Jill Oliver Deception Thrillers (Box Set Books 1 - 2)

by Judith Price

  Erin picked the folder back up. “It wasn’t a coincidence that Mandy Humphrys hired McGregor. They knew each other. They knew each other very well.” Another page flipped. “Mandy ended up with her father’s sister, a Miss Apple Humphrys, and then was adopted by her. It was then that Mandy met Matthew McGregor. The woman that adopted her had a second cousin. It was Matthew McGregor’s mother, Mary. Mandy Humphrys was Matthew’s cousin.”

  Erin looked at Jill to see if there was some sort of recognition in her eyes. Jill just stared ahead blankly.

  “Over the years there were reports of abuse to Mandy, but nothing was proven. It states that Mandy was full of drama and lies—another trait of a sociopath of this age. At age fourteen, she ran away. There’s not much in the way of background information on her until Luray Caverns. Records show her as an exemplary employee who was hired six months before Matthew McGregor.

  Erin closed the file and turned towards Jill. Jill stammered, “Why are you telling me this? It’s too disgusting to think about it. Am I supposed to feel sorry for her? Sorry about your luck, Mandy, now I know why you wanted to stab me with an ice pick.” Jill mocked.

  Erin didn’t respond, she just placed Mandy’s file beside her, leaned over and opened up the next file. Matthew McGregor, age twenty-five, born in Lexington, Virginia. His mother, similar to her second cousin, too, was a piece of work it seems.” Erin interpreted the file in a layman fashion. “Mary McGregor would periodically bring Matthew and her older son Dory to the emergency room. Notes state that the doctors suspected abuse in the home as far back as when they were little. But back then, it wasn’t like it is today. There wasn’t much recourse. Best they could do was hope that they would be fine. But the system failed. Failed miserably.” The page scraped as she flipped it. “When Matthew’s older brother Dory was eight years old, he went missing. His body was discovered in a shallow grave in the woods behind their house. He was beaten into an unrecognizable state and his rectum brutally torn. His father was arrested and imprisoned—and was gutted by the other prisoners. That’s what they do to pedophiles in there.”

  Erin reached down, picked up her cold coffee and looked at Jill. “Want another one.” It wasn’t a question. Jill looked at her full cup on the table beside her and shook her head. She wondered how Erin could be so nonchalant about what she had just read to her. To her it felt like fingernails scraping a chalkboard and she wanted this debrief to be over. Jill was still puzzled as to why Erin was sharing such sickening information with her.

  Erin placed the open file on the pile, popped up, and went to her sideboard to pour another cup. “I’ve seen so many horrific reports on child abuse, it’d make you not want to have children. Did you know that twenty percent of children are sexually abused in the US? One in four females and one in six males. Society, humankind. It’s sick really. Poor children.” Erin sat back down. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s why I studied psychology and became a doctor. I’m interested in the science behind it. And the fact that both Mandy and Matthew were cousins makes it all the more interesting. An anomaly. Killing cousins.” Erin drifted a few seconds then picked the file back up. “It was Matthew that killed next. He killed his mother at the age of twelve with an ice pick to her face.” Jill gasped at this information. Erin flipped the page, read it, and then looked at Jill as if checking her pulse. Then continued. “It was later discovered in Matthew’s counseling sessions when living at the group facility for troubled boys, that he, too, was sexually abused by both his father and mother. It was the reason he said he killed her. His words: “Vaginas are gross and I’d had enough of my mother’s.” Sexual abuse caused by a mother is textbook humiliation and it’s probably why McGregor used the rail. It was his way of expressing control over another human. Humiliation.

  Erin closed the file and they both sat in silence. She sipped her coffee. Several minutes passed and then Erin said, “What do you think about what I’ve read to you so far, Jill?”

  Jill sat dumbfounded. Listening to what parents had done to their own children, their own flesh and blood, was grotesque. Her stomach churned. “I’m not sure I understand your question. What do you mean?” Erin didn’t answer. She just waited for Jill to continue. “Ummm … McGregor and Mandy killed those three women and somehow disposed of Jake?” Erin studied Jill and the look in her eyes was one of empathy. Jill didn’t understand.

  “One of the victims, a Molly Hubbard, was McGregor’s babysitter before he killed his mother. She was also Mandy’s childhood friend. Then, there was Kate Samson. She knew McGregor and Mandy as well. They all went to school together. So far, the VCU has discovered that McGregor might have been Miss Samson’s bullying victim in grade school. And they both knew Dr. Swallows. Matthew was her patient and Mandy had had some sort of altercation with her when visiting McGregor at the facility. Security had to come and escort her off the premises.”

  “So, these killings were some sort of kumbaya-hand-holding reunion? A way of getting revenge?”

  “Sorta,”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Kids get picked on in school every day and they don’t become serial killlers, nevermind with their own cousins.”

  “Well, a healthy mind would normally feel worse after acting out on revenge. But a sociopath and a psychopath team—they’d feed off each other. The thirst for vengeance is nothing if not timeless. There are many studies in medical journals on the subject.” Becoming more intrigued, Erin continued, “It’s odd and it appears that Mandy hadn’t killed before on her own. Something happened to trigger this killing duo and unless McGregor starts talking, I don’t think we will ever know. Trigger responses are like instant reminders of a traumatic event. Both Mandy and McGregor have had similar childhood abuse. I guess it’s not a leap to suggest they also may have similar trigger responses.”

  Erin placed the file on the pile next to her, reached down and picked up the last one.

  Dark thoughts hung over Jill when Erin read aloud the name on the file. “Jill Oliver.”

  Thirty-four

  The only sound was the ticking of the second hand from the oversized clock on the wall behind Erin’s desk. Gloom hung in the air like a giant invisible curtain.

  Erin laid the file on her lap. “Before we review this file, I’d like to talk to you first about PTSD. I know we’ve talked a little bit about the symptoms. You said you haven’t been sleeping. What happens when you try and relax, try to fall asleep?”

  Jill was annoyed now. “What’s in the file, Erin?”

  “We’ll get to the file, Jill. Let’s just finish up with your sleep problem and then we’ll move on,” Erin placated.

  Jill gave a peeved sigh. “It’s not a big deal, I just can’t seem to rest my mind, that’s all. I’ve had problems sleeping in the past. It’s no big deal. Besides, would you be able to sleep like a baby if someone tried to kill you, not once, but twice? Check out these teeth.” Jill rested her upper lip on her gums and turned her head in Erin’s direction. What could Jill say, after all? That she’s afraid of the boogeyman? Poor FBI agent Oliver can’t sleep in a dark room alone? The doc would think she was a loon and lock her up. Or at the very least, have her suspended for being mentally incompetent.

  “Jill, lets just finish up, okay.” Erin looked at Jill's temporarily capped teeth.

  Jill pinched the top of her nose and sighed again. “I’m just not feeling settled is all, and if I do happen to fall asleep I end up in a nightmare. I’ve had them my whole life. But now after McGregor it’s like I am living inside the dream. Like it’s real.”

  “What is the dream about?”

  “I’ve had the same dream for as long as I can remember, just not so vivid. Someone is trying to kill me and I am stuck in a dark hole and I can’t get out.”

  “Like a cave?” Erin queried.

  Jill thought about it. “No, it’s not a cave, it’s a hole in the ground. I’m surrounded by walls of dirt and if I try and get out the walls start to fall. They start to crumble around me.”
Jill’s heart rate sped up. Beads of sweat puckered on her top lip as she stared blankly in front of her. “Someone is there. I know someone is there. I can hear sounds. Like breathing. Like movement. Like mumbling. But no one helps me. I can’t get out. I start to scream. I start pawing the walls trying to get out. The walls tumble in on me fast. I start to drown in dirt. Suffocate. And the next thing I know I wake up screaming.”

  Jill reached for the cold cup of coffee, but her hands were trembling now and she changed her mind.

  “That sounds like a very scary dream, Jill. You’ve said you’ve had this before.”

  “Well, various versions of it. But none like I’m having now. They seem so real. Not like watching a movie like it was before. It’s like I am watching it from the little girl’s point of view in the dream. Now I am there and I am me—all I see is what I see. What I experience. I can even taste dirt.”

  “It’s called a sensory dream. It’s common after a traumatic event. The more traumatic the event, the more lucid the dreams become.” Erin pulled a large Post-it note off her pad and pinned it to the top of the file. She scribbled some notes.

  Jill looked at Erin, then shifted her robotic gaze back to the popped drywall screw on the wall that had kept her attention while she explained her dream. “I was in the cave only five days ago. And … and I’ve had this dream my whole life. That just doesn’t make sense, Erin.”

  “It is said that the mind works in mysterious ways when it is about to receive some sort of physical trauma. Like a car accident or something. The experience comes at you in slow motion. There are many mechanisms that the brain uses to protect itself. Like repressing memories or physically increasing neurons or brain proteins.” Erin opened the file on her lap.

  “Jill, what I am about to share with you, your file … it’s sealed. Meaning, special permission was necessary to access it as its falls under the Child Protection Act. And yours, well, it also falls under the US Indian Child Welfare Act. They had to get special approval from the Navajo tribal authorities.”

  “I don’t understand. Why do I have a sealed file?” Jill questioned. Grayness crept around Jill’s pupils. Sweat drenched her armpits. “This file is about a little girl name Jilleda Augusta Doli. It was your birth name before your life changed forever.”

  Thirty-five

  The sunlight had passed the window by this time of day. The air was thick as Jill sat, befuddled. She watched Erin pour more coffee and then hand one to Jill. “This will make you feel better. Nothing like a hot cup of java to make you relax.”

  Jill looked at her, perturbed. How the hell will a hot cup of coffee make me relax? Feeling the round blobs of sweat under her suit jacket, Jill said. “I don’t think anything will help me relax right now. Hell. You just told me that my name was Jilleda something? My name is Jill Augusta Oliver. Augusta, because I was born in August.”

  Erin sat down and lifted the file. “Have you never heard this name before?”

  Jill shook her head. Erin contemplated what approach she should take and quickly continued. “Jill, what I am about to review with you is about your childhood. I’d like to find out more from your perspective about it. Can you tell me about your childhood? What are your first memories as a child?” Erin picked up her mug, blew on the brew, and took a sip.

  Jill tilted her head and chimed in such an odd way that it sounded like someone else was talking. “I had a great childhood. My grandparents were wonderful and were like my best friends. Don’t get me wrong, they were like parents, too. They weren’t pushovers.” The right side of Jill’s mouth crinkled up. “I loved them dearly. I miss them.” Jill’s eyes lowered slightly. “They taught me so many things. It’s why I’m in this job. My grandfather was an elder for the Navajo tribe. He was very well respected. We didn’t live on the reserve, but I knew how respected he was when we went there for our sacred ceremonies. Everyone would stare at us, stare at me, because I was the granddaughter of a famous tribesman. Grams always told me I was special just like my Grandpapa.”

  “Do you remember your parents? Your mother?”

  Jill shifted and crossed her legs. “They told me my mother was killed by a drunk driver.” Jill winced and lowered her head and cupped her forehead with the palms of her hands.

  “Are you okay, Jill? Do you need anything?”

  Jill slowly shook her head. “I’m fine, this just happens sometimes out of the blue. I get these shots of pain like a knife being jabbed in my eye, twisting. It doesn’t last long.”

  “Do you have any pain meds?” Jill didn’t respond. “Take your time. Deep breaths always help.” Jill sat quietly, strands of hair pinched between her fingers. Several minutes of deep breathing later, Jill lifted her head. The look in Jill’s eyes told a pleading story of confusion.

  “I don’t understand what is going on. What is happening?” She rambled now. “When I was in the caves I started having these visions about this girl in a very scary place. It seemed similar to my recurring dreams but …” Jill trailed off. “But different.” Jill tried to recall the visions. “It wasn’t like I could feel anything like I could in my dreams. In fact, there were no feelings at all. Like I was reading a script or something … for a horror movie.” Jill leaned back and crossed her arms hugging herself.

  Erin flipped through a couple of the pages in the file and then looked over at Jill. Jill sat like a sad blob of Jell-O on the couch. “Jill.” Erin whispered softly. Jill turned in her direction, her eyes still pleading for clarification. “Have you ever heard of repressed memories?” Jill gave another confused blink. “Repressed memories often occur when a traumatic event or events have taken place.”

  “Are you saying I have repressed memories of my childhood? Because I don’t remember that goddamn name. Maybe my grandparents called me Jill for short?”

  Then Jill recalled a saying Grams would often repeat, when she asked about her birth father. “Some things are better left alone.”

  Jill leaned forward and balled her hands into fists. “What the hell is in that file, Erin?” spat Jill. She was pissed off now. She was annoyed with all this Pollyanna bullshit. This was her life for goddamn sakes. She’d been beaten. She’d lost three of her front teeth. She’d been hung naked so some crazy serial killer, who plucked eyes out for fun, could get his jollies. “Just tell me what is in the effin’ file.” Jill glared at Erin and it almost looked like she was going to lunge at her and grab the file.

  Erin lifted her palm up. She knew impulsive rage would only make things worse for Jill. “What I’m about to read to you—well, you will probably react, given that you do not have any solid memories of anything before your grandparents began to raise you.” Then Erin slowed her voice and a solemn look washed over her face. “It’s not good, Jill. In fact what I am about to share with you is quite horrific.”

  Thirty-six

  Jill sat on the edge of the fat couch. Erin looked back down to the file and began to recite the words. “Jilleda Augusta Doli, born August 24 in Page, Arizona. Mother: Mary Anne Doli. Father is listed as unknown. At age twenty-seven months, Jilleda was brought into the local clinic with back pain. She was thoroughly examined and it was suspected Jilleda was hit with a blunt object or thrown against something hard. She was also complaining that her ‘pee-pee’ hurt. There was no sign of abuse; her hymen was intact. They marked it down as a bladder infection. The following year a caregiver at the tribal play-group called in the tribal police due to significant bruising on both of her arms. When questioned how they got that way, Jilleda couldn’t remember.” After reading aloud several more similar reports, Erin looked up at Jill.

  Jill sat staring at a spider that had found it’s way onto the white coffee table. “Do you want me to continue, Jill?” Jill nodded, staring blankly ahead. “A social worker was making regular surprise visits and other than the horrendous living conditions, Jilleda seemed to be blossoming into a chatty little girl. A social worker, a Miss Cargola, stopped by and found Jilleda unconscious on the hal
lway floor and called the authorities. Jilleda was severely dehydrated and had an infection that required intense antibiotic therapy for seven days.”

  Erin stopped reading. “You do know how things work on the native reserves in the US, right Jill? They take care of their own—it’s their motto.” Erin flipped a page in the file. “The tribal authorities brought in your mother and current live-in boyfriend for questioning. Because of Jilleda’s grandfather’s tribal position he’d demanded that Jilleda be released into their care and would not have charges pressed, if her mother would agree never to involve herself in Jilleda’s life again. Jilleda’s mother agreed. She had no choice, since Jilleda almost died in her care.”

  Jill looked bewildered when Erin paused and looked over at her. “You were released into your grandparents care ten days later. Because of your mother, Jill, they had to move off the reserve, as she would continually show up drunk at their house demanding to take you back. They even went so far as to legally change your last name, so she could never find you.” The sting of this information jabbed at Jill’s gut like a swarm of hornets attacking her stomach. What her grandparents must have gone through to take care of her. To leave the reserve where her Grandpapa was so well respected. She had always thought her last name was different because she must have been named after her birth father.

  “There’s more, Jill. Do you want to take a break? Have some water?” Jill’s expression was forlorn. Erin found herself holding back a look of pity. “It must be hard to learn this information all at once.”