Aberration

by Lisa Regan

  He didn’t let me finish. He covered the few feet between us in one easy stride, leaning over the bed and grabbing my face with both hands. He kissed me hard. My body went rigid with surprise. It started out wet and a little sloppy. I gripped both his wrists with my hands and melted into the kiss. Isaac slowed down, his mouth softening and lingering on mine. He pulled away and plopped into the chair as if the kiss had taken a lot out of him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  My heart raced. I touched my mouth, wondering if the kiss had really just happened.

  “I promised myself if you came out of that motel room alive I would do that—at least once,” Isaac added.

  Stunned, all I could say was, “Okay.”

  For the first time since I had known him, awkwardness crept in between us. I couldn’t think of anything to say so I said, “Thanks for the flowers.”

  He nodded. “I owed you some flowers. I didn’t make it to the hospital last time.”

  “What?”

  Isaac laughed drily. “Almost six years ago, I was on my way to the hospital in Baltimore to visit you—bringing you flowers—when I got the call about my wife and daughter.”

  My voice sounded like a squeaky mouse. “What?” I said again.

  His mouth pressed into a thin line as he met my eyes. “You were in the hospital for awhile after Nico Sala attacked you.”

  “Six weeks,” I said.

  “Yeah. It was about a month after the attack. We all felt bad about what happened to you.”

  “Who?”

  “All of us who worked with you in my unit. Some of us felt responsible, but no one wanted to tell you that. Anyway, it bothered me. I liked you, respected you. You did great work on that case. You were brave to go under cover.”

  I waved a hand in dismissal, but he kept going. “It kept me up at night—what happened to you. Finally, my wife—” He laughed, the sound hard and clipped. “My wife told me to just go see you. She thought it might help if I went to see you. She thought you were a hero.”

  “A hero?” I said skeptically.

  “You killed Sala. Maybe I couldn’t sleep after what happened to you, but his victims could sleep because you killed him.”

  I had never thought of it that way. As I had told Blake Foster, I never felt any safer knowing Sala was dead.

  “Anyway,” Isaac continued. “I finally worked up the nerve to go see you. I wasn’t sure they’d let me in, but I picked up some flowers after work. I was driving to the hospital when I got the call that my wife and daughter had been in an accident.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed. “I didn’t tell you that to make you feel bad. I just wanted you to know that you may not remember me, but I remember you.”

  “What were their names? Your wife and daughter?”

  Isaac smiled. “My wife’s name was Lauren and my daughter was Sadie.”

  “Sadie. That’s pretty.”

  Silence eased in between us, not so awkward this time. A moment later Linnea sailed into the room, her arm in a sling. She was the true miracle of the whole debacle that had taken place two days ago. The bullet had gone straight through her shoulder. She would need a lot of physical therapy, but she would survive.

  “McCaffrey,” she said, patting his shoulder with her good hand. She sat on the bed next to me. “What’s up? How’s our Superstalker?”

  Isaac shrugged. “Last I heard he was still writing out his confession. It was going on forty pages. There’s a lot he doesn’t remember though.”

  Linnea gave a low whistle. Isaac looked at me. “By the way, he had a storage facility in Woodbridge rented under the alias Wyatt Anderton. We found twenty years worth of your shredded bank statements that he’d pieced together and a few other items he was collecting. We think he had been going through your trash.”

  I shuddered. Linnea squeezed my arm. “Well since he was posing as Dale he could have taken anything he wanted right from her house,” she pointed out.

  “Stop,” I said. “I can’t do this. I can’t talk about him right now.”

  It was too much. I was already driving myself insane thinking about all the years Blake Foster had stalked me, spied on me, posed as my neighbor to get close to me. My life had not been my own until two days ago.

  “Sorry,” Linnea said. “We don’t have to talk about him.”

  I nodded and cupped my belly with both hands. “I just want to think about this baby right now.”

  Linnea tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You got it,” she said.

  “Hopefully you’ll never have to think about Blake Foster again,” Isaac added. “He’s going away for a long, long time.”

  EPILOGUE

  KASSIDY

  In the end, after being taken into custody and writing out a seventy page confession to the For You murders and to kidnapping me, Blake Foster recanted. Right before trial he took back everything, claiming coercion and entering seven pleas of not guilty—six for the murders he had committed as the ‘for you’ killer and one count of kidnapping. I was not surprised. It happened all the time, which was why a prosecutor could never hang their hat on a confession alone. I had expected it. Whatever spell I cast in that motel room the day he kidnapped me was not meant to last indefinitely. It was only meant to get me out of there alive.

  Eventually the reality of living in a cell day in and day out would erode Blake’s fantasy that he was somehow protecting me. Cold, unforgiving reality would set in, and he would try to save himself. With the six recanted confessions in the For You murders, physical and circumstantial evidence could only connect him to three of the murders. Eventually he was convicted of murdering Megan Wilkins, Deborah Bittler and Evette Gerst. Michael Bittler lived on, and Blake was convicted of the lesser charge of attempted murder in that case. With video evidence, he was easily convicted of kidnapping a federal agent.

  It wasn’t the full measure of justice I or the families of the victims would have liked, but it was enough to get him three life sentences plus forty-two years without the possibility of parole, all to run consecutively. My son would be four years old by the time all the litigation was over and Blake Foster started serving his sentences. Once he was incarcerated, I used my influence to get him mental health treatment, hoping he might recover memories of Lexie’s and Jory’s deaths, although if he did, it never got back to me. Some of my colleagues in the BAU interviewed him. They spent several hours with him. Part of our ongoing quest to understand the criminal mind.

  Blake was acquitted of the attempted murders of Linnea and the other woman at the mini-market, found not guilty by reason of insanity since he had no memory whatsoever of having done it. Although Jory’s wallet was recovered among Blake’s personal effects, there wasn’t enough evidence to convince a jury that Blake had killed Jory. He didn’t remember the accident, and it was unclear exactly what had happened that day. Since we knew that Jory had left the gas station alone and that Blake had followed him, Remy and I surmised that Jory had noticed Blake following him and pulled over to confront him. At that point, for reasons we would probably never know, Blake got into the car with Jory, and they drove off together. There must have been a struggle in the vehicle that caused the accident. I theorized that it was Blake who had wrenched the steering wheel at the last minute, causing Jory’s side of the car to make contact with the tree.

  I wish I could say that with Blake Foster in custody I felt safe, but I still looked over my shoulder. Sometimes it felt like he was still watching me. I don’t know if that will ever go away. I guarded my son zealously. The months after that day in the motel were the worst. My nightmares of Nico Sala were replaced by nightmares of Blake Foster. But I took comfort in what I had left—my family and friends.

  I had months of therapy as well, most of it mandated by the Bureau when I decided to
return to work one week after being kidnapped. I couldn’t travel in my third trimester so I was assigned low-priority cases, which required mostly phone and letter consults and no traveling. I worked right up until my water broke. Everyone thought I was crazy, but working helped me. That and having my parents and Linnea around. She stayed with me through her recovery until she had to return to work with the DEA.

  My parents were so excited about their grandson that they sold our family home in Sunderlin and moved closer to me. My father stayed at my house until my mother had all the particulars worked out. When I got too large to work on the nursery, he took over. He called Isaac to help him put up trim, paint and assemble furniture. I got used to having Isaac around. Although he didn’t kiss me again, he became a fixture—a part of our rag-tag family: me, my parents, Linnea and the Bennetts.

  Alexander Ralston Bishop was born on a Thursday in April. I delivered by C-section after thirty hours of labor. Alex’s head would not engage in my pelvis. My mother went into the delivery room with me. Alex was eight pounds, twelve ounces and twenty-one inches long. He was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I loved him with an openness that was so unexpected it took my breath away. I loved him with the whole of my being, and his very existence filled up every empty space inside me. For all the pain and suffering that Nico Sala and Blake Foster had caused in my life, none of it could hold a candle to the joy my son brought me.

  Alex got used to having Isaac around too. Isaac came over almost every day to “help” with the new baby, even though I already had plenty of help. I saw the conspiratorial smiles that passed between my mother and Linnea whenever Isaac was there.

  When Alex was six months old I found him and Isaac dozing on the couch, Alex sprawled across Isaac’s chest. I nudged Isaac’s leg with my foot. He opened his eyes, squinting up at me. His voice was thick with sleep.

  “Bishop?” he said.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Are you going to ask me out or what?”

  Isaac grinned. He stared at me for a long time. Then he stroked Alex’s hair and said, “Well actually I was thinking we should make this a family unit.”

  I couldn’t hide the surprise on my face. My heart gave an uneven thud and in that moment, picturing a life with Isaac, I realized how much I wanted it. I still mourned for Jory and missed him, but I had lost so much. I didn’t want to waste another second pushing away the people who remained in my life. I had to move on.

  “You want to get married?” I said.

  Isaac kept grinning at me.

  I arched an eyebrow. “What if you’re terrible in bed?”

  He laughed, jostling Alex, who scrunched up his little face and turned his head away from us. “I’m just letting you know I’m not going anywhere. Let’s go on a few dates first and you can test out my skills.”

  I smiled wryly. “And when will that happen? When I’m collecting social security?”

  “It won’t be that long,” Isaac replied. “Bishop, I’m not going to do this half-assed. I want to do it right. You deserve that. But now that I know that you’re interested, maybe I’ll move up my time table.”

  I rolled my eyes. I was about to reply, but the doorbell rang. The dogs rushed the door, growling. They had somehow learned to curb their barking with Alex in the house, although many a nap had been thwarted by an unexpected visitor, delivery person or strange noise. A couple with two young children had moved into Dale’s old house, and the children frequently made enough ruckus to warrant barking.

  A woman in her sixties stood at my door. She was short and thin. Her hair was brown and gray, cut short and styled to soften the lines age had embedded in her face. Her face was very familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Can I help you?” I said.

  She clutched her purse to her stomach as if I might try to wrestle it away from her at any moment. She thrust her chin out and took a deep breath. In that instant, I knew that whatever she was about to say had been rehearsed in her head ad nauseam.

  “My name is Amelia Ralston,” she said, sounding proud and defiant. “I believe you knew my son. Now I know you and he were having an affair. While I’m not particularly happy about that, and I in no way condone or excuse it, I loved my son. I loved him and he’s dead, and I think you’re my grandson’s mother.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she held up a hand. Her face was flushed. I sensed that if she stopped talking, she would lose her nerve so I let her go on. “Now I don’t want to make trouble for you. I don’t want to take anything from you. I just want to know my grandson. I’ve come a long way. I just want to see him, and then maybe you and I can talk. I just want to be a part of his life is all—and yours too.”

  My mother, who had come down the steps at the beginning of the speech, rounded the dogs up and shooed them out the back door.

  I smiled at Amelia Ralston and opened my door wide. “Come in,” I said. “He’s in the living room.”

  Wyatt

  Sunlight streamed into the small room through the barred windows. Blake Foster sat in the chair to which he was chained and turned his face to the sun. He closed his eyes and felt its warmth on his cheeks. It reminded him of the kiss. Even after four years he remembered the kiss as if it had just happened. The softness of her lips, how they lingered on his, the feel of her pressed against him. In his head it went on for hours—a perfect, sunlit, magical moment. He always had the kiss, even if he had nothing else. He started to get aroused and opened his eyes. He was waiting for Sarah.

  In the four years since he’d been arrested, he hadn’t had one visitor. He wished Kassidy would visit him, but he realized that she never would. The beast had ruined everything, although he suspected that Kassidy’s professions of love had been lies designed to get him to turn himself in. A practical voice in his head told him that the kiss was probably a lie too, but he still could not bring himself to believe that. It had been so soft, so deep, so right. He chose to believe that she had simply gotten caught up in the moment—before the beast had taken over. Even though she had lied in an attempt to free herself, he knew that deep down she had feelings for him. The kiss proved that. But he knew she would never come.

  It had taken quite a bit of stealthy, shady dealings, but he had finally been able to reach Dustin DeMeo through underground channels. A month after Blake’s message reached Dusty, Blake received photographs of Kassidy and her son secreted in a stack of magazines. She had lied about the child too—a son, not a daughter. Isaac McCaffrey was in the photos as well. They made quite the little family. Blake destroyed the photos of McCaffrey and the boy and kept the one of her. She was still lovely. The years since he’d last seen her made her more so.

  He knew that it was Kassidy who had arranged this meeting with Sarah. He remembered Kassidy’s business card on Sarah’s refrigerator, the cell phone number written on the back in Kassidy’s graceful, loping handwriting. He could imagine Sarah’s flat, dull tone as she asked Kassidy to intervene and allow her to see Blake. “I wanna see my brother. What do I have to do?”

  He didn’t have to meet with her, and perhaps a few months earlier he would have refused the meeting. But he’d gotten a lot of psychotherapy since he’d been incarcerated. There had even been FBI agents from Kassidy’s division there to interview him.

  The therapy had done nothing at first. Then the doctor suggested hypnotherapy. Blake had been able to recover a lot of his memories. Like pushing Lexie out of the window of her eleven story dorm room. He had never really doubted that she had died at his hands, but other than the heated argument they’d had leading up to her death, the memory of that night was a black spot in his mind.

  He’d remembered beating Deborah Bittler and Evette Gerst. He’d remembered destroying the house he had kept as Dale Hunter—overturning and splintering furniture. Slicing his arm and squeezing the blood from the wound so he could write I HATE YOU on
the wall. He’d remembered the shooting at the store and the rest of what he’d blacked out that day. Kassidy had not lied to him when she told him the bullets were really meant for her and him.

  He remembered what had happened the day Jory Ralston was killed. Ralston had caught Blake following him and pulled over. Ralston had dragged him out of the rental car, probably with the intention of kicking Blake’s ass. Blake had done some fast talking, trying to seem as contrite as he possibly could, promising to give up his obsession with Kassidy, to go home immediately if Jory promised not to tell Kassidy that Blake had followed her to Portland. Ralston had been tight-lipped, pulling Blake along and stuffing him into the passenger’s side of the Taurus. Blake realized that Ralston had every intention of telling Kassidy about his stalking activities, was probably going to take Blake back to her hotel with him just to drive the point home. As Jory pulled back onto the road, Blake tried to get control of the car, but Ralston was strong. They struggled, the car flew off the side of the road and at the last minute, Blake was able to take control of the wheel and turn the car so that Jory’s side took the brunt of the impact.

  Some memories came back to him during sessions with the therapist. The therapy itself had opened a door in his mind. Other memories came back to him when he was alone, and he did not share them with his therapist. Like the memory of the night his parents were killed. It had come back to him whole, landing in his mind like a stone falling from the sky, the weight of it making him sluggish. One day all he had were pieces and the next day there it was, all intact and attached to him like a missing limb. It had surprised him, to say the least.

  The sound of the lock turning on the other side of the door startled him out of his reverie. Sarah walked in, escorted by an armed guard. She had nothing with her, as they would not allow her to bring anything into the room with her, not even a purse. She sat across from him and folded her hands on the table. She looked the same as when he had seen her four years earlier. She wore a navy blue dress that hung on her large frame like a sheet. The guard left them alone.