“No, but Annalise did.”
“I see. What did she think?”
“She thought it was sophomoric and speculated that your PhD came from a box of caramel corn.”
“Still trying insults? Isn’t that ploy a bit common?”
“No more common than the questions you’ve been asking me, Ellie. I’m merely slumming. As distasteful as it is, I’m bringing myself down to your level to help you understand what you couldn’t otherwise. You should really show some appreciation for the sacrifice I am making on your behalf.”
Video Jante remained silent. Eventually Miranda cocked her head to the side and grinned.
“Do you know why I wanted to know if you have children?” she asked.
“I have my own theory, but I’m fairly certain you would say I’m wrong if I were to tell you.”
“That’s because you are. I don’t even have to hear it to know that.” Miranda sighed. “I suppose I should just tell you. I asked you about children because it might help you better understand. You see, Ellie, the bond between a mother and child is unlike anything else. No love runs as deep, even the love I feel for them, and they for me. And, I imagine that when a mother sees her child take its first step, she must feel just exactly like I did that night.”
“Which night would that be?”
“The night in the motel with Felicity,” she replied. “That’s what you really want to know about, now isn’t it?”
“Motel?”
“Don’t pretend to be any more stupid than you already are, Ellie. It’s unbecoming. Obviously you don’t have breeding, so at least try to live up to your supposed education.”
“Humor me.”
Miranda sighed. “You bore me.”
“Then let me speak to Annalise.”
“You bore her as well.”
“Really.” Jante said the word more as a statement than a question.
Miranda answered it anyway. “Yes, of course you do. Unfortunately, Annalise is too damaged to know better.”
“And why is she damaged?”
“Because she’s weak, of course.”
“So you damaged her?”
“No, she damaged herself.”
“How?”
The two of them sat staring at one another in silence as the progress bar on the video player crept along and seconds ticked off on the digital counter.
“That isn’t what you are here to talk about, Ellie. You know that.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Don’t play games.”
“I’m not. You know exactly why I’m here. You’ve been directly linked to seven brutal murders, maybe even several more. I’m here to find out why.”
“That answer is so simple you should have seen it by now, which simply proves my point.”
“The answer is rarely simple in cases such as these.”
“This one is. I did it for Felicity.”
“Are you saying that Miz O’Brien told you to kill those men?”
Miranda cocked her eyebrow. “See. I give you the answer and you still miss it entirely. Try thinking before you open your mouth. What makes you think anyone could tell me to do anything?”
“I never said anyone could. I merely asked if someone did.”
“You still want to know about the motel, don’t you?”
“I think you want to tell me about it, or you wouldn’t keep bringing it up.”
An almost wistful look seemed to pass across Miranda’s features. The struggle for control between the two women had been gently teetering like a carefully balanced see-saw on a still summer day. But now the imaginary wind picked up, and the nudge it provided seemed to dip matters in Jante’s favor.
“I’m talking about the motel where Felicity took the man Annalise used for revenge,” Miranda finally said.
“Brad Lewis? Your last victim?”
“I suppose that was his name. What they call themselves isn’t important. All that matters is that they love and are loved.” Miranda shook her head again. “But, as usual, you’re wrong. He wasn’t my victim. None of them are my victims.”
“You murdered him. That makes him a victim in my book.”
“I never said he wasn’t a victim. I simply explained he was not my victim. Annalise murdered him, not me. She did it out of spite because she is jealous of Felicity. I, on the other hand, would have loved him.”
“Semantics. He’s still dead.”
“See. I told you that you were too stupid to understand.”
“All right, since I’m so stupid, educate me. What is it about that night you want me to know?”
Miranda let out a contented sigh and stared into the distance with a pleased smile on her lips. The yearning look remained on her face as she began to talk. “It was a very special night. It was when Felicity first started to understand her true capacity to love.”
“How do you mean?”
“We both loved him. Together. And, when I left she was still loving him.”
“You mean torturing.”
“Loving. She was giving him what he wanted and needed. And, in return, she was accepting his love.”
“I see. What do you mean, ‘when you left’? Were you there with her?”
Miranda continued to stare off into space. “I should have stayed longer to make sure she didn’t stumble, but Annalise was being needy and I had to leave. I should have ignored the bitch and stayed where I belonged. I blame myself for not being there for Felicity. If I had I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.”
“Where would you be?”
“Where I belong, of course. And where I will be soon enough. With her.”
The video clip ended, and the player automatically paused on the last frame. Staring back at us, frozen in two-dimensional space, was the image of Annalise wearing Miranda’s almost frightening smile twisted across her lips.
The flesh and blood Doctor Jante reached over and carefully spun the notebook computer back around before leveling her gaze on my wife. “Miz O’Brien,” she said, her voice even. “I think perhaps now you can see our situation a bit more clearly.”
Felicity sighed and gave her a shallow nod.
Jante continued. “I’m afraid I need to ask you a somewhat disturbing question. Was Annalise Devereaux in the motel room with you that night before the police arrived?”
CHAPTER 16:
From the sound of Doctor Jante’s question, it appeared that I should have stuck to my guns about drawing this interview-turned-witch hunt to an immediate close. Hindsight being what it was, my earlier curiosity-induced myopia had me feeling incredibly stupid for allowing it to continue even though I’d left the decision up to my wife. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it now without making Felicity look just as guilty as Annalise. Of course, it seemed they had already come to that conclusion without my help.
“Not that I recall,” Felicity replied.
Cliche though they were, I knew she had chosen the words carefully. Even if Annalise had been at the motel with her, she wouldn’t have known because, for all intents and purposes, Felicity had been there in body only. Her consciousness had been elsewhere, and her memory of that night had a several hour gap. But Annalise wasn’t the real issue here anyway, Miranda was, and she had most definitely been present. Just not the way they meant.
“Are you absolutely certain?” Hanley pressed.
“Exactly what are you implying?” I asked, issuing the demand before my wife could respond to his question. “What happened to the part where no one is accusing her of anything?”
“We aren’t implying anything,” Doctor Jante interjected. “And we certainly aren’t making accusations. We’re merely trying to find the truth and establish how Devereaux came to know these facts.”
Even though I knew the real answer, unbelievable as it was, I objected in the only way I could, waving my hand at the computer as I spoke. “What facts? That was just vague rambling. If anything she got lu
cky telling you what you wanted to hear. Not to mention the fact that I’m sure her attorneys have subpoenaed the same police reports you’ve been reading. They could have told her everything she just said.”
“Agreed,” she replied. “I think maybe you are misunderstanding our intent.”
“From where I sit it sounds to me like you’re trying to paint my wife as her accomplice. Is that the intent you’re talking about?”
“Actually, it’s just the opposite,” Agent Hanley offered. “We’re working to rule out Miz O’Brien completely.”
“Oh please.” I let out an abbreviated harrumph. “Do you really think I’m going to believe you aren’t lying through your teeth right now? Ten minutes ago you hit us with a purposely transparent good cop-bad cop routine. Why, I haven’t quite figured out, but it’s obvious you’re trying to run a game down on us. I sincerely doubt we can believe anything you’ve said since you walked through the door. You probably aren’t even with the BAU at all.”
“I can assure you we are with the BAU,” he replied. “And what you choose to believe is up to you, but you do need to calm down. The simple truth is we’re on your side, whether you realize it or not.”
Doctor Jante directed herself toward me. “We’re gathering information for a criminal analysis, Mister Gant. The supposed Miranda personality has recited various other facts about Miz O’Brien, all of which we have been able to corroborate.”
“Corroborate how?”
“Primarily through public records.”
“Since you’re the FBI I suppose I shouldn’t bother to ask if it occurred to you that she, or again her attorneys, did a bit of research via those same public records?”
“Of course it did,” she replied, shaking her head. “In fact, it’s our working theory.”
“You keep saying ‘supposed Miranda personality’,” Felicity interrupted. “What do you mean by that?”
“We aren’t exactly sure what to call it,” she answered. “To put it simply, it all comes back to what I mentioned before. In cases of Dissociative Identity Disorder, the psyche splits as a defense mechanism. It compartmentalizes the effects of severe psychological trauma but will then act out when subjected to triggering stressors. Since the origin of the disorder can usually be traced back to a recurring trauma such as extreme abuse or sexual molestation, generally the fracture focuses on a childlike personality where the individual can create what they perceive as a safe space. There may be other identities, yes, but the childlike aspect is a dominant and driving force. As I told you before, Annalise has no such fracture. She simply has Annalise and Miranda. Both of who are wholly aware of one another and appear to have some type of symbiotic relationship, although that seems to be disintegrating rapidly. I’ll admit that initially I believed her to be faking the disorder, however, if that is the case she is very adept. If she is for real, then she is a very unique case indeed.”
Felicity and I looked at one another briefly but remained tight-lipped. Puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place, and the picture they made was less than pretty. However, it wasn’t the image I’d been conjuring in my mind’s eye over the past half hour. Instead, it was an updated version of the one I’d feared all along.
I don’t suppose any of this should have come as a surprise to me. After all, I had always been of the belief that Miranda would continue to use Annalise until she could find a way to reconnect with Felicity, and she was obviously doing just that. She knew full well my wife wouldn’t come to her willingly, so she needed a way to make it happen, and establishing complicity seemed to be her plan.
“So why am I really here then?” Felicity asked with a quick shake of her head. “What is it you want from me?”
“For exactly the reason we told you in the beginning,” Hanley said. “So we can gather information.”
“But it’s not just for your database, is it?” I asked.
“Admittedly, there is another need for the information, yes,” Jante answered. “Everything we gather will be provided to the prosecution. But, at this point, we don’t know what her attorney might try, and we have to be absolutely certain of our facts where this case is concerned. Given what we have learned so far, it is a near certainty that you’ll be brought into court to testify, Miz O’Brien.”
“About what?”
“The connection between the two of you.”
“That’s exactly what Miranda wants,” I replied.
“Why is that?”
“Long story.”
Felicity jumped in. “Do you think her attorney might try to shift blame to me?”
“We don’t know for sure what his plan of attack will be. Right now we’re just speculating,” Agent Hanley answered. “Insanity defenses are a long shot at best, and he most certainly knows that, but that is the most likely starting point given her current state. Still, he would be a fool not to use you in some way. If the insanity ploy fails, then he will be pulling out all the stops, if for no other reason than to lessen the severity of her sentence.”
“You sound like a prosecuting attorney yourself instead of a profiler,” I observed.
“Case investigator is what we prefer,” he replied. “At the BAU we create profiles, but the title Profiler is actually a term coined by the media and hyped by Hollywood. However, you’re somewhat correct. I worked as a prosecutor before joining the bureau.”
“Hmmph,” I grunted. “Well, that’s what I get for assuming. I figured you’d need to have a background in psychology not law.”
“I have both, actually. A Masters in Law and a BS in psych.”
“I guess it’s good to keep your options open,” I replied, for lack of anything better to say. “What about you, Doctor Jante? You actually sound like a psychologist.”
“I am,” she replied.
“Well, at least there are no surprises there.”
“Let’s get back to your original question,” Hanley said. “Our data will be a part of the prosecution’s case, as is customary whenever a serial offender goes to trial. But it’s usually just a profile for comparison. In Devereaux’s case, she’ll no doubt be facing a court-ordered psych evaluation given the nature of her crimes-also not unusual. But by having unfettered access to her now, we may well end up with invaluable data at our disposal that wouldn’t come out in a standard psych eval. However, whatever we come up with needs to be accurate. We can’t afford a misstep with this.”
“Okay, but what about the evidence?” I asked. “The way I understood it, there was more than enough to convict her.”
“In theory there is, but did you ever hear of a little media circus called the O. J. Simpson trial?” he asked.
“Point taken,” I said with a nod. “But still…”
“Believe me, we’re right there with you. But, we also have a job to do, and believe me, her ‘dream team’ isn’t made up of underpaid public defenders. She has some serious hired guns.”
“So why didn’t you just tell us what this was really about in the first place?” Felicity asked.
Doctor Jante shook her head. “To be honest, it’s easier to tell if a subject is lying if you catch them off guard. And we had to be sure.”
“Great,” I muttered. “So this was all one big lie detector test.”
“In part, yes,” she replied.
“But did I pass then?” Felicity asked.
Jante shook her head. “Not really.”
CHAPTER 17:
“And that means what?” Felicity pressed. “You’re going to arrest me again?”
“No,” the doctor replied. “But you’re still holding something back and that concerns us.”
“Trust me, I’m not keeping anything secret that would help you.”
“So then you admit that you are withholding information?” Hanley asked.
“This is turning into an interrogation again,” I objected.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mister Gant, but it’s the two of you who are turning it into an interrogation by n
ot cooperating,” he replied, voice stern and even.
“We’d be a lot more cooperative if you were being honest with us.”
“We are.”
“Only when it’s convenient for you,” I replied. “Or did you forget the big reveal just a minute ago?”
“Mister Gant, believe it or not we are trying to help you.”
“You’ve got a hell of a way of showing it.”
“Mister Gant,” Doctor Jante interrupted. “We need you to calm down. Devereaux and her attorneys are trying to drag your wife into this, and so far they are doing a damn good job. Essentially, Devereaux is placing herself at the scene of your wife’s extramarital tryst with Lewis…”
“That’s not what it was,” Felicity objected.
“Be that as it may, that is exactly how it will be portrayed in court,” Hanley replied with a dismissive gesture.
Jante continued. “Either way, she appears to be trying to make a mutual connection between the two of you that goes beyond her simply having an obsession.”
“So why doesn’t she just come out and accuse Felicity of being her accomplice then?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“She’s far too intelligent for that,” Jante replied. “It might sound easier, but it would be less effective. She knows making an accusation like that would be far too obvious under the circumstances. Instead, she’s painting Miz O’Brien into the picture. Remember, all it takes is reasonable doubt.”
“She’s not after reasonable doubt,” I blurted, forgetting to hold my tongue. “She’s after complicity.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Have either of you wondered why she wanted to talk to you pre-trial?” I asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “It’s obvious she is up to something, and it would appear that somehow implicating Miz O’Brien in the crimes is it.”
“Like I said, complicity.”
“But complicity gets her nothing.”
“Actually, it gets her access to my wife, which is what she really wants.”
“Why?”
I knew I was getting carried away, so I slammed on the brakes and tried to recover by saying, “Just call it a hunch.”
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