by Dan Ames
She doesn’t answer your taunt.
She keeps working.
The tub is halfway full with green paint.
The odor fills the bathroom, it’s powerfully strong, almost burning your nostrils.
“You did it all for the money, didn’t you?” you say softly to Lamarr. It’s the same tone of voice you imagine she used when she talked her victims into killing themselves. “Or did you hate your sister, too? Was it two-for-the-price-of-one?”
“Yes,” Lamarr answers, her voice deadpan.
“Do you remember Amy?” You can barely control your voice. “Amy Callan? She was the first one you murdered.”
“Yes,” Lamarr says in a flat monotone. She lifts a can of paint she’s just pried the lid from and slowly pours it into the tub.
“She was beautiful, wasn’t she? You probably hated that, too. Because you’re ugly. An ugly, nasty piece of shit.”
“Yes.”
“That’s right. You’re ugly scum and you killed all of those women for money and to get even with your sister. Because everyone loved her more, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Christ, you’re a waste of a human being. I can’t wait to see you die.”
Lamarr doesn’t answer. She just keeps filling the tub with paint.
When the line of green is near the top you estimate how much volume will be displaced by Lamarr.
“Okay,” you say. “That’s enough.”
Lamarr puts down the last paint can.
“Now, take off your clothes and let’s see that horrible, disgusting body of yours.”
She unceremoniously sheds what she’s wearing and stands next to the tub.
“Get in.”
Lamarr raises a leg and steps into the tub, then does the same with her other leg.
“Sit down.”
She lowers her body into the paint until she’s sitting.
“Lean back.”
Lamarr eases her body back until the paint is up to her neckline.
You bring a chair right next to her and sit down, lean your face in until you’re practically whispering in her ear.
“Okay, now for the good part.”
39
It took the prison officials nearly two hours to prove that Tallon wasn’t a crazy person off the street. Ultimately, his government ID and the fact that he spoke intelligently and confidently, helped sway them into action.
While Tallon waited, the prison administrator sent a guard to Julia Lamarr’s cell and brought her into a holding area, where they compared her to her intake information.
When the prison administrators realized Tallon was right, they sounded the alarm.
“Our doctor went missing three days ago and we have the cops out looking for him,” the warden of the prison said. His name was Perkins and he was not handling the news well. By now, they were in the warden’s office with half a dozen people. Tallon had been forced to the back of the room. An innocent bystander, but one who’d possibly unveiled a glitch in the system. Maybe it would lead to charges of incompetence. Tallon didn’t know. And he didn’t care.
He just wanted them to find Julia Lamarr.
And get Lauren Pauling out of the FBI’s clutches.
“How the hell could this have happened?” Perkins asked the room. He was a man with a spray-booth tan, a nice suit, and an expensive watch. Tallon guessed he was a political-type, used to orchestrating things for his own betterment and relying on those beneath him to take care of the daily grind.
Someone had dropped the ball.
In addition to Tallon and the warden, there was a deputy warden named Carson, and the director of prison security whose name was Pfeiffer.
“Lamarr was a shrink,” Tallon said. “A profiler at Quantico for the FBI and a highly accomplished hypnotist. It sounds like maybe she continued to ply her trade while in prison. If she was able to talk to her guard and the doctor, maybe she manipulated them into orchestrating her escape. In which case, you need to find that doctor immediately. He’s either dead, or in grave danger. And she might be using his home, car, money, etc.”
“Jesus Christ,” Perkins said.
Carson stepped forward. “We’re reviewing all the footage we have. Local law enforcement has been notified.”
Suddenly, the phone on Perkins’ desk lit up.
“That’s probably the FBI,” Carson said.
“Great,” Perkins said.
As the warden turned his back on the room, everyone else began working their own phones. Tallon heard Carson urge someone, maybe the state police, to put an immediate APB out on Dr. Barnes.
More phones rang, and people came in and out of the office.
No one seemed to be paying him much attention anymore, so Tallon slipped out of the office and put the phone to his ear.
Someone had freed Julia Lamarr from incarceration.
Now, he needed to do the same for Pauling.
40
You know exactly how she did it. She told you, once you’d gotten permission to visit her, and had been able to hypnotize her.
It wasn’t that hard. Partly because Lamarr’s brain wasn’t quite right. She was susceptible. But you’d also trained at it, researched it, knew exactly how to do it.
And once Lamarr was under your control, you used her as a weapon within the prison. At your instructions, she had used her hypnotism skills on the guard and Dr. Barnes.
It had been a prison escape orchestrated from afar.
You had so enjoyed turning the tables on Lamarr. Marveled at how easy it had been.
“Have you ever eaten oysters?” you ask Lamarr. Even now, knowing this is how she did it, the question seems odd. Out of place. Yet, at the same time, it seems utterly brilliant. What better way to get someone to perform such a difficult task?
“A few times,” Lamarr answers. “I don’t like them, though.”
“Well, you’re going to love them today.”
Lamarr doesn’t say anything. She just sits in the tub of green paint. Waiting.
“You remember how it feels?” you continue, your voice smooth and easy. “They’re in your mouth, and you just suddenly swallow them whole? Just gulp them down? Do you remember how that works?”
Lamarr nods. “Yes, I remember that. I just don’t like the taste.”
“It doesn’t matter. What’s important now is that you need to pretend your tongue is an oyster.”
Lamarr glances at you. She seems puzzled by the idea.
“Pretend it’s an oyster?”
“Yes. I want you to swallow your tongue. Go ahead and gulp it down, real sudden, like it’s an oyster. You know how to do that. You remember from those times you ate oysters. It’s easy and quick.”
“Like an oyster,” Lamarr says.
“Yes. Go ahead and give it a try now.”
Lamarr squints her eyes, gulps her tongue back and works her mouth. There’s a gargling noise in her throat.
“It’s not going down,” she says.
“Use your finger to help. That’s what you had the others do. Like my beautiful wife, you nasty bitch. Use your finger and push it down.”
“My finger?”
“Yes. Do it, Lamarr. You saw all those women do it for you. You know it works. So do it.”
She raises her hand. The paint runs off her arm, some of it in thick globules.
“I’ll use my middle finger because it’s the longest.”
“Great idea, Lamarr. I knew you could figure it out,” you say, the sarcasm dripping as heavily as the green paint down the side of the tub.
Lamarr extends her middle finger and opens her mouth wide.
“Put it right under your tongue and push back hard,” you command her.
Her jaws extend open as far as they’ll go and she pushes her tongue back, with force.
And then she swallows.
Her eyes jam open in panic.
And they bulge.
“Don’t move,” you tell her. “Keep your hands down.
”
You grit your teeth. You feel utter joy and elation at watching Lamarr die such a gruesome death, at the same time, you want to cry.
For your dead wife.
Who died the exact same way.
41
It was like a bomb had gone off at the FBI office.
In the middle of questioning, the agents around Pauling had suddenly bolted from the chairs and went on the move.
Pauling waited, and eventually tried the door to the interrogation room. It was locked.
Bastards.
Pauling didn’t know what to do, she resorted to a highly unsophisticated solution. She started banging on the door with her fist. She kept at it, even kicking it with her foot, until finally, someone relented and opened the door.
And then they walked away.
Pauling stood there for a moment, realizing she was being let go.
What the hell had happened?
She walked back toward the front of the office, by the elevators, but caught a glimpse of Hastings in the conference room, a team of agents huddled around him. Pauling deliberated. Make a break for it? Or find out what had gotten all of their panties in a bunch?
She pivoted and strode toward the conference room.
Pauling marched into the conference room, catching a voice on speakerphone talking about a hunt for an escaped prisoner.
Hastings looked up at her, then at one of his subordinates.
“Get her out of here,” he said.
“After all this you’re not even going to do the decent thing and tell me what’s going on? You keep mistakenly accusing me and then letting me go. No explanation?”
“Nope,” Hasting said, and raised his chin toward the door.
Pauling was taken back to the reception area. Her belongings, including her phone, were given back to her.
“What’s going on?” she asked the guy who’d left the conference room.
“I can’t say,” he answered. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“No shit,” Pauling said. She left the office, took the elevator to the ground floor, and walked out onto the street.
She checked her phone and saw that Tallon had called several times. She dialed him back.
“I’m out.”
“Thank God,” Tallon said. “Just in time. You won’t believe this. I’m at the prison. Julia Lamarr escaped from here several days ago. She must have hypnotized the guards and the prison doctor and then somehow had another woman take her place in her cell.”
“I can’t believe they weren’t aware of that,” Pauling said. “Surely they read her file, knew how dangerous she was.”
“I asked that same question,” Tallon responded. “Apparently they did some cat scans of her brain and there was damage. They didn’t think she had the capability for it. Obviously, they were wrong.”
“Yeah, I’d say,” Pauling added. “Now what are they doing?”
“They’re desperately trying to find the doctor. He’s apparently the one who actually got her out of the prison. Either in an ambulance, or the trunk of his car.”
Pauling thought about it and something struck her as odd.
“So the Feds thought maybe I was behind the women being kidnapped when all along it was Lamarr?”
“Yeah, she was up to her old tricks. That was her M.O., right?”
A garbage truck drove past Pauling and the wind whipped her hair across her face. She pulled it back, and realized something felt wrong.
“That can’t be. It doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?”
“That Lamarr was able to kidnap those women. Her body was messed up and she had brain damage. It isn’t logical to assume she could’ve pulled it off.”
“She escaped from prison, Pauling,” Tallon countered. “Obviously, she had some pretty serious capabilities left.”
“Not necessarily,” Pauling said, her brain working fast.
“My first thought was that she was coming after you for some reason,” Tallon suggested. “She wanted to kill those women and pin it on you. Maybe to get back at Reacher.”
“But I wasn’t involved in her case. She wouldn’t have had a grudge against me. Or against those other women.”
“Maybe she was trying to lure Reacher back in. So she could kill him.”
Pauling shook her head, even though Tallon couldn’t see her.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“What’s your take, then?” Tallon said.
“I don’t think Lamarr was targeting anyone.”
“What do you mean”
“I think someone was targeting Lamarr.”
42
You make it out of Colorado, across Kansas then cut up through southern Iowa back to suburban Chicago.
Your home.
You pull into the driveway, tired, exhausted and spent. You have a headache and haven’t eaten since you don’t know when.
While you wait for the garage door to open, you vacantly stare at the house.
A quaint little Cape Cod that was the most you and Amy could afford. She with her disability, you with your job at the bank. It has white aluminum siding and light blue shutters. A chimney that connects to the fireplace in the living room. Where there’s a mantle Amy used to hang your Christmas stockings from, both of you hoping to have a third stocking to hang.
When Amy became pregnant it was as if a miracle had occurred after all those years of trying.
But when Lamarr killed Amy, she killed their baby, too.
Now, suddenly, the steel in your soul that had been fused by anger begins to soften.
Your eyes are drawn back to the structure in front of you.
It wasn’t much of a house. Not like those mansions up along the coast of Lake Michigan where the rich folks live.
But it’s your house.
The one you used to share with Amy.
Before Julia Lamarr killed her.
As you pull into the garage, you realize you weren’t sure what to expect. You were thorough. Detailed. Meticulous.
But the problem with crime always becomes about motive.
Who stands to gain?
As much as you tried to cover your tracks, you know that’s a vulnerable area.
Which is why you were anticipating there might be a welcoming committee waiting for you back home. Maybe a SWAT team. Or an armed FBI squad.
But there’s no one.
Just your neighbor cutting his grass, and an empty house.
Once inside the garage, the door shuts behind you.
You wondered how this would feel.
The aftermath.
Julia Lamarr dead.
The sole, driving focus of your life, now finished.
What would come next?
You sit in the car, in the garage, with the engine running.
You’re not sure if you ever want to get out.
43
While she was talking to Tallon, Pauling got a call.
It was a New York number.
“Pauling,” she answered.”
“It’s Deerfield, back in New York,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Listen, I don’t have much time, just hear me out.”
Deerfield told her that Harper, Chang and Vaughan had been found in a parking garage near the FBI’s office in Denver. They were alive.
“Lamarr escaped from prison,” Deerfield said.
“I know.”
“What do you mean you know?”
“Does it matter?”
Deerfield sighed. “No, it doesn’t. Look, my team out there is minutes from entering the doctor’s house. I want you to join them.”
Before she could respond, the junior agent who’d escorted her from the building was at her side.
“Change of plans,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Where are they taking me?” she asked Deerfield, still on the other end of the line.
“To the doctor’s house. I want you to report what you
find.”
“I know what we’re going to find.”
“Oh really? And what’s that?”
“We’re going to find Julia Lamarr, dead.” Pauling said.
“What makes you say that?”
“She was the target all along. You need to find out who among her victims would want revenge. There were three of them, right? Amy Callan. Caroline Cook. And then Lamarr’s sister, who you can rule out. Check Callan and Cook. Someone related to them decided to serve a life sentence on Lamarr. Targeting Reacher’s women was a smokescreen.”
“We’d already considered that angle,” Deerfield said, but Pauling could hear the lack of conviction in his voice. Maybe they had, or maybe they hadn’t. It was possible that they gave it a cursory look and discarded it after the smallest amount of due diligence.
A lead that should have been followed up on.
“Look, we’ll take another look at what we have,” Deerfield said. “In the meantime, go with my team and offer any help you can.”
“I don’t think they’re too interested in my ideas,” Pauling said. Just like you, she wanted to add, but didn’t.
One of the FBI’s ubiquitous black, four-door sedans pulled up to the curb and Pauling got inside. The driver reached up and stuck a flashing strobe light on top of the car and a wailing siren boomed from the front of the vehicle.
Within five minutes they were pulling into a gated community of huge homes.
Tallon was already there.
“How’d you get here?” she asked.
“I bullied my way to come with the prison official who’d joined the cops on the way here. Since Barnes had been his employee, he’d used that as a way to get us both to the crime scene.”
He looked glad to see her.
“You made it,” he said.
“Finally,” she responded. “What’s inside?”
“I don’t know, they won’t let me in.”
She waved him forward and he followed Pauling and the team of FBI agents inside.
Pauling barely noticed the huge great room, the gourmet kitchen, and the dramatic views of the mountains.
She was focused on the action leading up the stairs and into the bathroom.