by Jon Mills
“I guess I’m okay.”
“Okay as in coping or not sure how to respond?”
What was it about her that was so disarming? Had it been anyone else he was sure he would have told them to mind their own business and got up and walked out. But he couldn’t do that with her. Emily was two years younger than him. At thirty-nine, she had long dark hair, emerald eyes that pulled you in, and a physique that made you look twice. She always wore flats, and a tight dress that showed off her curves. While others might have been looking at the clock, rambling on incoherently about their feelings, he would find himself staring at her lips, or the way she moved. It wasn’t a sexual thing. Habit really. He was used to studying people. Everyone had their own little quirks. The way they sat, looked, laughed, or moved. You could learn a lot from a person’s body movements.
Emily smiled. It was a warm and inviting smile that only drew him in further. He had already made up his mind that the only reason he showed up was because of her. She had become the closest person to a friend that he had made since arriving in Eden Falls.
“Tell me about him?”
That was one question she wouldn’t stop asking. By him, she meant Henri Bruns. She was convinced that if Ben could talk about the man he could move on. But the truth was you never moved on from the loss of a wife or son. You just appeared to. Of course to the outside world you got up, showered, put on clean clothes, and did all the little things that made you seem like you had a grip on reality. But that was all a thin disguise.
“Are you still drinking?”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“What is this, an A.A. meeting?” Ben snapped before immediately apologizing.
She shuffled in her seat, crossing her legs. She noticed him looking.
“No, it’s okay to let it out. Recognizing and allowing those feelings releases them. That’s why it’s good to talk about him even if you don’t want to.”
Ben was silent, staring at Emily. The very mention of Bruns made him feel rage and struggle inside. It was always over what he could have done, should have done differently. He often came back to his own shortcomings, as if he could have controlled the outcome, protected them, or seen it coming.
“You said no one knew how he picked his victims, did you?”
His eyes locked on hers. “I had a theory. A hunch if you can call it that. Bruns lived and breathed this. He watched his victims. He knew how police worked. He was careful not to be seen. He wasn’t like Bundy who went for women only with a certain hair color. Though he liked women that were young and pretty, you know, the ones that were out of his league. Then again he picked men, but only those who he could overpower easily and fast. The only connection between victims was that they were in the Everglades at the time or a national park. Some were hikers, others camping. They would just vanish. Search parties would be sent out and after five or eight days it would be called off. He didn’t care. He’d snatch them by day and by night. He kept changing his method of operation. While we can confirm thirty-three dead, and sixteen positively connected to him, we believe he slaughtered many more over the span of four years.”
“Sixteen?”
“Yeah, but he disposed of many more. It’s hard to find bodies that are buried alive, or fed to the gators.”
“And the ones that weren’t found?”
Ben breathed in deeply. He struggled to talk about it. He couldn’t even begin to tell her what Bruns had done with the bodies that weren’t buried. The FBI never released the information to the media. The sickening act was just too much. He searched for the words to reply when his phone buzzed.
“Go ahead,” she said.
Emily didn’t press a button on her computer to stop the recording like she did with her other clients. They met on the condition that she didn’t record anything he said. It was too dangerous. Henri Bruns had never been caught. He was still out there. The very thought of it burned him.
“Hello?” Ben said.
It was a teacher from Chloe’s school. Chloe was now seventeen and approaching her final year of high school.
“Sure, I’ll be right over.”
He hung up and rose from his chair to leave.
“Everything okay?” Emily asked.
“They want to speak to me at the school. Not sure what it’s about.”
“We haven’t chatted about Chloe, maybe next time.”
Ben nodded. He got up and grabbed his gray peacoat jacket off the hook, adjusted his shirt, and was about to leave. He paused at the door.
“Everything remains confidential, right?”
“Of course.”
He hesitated before replying. “The ones he kept, I mean, the ones he didn’t bury alive — he stripped their skin, and posed them at an exhibit in Florida called Body Works. No one had a clue. The public just assumed the bodies came from donors. They were unrecognizable.”
She nodded as a look of horror spread across her face. Then without saying another word Ben left.
Chapter Two
Ben drove on Mount Desert Street, which then changed into Eagle Park Road, and followed it west. He had been called out to the school numerous times over the past year. Mainly it was concern over Chloe not paying attention, speaking back to teachers, and at one time hitting another kid. She said the girl had stolen her camera. Unfortunately, they had nothing to go on and neither did Chloe. It didn’t help that the substitute teacher had waited until the end of the day to inform the principal of the incident, by then the kids had gone home.
He brought his window down and rested his elbow on the ledge of the window. A warm summer breeze blew in. He kept his speed to around forty-fifty miles an hour. They were a stickler on the island for the speed limit, and tickets were issued for going over by even a few miles per hour. He’d seen a cruiser partially hidden on Trent Road. They only had one unmarked squad car, and that was easy enough to spot as it sat lower than other vehicles due to all the gear they carried, and of course there were the lights behind the grille that were a complete giveaway.
One of Ben’s initial concerns in moving to Eden Falls was anonymity. He didn’t want everyone knowing. Very little got leaked to the media about who was involved in the Everglades case. A reporter by the name of Edwin Parker had hounded the FBI for details around the time the joint task force was set up. The guy was an insect who spent more time hiding in the woods trying to listen in on conversation than doing any real reporting.
For the past year Ben had picked up some work doing remote teaching with police officers and university students looking to understand the mind of a criminal. It didn’t pay well, but he still had his old property in Florida that he was renting out.
Ben heard the squeal of a siren; he glanced in his mirror then pulled to the side of the road as a cruiser blew past him. It made him uneasy. In his twenty years with the FBI he rarely found himself speeding to a crime scene except for that one time. Contrary to public opinion, car crashes were what killed most officers. A state of panic and too many vehicles on the road could mean certain death. Not that he hadn’t been in his fair share of high-speed pursuits back when he was a cop in Manhattan, but that was a long time ago.
He leaned back in his seat as the world rushed by him. Now he was taking things slowly. He ran a hand through his dark hair that was slowly turning grey. At forty-one he was beginning to show signs of aging. Fine lines at the corners of his eyes, and silver flecks at the sides of his temples. These were the years he was meant to be enjoying married life. Instead he was fighting to keep his head above water.
Reaching into the compartment beside him he fished out a pack of smokes. He’d given up five years ago, but he still kept them handy. He didn’t bother with electronic cigarettes; he had no need for them as he never lit these. He took out one and placed it between his lips. That was all he needed. In many ways he was addicted only to having one in hand, the urge to light was gone.
When he arrived at Eden Falls High School he parked
out front in the teachers’ parking area. Inside he passed a number of students going down the hall. All the lockers either side were green. There were a couple of students just beyond an exit door smoking. When he reached the main office, he went in and waited to be seen. The woman behind the desk was wearing a red shirt with yellow flowers on it. It was an eyesore but then again so were her shoes, which were bright red. A fat teacher came in and poured himself a coffee from the dregs that were left in a glass carafe.
A moment later, a slender, blond-haired woman who looked as if she was no more than thirty-five came out.
“Please come on in,” she said.
Ben followed her into an office. She closed the door. He caught a name on her desk. Meghan Wells, Guidance Counselor.
“What has she done now?”
“She didn’t show up today.”
The moment she said that fear crept over him. She had never missed school, never missed a lesson.
“But I dropped her off here myself.”
“Right, I understand, but quite often kids will wait until their parents have left before they leave.”
Ben jumped up. “I need to find her.”
“Mr. Forrester. I can assure you this is quite normal.” She lifted her eyebrows. “We have a number of students who are in the habit of not showing up. Most of them turn out to be in Acadia Park, or by the lake. Besides, Chloe’s friend informed us that’s where she would be. I thought it best you know and perhaps you can bring her in so we can all have a talk.”
“Where is she?”
Sixty percent of the island was forest; trying to find someone in there without any directions could take you forever. There had been many tourists who had wandered in there and got lost. After hearing those reports Ben had considered moving but Chloe was set on the idea of staying. She wanted to be close to her grandmother. Ben didn’t realize it yet but that wasn’t the only person she wanted to be close with.
“She said to start with Lookout Point,” Wells said.
Lookout Point faced Frenchman’s Bay. It was a place that a number of youngsters would go to and make out. The very mention of it sent Ben’s mind into overdrive.
“Uh, Mr. Forrester, I wondered if we could…” He didn’t catch the last thing she said as he was already on this way out the door.
Since arriving two years ago, Ben had become very protective of his daughter. He knew he couldn’t control every aspect of her life but it would have killed him if anything happened to her. She was all he had left. The anchor that was grounding him and keeping him from losing his mind. At seventeen she was bound to want to start seeing guys. He’d started earlier than that, but watching your kid grow up and giving them slack was tough, especially after the way he’d lost Elizabeth and Adam.
The red, 2003 Pontiac was parked at the far end of a road that had a beautiful view of the bay. Chloe had spent the better part of the day driving around the island with Jake Ashton. It had been the second day in two months that they had skipped school. With one year left and attendance that was almost perfect, she needed a day off from it all.
“God, you’re beautiful,” Jake said, running his left hand over her face and exploring her body with the other.
“Slow down, there’s no rush,” she said, squirming at his touch.
Jake peeked out the windows. “But there’s no one around. By the way, I have a little bit of…” He pulled out a small metal canister and shook it. “Rum and coke.”
“Where did you get that from?”
“My old man.”
“Jake, he’ll go nuts if he finds out.”
He blew his cheeks. “He won’t know. The guy is too drunk half the time to know where the bathroom is.”
He twisted off the cap and swigged, then handed it to Chloe. She had alcohol enough times, she took a drink and winced. “That’s it, get it down, yah.” He tipped it ever so gently as she brought it to her lips. A trickle went down the side of her cheek. He licked the side her face.
“Oh gross,” Chloe said. Jake just laughed and went back to biting the side of her neck which made her groan a little. When he started undoing her buttons and running his hand underneath her skirt, she began to feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been with a guy before but she wasn’t ready to have sex in a car out in the open.
“Come on, Chloe. How long have we been seeing each other?”
“I could ask you the same thing. It’s not that I don’t want to. I just want it to be…”
“Perfect? Oh please, that crap is overrated. Get ’em off.”
Jake started tugging at her underpants.
“Jake. Listen. Not now.”
But he wasn’t hearing a single word she was saying. In fact, he was so engrossed in kissing and trying to get her clothes off that he didn’t hear the truck pull up behind them. By this point she was shoving him trying to get him off. He pressed her hands down and had this wild look in his eyes. He had to have been twice her size and weight. Seeing he wasn’t taking no for an answer, she took the one opportunity she had and kneed him in the groin, then followed through with a palm to the nose. He let out a lungful of air, gasped, and grabbed his nose which was dripping blood all over the place. Then like a sudden storm his demeanour changed real quick.
He cursed and forced her arms down when the door opened and he was yanked backwards. Chloe didn’t know what was more embarrassing — having her father find her with a guy or seeing him toss the kid like a sack of potatoes.
“What the hell?” Jake mumbled while cupped his face.
Her father shot her a glance. “Chloe. In the truck now.”
“Oh for god’s sake, Dad, I could handle it.”
“Yeah, you really looked like you were handling it.”
Her father slammed the door, and they left Jake cowering on the ground nursing a bloodied nose.
Chapter Three
The journey home was filled with silence. Ben had peppered her with questions but she refused to answer beyond a nod or a grunt. Ben parked the truck, hopped out, and watched Chloe run into the house. He’d be lucky if he could pull her out of her room for supper. She was wise to his negotiation and interview skills — mirroring body language, matching the same tone of voice. She left the door open and Jinx, their four-year-old German shepherd, came bounding out.
They had got her when she was just an eight-week-old pup. That first month was like hell on earth. It was harder than raising a child. Although the first year felt like a baptism by fire, her training with a local trainer had gone well, and she soon became a great companion that offered protection at night, and friendship by day. She wagged her tail and came up and started sniffing at his pant leg. She always did that. Once satisfied that he’d not been with any other dogs she walked beside him back into the house, occasionally giving him a look as if she could sense trouble.
“Yep, I know, but she doesn’t listen, Jinx.”
That’s what conversation in this town had amounted to, a one-way meaningful discussion with a dog and one hour twice a week with a therapist. He desperately needed some real adult conversation.
Inside, he poured himself a scotch on the rocks and put on some Bach. It wasn’t that he liked classical music, in fact he rarely listened to it before he came to Eden Falls. Usually he opted for blues, Muddy Waters, or Buddy Guy, but there was something very soothing about it. He took his computer and took a seat in the sunroom. It was one of his favorite places to sit and watch the sun rise and set over the harbor.
He had to be online at three with the University of Massachusetts to give a talk to students majoring in criminology and criminal justice. It was one of the few universities that let students take a course in counterterrorism. The talks weren’t usually long. Two hours at most. It paid okay, and allowed him to not have to step out of the house that much. He would dive into assessing human behavior more than anything else. They all wanted to know the secret. What was the trick to catching a killer? He would tell them the same thing every ti
me.
There was no trick. You had to be willing to go into the darkest recesses of your mind and think like them. Profiling helped but there was no guarantee. You had to be willing to let a case become an obsession.
Most of the universities got in touch with him through his publisher. Prior to taking an extended leave from the FBI he’d published a few books on psychology, criminal profiling, and tracking serial killers.
Jinx padded into the sunroom and curled up around Ben’s feet. After getting done with the lecture, he turned on the television and flipped through the news channels. It had become routine. With Henri Bruns still out there, he knew murders wouldn’t stop. However, reports of hikers going missing were a common occurrence. The National Park Service didn’t have a centralized database of people who went missing. It was the reason why Henri had managed to stay off the radar for so long. It came down to a few things: manpower issues, cost and the amount of time it would take. Most, if not all the disappearances would gain a small, short-lived amount of media attention. A search party would go out for five to eight days at most and then it would be called off. It was only when a couple of hikers found the remains of one of Bruns’s victims after a flash flood that the FBI was called in. In many ways he had the perfect hunting ground. National parks were vast, full of bears and mountain lions. If a person hadn’t died from being attacked by animals, the elements would get them.
Ben did a search for recent disappearances. A few came up on the West Coast, two in Yellowstone, one in Oregon, and another on the Appalachian Trail. The problem was these were just a few. There were others. There were always others. Those that would never make news sites. It was the randomness of it all. Certainly, some of them were legitimate cases of people who had wandered too far, taken a wrong turn, or been attacked by animals but it was the ones who hadn’t. That was what had kept him up late at night as he pored over reports. Ben took a sip of his scotch and felt the blissful burn as he swallowed. He cast a glance out at the tall pines that framed his home. He got up and walked into the garage. There it was sticking out of a box. It was a corkboard that he’d used when the case was first opened. On it was a map of the United States with pins pressed into every area where someone had gone missing. While they were spread out, the bulk of the disappearances were in clusters in and around the Everglades.