by Stacy Green
“To be a vigilante.”
I nodded. “But this is about you. Why did you start following me?”
He sat back down again, this time on a chocolate-colored seteé that looked like a great place to curl up and read. “You know how many times I’ve heard my uncle say that people like Justin are destined to be monsters? How many cases of abused kids he’s dealt with who turn out to be abusers themselves?” He passed a shaking hand over his hair. “I was just a little kid when I saw that girl in the barn. But there was so much more. Memories I blocked out that only came back years later, in flashes. Things that I witnessed…” Chris looked up at me with pleading eyes. “Lucy, I’m no different than Justin. And if he’s destined to be a killer, then shouldn’t I be too?”
I caught my breath. So this was his issue. And it was valid. What could I say? “Plenty of abused people go on to lead healthy lives.”
He took a tremulous breath. “You don’t know what I’ve seen. It’s not just the girl in the barn–Jenna. I have this memory of another girl. She’s got dark brown hair. She’s in the barn, too. And she’s begging me for help. There’s blood on her face and between her legs. I know she’s not very old. She had braces. And a locket with the initial ‘S.’ on it. My father is in the background, laughing.” His voice cracked. “I think I saw more girls.”
I felt a hot ball of sickness in the pit of my stomach. “It might not be a real memory,” I said, feeling desperate. “You could have read about the case, and your mind filled in the blanks.”
“I remembered this when I was seven. That’s the same year I heard my uncle say he’d be surprised if I didn’t grow up a sociopath.” He laughed, bitter and short. “I always hoped he was wrong, but I don’t think he was. There are days I don’t feel anything. And I don’t want anyone in my life unless I can benefit from them. As for why I followed you, I really just wanted to talk to you at first.”
He took his glasses off, rubbing them vigorously. He cleared his throat, and I gave him the time to get control over his emotions. I didn’t want to see him cry any more than he wanted to cry in front of me. “I wanted to tell you who I was. And what I’m so afraid of.”
“Of being like your father?” I finally stepped away from the door and into the room, closing the distance between us. I leaned against the bar stool he’d abandoned.
“Of being nothing. Nothing but a product of my past. I wanted to know if you really believed we don’t have a choice in who we are. I wanted you to tell me the difference between me and Justin. And then I realized what you were doing after I saw you at that scene. And I wanted to be like you. I thought, if I could take out the trash like you do, then maybe I’d fulfill my destiny in a way that didn’t hurt innocent people. That maybe I wouldn’t end up being…nothing.”
I blinked against the tears welling up at his words. They hit too close to home. “You’ve never killed anyone.”
He shook his head.
“You’re not a sociopath, not that I ever really believed you were. Sociopaths are coldly rational; they don’t feel empathy. They either fake it or feel sorry for themselves, but not for anyone else. They’re pathological liars, and manipulating people comes natural to them.” A sharp needle of cold pierced through my calm. I could have been describing myself.
I couldn’t think about that right now.
“Then what am I?”
“Someone with a lot of baggage, like most of humanity.” I didn’t know what comfort to offer, or even if I should. “Do you remember anything else?”
He looked back down at the floor. “I don’t want to talk about that now. I should have told someone a long time ago, and now it doesn’t matter.”
I decided not to push him. He was a victim, just like the kids I worked with. He needed to trust me to tell me more. “And why did you follow Justin?”
“I wanted to see if he repeated, for my own sake. If there was hope for him, there was hope for me.”
The silence deepened between us as I thought over everything Chris had told me.
“You didn’t take Kailey.” He hadn’t really said anything to clear himself, but I knew it in my gut just as I knew my own killing would have to be answered for.
He came to stand in front of me, close enough I smelled his cologne. “I swear to you, I didn’t. But I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me. God knows I’ve lied enough.”
We all have make or break moments. The ones we know we might regret. I’ve always thought that’s part of human nature. We simply go with our gut instincts until we get burned.
“I believe you. And I need your help.”
26
Two hours later, Chris parked down the road from Martha Beckett’s house. She lived in a small, older but nicely kept A-frame house on the edge of Fishtown. I didn’t see a garage, and her property wasn’t large enough for any kind of storage. Justin fidgeted in the back seat, and I wondered why I’d let Chris talk me into driving.
“You know, we were arrested less than twenty-four hours ago for this very thing,” Chris said.
“Detained, never charged.” I corrected him. I craned my neck to face the backseat. “You’re sure of this?”
Justin nodded. “The last two days, she’s gone out at this time.” It was nearing midnight, and my eyelids felt heavy. Martha had better leave soon.
“Doesn’t mean she will tonight,” Chris said. “You know where she went?”
“No.”
Chris cocked his head toward the backseat. “Why didn’t you follow her?”
“I didn’t have the guts.”
No one said anything else. Chris didn’t like Justin coming, and Justin was pissed I’d told Chris. I really didn’t care what either one of them thought. I wasn’t doing this myself. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
“You seem really calm.” Justin leaned between the front seats of Chris’s Audi. I almost laughed at the comical twitch of Chris’s upper lip. “My brother thinks you’ve got your own set of secrets, you know.”
“Everyone has secrets.” It’s all in the keeping of them, I wanted to add.
Justin rested his chin on my headrest. “Secrets are toxic, eating away at your insides. Even though it doesn’t really change anything, I feel better since I told you the truth.”
“It changes everything,” I said. “Martha’s going to be exposed for what she is. And you can move forward. With the right kind of therapy.” I gave him a pointed look. “You need to tell the truth to your doctor so he can actually help you.”
“You’ve helped me.” His eyes filled with adoration. “You know how long I wanted to tell you the truth? When you spoke against me to the judge last year, I wanted to fucking cry. My brother believed me, and that was great. But he’s supposed to. He’s the only family I’ve got. But you’re the only person–the only female–who ever came close to treating me with real compassion. Hearing you condemn me was gutting.”
I was reminded again that he was no more than a man-child, a little boy with stunted emotional growth trapped in an adult’s body. The woman who should have shielded and loved him had done things most people never dream of, and Justin had paid the price. Growing up in a juvenile facility should have hardened him. That’s the sort of thing that turns wide-eyed boys into men. And yet Justin was trapped in a sort of personal purgatory, driven not by the need for revenge, but for acceptance and approval. He would never get it from the woman who should have cherished him. His expression told me he was desperate to have it from me.
“I’m very sorry for what you went through,” I said.
Chris coughed a hard, obviously fake cough and glared out the windshield. I ignored him. “I didn’t know the truth. I’d like to say I should have dug until I got it, but I can’t change what’s in the past. All I can do is work with the present. And I’ll help you however I can.”
“Thank you.” Justin’s voice thickened, and he slouched back in his seat. I pretended he wasn’t about to cry.
Chris
continued to scowl out of the window. “Hope you know what you’re doing.” His hissed words were still loud enough for Justin to hear.
“He could say the same about you,” I said.
“Yeah, I could. I know who you are. We have a lot in common.” Justin piped up. “My brother told me.”
Chris twisted in the seat to face him, face bright with rage. “Listen, don’t worry about who I am, you got it? And we are nothing alike.”
“Enough,” I said. “You guys need to trust each other, or at least my judgment, until we’re done here.”
“Sorry,” Justin said meekly.
“What if we don’t find anything?” Chris asked.
“I’ve got to call Todd anyway. Tell him what I found out about you. If we don’t find anything, I’ll tell him Justin filled me in,” I ignored Justin’s protest from the backseat, “and that I believe him. See if I can push him into finally following up on Martha.”
Chris huffed. He hadn’t been surprised when I’d told him my plan to manipulate information from him. “You going to tell him we took a stroll through Martha’s house?”
“Only if I find something worth using.”
“Look.” Justin spoke tensely. “There she is.”
My fingers dug into the dash as I got my first look at Martha since Justin was a child. She was still tall, still broad shouldered. But like Justin’s drawing, she stooped. From the distance, her shoes looked like orthotics. She chugged down the steps.
“She still wears her hair up.” A whisper was all I could manage. I’d like to say I was filled with rage and thus purpose, but I really couldn’t think clearly. I’ve come across all kinds of people in this life, and Martha Beckett is the only woman who ever truly scared me. I used to think it was because I was just as materialistic as the next person, and she wasn’t a feminine ideal. But now I knew it was more than that. True evil puts out an energy all its own.
“She hated me on sight,” I said. The memory of that day in the small apartment in North Philly came back to me. Todd was at his own mother’s and Justin’s father supposedly asleep from working the late shift, but the bedroom reeked of beer. Doe-eyed Justin took my hand and invited me to sit while his mother glowered in the kitchen doorway. That day in front of Martha, I was too naive and inexperienced to trust my gut instinct. But I’d had it. I’d sensed the cruelty within her, but I didn’t trust myself. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“She hated every female,” Justin said.
“Does she always wear a dress?” Chris spoke for the first time since Martha came outside.
“Yes,” Justin and I both answered at once.
“Religious thing?”
“No. Martha never talked about God,” Justin said. “Just that women should never wear anything above the knee. No shirts with sleeves shorter than the elbow.”
Chris folded his hands on the steering wheel and watched Martha climb into her car. She backed out onto the street and drove east.
“How long was she gone last night?” I asked Justin.
“Just over an hour.”
I looked at Chris. His face had hardened into a grim mask. “Let’s go.”
Martha’s lock was surprisingly easy to pick. Her lack of security system was a stroke of luck. The three of us slipped inside the front door. No one spoke. A strong, musky scent greeted us, accompanied by blasting heat. My eyes watered.
“She likes incense.” Chris stated the obvious.
“Always did,” Justin said. “I hate that shit.”
“Me too.”
I took charge. “Justin and I will go upstairs. Chris, you check down here. Basement first.”
He left to search for it, and Justin and I headed upstairs. “This house is pretty small,” I said. As I suspected, it was a two bedroom, and both bedrooms had those annoying slanted ceilings that some people found charming.
“Be careful not to leave anything different than you found it.”
Justin went to the right, and I took the room to the left. Despite the heavy dark, the streetlight provided enough light to maneuver. A twin bed and a night stand, along with a clothes rack, were the room’s only items. The closet was tucked under the eaves, and with the exception of a few hangers, it was empty. I got down on my hands and knees, testing for loose boards or hidden compartments.
“Did you find anything?” Justin’s sudden appearance made me jump. I needed to settle down and stay alert.
“No. You?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Closet’s empty. But I’m not surprised.”
“Why?”
“Martha doesn’t like second floors. She hated our apartment when I was little because it was on the second floor. Something that happened when she was a kid.”
You might have told me that earlier rushed to my tongue, but I swallowed the words back. I got to my feet and headed for the door. Dampness pooled between my shoulder blades. I squirmed; I hated sweating. “Let’s get downstairs and help Chris.”
Justin blocked my path. “Wait.”
“We don’t have much time.”
“There’s something I want to say. And I don’t want to say it in front of your buddy.”
Sweat beads broke out on my forehead. “What is it?”
He looked down at the floor. Then back up at me. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I saw the set of his jaw. Determination. “I’m not interested in little girls.”
“I understand that now.”
“And I don’t know how to deal with women I am interested in.”
“You haven’t exactly had a level playing field. But you’ll learn.”
“Until a woman finds out about my past. And then she’ll bolt.”
I suppose I should tell him there’s someone out there for everyone, but I don’t believe that. Some people are unlovable. And some people have so much baggage they won’t allow anyone to take a chance on them. We didn’t have time to discuss it right now. I gave his shoulder a squeeze. “You deal with that if it happens. Get out there first, test the waters.”
He grabbed my hand, his grip clammy and tight. “I’m still a virgin.” He let my hand go and stared at the floor. Despite the dark room, the heat of embarrassment seemed to emanate from his slumped figure. Poor damned kid.
“Don’t let that stop you from dating. And some girls will find that endearing. You’ll get past the inexperience too. In time.”
“I need someone I can trust. Someone who won’t make me feel dirty or stupid or weak.” His voice lowered, and he finally looked up to meet my gaze. “Someone who cares about me.”
All of a sudden I realized where this was going, and I wanted to crawl into the empty closet. I was out of my depth psychologically, but I knew enough to know the reasons behind his impending proposition were entirely unhealthy. I couldn’t very well lecture him on that when he’d bared his secrets with me, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Stalling him gave me some time to think. “I know you need to talk right now, and I’m not trying to blow you off, but we have got to get downstairs. We’ll pick this up later, I promise.”
He nodded vigorously, and I bolted for the stairs wondering what the hell I would say to him when later came.
“Chris?”
The living room was dark and silent, but a beam of faint blue glowed from the kitchen. I hurried across the house, with Justin close behind.
In the kitchen, the blue light seeped from the opened basement door. “Chris?”
“I’m downstairs.” His voice was stretched taut, and my heart shot into my throat. Had he found her? Why hadn’t he called me right away?
“Did you find…” I couldn’t finish the thought.
“I need you to come down here.”
Justin and I hurried down the narrow steps. I flicked on my own flashlight and desperately cast the beam around the space, feeling out of breath and ready to burst at the same time. Chris was in the corner, on his knees. A cardboard box was opened beside him.
“Kailey’s not do
wn here,” he said. “Doesn’t look like she ever was, best I can tell.”
“Did you find anything in those boxes?” Justin asked.
“I hoped to find something about another property or storage.” Chris stared down at the open box. “And then I saw this.”
I took a step closer. Chris’s head shot up and his eyes met mine. Their usual blue was overrun with tiny streaks of red. Dread slivered down my spine. “What did you find?”
He held up his clenched fist. A gold locket dangled from his hand.
“Old jewelry?” Justin sounded far away. My attention was caught in the cold, frightened gaze of Chris’s eyes. I’d seen that look before, just after people have been given the worst news of their lives.
Chris’s lips barely moved. “With the letter ‘S’ engraved.”
A low buzz built in my head. The other girl in the barn with the locket, the one he’d remembered after his mother left him with his uncle. “What else is in the box?”
“More jewelry. A tiny ankle bracelet that would never fit Martha.” Chris shoved the box away as if it were contaminated. “Pictures.”
“Of who?” But I knew the answer. As impossible as it was, I knew the answer.
“Of me.”
27
Dead silence, broken only by the groan of the furnace kicking back on. Chris’s chest heaved. He kept staring into my eyes, his grief and tension pulling me toward him as though we were attached, like two parts of a broken toy. I knew he expected me to say something. But what the hell could I say?
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I remember when this one,” he grabbed a wrinkled picture from the box, “was taken. There was an old well on the farm. I hated it. But my mother made me sit on the edge and take this picture. I was terrified I’d fall in.” His large hand shook, but his low voice was deadly calm.
“How is this possible?” I asked.