Variable Onset

by Layla Reyne

  Lincoln hustled to catch up. “Do you get treatment at the county hospital?”

  He nodded.

  “Is there a support group? Like a weekly or monthly meeting? I had a friend in grad school—”

  He continued to nod. “Yeah, yeah we do, meets once a month.”

  “Is Chancellor McCullough in that group?”

  Jeremiah stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes impossibly wider. “He leads it.”

  “Fuck.” Lincoln ran ahead to their workroom and promptly cursed himself for anger-straightening everything after the blowup with Carter. “Where did I put the Baxter photos?”

  Jeremiah zoomed past him to the other table. “Over here.”

  “Not those. That’s the stack with the gray-haired men. We’re looking for the ones we tossed out of that stack.”

  “I put them on the cart to refile. Just a second.” He raced out into the general archives room and down an aisle.

  Lincoln moved to run after him, but O’Shea’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Explain, Agent Monroe.”

  “Carter and I noticed a high incidence of premature gray hair, particularly among people whose families go back generations here in Apex.”

  “Jeremiah included,” Jo said.

  Lincoln nodded. “Given the isolated nature of the core group of residents here, we posited it was a founder variant.”

  “And the Crohn’s connection?” O’Shea asked.

  “When we ran Jeremiah’s hair sample, we noticed a frameshift variant in his DNA that’s associated with a higher susceptibility for Crohn’s disease. That frameshift variant, like the premature gray hair, can be multiplied by the founder effect. There’s a higher incidence of both here in Apex.”

  “But McCullough has dark hair.”

  “Dr. Fear’s hair is dyed, according to that sample from the house. The true color is gray. Baxter told Carter that Dr. Fear rejected himself.” Lincoln flicked his bangs. “McCullough dyed his hair, tried to blend in, climbed higher in the university hierarchy, kept pushing down his fear of being trapped, and stretching out the time between cycles, denying himself victims even as he was in the hospital monthly. The place he’d identified each of his victims. Fuck, can you—”

  O’Shea was already on his phone. “Drake, pull the hospital records again. Check for Ryan McCullough instead of the Petticoats.”

  He almost collided again with Jeremiah, who was rushing back into the workroom, a bucket folder in one hand, a stack of papers in the other. He held the papers out to Lincoln first. “This is the cross-check we ran of Apex U employees who were here during each of Dr. Fear’s cycles and when Baxter was here.”

  Lincoln passed the papers to Jo. “Check for Ryan.”

  Jeremiah thrust the folder at Lincoln next. “These are the photos. I think I already spotted one.”

  Lincoln stepped to the nearest table and dumped the photos out. “Before, we were looking for a gray-haired man with Baxter. We tossed these out without carefully—”

  “Right there.” Jeremiah had his finger on one of the photos, on the dark-haired man next to Jeff Baxter. “That’s Chancellor McCullough.”

  Lincoln found a second and third. He pulled the three pictures directly in front of him and pushed the other photos aside. He focused on the middle of the two pictures, the one in which McCullough and Baxter looked colder and stiffer toward each other than in the other two photos. Behind and around them in the shot, items were knocked over and displaced, like there’d been an altercation before someone had told them to smile for the camera.

  “He knew what Baxter was doing,” Lincoln said, tying it back to his earlier theory. “Ryan wasn’t a meth addict. He knew what Baxter was doing, or planning, and he was in that meth house to haul him out. And when it got out of hand, he called Larry.”

  “Who has been covering up ever since,” Jo said. “Ryan’s on this list. And those binges he was supposedly on correspond with these dates.”

  “How did you know they were binges?”

  “I confronted Larry about it. He didn’t deny it.” She lifted a hand to cover her mouth. “It was a cover. He knew about both of them.”

  “I did.”

  Everyone spun toward the voice in the doorway, and before Lincoln could blink, O’Shea and Jo were in front of him and Jeremiah, shoulder to shoulder, weapons drawn.

  Larry raised his hands. Defensive cuts bisected his palms and forearms, and the chief moved like every bone in his body hurt. Lincoln bet there were bruises, maybe more cuts, beneath his dark uniform.

  “I tried to stop him,” Larry said. “Then and last night. I thought it was over. I thought seeing what Baxter did would be enough to stop him.” Shoulders shaking, Larry covered his face with his hands and fell against the doorframe. “I never could. And now he has my family.” He looked up at Lincoln, tears pooling in his eyes. “And yours. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Georgia, you waking up finally?”

  Carter groaned and rolled onto his back, or rather, tried to. His cuffed hands dug against his spine, preventing him from lying flat, forcing him back onto his sore hip. “How long—” He winced, his voice too loud and too rough, like sandpaper scraping over a megaphone. He cleared his throat, licked his lips, and started again. “How long have I been out?”

  Lingering aromas of coffee and flour floated closer. “Try again, Georgia,” Barry said. “Can’t hear you.”

  Apparently volume was just a problem in his own pounding head. He braced for the pain and raised his voice. “How long have I been out?”

  “Guessin’ about twelve hours. Was dark when he moved us in here. Ain’t now.”

  No, it sure as fuck wasn’t. Sunlight burned through Carter’s eyelids, an anvil right to the brain. He turned his face into his shoulder, trying and failing to hide from it. “Where the fuck are we?”

  “You don’t sound like you’re from Georgia,” Trudy said.

  Because with his head splitting in two, it took too much effort to mask his accent. “I’m not. This is what I really sound like.”

  “You ain’t who you pretended to be,” Barry said.

  “You’d figured that out already.”

  “Barry,” Trudy said, volume blessedly lower. “Don’t interrogate the poor boy. He’s clearly in pain.”

  “He’s ex-army and some sort of cop,” Barry correctly surmised. “He’s probably had his bell rung before.”

  “I have.” He was a combat vet. He’d had his bell rung multiple times over. Didn’t make this particular ringing any less painful. “And I am.”

  “DEA?” Barry guessed. “You here about the meth heads?”

  “FBI. Special Agent Carter Warren.” Eyes still closed, Carter rolled onto his other side, still trying to escape the sun. “And I’m here about the serial killer that’s been hiding in Apex for twenty-five years.”

  “Dr. Fear, right? That’s who Ryan is?”

  “Yeah.” The sun was still chasing him. “Why haven’t you busted the window yet? Tried to escape?”

  “One, because we’re tied up too. And two, because it’s a skylight.”

  “Fuck.” He rolled onto his belly, dug his forehead into the floor, and used his abs to draw his knees up under him. He sat back on his bound feet and rested there, head hung, catching his breath and waiting for the world to stop spinning, for the pain and dizziness to subside.

  Sedative, plus concussion. The former was entered into willingly; the latter was an accident. He hadn’t meant to hit his head on the kitchen island as he’d passed out. Up until then, it’d all proceeded according to plan. The one Carter had devised the moment he’d opened the door to Chancellor Ryan McCullough and realized that he’d been one party removed from the real Dr. Fear when he’d confronted Lawrence Petticoat.

  Carter had made a decisio
n in that instant: to let Ryan into the house. And then he’d kept making them: letting Ryan brew the coffee, drinking it, and continuing to chat about how much he’d already come to love Apex, all while the blackness at the edges of his vision encroached. And when only a pinpoint of focus remained, he’d struck a deal with a killer, all with the intention of ending up right here.

  He lifted his head and eked open his eyes, one at a time, moderating the onslaught of light-inflicted pain. Once it subsided, he slowly took in the big building. A-frame roof with skylights, open space from end to end, stables at the far end of the space but no sounds or smells of horses. Just some old farm equipment shoved up against one wall. Otherwise, the space was empty, save for the man and woman tied to the poles across from him. “We’re in a barn,” Carter said.

  “Which is a fucking relief. Moved us up from the basement under here last night when he brought you in.”

  “Whose property is this?”

  “Belonged to the Johnsons,” Trudy said. “We all played here when we were kids.”

  “Old man Johnson died in October,” Barry continued. “Kids sold the property. Pretty penny as it’s on the lake. The new owner is some science professor, but he doesn’t get here until summer.”

  “Let me guess, crystallography?”

  “That sounds right.”

  Ryan hadn’t ordered all that equipment to woo a professor. The professor had already signed; it had been ready and waiting. And if Ryan had been watching over that... “Who’s watching this place until the new owner gets here?”

  Barry laughed, unamused. “I’ll give you one guess.”

  “Chancellor McCullough.”

  Trudy shivered, and Barry strained at his ropes, desperate to comfort his wife. “Just hang on, baby.”

  Pain sliced through Carter. Not his head, but his heart. Imagining what the past twelve hours must have been like for Lincoln. Regretting the blowup at the library. Hoping like hell Lincoln would forgive him for all this, assuming they survived it.

  “At least we’re out of the basement,” Barry said. “Better than it’s been the past two days.”

  “Which of you is claustrophobic?” Carter asked.

  “Me,” Barry replied. “Fell down a mine shaft when I was a kid.”

  “Chancellor McCullough know that?”

  “Was on his daddy’s property.” Barry leaned his head back against the pole. “Never would have suspected this.”

  “Did your brother?”

  When Barry kept staring at the ceiling, Trudy replied, “It explains some things. Larry and Ryan were always close, growing up. But a while back, things changed. There was more tension between them, not the same easy friendship. It got worse when Ryan was named chancellor, which didn’t make sense. Ryan had been working hard for that, we had this big party, and those two were in the kitchen fightin’.”

  “Larry thought it would trigger him,” Barry said, righting his gaze. “That’s what y’all call it, right?”

  Carter nodded. “He picks his victims at the hospital.”

  Trudy gasped.

  Barry explained this time. “He has Crohn’s. He’s there once a month for a support group.”

  The prescription, which he’d taken pictures of, which were on the phone he’d hidden for Lincoln to find. Assuming he had, Lincoln was brilliant enough to put all this together.

  “He picks victims who are passing through,” Carter continued. “Follows them on to DC where he escapes for a week, as Dr. Fear.”

  “Larry moving in there’s what did it this time, wasn’t it?”

  “That would make sense,” Carter said. “The pressure to escape was too much, with Larry there looking after him, which he can’t be every moment, as chief.”

  Barry coughed, a distinctly waterlogged sound. “Aw, Christ, Larry.”

  “Ryan was his best friend, Bartholomew,” Trudy said, now trying to comfort him. “He was just trying to help. And after he’d lost so much the past few years, he didn’t want to lose—”

  Her words died as tires crunched over gravel, a car rumbling to a stop outside the barn doors. Time was running out.

  “Listen,” Carter said, scooting closer to Barry and Trudy, and lowering his voice. “I made a deal with him last night. Me and Lincoln first.”

  “First?” Trudy said.

  “We know who he is,” Barry said, mournful eyes turned to his wife. “He wasn’t gonna let us go.” He shifted those same sad eyes to Carter. “You think you can stop him?”

  “I think Lincoln can.”

  “He smart enough to figure all this out?”

  He’d figured out part of it already. That Larry wasn’t Dr. Fear. He just had to make the connection to Ryan. He’d get there, Carter was sure of it. “He’s the smartest person I know.”

  Metal clanked against metal. Someone outside was rattling a lock. Loosening a chain.

  “Why you doin’ this, Georgia?”

  “I’m an FBI agent.” He pushed up on his knees, shook off the last of the fog, and angled toward the door, in front of Barry and Trudy, between them and the killer just outside. “This is what I do.”

  “He fucks with you,” Barry said. “Tries to get in your head.”

  “He’s Dr. Fear. It’s what he’s known for.”

  The barn doors swung open.

  “You can’t let him. You have to stay strong, son.”

  Carter swayed, the impact of those words hitting him in the chest and gut. Not the same swooping sensation Lincoln caused, but the same sense of rightness. Of belonging. He glanced over his shoulder. He owed these people the truth, his gratitude. “It’s not just my job. I like it here. I feel like I could belong.”

  “You’d be welcome,” Trudy said, smiling through her tears.

  Unhinged laughter drew their attention the opposite direction, to the man standing in front of Carter holding a baseball bat. The man with dark hair and gray stubble dusting his cheeks. Carter forced himself still despite the terror coursing through him.

  “You’re wrong,” Chancellor McCullough sneered. “This one doesn’t belong anywhere.” The whoosh of aluminum cutting through air, the crush of bone, silenced any retort. Silenced Carter.

  * * *

  Voices nearby. One pleading, one angry.

  The argument drew Carter out of the darkness, beyond the searing pain in his head and arm, and toward consciousness. The warmth on his face and side—sun, he thought, more directly than before, was he outside?—cautioned against opening his eyes, the threat of more splintering pain on the horizon. So he remained still, eyes closed, listening to the voices and the soft lapping of water from the other direction—the lake, outside, yes—and fighting the urge to curl over his broken arm, though something he couldn’t quite piece together yet told him he couldn’t.

  “It’s over, Ryan.” The pleading one.

  Carter knew that voice. His brain churned around and through the pain. The chief. Larry.

  “The feds know it’s you,” Larry said. “They’ll be here any minute.”

  A flash of clarity—stark and bright. Lincoln was coming for him.

  “Because you told them!” Ryan, the chancellor, the angry one.

  The sneer. The truth. The bat. Pain spiked through Carter’s arm, his side, his head, where Ryan had delivered his blows. His heart. Darkness threatened again. He struggled to resist it, to understand what was going on around him. He had to. This was his job. Had to prove himself to Lincoln. Lincoln was coming.

  “He and the professor agent figured it out,” Larry said. “But if you’ll just turn yourself in, maybe I can...”

  “What can you do, Lawrence? Nothing. I have to finish this.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave? After the last time. After Jeff. Why didn’t you just leave like I told you to?”

  “I was getting better
. Going longer. I might not have ever needed to escape again, if Jeff hadn’t gone and ruined it. If you hadn’t lied to me. I just needed to finish my work.” Except Jeff had interfered, had exposed the lie—that Ryan was covering up his true self, his fears—and now the ordered Dr. Fear was at an impasse. “Now I have no choice,” Ryan said, dark and ominous.

  “What are you going to do?” Larry asked. “Why’s he in a vest?”

  Was that what was holding him up? That extra weight around his middle? What kind of vest? He’d try to sneak a peek through his lashes except his eyelids were still heavy, the sun still threatening, and the voices had moved closer, growing louder in volume.

  “Escape, for good,” Ryan said.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “One way or the other.”

  The smirk in his voice was evident. The expression on his face must have been devastating—deadly—because Larry returned to pleading, desperation heightened. “Ryan, no, please.” His words shook, and Carter would bet the chief was on the verge of tears. “We can make this better. I can help somehow.”

  “Aww, Lawrence.” The light slap of skin on skin, as if Ryan was patting his best friend’s cheek. “Always trying to do right, no matter how much the world continues to shit on you.”

  “You’re family, Ryan.”

  “But I’m not. Not really.” Footsteps approaching, the sun dimming, someone blocking its rays. “Just like this one will never be anyone’s family. Never good enough.”

  Carter couldn’t suppress the jolt at the spoken truth. The footsteps ceased. Ryan, he’d bet, was close enough that Carter could hear him breathing.

  Fuck.

  “You should be with your family, Larry.” Ryan descended to his level, the last word spoken right next to Carter’s ear.

  “Ryan, no!”

  And then he was gone. “Get off me!”

  Punches, a scuffle. Carter risked a look. The two men were fighting, battling for Larry’s pistol. Carter had to get up. Try to help. Try to stop Dr. Fear. He moved to lean forward and was drawn back by pain in his arm and ropes around his wrists. He was tied to something. Wood, but not big enough to be a tree. A fence post? Maybe if he could get his feet under him, with enough force he could break the ropes, or the post, or get his arms up and off over it. He’d just have to push through the pain. He looked down, to check if his feet were tied, and froze at the sight around his middle.