by Brenda Novak
“There’s always a reason, Mom.” Evelyn had to swallow to be able to continue. “Besides, the more we try to ignore the psychopaths who live and work around us, hoping they’ll...they’ll go away on their own, the more...the more power people like Jasper will possess.” She allowed the volume of her voice to drop. “And the more people they’ll hurt.”
Lara’s dangly earrings swung as she shook her head. “But there’s no understanding crazy!”
The degree of her belief in what she was about to say gave Evelyn an added shot of adrenaline. “I’ve told you before, Jasper wasn’t crazy and neither are the men I study. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that.”
Her mother straightened. “I don’t care if they’re sane or not. I don’t even care if there’s a great need for your work. You’ve done enough. You’ve convinced the government to build this study facility. Now let someone else take over. Don’t go to Alaska.”
Still struggling to maintain the clarity she needed to continue this argument, Evelyn shifted in the bed. “I have to.”
“Why?”
“Hanover House will need me in order to succeed. Nobody else seems to feel quite as passionately as I do—and, let’s be honest, I’ve been the driving force behind it from the beginning.”
“Why not let one of the other members of the mental health team you’ve assembled take over? Dr. Fitzpatrick has fifteen years on you, much more experience, and he’s a man—not someone those ghouls will be likely to salivate over and dream about raping. Let him take the lead.”
She put a hand to her forehead, felt the bandage. “He’ll be a great help. I couldn’t have brought Hanover House into existence without him. But I won’t relinquish control of what I’ve worked so hard to create.” Not when she was so determined to find the answers she craved: Why was there such a thing as a psychopath? How did such people come to be? Was it nature, nurture or a combination of both that created this fearful anomaly? Was the rate of psychopathy increasing, as some studies indicated? And how was it that such people could very often kill their own mothers, or even their own children, and not feel a second’s remorse?
Evelyn’s curiosity about those things in particular drove her worse than a relentless thirst. And now that the government had agreed to build a high-security federal institution where she and a team of other psychiatrists and forensic psychologists could make an in-depth study of those for whom murder was a delight instead of merely a means to an end, maybe she’d finally find out what made them tick.
Her mother sank into a chair. “What’s it going to take to get through to you? Jasper’s still out there, Evelyn. He could see you on TV or hear about your work in the papers and take it as a personal challenge to find you and finish what he started twenty years ago. Do you realize that?”
She’d had to lobby publicly, shame lawmakers into doing more to protect victims like her. She couldn’t let her fear of Jasper and what he might do stop her. That would only render her useless. She felt like she’d lived through that ordeal for a reason, had to make it mean something. “I can’t let that stop me.”
“Yes, you can!”
“No.” At this point, her head was throbbing, but Evelyn had to make her point. “He murdered my best friends simply for telling me he cheated on me! I found them, Mother! I saw what he did to them! I refuse to care more about my continued safety than I do about what he did to all of us—and what others like him are getting away with every day.”
Lara seemed dazed now that most of the fire was gone from her anger. “But working in this field makes and keeps it all so present.”
“I’ve had plenty of therapy to help me deal with it.” She didn’t add that there were still some nights when she woke up in a cold sweat, convinced that she was lying on the dirt floor of that old shack, her body bruised and broken, the blood pumping from the wide gash in her throat, creating a warm puddle around her. But she knew her mother wasn’t fooled.
Although Lara sat without speaking, she turned a pointed gaze on Evelyn, burying her beneath an avalanche of disapproval.
“Why are you letting our trip to San Francisco go this way?” Evelyn asked, breaking the silence. “Are we going to end up fighting about this, like we always do?”
Her mother pursed her lips but seemed to soften a little. “At least tell me that you’re not going to have the inmate who did this shipped to Alaska.”
Evelyn recalled the brief glimpse she’d had of the man who’d shuffled into the room before he rushed her. No doubt he thought such a demonstration of his “evil” would scare her away, make her set her sights on someone else and leave him in sunny California.
But that was precisely the reason she wouldn’t go to Alaska without him.
“No. He’s going with me.”
The blood drained from her mother’s face. “You can’t be serious...”
“I won’t let him get the best of me,” she said. “Not now. Not ever.”
“You mean like Jasper did.”
She ignored that. “Hugo Evanski’s ideal for my program.”
“You’re letting it get personal, Evelyn.”
“He made it personal. And as soon as I get out of this darn hospital, I’m going to tell him.”
Chapter 2
To hide the fear that slithered, snake-like, just below her skin, making the hair on her arms stand up, Evelyn paced across one end of the small, concrete cell, pretending to be absorbed in her notes. It’d taken a few days, but she was back at San Quentin, and they were bringing Hugo Evanski to meet with her. Only this time she was prepared for anything he might do—and so were they. The warden had told her that Evanski would be escorted by two correctional officers instead of one, and he wouldn’t be allowed to get out of control again.
When he didn’t appear as soon as she’d expected, however, she set her notes aside and leaned on the desk to draw a deep breath. She’d only been released from the hospital two days ago, still had a bandage covering her stitches and a black eye to show for that earlier incident—embarrassing proof that she’d allowed herself to be hurt by someone she’d known was dangerous. There was no excuse for that, especially because her detractors wouldn’t hesitate to use what Hugo had done to undermine her efforts, if word ever got out. She had to be careful about what showed up in the press; she couldn’t allow Hugo Evanski to jeopardize a program that was still in its infancy and needed time and support in order to grow.
When a clang signaled she’d soon have company, she snatched up her notepad so that no one would be able to tell that her hands were shaking. Although she told herself that the same thing wouldn’t happen twice, no amount of self-talk could overcome the emotional response that welled up whenever the slightest sound, smell or other trigger reminded her of what Jasper Moore had done twenty years ago. And Hugo’s attack definitely reminded her of Jasper. Just about any violence did.
She watched as the heavy metal door slid open and two hulk-like correctional officers walked their charge into the room. They tried to seat him in the steel chair bolted to the floor, probably so that he couldn’t launch himself at her again, and, when he stiffened instead of bending, forced him into it.
“Sit your ass down,” one of the guards growled.
Hugo gave his chains a rebellious jerk but eventually complied, lifting his nose in the air and smiling at her as if he was too preoccupied with and delighted by what he’d done to her face to be bothered by correctional officers who were determined to show him they were in charge. “Looks like you’ve had an accident,” he said to her.
She fingered the tender spot near her temple. “It’s nothing. Someone of your reputation...I would’ve expected you to be able to do a lot more than simply knock me into a table.”
When the two officers on either side of him barked out a laugh, obviously surprised by her response, the smile disappeared from Hugo’s clean-shaven face. “Maybe it won’t go quite so well for you the next time.”
Evelyn’s heart was racing so
fast she could scarcely breathe. Like Jasper, this man wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if he had the chance. But she leaned forward anyway. “There won’t be a next time, Mr. Evanski. I’m not stupid enough to allow you another opportunity. At least, you’ll have to work a lot harder for it than you did a few days ago. I merely wanted to come by and tell you to pack up whatever few items you possess.”
“You’re having me transferred to Alaska?”
“You’re brighter than you look.”
The clenching of his jaw gave her some satisfaction. He wasn’t pleased by this news, as she’d guessed he wouldn’t be. She’d just let him know that he wouldn’t control her, certainly not through fear. If she had to guess, that bothered him, too. He wouldn’t like a woman having any authority over him. But, oddly enough, even when he was angry he didn’t look overtly dangerous, didn’t look much different than the middle school teacher he’d once been—before his wife stumbled upon the body he’d temporarily stowed in the shed of their cabin in Bakersfield, California. As a matter of fact, he was so plain Evelyn would even call him nondescript. He had short, dark hair and, after ten years in prison, no scars or tattoos, no evidence of gang affiliations. He wasn’t even particularly muscular, not like so many of the other inmates she saw as she visited various institutions—those who spent the majority of their time lifting weights.
Maybe that was why he’d blended in for so long, why no one had suspected him in the murders of the young women he’d killed even though he’d taught them all in school and had, at two different points, inserted himself into the various police investigations.
The only thing that might’ve tipped anyone off was his eyes. They were brown, not black, but they were just as cold and lifeless as a shark’s. He seemed to have that in common with other psychopaths. Difficult as it was to define, there was always something about the eyes. They held no light, no humanity. Evelyn had heard many victims state the same thing and, as a victim herself, she could attest to the truth of it—at least she’d noticed the lack of emotion in Jasper’s eyes once he’d turned on her and revealed himself to be the homicidal maniac he really was. Before that, she’d detected no appreciable difference between him and the other boys at school.
Anyway, Hugo didn’t need to look mean. He’d proven his capacity for violence in a way she wouldn’t soon forget. The warden had told her he was so cunning and cruel no one dared mess with him. He rarely responded at the time of a confrontation, but he always figured out a way to get even afterwards.
The warden had also said he spent the majority of his time reading, writing or creating clever cartoons parodying law enforcement, which was the reason Evelyn had put him on her list to begin with. He was smart. She couldn’t help thinking he might be able to teach her something none of the other psychopaths she’d studied could—by being self-aware enough to analyze his own actions or describe his mental processes in less vague terms.
“You don’t want me in Alaska,” he said.
His voice held a low warning, but since the interview had progressed as she’d hoped so far, Evelyn was feeling a little more confident and a little less shaken. “Because you’re so dangerous? Was that the message you were sending me?”
When the guards chuckled again, a muscle moved in Hugo’s cheek. He had an overinflated view of who and what he was—most psychopaths did—so he didn’t take kindly to being laughed at. “No, I hit you for the fun of it.”
“But don’t you see?” She put down her clipboard. “That’s precisely what makes you such a great candidate for my program.”
“Studying me would be a waste of your time,” he said. “I’m no different than any other man.”
“You scored a thirty-seven out of forty on the Hare Psychopathy test—”
“Which means nothing,” he broke in. “That test is a joke.”
The test wasn’t perfect by any means. It’d been highly criticized, even by people in her own profession. And, if it wasn’t properly administered and applied, she could see the potential damage it could do, how much it could hurt someone to be improperly labeled a psychopath. But the PCL-R, as it was called, did give mental health professionals—and prison staff too—something to work with to make sure they were all talking about the same traits.
“I’m not here to debate the work of my predecessors,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Suffice it to say that as far as I’m concerned, a thirty-seven makes you quite different, considering the average score for all incarcerated male offenders in North America hovers around twenty-three or twenty-four.”
He wiggled his fingers as if to depict a ghost or other spook. “And once you pass the magical number of thirty, you’re categorized a monster. If it were that easy to identify people like me, people like you would be out of a job.”
“Now you’re over-simplifying,” she said mildly. “The test has proven successful in calculating recidivism and other things. So why don’t you stop playing games? You murdered fifteen women without compunction, fifteen women who once attended the middle school where you taught. That can hardly be called average.”
“They shouldn’t have resisted my...ministrations,” he said with a shrug. “I warned them that I was their master, and they would submit to everything and anything I wanted, or else.”
“Making what you did their fault?”
“You could say that.”
“No. Only you could say that, which is why you scored so high on the PCL-R. You don’t take responsibility for your actions.”
Leaning back, he crossed his ankles. When the chain linking his feet rattled, the two correctional officers tensed, in case he was about to get up, and yet the movement came off quite civilized, as if he was merely sitting in a restaurant, about to have a cup of coffee. “I’ve seen you on TV, you know.”
That didn’t surprise Evelyn. Most people, at least anyone who’d ever had any interest in the criminal justice system, had seen her on TV. Like her mother said, that probably included Jasper, if he was still in the States. But it was a risk she’d had to take. “I’d guessed as much. That explains your rather...aggressive behavior from the other day, doesn’t it?”
He watched her from beneath half-lowered eyelids. “Alaska doesn’t hold much appeal for me.”
She could understand why. Living behind bars was difficult enough. Very few of those she’d selected for Hanover House wanted to be sent to Hilltop, a small town an hour outside of Anchorage, where it would be that much harder to maintain contact with friends and relatives on the outside. Besides the isolation, fear of the unknown (since her program was the first of its kind), and the lack of sunlight during the long winter, they would have less chance of escape, the hope of which kept some men going. Even if an inmate of Hanover House somehow managed to slip outside the prison, and the perimeter fence surrounding it, there’d be nowhere to go.
“I may be a hunter,” he said, “but Alaska has less women, not more.”
She arched her eyebrows to put him on notice that his words didn’t shock or discomfit her. She’d heard far worse. By the time the psychopaths she worked with came into her sphere of influence, intimidation was the only string they had left to play on, so they became masters at it. “On the other hand, there are plenty of places to hide a body.”
A wry smile twisted his lips. “Now you’re speaking my language.” He clasped his hands in his lap. “Tell me something...”
She perched on the edge of her chair. “What’s that?”
“Do you really think you can do it?”
“Do what?”
“Figure me out. Explain why I like to kill—why I’d do it again if I could.”
“We’ll never know the answer to that question unless I try. And you might be encouraged to hear that there will be certain benefits to moving to your new home. You won’t be locked up in your cell ninety-nine percent of the time, for one.”
“Because I’ll be doing what?”
“There will be an abundance of studies and other activitie
s for you to participate in, many of which will offer incentives that could make your time in prison easier than it would be here.”
He didn’t respond right away. He studied her for a few seconds. Then he said, “Will I get to spend much time with you?”
She felt the creeping sensation he, no doubt, hoped to inspire. She often became a focal point of her patients, especially these sorts of patients. But that type of thing came with the territory. “Most likely. Dr. Timothy Fitzpatrick, also a psychiatrist, is lending his support to the project. He and I will head up a team of seven psychologists. With only a little over two hundred subjects, there will be a reasonable ratio of mental health providers to inmates.” She hoped both her team and the number of psychopaths in the study would grow with time, that the breadth and scope of her studies would one day become quite extensive, but she had to start somewhere—and this was her shot.
His gaze slid down, over her breasts and hips as if she stood before him naked. She wore a skirt, blouse and heels. She’d gotten blood on the only suit she’d brought to California when she hit her head last time, or she would’ve worn it again. Typically, she tried to avoid anything that showed her legs. She received enough sexual interest from the men she studied as it was. She didn’t care to encourage that—although it was inevitable no matter what she wore. They didn’t come into contact with many women, especially women under the age of forty.
“I have to admit, it’s beginning to sound interesting,” he said. “But may I ask what, exactly, you’re studying, Dr. Talbot?”
Dr. Talbot? He’d switched tactics. She got the impression he was trying to charm her, trying to engage her beyond the usual scope of the interview. But she was equally curious about him, so she was willing to play along—to a point. “All aspects of behavior, but… speech patterns would be a specific example.”
“Because…?”
“The patterns of those who score high on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist—men like yourself—tend to combine words differently than others. I find those differences fascinating and would like to see if I can establish more of a link, discover why.”