“How did you get away with killing Marianne? What was your alibi?”
“It was easy to come up with a solid, reliable alibi because I wasn’t there. I didn’t kill her.”
Chapter 38
Harper
The Second and the Third Murders
“It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you have the right connections, enough intelligence, and a lot of cash. You can hire anyone to do anything on the dark web, the Silk Road. Back then it was called the invisible web. You could find a professional killer. Pay with cash and leave no trail,” Gabriel explains.
“So if you can navigate your way down the Silk Road, you can murder your wife?”
“You can pay someone to murder her for you. Then you have the perfect alibi. I wasn’t even there, at the scene of the crime. I really was someplace else.”
“Tell me how you did it.”
“I can’t, because then I’d have to kill you.” He smiles at me, but I don’t return the smile. I’ve heard that phrase used jokingly several times, but it’s not at all funny when Gabriel Stone says it.
“How much can you tell me?”
“Like I said, I know my way around the dark web. Also, once I had the right phone numbers, I used disposable, prepaid cell phones, the kind you can buy at Best Buy for ten bucks. You plant them in different locations and reroute your calls from one to the other so they can’t be traced. Each phone has a memory card. You activate it, and after the minutes run out, you throw it away and switch to another prepaid phone. I have a drawer full of them. Paid for in cash. Purchased in different stores. In different towns. I always wear a disguise, and I never buy one near where I live.”
“What else? Who did you call on your prepaid phone?”
“That’s a secret I have to carry to my grave.”
“Are you referring to organized crime connections?”
“Very organized.” My captor can’t keep himself from bragging. He’s proud of his accomplishment. He killed his wife sixteen years ago and came away clean. No one ever suspected, including me.
“So you contacted someone and asked him to kill your wife?”
“I contacted someone who contacted someone else and so on. Until I was rendered completely anonymous by the complicated chain of connections. And the killer stayed anonymous, too. I don’t even know who did it.”
“How did you pay them?”
“The same way. Top-secret meetings, payphone-to-payphone communication, and finally the cash drop. After that, the money went from one secret offshore account to another.”
“Whoa! You amaze me.” I deliberately inflate his already oversized ego. That’s what’s going to trip him up in the end. He’s going to underestimate my strength and intelligence and overestimate his own. “Your wife’s murder was exactly like the others. Except the real killer wasn’t even there. Pretty fantastical!” I’m hoping that my flattery will loosen him up, and he’ll begin to expand on the details.
“Correct. I simply relayed the instructions. I told my organized crime connections to have the killer read the newspapers. Watch the news. Make it look exactly like the Flagg murder. No one, not even the hired killer, knew I had committed the first murder. They thought I merely wanted it copied. They figured that the person paying for the job wanted it pinned on the killer known as the Bad Guy, the murderer who was in the news. No one realized the assignment came from the real Bad Guy himself. The hired assassin followed my directions precisely and completely. My contacts even found me a left-handed hit man to do the job. Rosemary Flagg’s and Marianne Stone’s murders were exactly the same, thanks to the media’s superbly detailed coverage.”
“But the reporters left out one important thing. That’s what my dad told us. That’s why the cops suspected Norah’s abduction was a fake.”
“I made sure Marianne didn’t have a pacifier with her when she and Brittany left to go shopping that evening. We were trying to wean her off it, anyway. She was way too old for one. But the poor kid was always so scared because of her mother. The pacifier helped my daughter calm herself.” He stares off into the distance as if he can see the little girl he loves and her ever-present pacifier somewhere in the beautiful wildflower meadow.
“The only thing missing from the Bad Guy’s crime scenes.” Now I know the piece my dad wouldn’t tell me about. The killer took the baby’s pacifier when he took the mother. The baby screamed and cried, and before too long, someone came running over to see what was the matter. Nora’s baby still had her binky, so she didn’t cry. It was a long time before someone noticed her.
“Weren’t you afraid no one would find Brittany right away? What if she wasn’t crying?”
“I had the hit man make an anonymous call to the store as soon as he left the scene. An employee went out to investigate, dialed 911, and the rest is history.”
“You certainly covered all the right serial-killer bases.”
He laughs. I can’t believe how effective my flattery is. I don’t even need to be subtle.
“I still have the pacifiers. Would you like to see yours?”
I shudder. “No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” He pauses and then explains, “I wanted the babies to be found right away, Harper. It wasn’t safe. I didn’t want them to be alone, to be at risk. I didn’t want them to suffer.”
“I get it.” The part I get is that he thinks his explanation is logical and reasonable. He’s not even thinking about the irony, about how I’ve suffered for sixteen years now and will continue to suffer for my whole life because my mother died when I was two years old. But I don’t say anything. I act as if Gabriel did a perfectly sensible, well-thought-out and humane thing when he took the pacifiers. So the babies wouldn’t be left alone too long in the parking lots. So they’d cry and get noticed. While he was butchering their mothers.
“My wife didn’t want to take Brittany with her that day. I had to force the issue. We argued. She wanted to leave her with me. I usually insisted on keeping her with me so she’d be safe from her own mother, but this time I wanted them to go shopping together. I said I had an important meeting where I’d be earning tons of money. It worked. Marianne loved money. She finally packed up the kid and left to hit the mall.”
“Nice.”
“She was a snake. I couldn’t wait to get rid of her. When I said I couldn’t take care of Brittany while she went out to spend more of my money, she demanded I call a babysitter.”
His wife seems like she was pretty despicable. I don’t have to fake the outrage. “Holy shit. What a bitch.”
“She was that and worse. When she put her hands on her hips and yelled at me to call a babysitter, I whipped out my phone, stared straight into her eyes, and told her I was cancelling all her credit cards immediately. She started to cry.”
“She cried about her Visa?”
“I know. I hated her. But I dried her tears, swallowed my revulsion, put my arms around her, and explained that I didn’t think she spent enough time with Brittany. They needed more bonding opportunities. Brittany would have her own platinum Visa soon and should know how to use it. Marianne could teach her.”
If the circumstances were different I would laugh at this, but at the time, Gabriel had just paid to have the little girl’s mother murdered. Not funny.
“Poor Brittany, she didn’t want to go. She was afraid of her own mother. She wanted to stay with me, where she knew she’d be safe.”
Now it really isn’t funny.
“Brittany wrapped herself around my leg and hung on for dear life. I had to pry her off so they could leave to go shopping. I went to an evening business meeting to interview an accountant I was thinking of hiring. My investments were prospering so fast, I needed more staff to help keep track of them. That’s where I was when Marianne was kidnapped: in a business meeting. Airtight alibi. The accountant’s brother happened to be a state cop.”
“Lucky.”
“No, perfect planning. I knew about the cop brother when I
set up the meeting. Plus, I had none of the red flags that cause the police to look at the husband as a suspect. I never took out a life-insurance policy on my wife. I had no sweet, young girlfriend waiting in the wings. I left no details to chance.”
“No pacifier.”
“Brittany was outgrowing them, anyway. She never asked for one unless she had to spend time with her mother. That was the only thing that made her nervous. That was the hardest part. I had to make sure Marianne didn’t have any spare pacifiers in her purse or in the car. And I couldn’t give in when Brittany asked for her binky right before they left.”
“So Marianne ended up dead; it looked as if the Bad Guy had confiscated the binky and Brittany was safe.”
“Safe with me, for a long time. We were so happy. Until she became a teenager.”
“We teenagers can be tough.”
“It was my fault. I spoiled her. I loved her so much. I never denied her anything. Clothes, car, vacations, complete freedom to do as she pleased.” Gabriel laughs his real laugh. “Two copies of The Notebook DVD because she wore out the first one.”
When he tells me this part, I actually do feel genuinely sorry for him. He loved her. “You took good care of her. I’m sure she loved you very much.”
“I bought her a car as soon as she got her license. When she asked if she could go somewhere, do something, I always said yes. I couldn’t bear to see her unhappy for even a second. That night she was supposed to sleep over at a girlfriend’s house. Madison. I called to check on her a few hours after she left, but Brittany wasn’t answering her cell phone. When I called Maddie’s mother to make sure my daughter was where she said she’d be, the woman told me she hadn’t seen Brittany or Maddie. They’d told her they were sleeping over my house. It was after midnight. We both got really worried. I went out to look for the girls, drove around for hours. But I never found Brittany or Madison.”
“What happened that night, Gabriel?”
“She and Maddie went to a wild party at some kid’s house. His parents had gone away for the weekend and left him in charge. Like many families in New Hampshire, they owned a lot of land. There were no close neighbors to complain about the noise. The kids had all planned to sleep there because of the drinking, but Brittany got angry at one of her friends about something stupid. Something about a boyfriend. I didn’t even know she had one.”
“Don’t blame yourself.” I reach over and pat his knee. “Lots of kids keep secrets from their parents.”
“They were all drunk. When the cops questioned the kids, no one could supply any useful details about the argument. No one remembered seeing my daughter leave. They were all wasted. Everyone was too drunk to help her. No one took away her keys. No one had her back. No one stopped her. That was the last time anyone saw Brittany alive. At that stupid, godforsaken party.”
I reach over and put my arm around him, letting my hand rest on his shoulder for just a minute, then pull away. The gesture is completely spontaneous, which shocks me.
“Shortly after I murdered Shane’s mother, Brittany and I moved to New Hampshire. We were ridiculously happy. My investments prospered. She blossomed into a beautiful, healthy young girl: good grades in school, good athlete, popular. Being her dad was the best thing that ever happened to me, except maybe being Michael’s brother. Then, shortly after Brittany died, the rage returned. I started killing again. I murdered three people, not the same way the Bad Guy would’ve killed them, but for similar reasons. Two women and one guy.”
“You killed a guy?”
“Yes. An old guy. He kicked his dog.”
“That’s all? He kicked a dog?”
“I like dogs.”
“Then why don’t you have one?”
“I move around too much. Especially now. I’ve always needed to be able to take off in a hurry. It’s important to always have a plan B. To pack a parachute.”
“What’s your plan if things don’t work out with me?”
“First of all, I have you now. I almost don’t need a plan B. But I did make one. However, I’d be the stupidest man on the planet if I told you what it was.”
“And you’re not stupid.”
“Would you be here right now if I were?”
“I guess not.”
“Enough for today, Harper. We’ll continue with your education tomorrow.” He smiles.
A sensible, logical part of me realizes that I need to be alone so I can replay all the information he has shared until I have it memorized, but I don’t want to return to the dark. “Please don’t make me go back there.”
“I’m sorry, but you have to.”
“Please. I’m so lonely. It’s so dark.”
“Maybe I’ll move you into your own room in the house soon.”
“How soon?”
“I’ll start getting it ready today. I promise.”
And he leads me back to my prison. The only thing I have to look forward to is my “education,” which will continue tomorrow. Gabriel’s life story. The only chapter left is the one about Shane’s mother. Then I can escape. I’ll have his full and detailed confession. I just need to plan my attack. The circumstances have to be perfect. Having a plan B will do me no good. I’ll never get the opportunity to try again if I fail. Packing a parachute would be useless.
Chapter 39
Harper
Free-falling without a Parachute
Nightmarish scenes flash through my dreams: people dying, people killing them, drunk kids at a party, a young girl in a fast car rushing toward a huge tree. Finally I find my mother’s face, and by the time I wake up, I’m calm enough to start putting together the pieces of Gabriel’s jigsaw puzzle. Now that I know most of the story, it’s simpler. Like when you look at the picture on the cover of the puzzle box. It makes it easier to put the puzzle together if you keep looking at it, referring to it every time you get stuck. You should always start assembling a puzzle with the edge pieces, the border, like my mother used to do. Then sort out the pieces with the same colors: green for the trees, brown for their trunks, blue for the sky, a quieter, grayer blue for the water. I apply the same method to understanding Gabriel’s life story.
Sticking to the basics and saving the details for later, I sort through his list of horrifying events and arrange them chronologically in my mind:
1.His mother abused him. Worst of all, she locked him in the root cellar. He managed to survive all of this for a few years.
2.When he was six, he got kicked out of school, and she began homeschooling him. Again, he survived the abuse and the isolation. But his anger toward her increased.
3.When Gabriel was eleven, Michael was born. During this time he kept himself and Michael alive and healthy and planned their escape. Hope and love had finally entered his life. He wasn’t alone anymore.
4.When he turned sixteen, he got his license, stole his mother’s car, and hid out at a campground for a few days. He planned to return for Michael after he found work and earned enough money.
5.While he was gone, his mother killed Michael.
6.He returned home and murdered her. Then left his mother’s body and Michael’s in the root cellar.
7.He collected all the family money in the safe and took off.
8.He invested in pharmaceutical companies and other businesses and became wealthy and successful. A millionaire.
9.He met Brittany, married her abusive mother, and, soon after, started killing.
10.He murdered my mother.
11.He hired a contract killer to murder his wife.
12.He killed Shane’s mother two weeks later.
13.He and Brittany moved to New Hampshire and were happy together.
14.At the age of sixteen, Brittany died in a car accident.
15.After his daughter’s death, he tried to fill his emotional emptiness by killing three people: two young women and an old man.
16.That wasn’t enough, so he moved back to Eastfield and became the Bad Guy again. He began stalking me.
/> 17.He killed Jessica Phelps, Norah Hazel, and Verna Whittier.
18.His two attacks on Shane failed. He tried to kidnap me and failed.
19.He knocked on our front door and introduced himself, sat with us, and chatted about the investigation.
20.Shortly after that visit, Gabriel successfully kidnapped me.
21.I’m now his prisoner, and I need to escape.
I commit Gabriel’s timeline to memory by going through it over and over again, until I finally fall into a dreamless sleep.
When I wake up, I assume it’s morning because I feel refreshed. Even though darkness and silence still surround me, I feel light headed with optimism. Maybe I’ve finally gone bat-shit crazy. I’ve spent way too much time with a madman, and it’s contagious. But at least I’m ready to face another day. This could be the day I escape. My scheme is reckless, but I have to try. While I complete my exercise routine, I go over the steps I need to follow in order to be free. I have to be fast and strong and in control. I have to surprise him. I can do this.
He comes for me right after I finish my fifty-fifth sit-up. I’m sweaty and dirty from exercising on the floor of the root cellar, but he doesn’t seem to notice that I’ve been working out. Good. He brings me outside into the sunshine, and we repeat the ritual of the shower and the picnic with a beautiful view.
He touches my still damp hair as I’m sipping my tea. “I see so many shades of gold. Honey, sunshine, lightly toasted bread.”
Good, he’s in a playful mood. I roll with it. “What number on the toaster?”
He laughs. “Four. Right before the medium setting.”
“How poetic. You’re embarrassing me.”
“Sorry. What do you want to talk about?”
“The rest of the story. Tell me the end and then never speak of it again. We’ll put it behind us.”
Hidden in the Dark (Harper Flagg Book 1) Page 26