Her Darkest Nightmare

by Brenda Novak

  Soon she could see Fitzpatrick’s house peeking out from behind the trees that separated her from it. He had an SUV in addition to his sedan. She figured both vehicles must be in the garage, because they weren’t out front.

  There was a commercial vehicle parked haphazardly, however. The light she’d seen turned out to be a high-powered commercial pole to one side of the property, so she could make out that unfamiliar truck as clearly as the storm would allow.

  After taking a moment to watch the area, during which she saw nothing to alert her as to what might be going on inside, she slid the handle of her purse over her head to be able to wear her purse across her body, held her gun at the ready and approached the house.

  The blinds were down, making it impossible to see through the windows.

  She listened at the door, trying to figure out what might be happening. But that didn’t help. She couldn’t make out a thing above the howl of the wind.

  Shit. With a deep breath for courage, she tried the knob.

  The door was locked. Should she knock? Would Fitzpatrick hear her? Even if he could, she wanted to know what she might be walking into before landing in the middle of a bad situation.

  Her heart seemed to be ten times too big for her chest as she trudged around to the back.

  It was darker here. There were no lights, except the flashlight she pulled from her purse. Fortunately, that thin beam was enough to reassure her that she was alone—and to see the gleaming shards of a broken window.

  Given the truck out front and this, she was beginning to believe Hugo had made his way to Hilltop. But she couldn’t imagine how he’d found the strength.

  Still afraid of letting her presence be known, she decided to sneak in and have a look around. Her gloves and snowsuit were thick enough she was fairly certain she could climb through that broken window without getting cut.…

  After hoisting herself up, she pushed the blind over and crawled inside. Due to the wind, she wasn’t overly afraid the small noises she made would alert anyone to her presence. It wasn’t until she moved away from the window and the sounds of the storm dimmed that she became aware of someone deeper inside the house cursing and ranting.

  Was it Fitzpatrick? What was being said didn’t sound like him. The words were filled with vitriol instead of his usual tight-lipped scorn. But the voice …

  Although she couldn’t be sure, she thought it might be him.

  So where was Hugo or whoever had broken that window?

  She crept around the corner. She intended to take a quick look before slipping back out of the house. But what she saw froze her to the spot.

  * * *

  Amarok drove between his house and the prison twice before he thought about checking his messages. He’d been so intent on believing that Evelyn had just given up on him and decided to head home, that he’d find her on the side of the road since there was no way she could make it all the way in her Beamer, that he’d never dreamed she would leave him a message—other than to ask where he was. The phones were out at his place, anyway. He had to stop by the trooper post to be able to access his voice mail, but what he heard turned his blood to ice.

  “Amarok, I hope you get this soon. Fitzpatrick just instant messaged me on the computer, saying something about Hugo and asking for help. Now he won’t respond. No clue what it means, but it’s very strange. I realize it could be a trap, but with Hugo on the loose it could also be a legitimate cry for help. You know how badly Hugo hates Fitzpatrick. I have to go out there and see what’s going on. Come if you can.”

  “No,” Amarok muttered, closing his eyes. “Tell me you didn’t.” He didn’t want her anywhere near Fitzpatrick, let alone risking her skin to save his life, especially after how Fitzpatrick had treated her. If only Amarok had known she might do something like this when he decided not to tell her about Fitzpatrick’s sessions with Hugo. Maybe she wouldn’t have gone.…

  Scooping his keys off the table where he’d dropped them before calling his voice mail, Amarok rushed out to his truck. He’d managed to switch vehicles with Phil earlier in the evening, so he had a working shovel. That made him wonder how the hell Evelyn thought she’d be able to get to Fitzpatrick’s in that car of hers.

  “You’d better not have hurt her.” He skidded around the corner going much faster than he should’ve been and upped his speed from there. He didn’t have a second to waste. All he could think of was Lorraine’s severed head—with that one eye gouged out.

  * * *

  Fitzpatrick was holding an iron fireplace poker and had blood spatter all over him—on his face, his clothes, in his hair. Hugo—if the man lying on the floor was indeed their escaped convict—was wearing ill-fitting clothes and his head was bashed in. Evelyn was pretty sure he was dead. He wasn’t moving, was no longer a threat, yet Fitzpatrick wasn’t trying to call for help. He was pacing and cursing, and every once in a while he’d strike the inert body.

  “You think I’d hurt her?” he’d shout. Then he’d mutter, “How dare you do this to me. This is … not right, not right at all. I don’t deserve this; I never have.”

  Seeing him so out of control turned Evelyn’s stomach. She’d feared he might not be able to defend himself—or that Hugo had brought a knife or a gun. Weapons were everywhere in Alaska. He could’ve taken a hunting rifle from a pickup or an empty house. He’d obviously found clothes. But whether he’d had a weapon or not, Fitzpatrick had dealt with the problem.

  The memories of stumbling onto the bodies of her dead friends welled up, causing her to break into a cold sweat. This is different, she reminded herself. As crazy as Fitzpatrick was acting, he wasn’t necessarily a homicidal maniac. She didn’t know who’d killed Lorraine and Danielle, but what she saw here was a clear case of self-defense. It wasn’t as if Fitzpatrick had invited Hugo to his home.

  So why had he come? He’d escaped. He could’ve gone anywhere.…

  Evelyn decided she’d rather ask those questions tomorrow, when Amarok was around. Maybe this was self-defense, but that file she’d found in Fitzpatrick’s cabinet—and what she’d seen on those videos—made her hesitant to confront her former associate. She didn’t want to be here, with this. She wanted to get out of the house and put some distance between her and another death, whether it was a justifiable one or not.

  She was backing away so she could return to the living room and quietly let herself out when someone came up behind her.

  “Evelyn?”

  Startled, she whipped around and aimed her gun.

  “Whoa!” Russell Jones lifted his hands. “Don’t shoot. I-I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  He was shaking, had tears streaking down his face.

  Almost automatically, Evelyn lowered the muzzle. She was frightened, but Russ seemed more traumatized than she was. What’d happened here?

  Before she could ask, Fitzpatrick came rushing around the corner, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. “Evelyn? What are you doing in my house?”

  She cleared her throat, tried to remain calm. “What do you mean what am I doing in your house? I crept in because you sent me an instant message saying you needed help!”

  “I can’t believe you came.”

  He seemed touched by her effort, which made her uncomfortable. She had no interest in mending their relationship, not after what she’d viewed in those video sessions. She’d never be able to look at him the same, never be able to trust him again. “Of course I came, in spite of the many reasons I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know you had Russ here.”

  “I didn’t. If Russ hadn’t shown up when he did, I’d be dead right now.” He touched a slash in his neck she hadn’t noticed for all the other blood. “That son of a bitch tried to stab me.”

  “I didn’t see your truck,” she told Russ. The one in front wasn’t his. Had it been stolen by Hugo? Hugo had had to get here somehow.…

  Russ barely seemed capable of coherent speech. “I-I came on my snowmobile. It’s parked out back.”

  Of
course. Russ lived only half a mile from Fitzpatrick, and a snowmobile parked off to the side would’ve been easy to miss in the dark and stormy night. By the time she’d rounded the house, she hadn’t even been looking for a vehicle. She’d been too afraid she’d run into a man bent on murder.

  “Why did Hugo come here?” she asked. “If he managed to escape, why wouldn’t he make good on it?”

  “He thought I was behind having him shanked,” Fitzpatrick told her. “And he was convinced I was a danger to you.”

  Was he a danger? “He couldn’t have been in good shape.…”

  “He could barely stand,” Fitzpatrick said. “But he had a knife, so it didn’t matter—not as long as he could slash. He kept telling me I didn’t know who I’d been fucking with and that he’d teach me once and for all.”

  “I heard him screaming,” Russ jumped in, covering his ears as if he could still hear it. “If I hadn’t snuck up on him, grabbed a lamp and … and”—he blanched—“hit him over the head, he would’ve murdered Tim.” Russ stared at his hands as if he couldn’t believe they belonged to him. “How did I do that? I hit him so hard.”

  Evelyn wasn’t sure what to think or feel. She gulped for breath, trying to get her pulse to settle into a regular rhythm. “So then you … then you beat him with the fireplace poker?”

  A sheepish expression claimed Fitzpatrick’s blood-spattered face. “It was the adrenaline,” he explained, his voice pleading with her to understand. “When he went down, I grabbed this”—he looked at the poker, seemed to realize there was no reason to still have it in his hands and dropped it—“and-and went a little crazy.”

  “I watched him die,” Russ marveled, his words disconnected from the conversation. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”

  “Have you tried to reach Amarok?” she asked. “To get help?”

  “How?” Russ cried. “Thanks to the storm, the phones are out.”

  Evelyn wasn’t sure she’d ever get through this terrible winter. Feeling dizzy, as if she was about to pass out, she bent over to get some blood to her head and struggled to push back the darkness that seemed to be closing in.

  “Are you going to be sick?” Fitzpatrick asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Then give me that gun before you hurt yourself or someone else.”

  Grabbing her arm, he wrenched it from her grip as she ducked past him for the bathroom. She hadn’t cared for Hugo the way he was convinced he cared for her. Not even remotely. But at times it had been almost impossible not to like him. He was a human being, at any rate, and the sight of his head … the image of his brains spilling out on the carpet wouldn’t leave her. Neither would the memory of Fitzpatrick striking him, even though he was dead.

  As she leaned over the toilet, she could hear Russ and Fitzpatrick fighting about moving the body outside. Fitzpatrick didn’t want it in the house any longer. But Russ didn’t seem capable of coping with its removal. He was talking about how heavy Hugo would be, that moving him would get blood all over. He said they should leave Hugo until morning when they could get Amarok over and kept repeating himself as if he was in shock.

  He probably was.

  Evelyn hummed a song to tune them out. She already felt like death warmed over, didn’t need to hear that conversation. As soon as she could gather the strength, she was going to walk out of the house and drive home before the storm made travel, even with a four-wheel drive that had a shovel, impossible.

  Soon there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up, so she wiped her mouth, closed the toilet lid and gingerly lifted herself onto it. But as she sat there, struggling to regain her equilibrium, she happened to notice that the shower curtain was pulled back just enough to reveal part of a curious blob-like object in the tub.

  What was that?

  Sliding off the toilet seat and onto her knees, she pulled the shower curtain back even farther and bent close. Then she nearly screamed and fell back.

  It was a clear plastic bag filled with frozen body parts.

  29

  I have no desire whatever to reform myself. My only desire is to reform other people who try to reform me. And I believe that the only way to reform people is to kill ’em. My motto is, Rob ’em all, Rape ’em all and Kill ’em all.

  —CARL PANZRAM, SERIAL KILLER, ARSONIST, THIEF, BURGLAR AND RAPIST

  Her gun! Fitzpatrick had taken it. Why hadn’t she refused to let him, insisted on keeping it with her?

  Because, at that point, she hadn’t been prepared to shoot anyone and her revulsion and sickness were getting the best of her.

  Maybe it wasn’t too late to reclaim it.…

  Reaching for the wall, she braced herself to stand. She had to find out where Fitzpatrick had put her GLOCK. But Russ came to check on her before she could even climb to her feet. And he could tell instantly that something was wrong. She saw it in his face, in the way his eyes moved from her to the tub and back again.

  She scrambled to get as far away from him as possible, which wasn’t easy in such a small bathroom. She couldn’t dart out the door. Even if she’d had the strength and agility, he was blocking it.

  “Did you know?” She could hardly get the words out for the terror building inside her.

  He wiped more tears from his face. He didn’t look dangerous; he looked rattled. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Was he in on the murders? Or had he not seen—or understood—what was in the tub? “Know what?”

  “That Tim killed Lorraine and Danielle.” Her hand was shaking when she gestured. “That’s got to be the legs of one or both of them right there—or another victim. Can’t you see the foot? The painted toenails?”

  The thought of another victim caused goose bumps. Had Tim been killing for a while? Since before he’d come to Alaska? Maybe he’d only helped her get Hanover House off the ground because he craved the freedom he’d have here. Alaska wasn’t just a good hunting ground for moose, caribou and other animals. There were a lot of people who went out alone. Most of those who didn’t come back were presumed to be killed by wildlife, the weather or a fall. That file of information Tim had collected on her, and those pictures he’d shown Hugo, could be some type of ritual he performed in advance. Maybe he’d been putting special effort into re-creating what Jasper had done by killing her friends. Lorraine, at least, had been close to her.…

  “Wait—you … you’re … getting the wrong idea,” Russ said.

  Was she? Suddenly it all seemed so clear.

  Fitzpatrick came up behind his former grad student. “She still thinks I killed Lorraine and Danielle? Is that what she said?”

  Russ lifted his hands to calm them all. “She found what I … what I brought over and it has her a little spooked. That’s all.”

  “You brought that bag over?” Evelyn cried.

  Fitzpatrick seemed bewildered when he looked at it. “What is it?”

  With his forearm, Russ mopped the sweat glistening on his face. “I think it’s the … it’s the rest of Lorraine and Danielle.”

  “What are you talking about?” Fitzpatrick asked.

  He hurried to explain. “That’s why I came tonight. I-I was getting ready for bed when I realized I was low on wood. So I decided to-to go out to the woodshed and stock up before the storm could get any worse. And when I went out there, I found that bag. Can you imagine what a shock stumbling across that would be?”

  Since she’d just stumbled across it herself, Evelyn could relate.

  “I dropped the wood I’d picked up and-and almost smashed my toe.”

  It was hard to care about his near miss on the foot injury when she couldn’t figure out if he was telling the truth. Was it all an act? Could he be murdering people with Tim? Or helping hide the evidence?

  It wouldn’t be the first time two friends teamed up in crime. Charles Ng and Leonard Lake were one example of a killing duo. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were another, arguably the most famous. But there were others. Those relationships seemed to c
rop up mostly when one friend dominated the other to an extreme degree, which was exactly how she perceived Tim’s control of Russ.

  They weren’t being aggressive with her, though. Was it because they weren’t sure who she’d told that she was coming out here? Were they waiting to see what they could get away with?

  “How-how’d it get in your shed?” She hated that her teeth were chattering. Her past created such a handicap despite her determination to overcome it. A full-scale panic attack seemed to be hovering just below her skin. But she couldn’t let it break free and overtake her. Then she wouldn’t be able to think clearly, and if she couldn’t think clearly she couldn’t defend herself.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” he replied. “I tried calling the-the trooper post to tell Sergeant Amarok what I found, but I didn’t have a working phone. So I jumped on my snowmobile and brought that bag over here to show Tim. Except when I arrived, I saw the b-broken window and heard the shouting, so I just … dropped it in the living room.”

  “You dropped it,” she repeated.

  “I never wanted to touch it in the first place!”

  “When did you put it in the tub?”

  He blinked at her as if he thought that question was irrelevant, and then he seemed to catch on to why she’d ask. “Fitzpatrick was so shocked to see me I wanted to tell him why I’d come—but we were both in such a state. I couldn’t even form complete sentences. So I carried it into the bathroom before it could thaw on the rug. I don’t know why I thought of that. It was just … what my mother would have me do, I guess. I didn’t want him to get angry with me for being thoughtless. And when … when I came back out, there you were, peering around the corner at him.”

  “You didn’t”—she curled her fingernails into her palms—“think to mention it to me right away?”

  “Who would? I was completely freaked out!” he said. “Not only had I just found body parts in my shed, I’d helped kill a man! And I wasn’t expecting you, so that added even more surprise.”