by Hadena James
"I've never seen you cry before." Gabriel took hold of one of my hands. I let him hold it for a second and then I took it back, I wasn't the touchy feely type.
"The point is, everyone in my house believed it was only a matter of time before they found Callow's partner, but they didn't, because I didn't tell anyone until much later. Callow didn't have a partner, exactly, but he did know the other serial killer. I don't know when he came to Callow's house, I just knew that he did, and I know that he was there specifically because of me. He didn't kill kids, though. However, I overheard him and Callow talking. It would be months before I would hear the voice again and recognize it. Anyway, the guy was there to tell Callow to get rid of me, quickly. The quicker the better because Donnelly Clachan and his partner were starting to put some pieces together and my death would stall the investigation for both Donnelly and Peter. That was the reason I was kidnapped, to stall the investigation. My death was supposed to be something Donnelly and company wouldn't be able to handle, and everything would fall apart. I killed Callow maybe a day after that, maybe two, I'm not sure. Then one night, I was sitting at the table with my father and Isabelle and it suddenly dawned on me where I had heard that voice before. My mom and Eric were gone, they were out shopping or something. The plan was when they got back, Mom and Dad were going out and Eric was going to a sleep over. Anyway, that night, as I sat at the table with Dad and Isabelle, I remembered that voice. I told my dad I didn't think Callow had a partner. He had someone giving him information. I told he and Isabelle both that I had heard the voice of another man at Callow's, and he was urging Callow to kill me fast and get rid of my body because Dad and his partner were getting close to catching somebody. Isabelle looked at me and said, 'That explains how he knew to take her. It has to be someone you know, Dad.'" My dad said he was pretty sure he did know who was killing the teen girls, but he had to have evidence, which he didn't have yet and that his partner was doing surveillance and they hoped to find something soon." I took a breath. "I don't suppose your brother left you your pack of cigarettes?" Gabriel nodded and pulled out a cigarette from his scrubs and handed them to me.
"He left me a carton." Gabriel said tossing me a book of matches. I lit the cigarette.
"Why didn't your father catch him?" Gabriel asked.
"Because his partner was murdered that night. It looked like a robbery gone wrong. Killed him and his wife. As soon as my dad heard, he put in a transfer and became a patrol police officer again, handed in his shiny detective's badge. It was never spoken of again in our house. As a matter of fact, that's when things changed completely in our house. Donnelly became sullen and withdrawn. He was constantly taking things apart around the house. He'd take a day and remove all the light switch covers or change all the lightbulbs in our house. As a family, we didn't talk about anything at our house. We just didn't, dinner maybe." I thought Dad had gone crazy, looking back, I realize he was constantly trying to find the bug, our house had to be bugged, but I didn't understand that as a kid. The day before Isabelle and Donnelly were killed, I remembered the voice and could put a face to it. We were out, my family and Isabelle's, who were still my family. We were having dinner with Donnelly’s new patrol partner. He was a rookie for the most part. He'd been on the streets maybe six months, maybe nine, but he was family because he was Malachi's cousin and we all already knew him because Malachi was a big part of our family by then. While at dinner, a man walked over to talk to my dad. He was the FBI liaison in our town. The moment he started talking, I knew he was the guy that had been in Callow's house when he had me prisoner. I also knew that's why he had sounded familiar when he was at Callow's. I'd met him a few times in the past, but never for very long. Mom and Eric had taken a different car to dinner than Isabelle and Dad. I rode back with Isabelle and Dad. I told them in the car after we left dinner that the guy who had come over to talk to us was the man who had been at Callow's. The following day, Isabelle and my dad were dead. Peter West was my dad's patrol partner when it happened. Peter swears that once they made entry into the apartment to grab the guy that had been shooting at them, there had been a bag of money sitting on a counter top. It had contained stacks of hundred-dollar bills. He estimated it held at least a couple hundred thousand, but when evidence was logged, the money was missing. Peter and one other police officer swore affidavits that they had seen it in the apartment before the techs showed up." I sighed and stubbed out the cigarette on the remnants of my sandwich. The bread hissed as it burned. Peter helped us move after that. We bought a house in a different neighborhood. Peter impounded Isabelle's car. He found a bug in the dashboard, but he couldn't trace where it had come from. About a month ago, Peter called me to tell me that he had kept it out of the written reports that they had found a bug. It had gone missing from evidence anyway, just like the money that never made it in. He also told me that he had found a recent murder case, teen girl, found with her windpipe crushed and her body thrown in a lake. He'd actually found several, but he couldn't assign the SCTU to investigate, it was probably too dangerous, and asked what I wanted to do about it. I told him nothing, bury the information for now. Then I called Nathan. When I met him last year, I realized I had met him once before, right after Donnelly and Isabelle's murders. He had been at the funeral. I called Nathan to see what he thought and if he could do some quiet digging. He called me back and told me that Donnelly had only told one person about what I had told him, Lucas's dad. But within a year of Donnelly's murder, Lucas's brother drowned under mysterious circumstances and then Lucas's parents disappeared. Everyone thought it was a murder suicide, but Nathan didn't think that. He thought it was just murder and we hadn't found the bodies yet. Then about a week ago or so, Nathan called me back and told me not to pursue my memory of Callow's partner. He was going to take care of it." I held out my hand and Gabriel handed me another cigarette.
I lit it and took a drag, having not felt satisfied by the other. "This information gets people killed, Gabriel."
"Well, they already think I know it, so you might as well tell me."
"Good point. The day after I got a call from Nathan, Hunter's transport unit was attacked, and Hunter freed. Eric called me the day Hunter went missing. He also told me he knew who was behind the attacks. We compared names and had the same one. He said he had talked to Hunter before they were separated at Fort Leavenworth and that Dad had told him if something ever happened to him, to go after the former FBI liaison because it would be him that killed him. Eric told me the profiler was supposed to be there to meet the guy that killed Dad and Isabelle that's why he had gone to the top of the building. He was going to take them both out, but for some reason the liaison who was a profiler, didn't show so Eric, who had already memorized the faces of all the murderers in the prison, decided to make the most of the moment. No liaison didn't mean the trip was wasted. He got justice for Dad and Isabelle, to a degree then he started getting justice for other people. The prison grounds Eric shot into weren't just prison grounds, they were all people awaiting trial and here's the kicker, all of them had been captured by the profiler that had worked as the liaison with dad's old department. They weren't random. Eric had insider information, just like Callow did. He didn't tell me how he had gotten it, just that he had. No one ever put the connection together, though. Turkish Jack was supposed to kill the liaison but failed. When he failed, other murders started turning up with Turkish Jack's signature. So Turkish Jack whose real name is John Huntington, turned himself in. He was in the hotel that day to protect me and Nyleena. I didn't know it then, but he was keeping tabs on Nyleena and I in New York City. The guy he killed shortly before the FBI raided the hotel room where he was, was a contract killer. John has a rare condition that my brother and Patterson also have, so he might somehow be related to us, I don't know, but he doesn't have finger prints. That's why he doesn't exist in the system."
"Your brother had Turkish Jack cut off his own tongue and protect you by killing people?"
"I don't t
hink my brother had John Huntington cut off his own tongue, I think he did that on his own." I told Gabriel. "Eric hasn't confirmed it, but I think he's been filling the Fortress with serial killer allies. That would explain why so many have been caught using Eric's information."
"I was on the raid that captured Turkish Jack, I was there when he cut off his own tongue." Gabriel informed me.
"I know. I know a lot more today than I did ten years ago. Some of it I wish I didn't. Like the liaison that was visiting Callow is now the director of the FBI. He replaced the director that was murdered during the raid on the FGNs."
"You think the Deputy Director had the director killed so he could take his place?" Gabriel asked.
"Well, he isn't above murder. He had my father and my sister killed. I don't know why Peter West hasn't been killed yet, possibly because he's Malachi's cousin and Malachi would hunt his killer to the ends of the earth and then make them talk. Malachi is very good at making people talk, even when they don't want to."
"So why kill Nathan Green?" Gabriel asked.
"Because Nathan was searching for murders that matched the MO of those committed in Columbia when I was young, and he found everywhere the Director of the FBI has lived or traveled, has had a kill that matched his MO. There are details about those cases that didn't even make it into the official files. My dad decided the information was too dangerous to put in them. His partner at the time agreed. But I remember seeing a photograph once of a teen that went to school with Eric, she was definitely dead, but she had been branded. Teeth marks on her upper thigh that had torn out enough flesh it had reached the muscle."
"Like Gabriel and Christian Hunter's father and another serial killer we've chased, thing is they all have the same bite pattern. I know your brother didn't kill all of them, but he did probably kill a few of them. Eric thinks it's a cult. He thinks the Director is leading a cult and those in the inner circle all have a special set of dentures they use to sign their kills."
"That would mean Raphael doesn't have teeth," Gabriel said.
"Yes and no. I think Raphael and a few of the others had bite patterns so close, they just had a few teeth altered to fit the pattern. Get this, the bite pattern belongs to a dead FBI agent. The same one that kidnapped your friend Will and ate him. Nathan was searching for cases with dead people that had that bite pattern. That was the link, at least, we hoped it was, the bite marks."
"How do you know the guy that kidnapped Will and I was an FBI agent?" Gabriel asked.
"Because he was the one that started the search party for you and Will. He was vacationing up there. He'd done a lot of time undercover in a drug cartel. The FBI had to pull him out because he kinda lost his mind a little bit, according to Eric and Nathan. When the Marshals were called in, they were called in by your father. He told Nathan that there was an FBI agent helping with the search. Nathan put it together back then that the FBI agent was most likely your kidnapper, but since you couldn't identify anyone except yourself as being part of your kidnapping, they didn't make any progress on it. Then when they finally tracked down the house with Will's body, there was a dead guy there with Will. The dead guy's bite pattern didn't match those on Will, but he left a suicide note, so case closed even though the evidence didn't add up. I don't think Nathan suspected Raphael was involved. I think he thought your claims that you had been looking in a mirror a lot of the time, was just shock and horror at the situation. If he did suspect Raphael, he didn't mention it to me or Eric."
"So how did the bite patterns end up being the dead FBI agents, I mean why would the director even think to use his bite pattern?"
"According to Eric, the now Director of the FBI worked with the FBI agent that was vacationing at Snell Grove Lake, they were partners for about a year, before the now Director of the FBI got transferred to Columbia because there was suspicion that Patterson Clachan would occasionally visit his son, who was a cop. Then the FBI agent suddenly disappeared. Apex eventually found his body, somewhere in Maine."
"You, Eric, and Nathan have been very busy," Gabriel said.
"Mostly Nathan and Eric. As one of the founders of the SCTU, Nathan has, had, unrestricted access to Eric. He could go in and talk to him or call the prison and talk to him pretty much whenever he wanted."
Malachi
MALACHI WAS TRYING to think without brooding or at least not look like he was brooding. Eric was many things, but liar wasn't one of them. If he said he knew who was responsible for organizing attacks on the FGNs and federal buildings, then it was possible Aislinn did too. However, Malachi hadn't figured out what that had to do with Raphael Henders nor his abduction of either Aislinn or Gabriel or why Raphael had killed Nathan Green. Eric had even told Nathan who was in charge of it, but that still didn't explain Raphael, and for some reason Malachi felt it was all connected. Furthermore, he was sure Eric thought it was all connected. His conversation with Eric Clachan hadn't been what he expected, but Eric had expected Aislinn to come. Yet Eric knew that Malachi was an SCTU team leader now, so it made sense for Malachi to come, unless Eric had expected Aislinn for a different reason. Malachi had pulled Aislinn's phone records and in the last month, she had talked to Nathan Green more than a dozen times. Furthermore, Nathan had called a cell phone registered to the US Marshals agency as many if not more times than that. The Marshals service didn't have a phone number look up even within its agency. Malachi couldn't enter the phone number and find what agent it came back to, but he had a gut feeling it would be one of the people in the house with Eric. This seemed to be confirmed by the knowledge that Nathan had visited Kansas City at least five times in the last month, but not once had he stopped by to see Caleb. Whatever he had been doing, it had been secretive, and secretive enough that he didn't feel he could involve his son for whatever reason.
Malachi had spent enough time around the Clachan family to know this wasn't always the best way to go about things. Secrets like this could be deadly. Probably were deadly which is why Nathan had not involved Caleb. Now Nathan was dead, Gabriel and Aislinn were missing and there were a whole lot of unanswered questions that were going to need to be answered by the time everyone got home safe and sound, if they did get home safe and sound. Eric would lose it if Aislinn died. Especially since she died following Gabriel. Eric understood that Aislinn wasn't like him, not exactly like him or Patterson or even Malachi and Caleb. She didn't want to be in control, it required her to be responsible and she didn't like that responsibility. She followed Gabriel because she liked Gabriel and everyone else liked Gabriel and he was good at leading.
It was either the greatest magic trick ever or Aislinn really didn't want to be a sociopath and just couldn't help it. He'd watched her grow up, grow into her own and this, her time in the SCTU, was the first time Malachi had ever seen her suppress her ego enough to not be in control and not want to be in control. Those were hallmarks of ASPD. The mental facilities of sociopaths and psychopaths demanded they be in control of everything, but Aislinn had been willing and able to give that up in favor of following Gabriel. If Alejandro had remained team leader, there would have been no way that would have happened. Aislinn would have clammed up and been annoyed until she killed him. Malachi thought it had something to do with the fact that Gabriel insisted Aislinn go through the door first with some of the biggest meanest killers on the planet. That would appease her ego as much as it would his. He still wasn't sure why he and Caleb could work together as well as they did. However, Caleb was like Aislinn, to some degree. He was what Xavier referred to as a-typical. He might be a psychopath, but he wasn't the narcissist that Malachi and Eric were. He worked for the greater good all the time.
Which wasn't always in line with the way Aislinn's mind worked. Sometimes the greater good was whatever worked best for Aislinn, but it was rare. Malachi had noticed it most the time she disemboweled a serial killer on live TV. She could have shot the killer, she could have stabbed the killer. She could have run them over with a car, but Aislinn wanted the
satisfaction of the kill, and at that moment, that required disemboweling. It was such a brutal and vicious thing to do, and on live TV no less, but it had worked. She had earned a little more fear from that event. He wasn't sure if that had been her intent or not, but that's what had come from it. She'd become a quasi-boogeyman for serial killers everywhere. Mess with Aislinn Cain and she won't just kill you, she'll do it painfully and enjoy it, maybe broadcast your death to the world.