Aberration

by Lisa Regan

  “Protect me? How is lying on the grandest scale imaginable and betraying my trust protecting me?”

  His eyes held a plea. “I had to be close to you in order to protect you. It was the only way. Last time—”

  “Last time?” My voice went up an octave.

  Its effect was exactly as I intended. He waved his hands like a bird flapping its wings. “Please,” he said. “Just listen.”

  I put the ice back to my head and avoided his gaze. I looked straight ahead as if he was not in the room. The pouting lover. The petulant queen.

  “Look,” he went on. “I never lied to you before. I mean I followed you. I lived nearby when you lived in Baltimore. I looked after you, but I never pretended to be someone else. I never took on another identity to get close to you. But then Nico Sala almost killed you. I had to get closer to you.”

  “You were there that night, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You untied me and gave me the gun.”

  “Yes, yes. But you shot him.”

  I thought of his sister. He’d known that someone was abusing her. How many times had she been molested and Blake was powerless to stop it? I said a silent prayer that I could pull off the act I was about to put on. I mustered some tears, which under the circumstances was not hard to do. I had only to think about Linnea. I turned to him with wet eyes and said, “Why didn’t you come earlier?”

  He looked as if I had just slapped him. His shoulders slumped, and his face paled.

  “He beat me. He stabbed me. He tortured me for hours. Doctors had to reconstruct my face. Why didn’t you stop him?”

  “I was—I was too late,” he mumbled.

  He reached out to touch my leg, but I drew it away from him. My disgust did not have to be feigned.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t you see that’s why I had to become Dale Hunter, become your neighbor, so I could keep a closer watch. Remember the night that detective from Portland came? I went out to see if you were home yet and saw him knock on your door. I was right there—I could monitor who came and went from your house so nothing bad would ever happen again.”

  The mention of Jory threw me. I squeezed my eyes closed. I pushed thoughts of Jory out of my head. I had to focus. I had to get out of this.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me who you were?” I asked.

  He slapped the bed, his color rising as his temper flared. I jumped. “Don’t try to mind fuck me,” he said. “You’re a liar too. You’re fucking Isaac McCaffrey.”

  My shock was genuine. I laughed. For some reason the mention of Isaac calmed me slightly. “Are you crazy?” I said. “I am not sleeping with him—or anyone.”

  “But I saw you two at his house.”

  “That was you that night—the night Isaac was attacked, wasn’t it?”

  Blake dropped his gaze to the bed momentarily. “I didn’t know you would be with him.” He met my eyes again. “But I saw you at his house. You were on his couch. Your clothes were on the floor.”

  I threw the towel of ice at his head. He ducked, but it caught his left ear and ice scattered everywhere. His eyes widened. His body stiffened as if he was afraid to move.

  “We were changing clothes, you moron,” I said. “As you may recall that was after we spent two hours in the rain in pursuit of you. We changed into dry clothes. I slept on his couch. Nothing happened.” I shook my head as if I was disappointed in him. “You should have told me who you were. You never even gave me a chance.”

  “You would have turned me away,” he said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I read your sister’s diary. I ‘creep’ you out. You sent your sister to see me in the mental hospital and say she was you. You’re a liar too.”

  I hoped I was right about just how deep his delusions went with respect to me. He’d been nurturing them since we were thirteen. Silently, I asked my sister to forgive me for the lies I was about to tell. Then I said, “My sister had no idea how I really felt about you. Yes, she wrote that in her diary, but the truth is that she and I never discussed my feelings for you. Those were her assumptions. My sister was in love with you. She wanted you to love her back. When you were in the mental hospital you asked for me. When you got arrested you asked for me. She knew you had a thing for me, that’s why she never talked to me about you. She wanted you for herself.”

  With each word, he seemed to shrink a little. Relief coursed through me. It was working. “Did you kill Lexie?” I asked.

  He sat back on his heels and rubbed his eyes with one palm. He sighed. “I don’t know.”

  My tone was incredulous. “You don’t know?”

  He stood up and paced again. “I went to see her. Well, you know we were seeing each other. It was—it was like you said. She said she had something important to tell me. That’s when she told me it wasn’t you who came to see me in the mental hospital. I-I didn’t believe her. We started arguing. That’s all I remember.”

  I glared at him, not bothering to mask my anger or disgust. “You pushed her, you bastard. You killed my sister.”

  He stopped pacing. His hands waved again. “No. No. I didn’t push her. I—”

  “Do you send me the flowers every year on the date of her death?”

  “Hyacinths, yes.”

  I had looked it up while I was off from work. “Purple hyacinths symbolize sorrow or a plea for forgiveness, you bastard. I know you killed her.”

  His voice rose. “I told you—I don’t remember. It’s like it was with my parents. I just lost time.”

  “What?”

  “I lost time. Blacked out. There are things I don’t remember.”

  I was already working under the theory that he had Dissociative Identity Disorder which was characterized by bouts of amnesia, but in order for my plan to work, I had to draw it out of him. “Things like what?” I said. “What things?”

  He sighed and slapped his thigh. Back to pacing. “It’s like this—with Lexie, we were in her room. We were arguing, and then I was back in my apartment. Two days had passed. I saw it on the news. That’s how I found out she was dead.”

  “You pushed her!” I shouted.

  He shook his head vigorously. “No. I don’t know.”

  “Yes. You do. You pushed her.”

  “I don’t know,” he shouted back.

  “You killed my sister, and you let Nico Sala beat me half to death. If you were really trying to protect me, you wouldn’t have done those things.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back turned toward me. He looked worn out.

  I pushed myself to the edge of the bed and stood up. He caught my hand and pulled me back toward the bed. I felt dizzy and stumbled. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  I snatched my hand out of his grip. “I have to pee.”

  Blake had disabled the lock on the inside of the bathroom door. I really did have to pee, but I also wanted a minute to check out the bathroom and get my bearings. The window in the bathroom was far too small for me to fit through, especially with my burgeoning belly. I checked my pockets. He had taken my cell phone—not that I had any idea where we were. Obviously, we were in some seedy motel, but I had no idea where it was or even what the place was called. It stunk of cigarette smoke. The once white walls were yellowed and cracked. The brown outdoor carpet that covered the floor was frayed in many places. The furniture looked ancient. The night tables and dresser were scuffed and scratched. The bathroom looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. I looked in the mirror. My hair was all askew. The left side of my face was light purple and swollen.

  When I came out of the bathroom he was pacing again. I perched at the foot of the bed and watched him. I had to be careful. I needed him to feel guilty b
ut not so agitated that the other Blake would come out.

  “Is that what happened at the Bittlers’?” I asked. “You blacked out.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. She came home early—the wife. Do you know that she knew her husband was killing women and burying them in the back yard? She knew. I just—I lost it.”

  “You don’t remember beating her to death?”

  He stopped pacing and looked into my eyes. “No. I don’t. It’s been happening a lot lately. I’m taking pills but sometimes …“

  “It happened today, didn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “So you don’t remember shooting Linnea or the other woman at the store?”

  He looked near tears. “ No. I don’t remember any of that.”

  “You came for me. What were you going to do?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. It wasn’t well thought-out. I just—I was going to take you.”

  I motioned to the television. The story of his rampage was running again. He had muted it, but the images were unmistakable. His composite flashed across the screen, followed by grainy footage of him dragging me back to the truck with the gun to my head. I wondered if the person who had taped it to their cell phone had bothered to call 911 first.

  “They are going to find you,” I said. “They’re closing in. They know who you are. Now they have your aliases. You took big risks today.”

  “They won’t find us,” he said, but he did not sound confident.

  “Where were you going to take me?” I asked.

  “Away. Away from here. Look, I don’t know. I have to think, okay?” He dropped down in front of me. This time he rested his forehead against my knees. I wished it was like the movies, and I could just break his neck with one fluid movement or choke him out with a lightning-fast ninja technique. But all I had were my wits.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry about Lexie and Nico Sala. I’m sorry about today. About Linnea. But I will take you away from here, and I will protect you.”

  He lifted his head. I took a deep breath and put my right hand out, palm up. “Then give me your gun,” I demanded.

  He sat back on his heels, incredulity battling confusion on his face. “What?”

  I gave him an exasperated look, as if he were being stupid. “Give me your gun,” I repeated. “And your bullets.”

  “You can’t expect me to—”

  “You can’t expect me to trust you,” I shouted. “After everything you’ve done, all the lying—”

  “Keep your voice down!”

  I lowered it only slightly. “I need something from you. A gesture of good faith. If this is going to work, if you expect me to trust you, then I want your gun.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re just trying to fuck with me. You’re the liar. You want my gun so you can kill me. You’re going to kill me.”

  I sighed, trying my best to sound like I was about to lose my patience with him. “I’m not going to kill you.”

  “You killed Nico Sala.”

  “That was different.”

  Blake stood up. More pacing. “No, no, no. You’re just doing your FBI psychological profiling bullshit. You’re trying to convince me to give up my weapon so you can get the upper hand. Then you’ll either arrest me or kill me.”

  Everything he said was true. I was setting him up. But it wasn’t to arrest or to kill him. It was to get him to turn himself in.

  I thought about Talia Crossen—how no matter what she knew or did not know, she always projected total confidence. She always made you think she knew something you didn’t. She would find some small, seemingly insignificant detail and use it, twist it to her advantage. It made most people she interviewed think she was psychic. She wasn’t. She could just get into peoples’ heads and predict their behaviors.

  I would have to do the same with Blake Foster if my plan was going to work.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” I said. “I killed Nico Sala, but it never made me feel any safer than if he were still alive. You of all people should know that, Dale.” I spit out the name, my voice laden with sarcasm.

  Blake looked at the floor. “You’ll arrest me, turn me in.”

  I thrust my chin out, pouting. “I should after all the lies you told, all the people you killed. That’s what you deserve.”

  He froze and stared at me. I held his gaze. “But I won’t.”

  He said, “I don’t believe you.” But I could see his resolve wavering.

  I sighed. “You came for me. After all this time you chose to reveal yourself. After all these years you know me better than anyone. So you tell me. If you thought I would kill you or arrest you, why did you risk everything to take me?”

  He kept staring. I let my words linger before continuing. I was about to go out on a limb. “You must have known how I really felt, deep down.” I shook my head, feigning disbelief. “I didn’t even realize it but you’ve known all along how I felt. Why else would I have stayed single all these years? I think on some level I was waiting for you.”

  His eyes glazed over. A smile lit up his face. “Yes,” he breathed.

  “You killed all those people for me.”

  “I tried to make it up to you—make up for Lexie and letting Nico Sala get to you. I tried to make up for doing the wrong things. For making it worse. I thought if I could make it up to you then you would see how much you mean to me.”

  “You’ve been atoning for your sins,” I said solemnly.

  “Yes. I kept waiting for the right time to talk to you, to approach you, but it just never came. Lexie died, and I knew I couldn’t approach you with her death on my conscience. Then Nico Sala—I failed you. I had to show you how sorry I was before you would accept me.” He talked fast, his tone breathless.

  “I understand.”

  “I’ve loved you since we were thirteen—since that day you stopped those boys from hurting me. Do you know that two other people walked by before you came? They saw what was going on, and they kept on going. You were the only person who stopped and got involved. I have loved you since that day.”

  “I know.”

  “I was waiting for the right time to come to you—to tell you all of this.”

  I nodded and smiled wanly at him. “Well, I’m here now.”

  “We can be together now,” he went on. He knelt before me again. His hands trembled as they groped for mine. “Do you see?” he asked. “Do you see that everything I’ve done and everything I am—it’s all for you.”

  A tear slid down my face. The revulsion I felt when he touched me was so strong, it took everything I had not to push him away. “I see,” I said in a whisper.

  He seemed to mistake my tears of frustration for tears of gratitude. He cupped my face in his hands. The room spun. I willed my body not to stiffen at his touch. I needed him to believe that we were in collusion. I needed him to believe his delusions were real.

  “I love you,” he said.

  I thought of Jory, tried to picture his face as I looked into Blake’s eyes. “I love you too,” I lied.

  Blake released me and backed away. For a moment I panicked. Had he seen through me? Had I gone too far to be believable to him?

  He blinked, and I saw tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. His hands quivered as he backed up another step. He leaned against the dresser. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m—I—you just—you’ve only ever said that to one man—I mean that I know about.”

  I felt a stab in my chest. He was right. I’d only ever said those words to Jory, only once, and if Blake knew that then he’d been spying on us in Portland. He must have followed Jory from my hotel. Now I was certain he’d had something to do with Jory’s death. I knew it was risky to change the subject, but I had to know.

  “Did you kil
l Jory?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  “Did you talk to him that day?”

  His voice was small. “Yes. He saw me, and he came over to my car and said he was going to tell you that I was spying on you. Then I was in my hotel room. I found out on the news that he had been in a car accident. I think I was in the car with him because I was in so much pain after that. But I don’t know what happened. I must have been in the car though because I have his wallet.”

  A high-pitched wail filled the room. I realized it was me. I was hyperventilating. The baby flailed inside me. All I could think of was that I was trapped in a room with Jory’s killer. After all the things Blake had taken from me—my sister, my privacy, my trust in the world---Jory was the last straw. The room seemed to go in and out, my vision blacking out briefly. My breath came faster and faster until I thought I would pass out.

  I was having a panic attack.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  KASSIDY

  November 29th

  Before me, Blake’s eyes grew wide as saucers. He looked around the room, unsure what to do. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I shook my head and held my belly with both hands. I couldn’t speak.

  “The baby? Is it the baby?” Blake asked. He scrambled into the bathroom and came back with a cold wet washcloth, which he pressed against my forehead.

  I pushed his hands away, but the cool cloth felt good against my skin. I closed my eyes and focused on the baby’s frantic movements. I had to pull myself together. I had to do this. Our lives depended on it.

  After several minutes, my breathing returned to normal. I steeled myself against the panic and opened my eyes. Blake knelt before me, brow wrinkled with concern. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, stroking my stomach. “Pain,” I said. “I just had pain. False labor. I’m okay.”

  He let out a long breath, relief loosening his frame.