A Life Removed

by Jason Parent

  “That’s your fear talking,” Carter said. “That fear will become your sin.”

  Carter knew exactly where to strike. He knew how to make Doug feel ashamed for placing his fears above his faith. Of all the group, Doug had always been the strongest in his faith. Carter would call on him to continue the task God had chosen for them. He stifled a smirk. After all, God speaks through me.

  “Stay strong,” Carter said. “It’s natural to be afraid, but don’t give in to it. Faith will guide you through.”

  “Carter’s right,” Doug said, reaching for his wife’s hand. “His lips are God’s mouthpiece; his words the Lord’s gospel. Everything he has foreseen has come to fruition. If God has chosen to test us, then let us rise to the occasion.” His voice softened, and his shoulders drooped. “I’m sorry I doubted.”

  Ricardo stepped over and put a hand on Doug’s shoulder. “To give your life to God is the ultimate sacrifice for your faith. Jesus died on the cross for us. It was all part of God’s divine plan. We must accept whatever he has in store for us.”

  “Oh, screw you, Ricardo,” Kelly said. “Doug and I have been fighting this fight longer than you could possibly know. Your ass isn’t on the line here.”

  Carter wondered if Kelly was losing faith or if he was just losing his control over her. A new influence competed for her attention: Doug’s preservation. Doug had confided in him how he and Kelly had run once before, during that whole Waco fiasco, and how ashamed they’d been for doing so. Were there limits to how far Kelly would go when it meant her or her husband’s necks were exposed? He considered the possibility of killing her when her tasks were complete.

  Nah. The police will do it for me. But could he count on Kelly to finish his plan? Killing her now is always an option. Might be a whole lot of fun, too.

  “Take it easy, hon,” Doug said. “We’re all under a lot of pressure. Turning on each other is exactly what the cops want us to do. Carter’s right. We need to stay the course. Can’t you see? Our resolve is being tested. Our very faith is being tested. Let’s hear Carter out.”

  Carter smiled. “Thanks, Doug.” He was a demon in sheep’s clothing, and he knew how to wear the wool well. “Okay. Here’s what I suggest. We have one more matter to settle. Meet me on Friday for—”

  “But we were going to get out of here before then,” Kelly whined, looking at Doug with pleading eyes. “You promised me.”

  “She’s right, Carter,” Doug said. “We don’t know how this is going to play out. We saved up some money so we could take an extended vacation. But I don’t need to run anymore. My faith is restored. I will see this thing through.”

  “Running would be like admitting guilt,” Ricardo added. “They’ll find you wherever you go, and you would probably be extradited.”

  “Since when did you become the fucking expert?” Kelly asked.

  “Kelly, please, just let him talk,” Doug said. “We’re all friends here.”

  “You haven’t told Aaron’s girlfriend anything, have you?” Ricardo asked.

  “She knows nothing,” Doug said.

  Ricardo grunted. “She could be trouble. Aaron hasn’t mentioned anything to me about her taking you on as a client, so he probably wants nothing to do with it. Maybe he can be persuaded to help us, but I would only suggest that route as a last resort. Still, to have a cop on our side would obviously make things a whole lot easier.”

  “But, Rick, Aaron’s an atheist,” Doug said. “What are the odds of him seeing the light?”

  “He won’t be sympathetic to our cause; that’s for sure. But you never know with him. I’ve known him almost twenty years, and I still can’t guess when his odd sense of morality comes into play. But he’s loyal to a fault. He’d put his friends before his job—I know it.”

  “In his eyes, what we do is murder.” Doug sighed. “I agree. We probably shouldn’t go down that road unless absolutely necessary. As far as either Aaron or Arianna knows, I’m as innocent as they come.”

  “And you are innocent,” Carter said. Well, foolishly ignorant, anyway. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. God has set forth one more task for us: an eighth chosen.”

  “Seventh,” Ricardo said.

  “Huh?” Carter’s eyes widened. “Oh, yeah, right. Seventh.” Yeah, like the seventh sign of the apocalypse. I wonder if I could work that one in here.

  “But, Carter,” Kelly said, “we have way too much attention on us to do another one.”

  “You worry too much, Kelly.” Carter flashed his snake-oil grin. And you’re starting to piss me off. Maybe I’ll make you the next chosen. “Don’t you feel his presence in our work? Isn’t that enough to solidify your faith? After all that you’ve felt, after all that you’ve become, don’t you believe? Don’t fail us now. You’re stronger than Sharon. I know it. You are God’s chosen messenger. And he has one more message for you to deliver.”

  “Go on,” Doug said. “Tell us about this seventh chosen.”

  “You needn’t worry about the seventh. She’ll be delivered to us on Friday. With her death, God’s divinity will be exposed to all. Our hardships will be over. The Rapture is nearly upon us. Rejoice! We’ll not only save her, but millions of others in the process.” Carter was their prophet, their crutch, and their friend. They had faith in him, not the faith of the average churchgoer, but that of a zealot. That faith gave Carter all the power in the world over them. “This is our last task together, my friends. Don’t falter merely because Lucifer has placed some adversity in our path. God will see us through, as he always has. He is always with us.”

  “Amen,” the group said in unison.

  “Yeah, but the police are always with me,” Doug said. “How do I lose them?”

  “Your backyard is fenced in, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They can’t have more than two cars watching your house. I’ll bet they’re too dumb to watch the back. We’ll wait until after dark, say eight thirty. Go out to your backyard, hop the fence, and cross the property behind your house to get to the street. I’ll be driving a silver Toyota Camry to avoid detection. I’ll pick you up there.” He turned to Kelly. “Both of you. You’ll be there, right?”

  Kelly looked to Doug for an answer, but he gave her none. “Yes,” she said shakily.

  “We’ll then pick up Ricardo and head to the mill. Our seventh will be waiting there, prepped and ready.”

  “Who is it?” Ricardo asked.

  “You’ll see.” Carter had something special planned for them, and the thought of it thrilled him. His groin flushed with blood. I’ve outdone myself this time. If it all has to end here, we’ll be going out with a bang.

  He met the eyes of each of his acolytes. They filled him with a greater sense of accomplishment and pride in his ability to craft an army to do his bidding. He’d given them all a taste for blood in the most literal sense. They were his pawns for as long as he chose to keep them. And when it came time, Carter would let them all hang. He felt nothing for them or their god. Religion was just a means to an end, and how successful it had turned out to be.

  This flock will be missed. Such willing playmates—so faithful, so pliable. What is faith, anyway, but the ignorant searching for reasons, followers looking for a leader, a flock looking for its shepherd?

  Faith is for the lemmings.

  CHAPTER 24

  Aaron swallowed hard. “I can’t seem to find much on Carter Wainwright,” he said. “As he told us, he’s an orphan. He has no living family, adoptive or otherwise. No known business partners, associates, friends… well, none other than those we’re already investigating.” My friends. “Surveillance has been rough since Carter lives out in the boonies. We stick out like a sore thumb. He’s a shut-in. Nobody knows anything about him, other than that he grew up around here under the care of his foster parents, Edward and Teresa Wainwright, then disappe
ared.”

  “Were the Wainwrights wealthy?” Marklin asked.

  “They didn’t leave Carter very much, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “So then where did Carter get his money? It can’t be from those classes he teaches.”

  “I checked his tax returns. He only claims income from the classes, and even that, only for the last two years or so. Maybe we can get him on tax evasion, like Al Capone.”

  “Pimental, you’re about as useless as tits on a cow. Can you tell me anything that might aid our investigation?”

  Tits on a bull. That’s the expression. Tits on a cow are useful. I wish I was at a titty bar. Aaron squeezed his knee. Focus, man. “Well, the Wainwrights were old when they took in Carter. They passed away several years ago, leaving him as their only heir. They owned a house in Rockland. It was sold back in 1989, and it looks like Carter received the proceeds. That’s when he disappeared. But the location got me thinking maybe Carter’s old high school could tell me a few things about him. Or I could try the orphanage, Saint Vincent’s Home here in Fall River. I figured what happened to Carter after high school might be more important, though.”

  “And what did the good people over at Rockland High tell you?” Marklin asked.

  “With your permission, I was going to head over that way now to see if I can find anyone who might remember him and knows where he headed after graduation.”

  “Go for it. The next time I see you, you’d better have something for me.”

  Aaron gathered his things and headed out of the precinct. The drive out to Rockland High School began as a pleasant change, with no killers, no implicated friends, and best of all, no Marklin. Aaron welcomed the alone time until he rediscovered how much he despised his own company. A week had passed, and he still hadn’t spoken to Arianna. Living back home with his parents was taking its toll.

  He grabbed his cell phone then put it back down. He wanted to call Arianna, but he wouldn’t do it. He loved her, but he rarely felt that she loved him anymore, and with every slight, he became more bitter and depressed. The quiet times—the long drives and lying awake in bed—were the hardest. He had too much time to think and too little to distract him from his own destructive thoughts of self-doubt, thoughts of self-hate, thoughts of self-harm… and thoughts of death.

  The first time he’d felt that way was thirteen years ago, with the loss of a girlfriend he still loved and the ugly way things had ended between them. The memory of her… that day… threatened to surface. He resisted, using his mind like a blunt object battering the memory back down, but not before an image could break through. The rocks below him. The screams.

  No! It was best to keep that memory buried. He had tried to do the right thing. I was in the right, he thought, scolding his brain for conjuring up such deceptive reminders.

  “I was in the right…” His voice was low and sulky. “Wasn’t I?”

  His wrists burned with the heat of his shame. Raquel. The scars tingled. He swallowed the cry building in his throat and pressed his palms over his eyes. He could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his head. I don’t want to remember.

  Times are… what? Better now? Aaron choked back his sobs, buried them with the howling mad beast. He couldn’t go through that pain again. He’d barely survived it. Only Ricardo watching over him had kept him from stepping over that edge again. He laughed at the irony, his own private joke. Over the edge…

  He shook his head. It wasn’t just that. The second time was different.

  The second time he’d attempted suicide hadn’t been because of a single incident but rather a combination of several factors, most of which were still woefully present. He’d never really recovered because there wasn’t anything to recover from. He was just miserable, plain and simple, and it seemed he would always be so.

  But did that stem from the first time? “Stop it, Aaron!” he screamed, slapping his hands against the steering wheel. Looking out the windows to see if anyone had seen his outburst, he muttered, “That was a long time ago. You’ve moved on. You’ve gotten so much better.”

  He adjusted in his seat, feeling the weight of his service pistol against his thigh. And now I have a gun.

  When he pulled up to the high school, only a few cars remained in the lot. He parked, got out of his car, and headed straight to Principal Allison Mosher’s office.

  She stood when he entered and gave him a smile, the same type of smile she likely gave to parents of suspended delinquents: tight-lipped and oozing false concern. Still, she had that air of authority—or perhaps self-importance—about her: rigid stance, straight as a pole in her dark-blue suit, her librarian glasses perched high on a slightly upturned nose. She uncrossed her arms and extended a hand. “You must be Officer Pimental.”

  “That, I am.” He shook her hand once, noticing a much tighter grip than his own. “I appreciate you meeting me on such short notice, Ms. Mosher.”

  “Please, call me Allison. I’m happy to help. I took the liberty of looking up the former student you requested. There isn’t much, so I’m afraid I won’t be too much help, after all.”

  “Well, anything you could tell me might be useful.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you what I have.” She opened a folder. “Carter Wainwright was an average student, decent grades. A few teachers who had him in class are still here. Most don’t recall him, though. I wasn’t the principal at that time.” She pulled out a sheet of paper. “But I did find this. It’s an evaluation from his guidance counselor, Vivian Burke.”

  Aaron held out his hand. “May I?”

  “Well, I’m not supposed to let you look through this stuff, but I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” With a wink, she passed him the page.

  “I won’t tell if you won’t.” He looked over the evaluation.

  The student is shy and introverted. He has no friends and keeps to himself the entire school day. His foster parents seem to be his only positive influences, and he speaks highly of them. He does not participate in sports, music lessons, or any afternoon clubs.

  He has no plans beyond graduation. Personal opinion: I fear the deaths of his parents and the subsequent adoption may have severely—and permanently—affected his social skills and overall mental well-being. I have tried to talk to him, but he remains unresponsive to my attempts to get him to open up. Somebody needs to reach out to this boy, but I am afraid he will not let me be the one to do it.

  Recommendation: psychological evaluation by a board-certified professional.

  He handed the document back to Principal Mosher. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She tucked the paper back in the folder. “I called Mrs. Burke to see if I could find out more for you.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Yes, actually. She remembered Carter well. She called him a sweet boy, gentle but timid. She said she wrote this after several meetings with him at the request of teachers who were concerned for the boy’s welfare. She said that when she looked at Carter, she saw a lost child, invisible to his peers.”

  “Were the parents brought in? Did he ever see a professional?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sure his parents were told. It’s our practice to report abnormal social behavior to parents. What steps the parents took, if any, we don’t know. Anyway, Mrs. Burke said that Carter never got into any trouble, so the whole thing was dropped.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Not really. The rest of the documents are grade reports and a few other administrative documents. We have so many files like this. We only keep the bare essentials for each student.”

  “Do you have any pictures of Carter?”

  “I have his yearbook picture, Class of 1998. I made a copy to show his teachers to jog their memories.” She slipped a photo out of the folder and passed it to him.

  Aaron stared down at the picture. “Th-This can’t
be right.” The boy staring back at him made his stomach turn. The beast of his subconscious splintered its cage door. “Th-That’s impossible.”

  The picture showed a boy of sixteen or seventeen who looked sad and dejected, even in still life. The vacant eyes seemed to float off the page, and they haunted Aaron, terrified him. Why do I know that face?

  You know why, the beast inside answered. And it laughed.

  “Is something wrong?” Principal Mosher asked.

  “I-I’m sorry. I have to go. Thank you.” Without asking if it was okay, he took the picture and hurried out of the office.

  Back in his car, he picked up his cell phone then debated whether he should tell the detectives anything. They were chasing a ghost. Someone was a playing a game. Had to be. That boy had nothing to do with their case.

  He breathed slowly through his nose, calming his nerves. You’re better now, remember? The beast of his subconscious mocked and laughed again.

  He growled, snatched up his phone, and dialed Marklin’s number. “Detective?”

  “What have you got for me?”

  “Uh… I’m not sure… exactly.” He couldn’t keep the tremor from his voice. His forehead dripped with sweat. The perspiration ran down his back and made his armpits sticky. Be calm. It has nothing to do with anything. Just one of those crazy coincidences. You know Carter.

  You do know Carter, don’t you? The beast laughed.

  “Pimental?”

  Aaron focused, pushed the beast back in its cage. He was better. He had gotten better. He swallowed. “I don’t think the guy we’re investigating is Carter Wainwright.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I just saw a picture of Carter Wainwright. His yearbook picture from high school. The Carter I know and who you met was dark haired and dark skinned. The Carter in this picture has blond hair, blue eyes, and pasty-white skin.”