Lisette shot him a sharp look, which he ignored. “So I’m betting he’s pretty important to you. Who is he? Ex co-worker? Cousin? Childhood friend?” He paused as Heckles’s mouth twitched. “A childhood friend. Makes sense. Those bonds can be unbreakable.”
“I never said it was. You know I never said that.” Heckles leaned into the tape recorder between them. “I never said that. I want that on the record.”
“You didn’t have to say it. Your face gave it away. You know, I’d think if this man really cared about you, he wouldn’t let you go down for his crimes.”
Lisette snapped her fingers in Heckles’s face, which he promptly aimed at his knuckles. “You know what that means, don’t you, dumbass? Means all we have to do is dig through your sad, fucked-up little life, and we’ll find him. And when we do, it’ll only get worse for you. Want to know why? Because you didn’t cooperate. Because you made us go in circles, wasted our time. And if he abducts and kills two more girls in the meantime, guess what that means for you? It means their blood’s on your hands, and it’ll never wash off. You might as well have killed them yourself.”
Heckles shook his head so vigorously John rather thought he’d loosen a few screws. “I would never kill anyone. Murder is a mortal sin.”
Lisette snorted and propped one foot up on the table. “Is corpse-fucking not a sin? It’s been awhile since I’ve gone to mass.”
“That holy water you’re soaking in is poisoned, Mr. Heckles. You’re in as deep as your partner. And now it looks like you’re going to be the only one on the hook paying the price. I hope he’s worth it.”
“Your mother liked to garden, didn’t she, Stan?”
Both John and Heckles swung their heads to examine Lisette and her slick, newly-acquired poker face.
“I—uh—yes?”
Her gold brow furrowed. “You don’t sound very sure. Did she or didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
Lisette elbowed John in the ribcage. “See? Progress. He actually looked me in the eye that time. Stan, I’m thinking if she liked to garden, you probably do, too. See, my dad loved baseball. Taught me how to play before I could walk, practically. I have a godson; he’s five. You know what I do with him on weekends?”
Heckles’s eyes flicked over to John, begging for the answer, but received none. “Uh…baseball?”
“Right. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that my witness smelled potting soil on the man who dumped her. Everyone in this room knows that man was you. Save us some time and fucking cop to it.”
A harried looking woman in a rumpled suit-skirt bustled through the door just as Heckles had opened his mouth again.
“Not another word.” She unpacked a battered briefcase and looked up at Lisette. “This interview is over, and you’d better turn those cameras off on your way out.” She stabbed the pause button on the tape recorder and tossed it to John.
Lisette stood and threw her hair over her shoulder. “Good luck. Units are searching your house. If you’ve got any jewelry from the girls on your property you’re as good as dead.”
The public defender adjusted a pair of spectacles on the bridge of her nose and squinted at the documents spread on the table. “We’ll be in touch if we have anything more to say.”
THIRTY-NINE
Seeing her, seeing what he did to her, is a million times worse than what I’ve imagined.
And he’s going to make me watch while he kills her.
It feels like I’m standing in the middle of the sun. The walls and floor are white granite, so much brighter with the overhead lights exploding off of them.
As soon as light floods the room, Abby twitches in the heap she’s curled in. A mass of matted dark blonde hair waves around the red, raw skin on her shoulders, falling into her face. Dust and dirt clings to pus oozing from open burns blanketing her rib cage. It’s visible through charred scraps of her shirt.
I drop to my knees, my hand hovering in the air. Where can I touch her that won’t be excruciating? I lift her hair and wish I hadn’t—even sleeping looks painful. Her face is tight, near-translucent skin stretching over the bones in her skull.
Her lids glisten with sweat as they flutter, aimless eyeballs rolling behind them, but they don’t open. Her chin tilts toward my voice. “What’s…” she trails off and licks lips crusted with blood. “What’s happening?”
I should lie. Tell her I have no clue. I can’t tell her she’s about to die. How can I word it coherently?
Her eyes are glazed when she wrenches them open. It’s so bright I can’t make out what color they are, though my face can’t be further than an inch away. One pupil is twice the size of the other.
She blinks rapidly when a trickle of perspiration slides through the gaps of her spiked eyelashes. “Brooke?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
The boneless sack her body’s become quivers. “I don’t think I can take anymore.”
What’s left of my composure splinters into a thousand worthless pieces. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“You look the way I imagined,” she says, smiling. How can that smile look so sincere with all those tears in her eyes? “I was worried you were only an imaginary friend for a while. Like I made you up to keep me company.”
I feel imaginary. See-through and not really there, barely existing, or a jigsaw puzzle that’s missing pieces. And I don’t even know what the picture is supposed to look like anymore.
I wonder what it is she’s seeing through pupils so mismatched. I should smile back, just to prolong the charade, but I can’t.
“Is it time?”
My voice cracks. “Yes. I think so.”
“Good.”
In what universe?
I don’t want to watch this.
His voice pulses overhead. “She’s right. It’s time.”
I push myself up to stand and gaze at the cobwebs crisscrossing the granite ceiling. “Then what the hell are you waiting for?”
“We’re waiting on you.”
“What do you want? My blessing?”
“No.” He draws out the word like it has three syllables. “I want you to get down to business. I gave you everything you need.”
My gaze falls to the floor, where a hammer’s pronged, silver head winks in a pool of dried blood.
I take hasty steps backward until slamming into the wall. “No. I’m not doing that. You can’t make me.”
“Can’t I?”
I shake my head. “No. I won’t. If you want it done, do it yourself.”
“That’s not how it works. You’ll stay down here until you decide to do what’s expected.”
I glare at the red dot on one camera in the corner. “You’ll kill me whether I do it or not. Either way I’m dead. I won’t help by doing your dirty work.”
“It’s your choice whether you live or die, but you won’t die by my hand. I’m not going to touch you.”
Something weak and clammy clutches my ankle. My first wild thought is it’s a demon reaching to yank me into the pit of hell, but it’s Abby.
“Please. Just do it.”
My spine drags down the wall until I hit the floor. I bury my head between my knees, speaking to the old brown blood beneath me. “I can’t.”
“You have to. I want you to live.” Her hand is feather-light as it runs up my thigh. “You have your baby. Jack. Your life’s worth more than mine. If you won’t do it for them, do it for me. I can’t take any more.”
This is all so disgusting, so unforgivable and wrong.
My stomach lurches when a cheesy laugh track blares.
FORTY
“All right.” John cracked his neck and quit his pacing at the head of LAPD Homicide Division’s conference room, where a handful of detectives Lisette chose for the task force sat listening. “This is only a working profile I’ve constructed from all I’ve learned so far. It will change as more information comes to my attention.
“We’ve all seen neighbor interviews over the years wh
en they say, “I had no idea my neighbor was slicing people up and keeping jarred penises in his fridge. He was so nice, always helped me with my groceries.’ With this man, that won’t be the case. He can put on a front with acquaintances but people who know him well will know something is off about him. I doubt they’d come to the right conclusions, but he’ll be someone they’re never able to be comfortable around.”
“I’m not comfortable around Lisette. Does this mean she’s got jarred penises in her fridge?” a young-looking detective with gel-slicked hair stage-whispered to his neighbor.
“If you don’t shut the fuck up, you’ll find out,” Lisette snapped.
John wanted to laugh, but figured he ought to show some restraint. “The abductions started three and a half months ago. Something happened to him around that time. Yes, he’s always been odd, but until three months ago, he—or someone else— kept him in check. Maybe a close family member died; the one person who had any semblance of control over him. His girlfriend broke up with him, he got divorced—some personal upheaval or sudden life change. It’ll be something big, not the loss of a dog or some such.”
“Getting married ruined my life. Divorce was the best thing that happened to me,” a white-haired and suited detective offered.
“If I was your wife I’d have spiked your coffee with roach poison, Roderick,” Lisette barked, leaning over the desk in the corner. “If you ask me, you got off easy.”
“I’m putting his age between twenty-five and fifty-five,” John continued, speaking over the blossoming argument. He didn’t get paid an entire eighty-five thousand dollars a year to police schoolyard fights. “I don’t think he’s some evil genius—the way the media likes to portray serial offenders—but I don’t think he’s stupid, either. For as random as the abductions seem, they’ve happened in places with low foot-traffic, no security cameras, no nosy neighbors. He must have put some time into staking out the abduction sites, if not the targets. He also seems to have a day job from what Brooke’s reported, and it’s probably a position of power. He won’t take direction well, and it’s unlikely he’s got any sort of close, true friends.”
“Seems to have gotten along fine with Stanley Heckles,” a man named Holmes, whom Lisette had introduced as her sometimes partner, commented.
“Stanley Heckles is more a pawn than a partner. He’s someone who responds well to direction and is ostensibly obedient. He hasn’t been compensated for his help, unless he accepts payment in the form of female corpses.”
Lisette ran both hands over her face and piped up. “This guy keeps his face covered at all times with a ski mask, even when his back is to the camera. Brooke Dutton never once saw his face, which makes it seem to me like he’s got an identity to cover. Brooke said his voice seemed familiar, though she’s sure he’s not a customer at the restaurant where she works, not a DJ she listens to, not the news anchors she sees on TV every day. It could be someone she’s met before.”
“So the three day waiting period doesn’t mean anything?” Foster asked, squinting at the images on the projector. “I guess he’d want a break every now and then.”
Time to cool off; float down from Cloud Nine, more like.
“It could be for many reasons,” John said. “Maybe he needs downtime; maybe he’s got a regular out-of-town meeting. One thing I think may ruffle his feathers is the fact that Brooke Dutton hasn’t killed herself. The suicides of the other survivors happened within hours of being found. A man like this wants everything planned, plotted down to the finest detail. It seems he’d have taken measures to ensure they happen.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know she didn’t?” Foster said. “The other suicides weren’t publicized, so it could be possible they’re pure coincidence.”
John didn’t believe in coincidences, but he didn’t share that with the group. “I’ll update the profile whenever new information is given,” he said before waving his hands in dismissal.
Lisette made no move to leave as the rest of the group filed out. Her face was glum when she looked up from the screen of her phone to John. “No trophies in Heckles’s house. He didn’t have time to get rid of them, so they were never there to start with.”
He drummed his long fingers along the edges of the podium. “No childhood friends that Stacy could find, either. Seems like he’s been a loner his whole life, on paper at least. But there’s someone out there, pulling the strings. If it’s not a friend, it’s someone he feels indebted to. No other reason he’d take such a huge risk.”
She blew out a sigh. “I fucking hate square one.”
FORTY-ONE
“You had to do it. It wasn’t your fault. You’d still be there if you hadn’t. You and the baby would be dead.”
“So that makes it okay?”
Jack looks at me for one hell of an endless minute and chooses his words carefully. “It makes it forgivable. She was in so much pain. What do you do when you see an animal in that much pain?”
I give him my what? face.
“You put it out of its misery.”
“She wasn’t a fucking animal.” I sound more and more like Sergeant Lisette with each hour. “She was a person—a good person—and she’s dead because I whacked her in the head with a hammer. You guys keep acting like it was fine or some perfectly reasonable thing to do.”
“You know I didn’t mean she was an animal. It was supposed to be a metaphor.” He sighs, the heaviest one I’ve heard him give yet. “And she would have died anyway. You limited her suffering, at most. Nobody survives burns like those. It was a miracle she lasted as long as you said she did.”
“What kind of person burns someone over and over and laughs?”
He looks at me like I’m being rhetorical.
“You’ve done psych rotations. What is he? I want to know. Because that guy in there wasn’t crazy. He was evil. And they’re completely separate things.”
“I can’t diagnose someone I’ve never seen. Oncology is a long way from psychiatry, and I’ve only done a few psych rotations.”
I slap my hand on the bedrail. “You’re a doctor, for God’s sake. You have to have an idea.”
He runs his hand through his hair and covers his face with it. “A psychopathic sadist.”
I cross my arms over my hospital gown. “Didn’t seem that hard to put a name to it.”
“Do you think I want to imagine my pregnant girlfriend being holed up with someone like that? Jesus, Brooke.”
We’re silent again. He’s back to holding my hands in one of his, so he can’t be too angry—but I am.
Denial, exit stage left. Anger, you’re up.
I can’t spend one more minute in the hospital. There’s nothing wrong with me, and I don’t plan on killing myself, so why am I being held captive? Again? If I was going to go crazy, wouldn’t it have happened by now?
“I want to get out of here.”
He raises his eyebrow.
“This room is suffocating,” I say. I don’t want to stay here and let people scrutinize and dissect my every move. I’ve been watched enough. “I want to go home. Can’t you tell them you need to take me home?”
He clenches my hand, his grip as tight as the smile he wears. “I’ll talk to the doctor making rounds. I don’t know if he’ll release you, though. You’ve been here less than two days.”
I lean back into the pillows, cinching my eyes shut so I don’t have to look at the claustrophobic white walls. I’m sick of breathing this antiseptic oxygen. “They can’t keep me here forever. I’m not sick. I’m not a danger to myself or others. The baby’s fine. They’ve given me prenatal vitamins. What more do they want?”
“They may want to observe you a little longer. Run more tests.”
“No more tests.” My veins have been poked and prodded enough. The thought of another needle in my arm makes my pitch spike. “I’m done with this place. I can’t breathe in here.”
“I’ll see what he says. He might release you if I’m home to watch you.”
<
br /> “I’m not a child,” I snap. “I don’t need to be babysat.”
He’s not perplexed by my harshness, and it makes me feel worse. I shouldn’t take frustration out on him. It’s not his fault. “How are you able to be here right now? What about work?”
“Brooke.” He shakes his head, the expression on his face almost fond. “They know what’s happened. They don’t expect me to come to work a day after you were found.”
“What about the bills?” We have so many. I haven’t thought about them in three weeks, but the enormity of them crashes over my head. There’s a baby to think about now. We can’t feed a baby leftover Ramen and Diet Coke, which is all we had in the fridge last I looked. There’s only—I do the math—seven months left to get everything in shape.
“I can defer on student loans. It’ll free up more money, and we have enough in savings to get by for a few months, at least. Until you get back on your feet.”
We’re going to be in over our heads, I can feel it already. “Please, just get me out of here.”
He studies me for a moment and stands. “I’ll hunt someone down and ask when you can be discharged.”
He’s halfway at the door when turns on his heel and comes back. He cups my face in both his hands and presses his forehead into mine. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Shoveling those words out of my throat takes effort.
“We’ll be fine. I’m always going to take care of you.”
He leaves on his quest to find someone in a lab coat, and I wonder if Abby’s husband ever told her the same thing.
FORTY-TWO
“Very odd, the pattern of threes.” John leaned back in the spare chair across the desk from Lisette, staring at the popcorn ceiling. “They could mean everything. Or they could mean nothing.”
He could be sticking to a theme of threes to lend false importance to the number. Throw off investigations, make authorities chase their tales trying to force unconnected puzzle pieces together.
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