by Blake Pierce
He lifted his handcuffed hands in front of his white medical jacket and ripped it open as far as he could, partially baring his chest.
Riley almost gasped aloud as she saw that his flesh was gashed with scabbed-over wounds.
He’s done this to himself, she realized.
He tortures himself.
Gibson kept talking …
“Small wonder Alice regretted marrying me. She never admitted it, she even denied it, insisted that she really loved me. And I guess she did love me in her way. Which only made it worse as far as I was concerned.”
He nodded toward the other cell, where the two Cardin brothers stood watching and listening in fascination, and said to Crivaro …
“She should have stayed married to Phil Cardin over there, loser though he might be. Instead she settled for me. In a crossroads hick town like this, she didn’t exactly have the pick of men she deserved. At first I thought I was lucky to marry a woman like her. But little by little, it got clearer how she really felt about me. It got so she could barely bring herself to look at me.”
Gibson shook all over, then said …
“It made me crazy. I wanted to bring her down to my level. That’s why I made her play all those twisted sex games, with all those—those toys you saw in that room. I wanted her to feel as ugly and debased as I did. She went along with it, even pretended to enjoy it—just out of pity, I guess. That pity of hers—that’s what got to be too much for me in the end. That’s what drove me to kill her.”
Gibson’s gaze seemed to turn inward, as if he were reliving the murder.
“We’d used all kinds of instruments. Some expensive stuff bought by very discreet mail order. But it finally occurred to me that a local material was the perfect instrument of pain—barbed wire. I guess when it started, she thought it was another sick game. She soon realized the truth. The way she screamed and pleaded, the way life ebbed out of her body as she …”
His voice faded away for a moment.
“I had never imagined what it could be like, inflicting so much pain and terror. Not until I found out for myself. The thrill, the intoxicating joy. That’s why I sought out those other women, killed them too, in exactly the same way. Oh, I hated myself for it. But it was like an addiction. If you hadn’t caught me, I’d have kept right on doing it, again and again and again.”
He fell silent again.
But Riley knew that he had said more than enough.
We’ve got him, she thought. We’ve got him at last.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
The chaos that followed was more than Riley wanted to deal with. The Hyland police station was in an uproar over Dr. Gibson’s confession, and a handful of reporters had already shown up in the station foyer. Riley didn’t want to have anything to do with them, and Crivaro obviously didn’t either.
Fortunately, the reporters clustered around the Cardin brothers as soon as they were released. Riley and Crivaro seized their opportunity to slip out through the station’s back entrance without being noticed. She was flooded with relief as she and Crivaro escaped unnoticed and headed straight to the car they had borrowed.
Crivaro climbed into the driver’s seat and Riley got in on the passenger side.
Crivaro sat there for a moment, just staring into space without starting the car.
Riley wondered …
What’s on his mind?
Trying to sound cheerful, she said, “We really wrapped that one up, huh?”
Crivaro tilted his head a little and said, “I guess.”
Then he started the engine and pulled away from the curb.
Riley couldn’t help feeling a little miffed that Crivaro wasn’t showing more enthusiasm for their achievement—especially since she’d played such a big part in Dr. Gibson’s apprehension.
Maybe he’s just having an energy letdown, she thought.
Or maybe it was something else …
“Where to now?” she asked.
Squinting at the street in front of him, Crivaro said, “We’ve got to return this car to Chief Messenger in Dighton. But it’s been a long day. First I want to stop somewhere to eat and clear my head. Then I’ll call Lehl, have him arrange for us to go back to Quantico by chopper.”
Something in Crivaro’s tone bothered Riley.
What’s going on with him? she wondered.
At the end of Hyland’s short main street, Jake pulled into a parking lot next to Mick’s Diner. Riley remembered hearing that Phil Cardin had worked there until he’d been fired. As they walked into the well-lit, chrome-decorated diner, Riley was surprised to see no other customers in the place. She figured dinner rush must be over by now—and anyway, business must be pretty slow in a town as small as Hyland. Maybe a place like this picked up later at night or on the weekends.
They sat down in a corner booth and both ordered beer and burgers from a disinterested waitress. Crivaro remained quiet for a few moments as they waited for their meals.
Finally Riley dared to ask …
“So how do you feel? About solving the case, I mean?”
Crivaro shook his head and said almost in a whisper …
“I don’t know, Riley. I’m afraid we got the wrong man.”
Riley felt a tingle of confusion.
She could hardly believe her ears.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“I’m not sure I do either,” Crivaro said with a slight shrug. “I’m still trying to think it through. But something doesn’t seem right about Dr. Gibson. For one thing, when he confessed, he was off in at least one detail. Do you remember what he said about the killing itself, about wrapping his wife up in barbed wire?”
Riley thought back until it came to her.
“He said she thought it was another sick game,” she said.
“Yeah, and that doesn’t fit,” Crivaro said. “We know for a fact that Alice Gibson was subdued by chloroform. The medical examiner found it in her bloodstream. That’s how the killer really managed to subdue her. But Gibson didn’t mention chloroform at all. He seems to think that Alice was conscious through the whole thing.”
Riley was starting to get annoyed now.
She said, “You’re just nitpicking. Maybe he did make her play sick games with barbed wire before he actually killed her. Maybe he just forgot to mention the chloroform.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Crivaro said. “I’ve heard my share of false confessions in my day. My gut tells me this was another one.”
The waitress came to serve them their beers and hamburgers. Riley waited until the woman went away before she said …
“Agent Crivaro, what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. My gut has been telling me all along that the murderer is obsessed with pain. And Dr. Gibson is positively crazy about pain. You saw all the stuff he had in that room of his. You saw what he did to himself, those self-inflicted wounds.”
Crivaro leaned toward her and said …
“He’s obsessed with his own pain, Riley. He’s a flat-out masochist, not a sadist. He said something else I have trouble believing—that he’d forced his wife to play those games to ‘bring her down to his level.’ My guess is that he didn’t have to force her to do anything. She was a dominatrix. And their kinky games were what kept their marriage together. Losing all that made him crazy. But it didn’t turn him into a killer.”
Riley was struggling to grasp what she was hearing.
“But what about the barbed wire?” she asked. “Isn’t it kind of a coincidence that his sex games involved the same material that was used to kill his wife and the two other women?”
Shaking his head again, Crivaro said …
“Not a coincidence at all. This was something new for him. He became obsessed with barbed wire after his wife’s death. That’s when he bought it and started to use it to punish himself.”
“Punish himself for what?” Riley asked.
Crivaro was starting to sound impatient now.
“Riley,
how many times do I have to say it? He’s a masochist. He feels ashamed and guilty about everything. And his wife’s murder pushed him beyond guilt and shame, over some kind of emotional cliff into an abyss of feelings he couldn’t handle. He tried self-flagellation with barbed wire. But in the end, the only way he could cope with his torment was to confess to three murders he didn’t commit.”
Riley didn’t like what she was hearing.
It made plenty of sense, but she wished it didn’t.
“That’s only a theory,” she said, surprised by the sullenness in her own voice.
Crivaro face twitched with anger.
“OK, don’t take my word for it,” he said. “I’m just a criminal profiler, not some know-it-all psychology professor. Maybe you should go back to Lanton and talk to that expert of yours. He’s probably heard himself sentenced to death by now. He’d enjoy having something else to think about, something to distract him from his troubles.”
Riley felt deeply stung. She could tell by Crivaro’s expression that he immediately regretted his words.
“I’m sorry,” Crivaro murmured. “That was really a low blow.”
Riley said, “Yeah, it kind of was.”
They both fell silent for a couple of minutes. Neither of them touched their beers or burgers.
Then Riley said, “If you really think Gibson is innocent, why are you letting him sit there in jail?”
“Well, he is guilty of something,” Crivaro said. “He assaulted you. And if he is lying about the murders, he’s also guilty of obstruction. Jail is where he ought to be right now. And for his sake, it might also be the safest. He’s liable to do himself serious harm if he’s allowed to go home.”
Another silence fell.
Finally Crivaro said, “I’ve got to touch base with Lehl. He’s probably heard all kinds of crazy rumors about the arrest by now. I need to make sure he’s got the facts.”
Crivaro took out his cellphone and punched in a number.
Then he listened and grumbled …
“Damn, I can’t get a connection in here. I’ll go out to the car, try calling from there. I’ll be right back.”
Crivaro got up from the table and headed for the door.
Riley watched him through the diner windows as he headed for the parking lot at the side of the building.
Her anger and confusion were now giving way to disappointment.
We’re back at square one, she thought.
We’ve got to start all over again.
But then she thought …
“We?”
Why did she think she’d even be part of the case anymore? Why was she even thinking of them as a team? After all, Crivaro had the ability to connect with killer’s minds just as she did. He’d encouraged her developing her talent, but lately it had been off more than on. If she was wrong about everything, Crivaro would probably prefer to work without her from now on. …
And then what do I do?
She finally took a bite of her burger, but she still didn’t feel like eating.
*
As the man sat alone in his parked pickup truck, his father’s words echoed through his head again …
“See how it feels.”
His father had said those words over and over again when he’d punished him as a child, causing him so much pain and terror …
“See how it feels.”
But his pain and terror hadn’t ended after that long, cruel, flesh-rending punishment on that awful pitch-dark night.
They’d continued long after Father had died.
They’d continued all these years, right down to this very day.
Even the deaths of three women had failed to release him from that pain and terror.
And now …
Everything has gone wrong.
He’d come back to Hyland because he’d heard about the two brothers being held in custody for crimes he had committed. He’d been hanging around town all day long, trying to decide what to do about it.
I can’t let it stand, he kept on thinking.
His satisfaction from the killings had been so fleeting, so transitory. At the very least, he didn’t want anyone else to get credit for what he’d done. That would add insult to injury.
But what was he going to do about it?
A short while ago, he’d been standing outside the police station when a man and a young woman dragged someone else into the jail. Soon afterwards he’d overheard the reporters as they’d clustered around the station …
“Another suspect,” they’d said.
“They’ve got Dr. Gibson,” they’d said.
The news had filled him with fury.
Dr. Gibson!
The husband of the first woman he’d killed.
I can’t let it stand, he thought yet again.
And the only way to put things right was to kill again, as quickly as he possibly could—much sooner than he’d planned or expected.
He’d seen the man and the woman slip out of the back of the station, obviously trying to evade the reporters.
But they didn’t evade me, he remembered.
He’d followed their car in his pickup truck. When they’d parked next to Mick’s Diner, he’d parked some 50 feet away and watched the two of them as they went inside to get something to eat.
He’d stayed parked right here, hoping against hope for an opportunity to catch the woman alone.
And now—the man was leaving the diner!
The woman must still be in there, sitting all by herself.
All he had to do was lure her outside and subdue her.
And he was sure that would be an easy task.
As he started the engine and drove up in front of the diner, he whispered aloud …
“See how it feels.”
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Riley decided she would apologize to Agent Crivaro when he returned. She was sitting alone in the diner booth, nibbling at her burger and brooding over the argument they’d just had.
She couldn’t help but admit, she shouldn’t have questioned his thinking like that. And she certainly shouldn’t have been so petulant about it.
I was wrong, she thought. She didn’t much like the feeling those words gave her, but she knew they must be true.
After all, everything Crivaro had said made perfect sense. And she was sure he took no satisfaction in being right about Dr. Gibson not being the killer. In fact, he must have felt really frustrated about it.
She took a sip of beer and thought …
Then it will be up to him whether or not to keep me on the case.
Whether she liked it or not, she’d accept whatever decision he made with as much grace as she could muster.
As she lifted her beer again, she caught a glimpse of motion out of the corner of her eye. She turned toward the restaurant window and saw that an old pickup truck had pulled to a stop just outside.
That’s odd, she thought when she heard the truck’s engine stop.
She knew that there was a “no parking” sign in front of the restaurant. Why hadn’t the driver continued on over to the diner’s parking lot?
Then the driver’s window opened. The man sitting there turned his head and peered straight at her.
Riley gasped aloud.
She felt a visceral pain at the sight of the man’s face—the same kind of empathetic pain she’d experienced so strongly when she saw the body of Anna Park. But she knew that this agony did not belong to a murder victim. It was the killer’s own pain.
The man’s face was heavily gouged and scarred—much more so than Dr. Gibson’s face.
While the she’d guessed that the doctor’s face was scarred from acne or some childhood disease, the face she was looking at must have been disfigured by some terrible physical trauma …
Pain!
There wasn’t a doubt in her mind …
It’s him.
He’s the killer.
The man stared at her for a moment, then looked away and resta
rted the engine, as if to drive away.
Riley felt a surge of adrenalin. She doubted she could get outside fast enough to stop him from leaving. But maybe she could jot down the number on the license plate. She pulled a notepad out of her purse, scrambled out of the booth, and headed for the front entrance.
When she stepped outside and down the front steps, she was surprised to see that the truck was still parked exactly where it had been, its engine its engine stopped again.
Now no one was at the wheel.
She looked around.
The driver was nowhere in sight.
Riley hurried to the back of the truck to write down the plate number. As she raised her pad, she heard a flurry of footsteps behind her.
Before she could even turn around, someone seized her from behind
She felt a wet cloth across her mouth.
A sharp blow to the groin, she instructed herself. Then grab him by the hair.
But for some reason, her arms fell limp at her side.
The rag on her face was sickeningly sweet and she felt lightheaded.
Chloroform! she realized with horror.
She was already succumbing to the effects of the drug.
Don’t breathe, Riley told herself.
But she had already gasped in some of the fumes.
She made an effort to hold her breath, but the world started to go dark.
*
During Jake’s phone conversation with Erik Lehl, they agreed that Jake ought to stay in Hyland. Lehl trusted Jake’s hunch that Dr. Gibson was innocent, and he thought Jake needed to continue his work right here.
Lehl had left it up to Jake whether or not he would keep Riley on the case.
As he sat there in the car thinking about his young protégé, he felt bad about the cutting words he’d said to Riley a few minutes ago …
“Maybe you should go back to Lanton and talk to that expert of yours.”
He groaned softly and thought …
She didn’t deserve that.
The girl had been disappointed by what Jake had told her because she was green and impatient. It was no wonder that she’d pushed back sullenly about it. There was no denying that she had great instincts. And her theory that Dr. Gibson was the killer was by no means a bad theory.