by M. Z. Kelly
Haley listened to her mother as she told her about Chad Lindstrom. It was another lie, just like the other one; the lie that she and Dr. Tanner had repeated for years.
She pushed her mother to the floor, even as the housekeeper used her phone to call the police. “Tell me where I can find Chad. NOW!”
After Haley learned where Chad Lindstrom was now living, she used the power that had been given to her. It was the same power that her mother had told her about after her sister had died. That power had served her well over the years. It had taught her to ignore the lies and to use the power to her own advantage. Now she would use the power a final time to free Lizzy and complete her transformation.
The last words Haley Robinson spoke to her mother were filled with the rage and bitterness that had consumed her life. She raked the scalpel across her mother’s throat and screamed, “First you will die, Mother! Then it will be Chad’s turn.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
“Newport PD is en route to the residence now,” Olivia said, as Leo made a U-turn and got on the freeway. “The 911 call ended with the housekeeper screaming.”
Newport Beach was about an hour south of Hollywood. Even though Jenny had been in touch with her friend who worked at the police department and she told us what we could expect when we got to the residence, we weren’t prepared for what we actually found.
“Two down inside,” one of the Newport PD officers told us after we showed him our credentials at the front door. “It looks like the woman who owned the residence and her housekeeper.”
I left Bernie with a uniformed officer before entering the house. We found the housekeeper’s body just inside the front door. It looked like she’d tried to run away and had been attacked from behind. Her head was at almost a ninety degree angle to her body, having nearly been severed in the attack.
Marianne Dahlberg’s death had been equally vicious. She was lying on the blood-soaked rug in her family room with her throat slashed. There were bloody footsteps leading into the living room, where the housekeeper had been killed.
After examining the scene, Olivia met with Leo and me on the rear patio, overlooking the pool.
“Let me see if I can summarize what we know and try to put some things in perspective,” Olivia said. “Our suspect is an emergency room physician. Something causes her to go off the deep end. She takes on the persona of a prostitute, returns to the childhood home where her father was murdered and kills a john. A few days later, she does the same thing to an architect.”
“We know from the medical records that she was under the care of a psychiatrist,” Leo said. “She apparently had been seeing Dr. Beverly Tanner since her sister’s death when they were both twelve.”
“And Tanner was likely her third victim,” I said.
Olivia massaged her neck, her gaze moving off as she considered everything. “Then she comes here and kills her mother. These acts aren’t random. She’s following a pattern.” She looked back at us. “I just have no idea what the hell it is.”
“We found a phone.”
We turned toward the residence, seeing that one of the Newport PD homicide investigators, a detective introduced to us only as Cranston, was holding a phone.
We went over to him as he continued. “It looks like it was dropped or dislodged during the attack on the housekeeper.”
“Anything worthwhile in the call or text history?” Olivia asked.
The detective took a couple minutes, wearing gloves as he scrolled through the phone. He finally said, “Not sure about the entire call history, but it looks some calls were made to a hospital.”
“Our suspect is an ER doctor,” Olivia said. “What else?”
After continuing to look through the phone, Cranston said, “It looks like she’s been doing an Internet search, looking for some guy named Chad Lindstrom.”
Olivia already had her phone out. “We need anything you can give us regarding a man named Chad Lindstrom,” she told Jenny a minute later. “He could live here in Newport, but we’re not sure.”
It took five minutes before we heard back from Jenny. Her voice was animated and loud, making it audible even though she wasn’t on speaker. “Lindstrom lives on a boat at Newport Harbor.” She gave us the address, then added, “From what I can piece together, he lived with Marianne Dahlberg at one time. Maybe they were in a relationship.”
After ending the call, Olivia said, “Let’s move. It’s just a guess on my part, but it could be that Lindstrom murdered Haley Robinson’s father and is about to pay the ultimate price.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
It took Haley less than ten minutes to make the drive from her mother’s house to Newport Harbor. Before her mother had died, she told her that Chad Lindstrom lived on a boat in the harbor. It was fitting. The harbor was near the beach where her sister had been murdered on that long-ago day.
Haley got out of her car and looked in the direction of the dock where Lindstrom’s boat was moored. A sudden sharp pain mushroomed in her head. The pain was so intense that she fell to the ground, grabbing her head and crying.
“Make it stop...make it stop,” she pleaded.
Despite her cries, the pain continued and became so intense that the world Haley knew eventually drifted away. As the pain finally began to recede, Haley realized that she was alone, floating in a formless dark world; a place without light or substance. She wondered if this place might be hell, or some kind of pathway to the place she knew she might eventually enter.
“I’m here.”
The voice was muffled, almost a whisper.
“Who’s here?” Haley asked.
“It’s me.”
Haley now saw that her sister was coming out of the darkness. It was as though Lizzy had suddenly been resurrected as the twelve-year-old girl she had once known and was standing right in front of her.
She went over and hugged her sister. “Is it really you? Are you...okay?”
Lizzy took a step back and looked into her sister’s eyes. In this dark world, there was no color and hardly any light, but Haley saw that her sister’s eyes were blue—maybe the bluest eyes she’d ever seen.
“You know why you’re here, don’t you?” Lizzy asked her.
Haley nodded. “I have to complete the transformation. I have to kill Chad.”
Lizzy nodded. “He’s the one. The man who killed me. It’s time for him to die, so that I can finally be set free.”
Haley moved closer and held onto her sister again. “When...when it’s over...will I ever see you again?”
Lizzy smiled. “I’ll be closer than you ever imagined.” She took a step back. “I’ll be waiting for you right here.”
Almost as quickly as her sister had appeared, she began to recede into the darkness again. At that moment, the world of form began to return. Light moved over the face of the void and the world was reborn.
The pain in Haley’s head was still there as she moved toward the dock where Lindstrom’s boat was moored, but it was less intense than before. She moved past an open gate and in a moment was standing in front of Chad Lindstrom’s yacht. It was bigger than the boat where Lizzy was murdered, but it brought back all the memories of that day.
“Can I help you?”
Haley looked over, seeing a man standing on the bow of the boat. She was almost certain it was the man who had murdered her sister. She stepped onto the boat as he made his way over to her.
The man stopped and looked into her eyes. “Is it really you?”
Haley brought the scalpel out of her pocket and held it up. “Yes, and I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment.”
FIFTY-NINE
“The harbor’s straight ahead,” Olivia said, as Leo blasted his horn, and we made our way through an intersection against traffic.
“Lindstrom’s boat should be in berth twenty-seven,” I said from the back seat with Bernie. My furry partner was on alert, realizing something big was happening. I said to Olivia, “Why do you suppose Haley Robinson s
napped after all these years and went on a killing spree?”
Our lieutenant turned her head slightly, telling me, “If we take her alive, that will be my first question.”
Olivia’s phone rang as Leo turned into the harbor. She told us the call was from Jenny and put it on speaker.
“Molly and I have been doing some checking on Chad Lindstrom. As it turns out, Haley Robinson’s mother was involved with him back in the early nineties, and they had a child out of wedlock. The boy’s name is Donald.”
“Does he live in this area?” Olivia asked.
“It looks like he’s living with his father, but there’s something else.”
“What is it?”
“He has prior convictions for battery and sexual assault. He’s a registered sex offender.”
After Olivia ended the call, I said, “Do you think we’ve got this wrong? Could Donald Lindstrom...?”
Leo cut off my words. “There’s Lindstrom’s boat. It looks like he’s with Robinson.” My partner then said the words that strike fear into the heart of every cop. “Gun! Somebody’s got a gun!”
SIXTY
“Drop the knife, bitch.”
Haley heard the voice behind her and turned, seeing the young man with the gun. “Who...who are you?”
Chad Lindstrom’s son smiled. “It’s been a lot of years, Lizzy, but I’m sure you remember me.”
“Lizzy? You don’t understand. I’m Haley...” Then all at once she understood. The tall, blonde man standing before her was Donny, the boy she’d lost her virginity to. He was also the man, the one who had been standing in the sunlight that day her sister had been killed. He had murdered Lizzy!
Donny held the gun up and pointed it at her. “You really are insane, just like our bitch of a mother said.”
Chad Lindstrom took a step toward his son. “Put the gun down, Donny. We need to talk.”
Donny Lindstrom looked at his father. “The time for talking is over. It was over when that bastard who married Mother sent me away.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Really?” Donny said to his father. “Do you think because I was just a boy that I don’t remember what it was like to end up in foster care? Do you know how many homes I lived in before I ran away?”
“I’m sorry. I should have been a better father.”
Haley was crying as Donny looked over at her. Was she really insane? Had she spent her entire life, living a lie? Her tears came harder as Donny focused on her. “Then you and that bitch of a sister came along.” He smiled. “How does it feel, knowing that you lost your virginity to your brother? You fucked your own brother, Lizzy.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I’m not Lizzy.”
Donny laughed. “You really are crazy. Mother sent you to that shrink, hoping you would eventually realize the truth. You took on your sister’s personality when she died, hoping that you could somehow save her.”
“No...it can’t...I can’t be Lizzy.”
“Haley is dead!” Donny screamed. “I killed her.” He held the gun up, aiming it at her head. “Now, deal with it and die!”
SIXTY-ONE
I got Bernie from the back seat of our car and we began running toward the dock, following Olivia and Leo. I saw there were two men on the boat with Haley Robinson, and knew they must be Chad Lindstrom and his son, Donald.
We moved down the dock at the same time we saw Donald Lindstrom bring his gun up and point it at Haley’s head.
“Drop the weapon!” Olivia yelled, taking cover behind a pallet of supplies on the dock with the rest of us.
I pulled Bernie up to my side and ducked down. I looked up in time to see Lindstrom’s eyes shift and his weapon move in our direction.
“Last chance!” Leo said, taking cover with the rest of us. “Give yourself up!”
A shot was fired in our direction at the same time we saw Chad Lindstrom lunge at his son. There was a brief struggle before the younger man turned the weapon on his father. He then aimed the weapon at Haley and our training took over. Leo fired, hitting central body mass, and Donald Lindstrom was blown back by the impact of the bullets.
When we got over to the boat, we saw that Chad Lindstrom and his son were both dead. I then looked over at Haley. She was also slumped down on the deck of the boat. There was blood everywhere.
Dr. Haley Robinson’s last action as a physician had been to use her scalpel on herself, slicing open her own throat.
She was dead.
SIXTY-TWO
Light faded, the darkness closing in on the woman who in life had called herself Haley Robinson. She drifted alone in the formless void, a thought surfacing: is this what it’s like to die?
Later, a long time later, she heard her sister’s voice. “I’m here.”
“Lizzy!” she said, grateful that she was no longer alone. She moved forward, seeing the child form of her sister.
She took her sister’s hand, tears filling her eyes. “I was so afraid...afraid I would never see you again.” Her sister’s blue eyes fixed on her. They shone in the darkness like two blue beacons, large enough so that she could see her own reflection in them. She realized she was a child again. “I’m...a...a girl again, just like you.”
The girl who had visited her in the mirror over the years smiled. “The transformation. It is now complete.”
“What does it mean? What’s going to happen?”
Her sister’s gaze remained fixed on her. “You understand the truth now, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I’m...I’m Lizzy...I was the one who was...” Tears sprang from her eyes. “...it was because of what Donny did.”
“When you were older, and you told me you had sex with him...it was a lie.”
The girl, who in life had called herself Haley, let her head slump forward and she nodded. “I was just a girl when he raped me.”
“And later, when you told me the truth about what he’d done, Donny was afraid that I would tell. That’s when he murdered me on the boat and you became confused.”
“I thought I could make it better, help you.”
“But your mind started to play tricks on you and hid the truth. It was me, Haley, who was murdered. You have always been alive, Lizzy—until now.”
She sighed. “I lived a lie. I even fooled Mother, at first, convincing her and the police that it was Lizzy who had been killed. It was only later, that she realized the truth and tried to get me to accept what really happened.”
“But you refused.”
“I took your name and told everyone I was you.” After a long moment, the girl who now understood she was Lizzy said, “Why...why did you tell me it was you who had been raped?”
“It was your mind deceiving you. You wanted to protect yourself, so you made up a story and hid from the truth.”
“But our mother, she eventually understood what happened.”
“Mother felt guilty about living a lie. She knew Donny murdered our father, then later raped you and killed me. Despite that, she wanted you to understand who you really are.”
“That’s why she sent me to see Dr. Tanner. She was hoping I would come to terms with what happened and realize who I really was. That was the power she was talking about when she gave me your ring.”
“Yes, but she also hid the truth from you and Dr. Tanner about Donny and what he’d done.”
Lizzy’s eyes filled with tears again. “I couldn’t go on living without you, that’s why I took on your personality. We were born together and I knew we would eventually die together. That’s the power that I now understand. The transformation was all about me.”
Haley reached out and took her sister, who now realized she was Lizzy, in her arms. “I’m glad you finally understand.”
After they parted, Lizzy asked the question she had been dreading. “What’s going to happen to us now?”
Haley turned away from her as a light began to shine on the horizon. Lizzy also saw the light. It seemed to grow brighter by the second. Th
ey held one another’s hands as the air vibrated, a warm breeze rushing toward them.
“Brace yourself,” Haley said. “I think we’re about to find out.”
SIXTY-THREE
Olivia, Leo, and I spent the remainder of the day in Newport Beach, working with authorities there and helping process the crime scene. As per department policy, since Leo fired the shot that killed Donald Lindstrom, he was put on administrative leave and sent home by OIS, the department’s Officer Involved Shooting team.
Late in the day, Olivia and I drove together back to Hollywood Station.
“Do you think we’ll ever know what really happened that made Haley Robinson snap?” I asked as I pulled onto the freeway, while Bernie took a nap in the back seat.
Olivia shook her head and exhaled. “Probably not. My best guess is that Donald Lindstrom murdered Haley’s father years ago, maybe out of anger because he was raised in foster homes.”
“And he later killed his half-sister because…?”
“Maybe he was jealous of the sister he never knew. It’s probably one of those dark family secrets that we’ll never completely understand.”
I agreed. “Still, it makes me wonder why a successful doctor suddenly loses control and starts killing johns, and then her mother.”
“Maybe there was some sexual abuse in her past that she blamed her mother for.” Olivia looked at me, her brows inching up. “We know that Donald Lindstrom was a sex offender. Do you think he might have assaulted Haley?”
“It would explain a lot of things, except that instrument of torture we found strapped to her chest. What do you think that was all about?”
“I’ve seen a lot of strange things, but that one’s a first. Maybe, in some strange way, she blamed herself for her sister’s death and was punishing herself.”