Kill Switch

by Neal Baer

  It had been a little more than a month since they’d discovered Sedgwick’s deadly secret at Biopharix, a month Claire wished she could forget. She had thought Paul Curtin’s funeral, just two days earlier at a beautiful, secluded cemetery in Connecticut, would bring her closure. Until she realized there was one more loose end to tie up, a wrong she felt had to be righted for a victim who, like herself and Nick and Curtin, had been sucked into the vortex of this horror over which none of them had any control.

  A sudden burst of cold air blowing her way made her look toward the open door of the diner. She noticed he moved more slowly, tentatively, despite the ample light.

  His sight is getting worse, she thought.

  Just then, he spotted her. His face lit up in a grin. Claire couldn’t help but smile back as he slid onto the seat opposite her in the booth.

  “Nice to see you,” Nick said, looking into her eyes.

  “You too,” Claire replied, unable to hold his gaze for more than just a moment.

  Nick knew why. He knew a sad smile when he saw one. “Don’t worry about me. It just takes me a couple of extra seconds to adjust from the darkness to the light. I won’t have to worry about that much longer.”

  His truth was said not with self-pity, but with an acceptance Claire hadn’t heard from him before. She looked up, meeting his eyes again, unable to find the words.

  “It’s okay. Amazing what a little headshrinking can do,” Nick said.

  “You’re seeing a therapist?” Claire asked.

  A mischievous grin appeared. “Someone once told me people who don’t like shrinks are the ones who need them the most,” he said. “Good advice, if you ask me.”

  Claire nodded, more than pleased. “What are you doing about your job?”

  “It’s amazing, actually,” Nick began. “Two months ago they were trying to find a way to get rid of me and put me in prison. Now they’re bending over backward so I can stay.”

  Claire looked at him, amazed. “How can they let you—”

  “I had to turn in my guns,” he interrupted. “But my promotion to detective first grade won’t happen until February, and if I stick around, that makes my pension worth a lot more. So they’re putting me on permanent desk duty until I can put in my papers. Said it was the least they could do. Seeing that you and I are heroes and all.”

  Claire smiled. “Good thing nobody’ll ever know,” she said.

  The irony was inescapable. In the aftermath of Biopharix, they had been placed in protective custody and debriefed by the FBI, who eventually credited them with preventing the deaths of tens of millions of people, a biological holocaust that no doubt would have occurred had Sedgwick’s virus escaped the confines of his lab. They’d been secretly whisked into the White House for a meeting with the president himself, who thanked them profusely, bestowed them with “top secret” security clearances, and impressed upon them that in the interests of national security they could never tell a soul what had happened, lest there be widespread panic.

  “The guys on my protective detail told me you were with Curtin when he died,” Nick said.

  “I didn’t want him to be alone. In his last words he asked me to thank you for everything. And apologize to you for what he did.”

  Nick thought for a moment. “Whatever else he did, the guy saved our lives and probably a couple hundred million others. Guess I should be the one thanking him.”

  Just then, a waitress appeared. “What can I get you?” she asked Nick.

  “I’ll take a cup of coffee and a buttered roll,” he answered.

  She looked at Claire. “More coffee, hon?”

  “No, but can I have a scoop of vanilla ice cream?” Claire asked.

  “Be right back,” the waitress said, hurrying off.

  Nick looked at her, amused. “Vanilla, huh?”

  “I was never one to take risks,” Claire admitted. “Before all this, I mean.”

  “Well, you asked for this powwow. What’s on your mind?”

  “Todd Quimby,” she said matter-of-factly, looking into his eyes.

  Nick nodded. “I was wondering when he would come up.”

  “He was never a killer. He’s a victim,” said Claire.

  “I know,” Nick replied, wondering what Claire thought he could do.

  “Quimby shouldn’t be held responsible for what happened. The man was mentally ill.”

  Nick leaned across the table, speaking softly and evenly. “And if we tell anyone any of this, they’ll lock us up and throw away the key. That’s why we were given security clearances. So the feds have legal leverage on us to keep our mouths shut.”

  “I understand we can’t do anything publicly,” Claire assured him. “But I wish there was a way to take the label of ‘serial killer’ off his name.”

  Nick considered this for a moment, an idea popping into his head. “It doesn’t have to be something that can be found out right away, does it?” he asked.

  “What do you have in mind?” Claire asked, hopeful.

  “I’m still closing out the files on all seven homicides Quimby was accused of,” he said. “The Justice Department wants them sealed but without a paper trail leading back to them. So they got the Manhattan DA to do their dirty work.”

  “How long do they want the files sealed for?”

  “Twenty years, I think,” Nick replied.

  “How does that help us?” asked Claire.

  “Before I deliver the files, I can bury a DD5—that’s internal Detective Bureau paperwork—in each one, naming Sedgwick as the killer.”

  “Will you get in trouble?”

  “Probably not,” Nick said. “Nobody’s going to read the files before they’re sealed, and it’ll be twenty years before they’re opened again.”

  He seemed okay with all of it. Claire looked at him.

  “It’s not perfect,” Claire said. “But I can live with that.” She paused, took a sip of the coffee she didn’t want. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What will you do now?” asked Claire. “After you leave the police department?”

  “I’ll find something fit for a blind ex-cop,” Nick answered. “Maybe a consulting gig. We’ll see. So to speak,” he added, smiling.

  Claire couldn’t help but respect his acceptance of the future that awaited him. “I just want to tell you . . . ,” she said, suddenly hesitating.

  But Nick read her mind. “I know. It’s not going to be as easy as I’m making it sound. But if I need help, I know who to call,” he said, that mischievous grin reappearing.

  Claire smiled. “Call anytime.”

  The staccato click-clack of Claire’s heels on the mottled concrete floor of Rikers Island reverberated against the muddy-brown cinder-block walls. It reminded her of that first day here with Paul Curtin, and she remembered very well how she’d felt—naked, intimidated, each step reminding her that there was nowhere to hide. Today, however, couldn’t have been more different.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” asked Dr. Fairborn, walking in step beside her.

  “Absolutely,” said Claire.

  She shot a glance at her new mentor, who was dressed surprisingly nonvampirish in a tasteful blue suit, muted lipstick, and eye shadow that made her look like she was actually from this world. Claire knew the reason for her transformation was to avoid distracting patients—or, worse, attracting undue attention from some random inmate.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Fairborn said as they reached the door to the inmate interview room.

  “Me too,” Claire said, knowing that she was now exactly where she belonged.

  “Are you ready, Doctor?” Fairborn asked.

  “Yes,” Claire answered without hesitation.

  “Go get ’em.”

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  PROLOGUE

&nbs
p; The studio apartment was shaped like a perfect square, in the basement of a brownstone, with its own entrance from the outside. The large, mirrorless room was starkly furnished, with a white-framed Ikea bed hugging one corner, forming a perfect ninety-degree angle with an unstained pine dresser against the wall. A small porcelain sink and a two-burner electric stove stood in for the kitchen across the room, opposite the bed. Every inch of space was sprayed, rinsed and wiped clean daily, and the bathroom, with only a toilet and shower, was scrubbed twice. The one modest closet held crisply pressed white oxford shirts and khaki pants. But the size of the apartment didn’t concern the tenant. He didn’t care about worldly possessions or creature comforts. What comforted him—and at times drove him mad—were the thoughts running though his mind.

  He took the apartment only under the condition that the landlord never enter without telling him a day in advance (though the landlord had no reason to enter because the man never complained and always paid his rent on time). He actually wrote that into the lease, a clause to protect him from prying, unwelcome eyes. Who could possibly understand a grown man writing words on his wall? The cops found words written on the walls of the apartment of David Berkowitz, the notorious “Son of Sam” serial killer—and they didn’t understand.

  No cop would ever see this, of that he was certain. Because he swore to himself he would protect this, his creation, at all costs. Even if it meant painting over it.

  He finished the latest addition to his work, taking a sniff of the black Magic Marker before capping it. He loved their intoxicating smell. He collected Magic Markers as a child, and had one of each color: brown, blue, red, orange, purple, green—even yellow. The yellow one was his prize. He never saw anyone use a yellow Magic Marker. Then one day, his mother threw them out because he’d drawn “nasty, sick, perverted” pictures on his bedroom wall. He smiled, remembering. He used the yellow marker for their private parts. His mother painted over the pictures of the women he’d drawn when he was twelve because Magic Marker can never be washed off.

  “It’s permanent,” he thought, stepping back to admire what he’d done. He wrote two words, “fictions chaperone,” to the dozens of pairs of words already written, neatly, one pair above the next, on one wall. He smiled, looking at the pairs of words “infections poacher,” “octopi enfranchise,” and “pinocchio fastener” at the top of the bizarre list. Though the combinations of words appeared nonsensical, they calmed him because only he knew what they meant. To anyone else, the words made no sense.

  But they did make sense, didn’t they? After all, it was the alphabet itself that made no sense. It was just a long train of letters, waiting to be made into words and sentences and thoughts. Individual letters could be coupled, with more letters added like a delicious recipe, to make words. He loved to cook, too, to add assorted ingredients together to make a savory stew or a delicately crusted pie. Just like the letters of the alphabet, the ingredients alone weren’t satisfying. But the right combinations of letters or ingredients brought order to the chaos of his own life. The words on his wall and the cinnamon aroma of the apple pie he baked earlier in the day eased his mind, momentarily bringing order and perfection to his world of chaos.

  Order. Perfection. He mused on these words, as he often did, because it was exactly what he strived to find in the randomness of his own life. But order and perfection eluded him.

  Until now.

  He grabbed his favorite yellow Magic Marker and wrote two words atop the other pairs of words, outlining the letters in brown so that the words almost sparkled like gold in the glint of the one bare bulb that lit the room: “gather stamina.” Those words meant more to him than just a motto, they were something to live by. They represented who he was. Who he wanted to be. His very being. And only he knew why.

  He turned to the wall to the left, the one he knew everyone would talk about some day. Again, he admired his work: a grid of fifteen neatly drawn boxes running across and down. To anyone else, it would look like an empty crossword puzzle. Using a ruler, he neatly finished the final box, in black Magic Marker, in the lower right-hand corner. He waited for this day longer than he realized. When the grid was full of those random letters that he ordered into words, it would be his masterpiece. His life’s work. And with those final strokes of the Magic Marker, he knew it was time to begin.

  He walked across the room to his small kitchen, and picked up a manila envelope that he had left on the stove. He turned on the gas burner and watched the blue and yellow flame dance before him, luring him. He opened the envelope and poured its contents into his hand—perfectly cut up half-inch squares from a photograph—which he dropped over the flame. The fire licked the pieces, an eye, an upper lip, a nose, until all the pieces had burned into a small pile of gray ash.

  Satisfied, he turned off the burner and removed two huge pots from a lower cabinet. Then, from a drawer, he took a rolled-up piece of cloth, from which the handles of knives, a cleaver, and shears protruded like spires. From his closet, he removed a neatly folded sleeping bag, small canvas tent, and deflated air mattress. He always loved the outdoors, and tonight he’d sleep under the stars.

  After he finished what he was compelled to do. He knew beyond any doubt that what he was about to embark on would relieve the unbearable anxiety he felt all his life.

  Relieve it forever.

  CHAPTER 1

  Claire Waters sat bolt upright in bed, throwing off the sky-blue cotton comforter and then covering her mouth to muffle the scream that otherwise would have escaped. It was early May, still cool in the minutes before sunrise in New York City, though Claire was sweating profusely. The nightmares were becoming a regular occurrence now. And this one was more vivid than the others. A man in the shadows, holding a small knife, lunged at Claire just as she woke up.

  She sat in bed, trying to shake off the anxiety, but she could still feel her heart pounding and needed desperately to make it stop. She considered popping a Xanax to chase away the fear, but she knew that would only give her a quick fix; it wouldn’t make the churning in her gut go away. And she also knew it would be back tomorrow night, and the night after. Reluctant as she was to admit it, Claire realized she needed to follow the advice she gave to her patients in her practice as a forensic psychiatrist.

  She had to talk about it.

  She had to feel it.

  But all Claire could feel was emptiness.

  Feeling is still too painful, she thought.

  She grabbed her iPod, put in the ear buds and turned on Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” as loud as it could go. Music had always been Claire’s therapy, especially through the worst times, and she’d had more than her fair share in the past year.

  Claire let the soft guitar melody block out her tension, even though she knew the anxiety would return. She also knew, as a research scientist, that somewhere buried in her own brain, in the amygdala, the most primitive neural structure, there was a switch that reacted to danger. When she began swirling into the abyss, her amygdala, her own neural make-up, sensed a mortal threat. But what? She’d had the nightmares since she was a child. Why had they come back?

  Claire closed her eyes, listening to the pounding beat of the Zeppelin song. When she opened her eyes the light of dawn was peeking through the soft flutter of her white curtains from a mild spring breeze. Even the music couldn’t drown out the faint din of an ambulance siren speeding down Second Avenue, thirty-eight floors below her. No danger, no demons. Nothing to harm her.

  She turned to look at the clock on her nightstand. 5:29 a.m. Perfect. She set the alarm every night, but she didn’t need to: she always woke minutes before it went off, even the mornings after those seemingly endless thirty-hour shifts as an intern and resident, when she’d come home and collapse into bed, wanting to sleep in order to shut out the world.

  She got out of bed, turned off her iPod and flipped on the light. The boxy dresser, nightstands and headboard for the queen-sized bed were all made of beige wood and lam
inate, bought from one of those generic stores where you can pick furniture for every room of your apartment and have a completely furnished place the next day. Hers was a standard New York City apartment with parquet floors, a stark one-bedroom box in a contemporary glass tower. About as nondescript as one could get in Manhattan.

  Perhaps as nondescript as Claire wanted to be right now.

  She looked at the framed photo of Ian, her fiancé, the one she woke to every morning, on the nightstand behind her clock.

  “Can you believe I actually live in a place like this?” Claire said to the photo.

  As if he might somehow answer her.

  Claire showered, ran a brush through her shoulder-length brown hair (no time for the blow-dryer), and pulled a sharp navy-blue Donna Karan suit, a white blouse and a pair of black Louboutin pumps from her closet. A year ago, when she entered the Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship at Manhattan State University Hospital, wearing this “costume” every day would have been unthinkable. But in the months since she returned to the program following some much-needed time off, she found herself filling her closet with suits, shoes and scarves. And actually wearing them.

  She was about to slip on the shoes when she remembered the guest sleeping in the other room. The clicking sound of those heels on the parquet floors would no doubt wake him.

  So instead she picked up the pumps in one hand, quietly opened the door to her room, and silently walked toward the front door. She grabbed her Coach purse and brown soft-leather briefcase and took a quick look into the living room. Her first smile of the day crossed her face when she saw the man sleeping on the sofa bed.

  Her father.

  Frank Waters had begun spending more time with his daughter after she returned to the family’s home in Rochester, New York, for a leave of absence from her Forensic Psychiatry fellowship last fall. By then, Frank, a physicist specializing in fiber optics, had worked his way up to a cushy vice-president’s job in his company, which built computer networks and the devices to run them. His position made it easy to sneak away from the office during the day, allowing for late breakfasts and early lunches between father and daughter, giving Claire time to enjoy the dad she barely saw as a child. After two months of sitting around the house, her parents gave her a one-month vacation odyssey through Europe, but Claire didn’t want to go. Frank convinced her, saying she deserved the break. Claire knew her parents were trying to make up for a certain lack of attention during her childhood, and she didn’t want to break their hearts by refusing.