by Graylin Fox
“Ellie, this is the cop leading the search for Vince. He wants to do something very dangerous and stupid, and we won’t let him,” Josh said.
“Won’t let him what?”
“Use you as bait,” Dmitri said.
I’m usually gung-ho about being capable of taking care of myself. This was not one of those times.
“Hell, no.” I said it quietly, and yet they stopped and looked at me. “I’ve seen this movie. I saw Nancy’s body. Embracing my inner wimp is the wisest course of action. The answer is no.”
“He wants you,” the officer said and stepped toward me.
That was a bad idea.
Josh grabbed his collar and picked him up off the ground. “She said no.”
“Put the officer down. I don’t think he was planning on dragging me into his car.”
Something flashed in his eyes that told me I was wrong. “You were?”
He nodded.
“What the hell?” I asked.
“That man watched the video feed from my daughter’s high school. The pervert saw…” He couldn’t finish.
“Shit. The security company put cameras in the locker rooms to stop pedophiles and this creep watched the feed.” I had to admit he was smart for a twisted creep.
“Throwing me at him won’t stop him, Officer. If I lay on my sword, or any other cliché you can think of, he will keep going. I’m part of his problem, not yours.”
And that is when it hit me. He’s a bully, like his uncle. A bully with some severe mental issues above and beyond the norm who had a chance to kill me, in my hot tub, all alone, and didn’t. Why? His uncle wanted him to scare me.
“You have that look, El.” Josh let the officer down.
Dmitri pulled me into him.
“El?” Josh waited.
“My light bulb just flickered. Why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance? At the house, I was asleep in the hot tub, and he let me be. He wrote on the glass and left. With his work at the security company, he had to know they would find out he had cameras rigged.”
The officer grunted.
“Just let me talk through this. You have your skill set, let me play with my tools for a minute. I can figure out at least where the guy lives. He wasn’t always at their house. I could use Owen though.”
“Right behind you,” he said from his SUV. “I heard about the plan, and I was here to offer to step in for you.”
“Oh, no. Enough people have been hurt in my place.”
Owen got out of his car and leaned against the police car with the officer.
“Okay, dazzle me.”
“He lives with his mother,” I stated and was proud of myself.
The others however, looked at me like I needed meds.
“You want to explain that?” the officer said.
“It makes sense.” Owen agreed before I could start. “He never lived with his uncle and her family. He had a cell phone for the office and one for personal use. If anyone asked him about it, he called it his ball and chain. We figured he was referring to a wife until he said that he wanted to get married one day.”
The radio in the cruiser piped up and the officer went to see what was going on. He returned. “Travis is out of jail.”
“How?” Dmitri asked.
“It seems we found out why Vince needed security training. There was an unexpected blackout at the jail this morning while the inmates were in the yard, and the security gates popped open.”
“Why wasn’t he in solitary?” Owen said.
“Apparently, they moved him after his not-guilty plea. Without his cellmate to say that was who attacked him, they let him back into the general population. I think they were hoping the other inmates would kill him. It was his second day back.”
“Ellie, are you okay, you look madder than I’ve ever seen you,” Josh said.
“I’m furious. I deal with slightly off every day, and I love it. This is ridiculous. Short of a group of superheroes showing up, I’m going to be dead soon. And that makes me angry.”
The officer backed up two steps. “Maybe using you as bait is a bad idea.”
“Now that I’m mad enough to pull their nuts off with my bare hands? Now it’s time to pull back? I may die in this operation, Bubba, but I will make sure neither of those pricks makes any more Reamers.”
My knives were in the garage, and I headed straight for them. As I walked into the garage, I noticed the heavy bag hanging there and hit it. It felt good, so I hit it again. I punched until my hands were bruised and the edge had worn off my temper. Then I gathered my knives and turned to leave.
Four men stood in the doorway with completely different expressions. Josh grinned like an idiot. Punching things was a reaction he knew well. Dmitri looked concerned, and Owen and the officer both looked puzzled.
“No. I am not going to go vigilante and hunt them down. That’s the beauty of being their target. I’m going to keep throwing knives and hitting things until they show up to find me.”
I was scared, frightened for myself and the people I cared about. I didn’t want them to see it, so I walked into the house and did everything I could to keep my back straight until I got upstairs. Locked in Dmitri’s bathroom, I stripped and got into the shower. The water washed my tears away as I cried.
“One evil idiot at a time, please, Karma. I don’t know if I can take this much longer.”
Scrubbed clean and empty of tears, I came out of the bathroom to find Dmitri seated on the edge of the bed with swollen eyes and tears on his face.
“I barely get to know you, and this keeps happening. I can’t stop it. Here you are safer, but a beautiful prison is still a prison.” He stopped and looked at me. “My mother’s favorite saying from Russia. I am afraid for you.”
I walked over to him and sat on his lap. “I don’t plan on dying, baby. I can handle more crap than other people. It’s always been that way. My home is my sanctuary where I come at the end of the day to relax and unwind. Except for the last few weeks. Sorry about my outburst; I needed to yell and hit things.”
“That part I understood completely.”
“You are getting to know all the prickly parts of me up front. Any desire to run away now? Ask me to leave?” He would not be the first person to use my job as the reason to walk away. With two psychopathic killers involved, he had better reason than most.
“I’m not leaving your side.”
He kissed me with more passion than ever before. I lay back on the bed, and he rolled over on top of me. Tears ran down his cheeks as he buried his face in my neck. I tried to kiss him or move him, and he resisted and held me tight.
“This is another moment I want to remember forever,” he said.
Rubbing his back with my hands, I felt the tension in his muscles relax.
“El?” Josh walked in the door. “Oh my. Okay. Cover up there, sister.” He put his hands over his face.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dmitri looked up, and we laughed. His bathing suit wasn’t enough to cover both of us. My robe was on the back of the bathroom door, and he retrieved it for me.
“Okay, Princess. You can look now.”
My brother’s face was pink when he pulled his hand away. “Owen and the officer are still here. They want to know if they can call the chief and meet here to decide what to do next since once the Reamer boys know Ellie’s not at home, this might be the next place they look.”
“How the hell would they know I’m here?”
“Honey, we made kissy faces at work, and Vince worked there.”
“Shit.”
“Something like that. Let’s get dressed and go downstairs. Josh, tell them they can invite whomever they want. Make sure they tell him when everyone is here, and I’ll set the motion sensors. My dear,” he said, and turned to me. “We are good in a crisis, it’s our job. I’ll get dinner for a group started, and you have your books in the garage, right?”
“Yes.”
“Bring in the ones tha
t apply. Maybe with a little psychological insight, the cops can find these two before they find you.”
“I love it when you take charge.” I smacked him on the ass and walked into the closet.
Behind me, I heard Josh. “No, you cannot join her. Just back up and put some clothes on.”
Nice to know his horny instinct derails his brain.
My heart pounded as I got dressed. It took ten minutes to get my bra hooks lined up right. Hands shaking, I took deep breaths and walked downstairs. The kitchen table was covered in documents. Dmitri was at the front door letting the chief in; the first thing he did was send the other officer home.
“We need people,” Owen said.
“Everyone who works this case puts a target on their back, Mata. That man has two-year-old triplets.”
“Understood.”
The Chief of Police stood a head above Owen and almost looked eye to eye with Josh. He was African-American, with a friendly smile, and a figure that said food was his friend. Something in his eyes told me this was someone I didn’t want to cross.
“I called Atlanta and asked that you be reinstated. We need you on the police force here, not in the hospital. No offense, Doctors.”
“None taken,” I said.
“I turned down your job offer five years ago. I won’t make that mistake again. I’m all yours.” Owen stood a little taller.
Dmitri started cooking while I headed to the garage. My books were in the second box I opened. I grabbed the full sized DSM-IV-TR and headed inside.
Owen looked up when I came in. “What is that?”
“The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision.”
His eyes glazed over before I was done.
“More detailed information on psychopathology than I have in my head,” I said.
“How much trouble are we in if you need help with crazy?” he asked.
“I’m a health psychologist, Owen. I’m qualified to counsel anyone, but my focus in training was on people with medical conditions, not psychopathic tendencies.”
The chief sat down and gestured for me to sit next to him.
“Owen tells me you are sure Vince lives with his mother. She was reported missing a few years ago. I’d hate to think he’d kept her tied up all this time.”
“He peeled Nancy’s skin back. It’s in his wheelhouse.” I tried to keep my stomach from lurching with that mental image.
Josh sat next to Owen and winced at the picture I painted. With effort, I pulled my personal feelings back and tried for an objective analysis. “That level of cruelty isn’t born, Chief. It’s made. Years of either neglect or abuse, or both. Serial killer levels of psychopathology frequently trace back to years of sexual and emotional abuse in childhood. The kind of bond between mother and son that leads him to never develop past the Freudian Oedipus stage of development.”
“He loves his mother.” Owen paled. “He talked about her like she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The only time he talked about other women was after he and his mother had a fight. Then he would talk about her like they were dating. Some of the other guards asked him to stop. It was pretty sick, but I just took it as a southern man’s love of his mother. I didn’t probe further.”
“Then I hope she’s not dead because the image in my head is sickening.” Josh moved away to see if Dmitri needed help.
“Paired up with the abusive nature of Travis, Vince will be more lethal, his emotional state is fragile at best. Travis is likely the more dominant of the two and is good at manipulation. His abusive nature requires a level of control. He probably watched his father beat his mother on a regular basis. Even if he got in between them when he got older to try and stop it, he would still be more likely to hit someone anytime he gets angry. It’s how he learned the idea of family. So for him, beating Vivian was a way of expressing how much he cared about her.
“As for Vince, with the inappropriate nature of the relationship with his mother and Travis’ influence, you have someone who will do what he is told. He lives to please even if that means torturing and killing. ”
I was on a roll, and the pleased look on the chief’s face helped. Maybe I could make a difference and help out instead of wait for them to find me.
It appeared he agreed. He turned to Owen. “Do you still have her security background check from the hospital?”
“It’s at the office. I can call and have it faxed to you.” Owen got on the phone.
“Dr. Quinn,” the chief said. “I’m going to clear you as a liaison officer for the Savannah Chatham County police department. It’s a thankless job that doesn’t pay anything, and I think you are perfect for it.”
“I love my job at the hospital,” I said. “If this is just to help out when you need it, I’ll be happy to do it. Otherwise, I can’t.”
“It’s on an as-needed basis,” he clarified.
“Can I wait until after this is over before I give you a final decision?”
“You can. I’ll still call you, but you can say no.” He smiled at me.
I took it most people didn’t say no to him.
I gathered my thoughts again. “So we know Vince lives with his mother in, at best, an unhealthy relationship. Travis is now out, but had to know he couldn’t go back to the trailer he shared with his wife. That would make the Reamer place very crowded about now. The relationship between Vince and his mother is one he’ll be violent to protect.”
“You mean we have to put Travis back in jail to keep him safe from his own family?” Owen asked.
“And you need to keep him in solitary confinement if you want him to live until the trial. The man hurt children, there is no way the general population lets him live more than seventy-two hours.” I’m positive the people who put Jeffrey Dahmer into the general population also knew that fact. And used it to make sure he never hurt anyone ever again.
“Look, gentlemen. I know they have me on their list. However, if they start to get on each other’s nerves, the emotional control could go, and then anyone is a target.”
Suddenly, being the target sounded like the best thing I could do. I didn’t say it out loud because a part me still wanted to live. The very large part looking at Dmitri and Josh in the kitchen and felt like I was home and loved. Add my father to that picture, and they were the most important people in the world to me. It might have been a selfish decision. I didn’t care.
The chief and Owen started to compare notes. They rearranged the papers on the table and looked for old photos of Travis’ trailer. Being a surgeon, Dmitri had an office tucked behind the kitchen. I didn’t even know it was there until the chief asked him if he had a fax machine and a pocket door opened by remote.
“That is very cool,” I said.
“You like me for my brains, but you keep me for my cool gadgets.” He kissed me and disappeared into the office. He came back out with a combination printer-fax machine and plugged in into sockets in the legs of the table.
He winked at me when he stood up. “You like that touch?”
“I may never leave.”
I didn’t realize I said it out loud until he walked over to me and kissed me. “You don’t have to.”
The chief turned to Owen. “Are they always this gooey?”
“Yes, and they deserve it.”
The chief made a few phone calls and got pictures faxed over. They were photos taken by investigators when Vince reported his mother missing.
He lived in a shack in the woods, about forty minutes outside of Savannah in a rural area where you could drive for a mile between residences. The house, according to the investigators’ notes that also come through, was thirteen-hundred-square-feet with two bedrooms, living room, bathroom, and kitchen. The notes said the house was spotless on the inside. Even the baseboards and grout in the bathroom was scrubbed clean.
I pulled the last page off the fax and knew I had the answer in front of me.
“Guys, this page sai
d Vince had a tool shed about thirty yards behind the house. An officer opened the door and looked inside, but dismissed it because it was small. This is a perfect place for him. He could live out there if he needed to. And the pictures don’t show any concrete under it.”
“He could bury things out there and no one would know.” Owen finished my gruesome thought. “Or people.”
The chief was already on the phone yelling at someone. I don’t know who was on the other end of the call, but they were going to need to change their underwear.
I sat down at the table and took a deep breath. If this was the answer we needed all along, it all could be over by tonight.
It’s never that easy. If another shoe was going to bitch-slap me, I was going to sit here and wait for it. My desire to help stopped at the intellectual end. While Owen jumped at the chance to ride with the chief, I had to be convinced.
“I’m not going. What part of no isn’t working for you?” I stood with my back against the outside window. Like they were going to come around the table and pull me outside if I moved. Josh and Dmitri were just behind Owen, held back by my insistence they not assault policemen in a house with so many security measures. Not the best logic, but it worked.
“Doctor, if they aren’t there we need to talk about other options. Only we aren’t going to sit here and figure each of them out while those two are loose. We have a target, we are moving out. You will be safe in the back of the car.”
“Can we child lock the doors so no one can get in or out?” I asked. Locked into the back of a police car might be the only way I would go with them. As my thoughts screamed for me to run away as fast as I could, I pulled back my emotional response and tried to look at it logically. They had a point that I would live in fear as long as this man was free. And a large part of me was okay with that. It had worked out so far right? No. It hadn’t. Nancy was in the hospital barely alive because this man wanted to get at me.
I tried to remember all of the information from my book on how to deal with bullies and what to do when a client becomes aggressive and each one of them had a different answer. That’s psychology for you, a different answer for every problem depending on who you asked.