurant. As soon as she entered his car and buckled up, she felt something sting the side of her neck. He’d acted so fast she didn’t even see his hand move. The next thing she could recall was waking up in this cold and damp room.
The room was exactly twelve paces by twelve paces. She’d counted and recounted it many times. The walls were crude and made of brick and mortar, the floor of rough cement. The door, which sat at the center of one of the walls, was made of metal with a rectangular, lockable viewing slot about five feet from the floor. Like a prison door. There was a thin and dirty mattress pushed up against the back wall. There was a blanket that smelled of wet dog. No pillow. On one corner there was a plastic bucket she was told to use as a toilet. There were no windows, and the weak, yellowish bulb locked inside a metal-mesh box at the center of the ceiling was on 24/7.
Since she’d been taken into captivity, she’d only seen her kidnapper a handful of times, when he would enter her cell to deliver food and water, a new roll of rough toilet paper, and to swop her toilet bucket for a clean one.
So far, he hadn’t touched or hurt her. He never said much either. She would scream, beg, plead, try to talk, but he barely ever replied to her. On one occasion, his simple physical response scared her so much she wet herself. Out of pure fear, her subconscious mind kept on urging her to ask him what he wanted with her, what he would do to her. So one day, she gave in and asked him. He didn’t reply with words. He simply looked at her, and in his eyes she saw something she’d never seen before – unadulterated evil.
He would bring her food and water, sometimes daily, but not always. Though she had completely lost the concept of time, she could still tell that some of the intervals between rations were way too long. Certainly, way over a day or two.
Once, just after the third or fourth food delivery, she had waited for the door to open and tried surprise-at
tacking him with all the strength she had in her, clawing at his face with her chipped nails. But it seemed like he’d been waiting for it to happen all along, and before she was able to put even a small scratch on him, he punched her stomach so hard, she immediately doubled over and puked. She spent the rest of that day lying on the floor in the fetus position, contorted in pain, her abdomen sore and bruised.
Sometimes the rations were larger than others – more bottles of water, more packets of crackers and cookies, more candy bars, more loaves of bread, sometimes even fruit. Then he’d be gone for a long time. The larger the ration he brought her, the longer it would be before he came back, and the last ration she got was the largest of them all.
She didn’t know exactly how long ago that was, but she knew it was longer than ever before. Very quickly she learned to rationalize everything almost to perfection. By the time she was running out of food and water, he’d be back bringing new supplies, but not this time.
She had run out of food some time ago, maybe three or four days. To her it seemed longer. She ran out of water maybe a day or two after that. She felt weak and dehydrated. Her lips were dried and cracked. Because of how hungry she was, the cold and dampness of the room affected her more than usual now. She spent most of her time curled up into a ball against one of the corners of the room, wrapped up in that stinking blanket. But even so, she couldn’t stop shivering.
For some time, her throat had been feeling like it was on constant fire, but today more than ever. She desperately needed a drink of water. Her eyelids felt heavy and it required an effort of will to force them open. Her head ached in a way that every little movement she made felt as if it would be her last, before her brain exploded inside her skull.
She brought a hand to her clammy forehead, and it felt as if she was touching hot metal. She was burning up.
With amazing effort she lifted her head and looked at the door. She thought she heard something. Steps, maybe. Someone coming.