by Paul Cleave
“Just the one thing, Tate?” Schroder says.
I ignore the jibe. “Adrian wanted revenge on Pamela Deans and he killed her,” I say. “If he wants revenge on Cooper Riley, why not just kill him too?”
Barlow raises his eyes and his forehead twists into a string of wrinkles. “And that’s the big question, isn’t it? Yes, I’ve been giving it some thought. I don’t believe revenge is the motivation behind Cooper Riley’s abduction.”
“No? Then what?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“I think it’s fascination.”
“Fascination?” Schroder repeats.
“I think when Cooper Riley was coming out here conducting his interviews and his tests, I think Adrian became obsessed with him.”
“You think he’s taken Cooper to own him?” I ask.
“It makes sense.”
And it does make sense. I should have seen it earlier. Should have figured it out from the moment I saw the cell downstairs.
“If he’s that obsessed, why wait three years?” Schroder asks.
“He will have needed to build the courage to act,” Barlow says, “and needed to acquire the tools. If it was about revenge then Cooper would already be dead. I’m certain of it. You say Adrian used a Taser? Why not use a knife, or a gun? No, it’s not about killing. It’s about collecting.”
Ritchie Munroe said he taught Adrian to drive. That had to be part of it. Until recently, Adrian didn’t have the means to bring somebody out here. It’s not like he could have put Cooper into the trunk of a taxi.
“You think Adrian knew Cooper was a killer?” I ask.
“It would suggest a greater degree of intelligence than we first thought,” Barlow says. “It’s more likely a great degree of luck.”
“You think he just happened to be following Cooper and found out he was a serial killer?” Schroder asks.
“The alternative would mean he’s better at doing our job than we are,” I say. “There’s no way he could have figured out Cooper was a serial killer.”
“Our job?” Schroder asks.
“You know what I mean.”
“I agree,” Barlow says. “The question now is just how much longer is Adrian’s luck going to hold out?”
Only it’s not Adrian’s luck I’m thinking about. It’s Emma Green’s. She was lucky Cooper was abducted, but it could mean she’s been without food and water since Monday night. I know on average a person can last around four days, give or take, without water, but these aren’t normal conditions. With the heat wave. . well, it comes down to how hot it is where she is. The pile of dirt at the latest grave gets bigger as more skeleton is exposed. I look out at the grounds and the graves still yet to be found, praying to a God who abandoned them to not abandon Emma Green and to let me find her alive.
“Loaner is an unstable person, Detectives,” Barlow says, “and under the right stress conditions, he’ll be capable of anything-and right now, he’s stressed. Taking over his home like this, trust me, if Adrian knows what’s going on out here he’s going to enter full panic mode, and that means he’s going to be capable of almost anything.”
“And Melissa X?” I ask, and I look over at Schroder.
“He knows about her,” Schroder says, giving me the okay to keep talking.
“Anything happening there?” I ask.
Schroder shakes his head. “We’re talking to her friends and family and trying to build up a profile,” he says.
“She’s not the same person she was before Riley attacked her, assuming that’s what happened,” Barlow says. “Part of her has taken on the role of her dead sister, and is looking for revenge.”
“And the other part?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I couldn’t tell you. Some would suggest the other part is pure evil, but I don’t think that’s the case. The person she is now, that’s a product of her past. With the right medication and the right help,” he says, but doesn’t finish the sentence, because both me and Schroder are staring at him as if he just doesn’t get it. Not everybody is meant to be cured-some people are meant to be locked away forever. It wasn’t Natalie’s fault she set foot on this path, but she’s killed innocent men while on it, and for that she has to pay.
chapter thirty-nine
Cooper has taken his shirt off. It’s bunched beneath his head; not the most comfortable pillow, but it’s not exactly the most comfortable room either. He’s thinking partly of Emma Green and wonders if she’s going through the exact same thing. At least she has water. Who knows, maybe after four days being tied up she’s found a way to free herself, but if she has, there’s still no way she can get out of the room. Mostly he’s thinking about Natalie Flowers, and what he’s going to do to her when he gets out of here. He’ll combine what he knows about her with what the police have found out about her, and he’s going to track her down and make her pay. He’ll see how she likes having parts of her body crushed with a pair of pliers.
He spends some time thinking about how that’s going to feel, and it is going to happen. First Adrian, and then Natalie. He understands his profession enough to know that these other women he’s been hurting are replacements for Natalie, and he wonders what will happen once he’s killed her, whether there will ever be any other urges. It interests him on a purely academic level.
His body is bathed with sweat. He has absolutely no way of knowing what time it is. It could be midnight. It could be noon. His body clock is completely out of whack. This must be how a roast chicken feels, he thinks, and undoes the front of his pants and separates the material a little. He needs water. He needs fresh air. He doesn’t know how long Adrian has been gone. Doesn’t know if the crazy son of a bitch is really going to try and abduct his mother. He hopes not. Throwing his mother into the mix will complicate things.
He can hear footsteps outside the door. Running. His first thought is that he’s about to be rescued. His second thought is that rescue could end up being a problem. The slot is thrown back and light comes into the room but not as strong as before. It’s evening. Maybe around eight o’clock.
“Tell me, honestly,” Adrian says, and he’s puffing. “How many girls have you killed?”
“Why?” Cooper asks. He makes his way to his feet and puts his shirt on. He doesn’t like the idea of Adrian seeing him half naked. He walks over to the slot and rubs the base of his sore back a little.
“The police showed up at the Grove,” Adrian says. “It was just like you said. They’re looking around.”
“Jesus, have they found anything?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I. .”
“Calm down, Adrian. How many of them are out there? Just the one car? Two cars?”
“Lots of cars,” he answers.
“Describe it to me.”
“Geez, I don’t know,” he snaps. “Ten or more cars. What’s the difference? There’re people walking around with weird-looking equipment looking at the ground, kind of like lawn mowers but not lawn mowers.”
“They’re looking for bodies.”
“What they’re doing is walking through my home! They’re ruining it with their. . their lights and equipment and touching everything. I thought it would be good going out there, I thought they wouldn’t come. You said if they did they would just look around and leave! I went into the trees up on the hill and waited for them to go but they’re not going. They’re all walking and searching and invading my home. Our home!”
“Listen to me, Adrian. It’s going to be okay. But you have to be careful not to get caught, Adrian.”
“I wish I knew who each of them were,” Adrian says, not listening, and there is blood in his hairline and while he talks, he digs a finger into it and starts scratching. His other hand goes to his neck and starts scratching at that too. Cooper can see welts beginning to appear. “I should invade their lives in the same way. I should make a list, a list like I made with those mean boys, only this time instead of killing their pets I’ll kill them. I’ll visit each
and every one of them. Let’s see how they like having their homes invaded!”
“You’re bleeding,” Cooper says.
“What?” Adrian pulls his fingers away and looks at them. “Sometimes I get itchy,” he says and goes back to scratching. “But you were right, Cooper. You didn’t lie or trick me and if there’s a silver lining here then that’s it.”
“Listen, Adrian, you need to focus here. The woman last night, the one we killed,” Cooper says, including Adrian in on the killing, “where did you bury her?”
“I hid up in the trees and nobody knew I was there,” Adrian says. “When I was young I used to dream of escaping to those trees. I’d imagine what it would be like picking fruit and cooking rabbits and never having to deal with people again.”
“You hid the girl up there?”
“Those dreams led me to think about getting cold and lonely and struggling to survive.”
“Adrian!”
“What?”
“The girl,” Cooper says, talking slowly, talking calmly. “Did you hide her up there?”
“What? No. How many?”
“How many what?” Cooper asks.
“How many girls have you really killed?”
“Why? I told you already.”
“How many are buried at Sunnyview?”
“What? I don’t know, a few, I guess.”
“How can you not know?” Adrian asks, and Cooper is worried that if he keeps scratching himself at the current rate he’ll bleed to death in the corridor and then he’ll never be getting out of here.
“Calm down, Adrian.”
“How many?” Adrian asks, almost screaming now. Spittle flies from his lips through the slot.
“One. There is one buried there,” he says.
“The girl you took out there on Monday night?”
Emma Green? No. Emma Green is still alive, at least he thinks she is. And if this is Sunnyview, then Adrian would have found her already. Okay. There are two possibilities. Either Adrian hasn’t checked all the rooms-and really, there is no reason he should-or they’re not at Sunnyview. Which means they might be at Eastlake, which means Adrian has been lying to him.
“What are you going to do with her?” he asks, avoiding the question. Let Adrian think what he wants to think.
“I just need her, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
“If I tell you, will you let me out?” Cooper asks.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Then I’ll think about telling you.”
“But I need to know,” Adrian shouts, and he bangs his hands against the door. “Please. It’s important. I have to know. Have to!”
“I can show you.”
“No, no, you have to tell me.”
“Why?”
“In case the police find her,” Adrian says.
“You’re lying,” Cooper says.
“Please, I just really need that body. I promise when I get back things will change. You want water, right? And you said it’s too hot, right? Tell me where she is and I’ll give you water and fresh air. If you don’t tell me then that means you don’t want to be my friend so I may as well close this slot and never come back.”
As much as Cooper would love to never see Adrian again, being locked in here would be an awful, awful way to die.
“I’ll tell you where she is,” Cooper says, “and then we start working as a team, okay?”
“Okay.”
“But first, Adrian, you still haven’t told me where the girl from last night is.”
“In the ground, of course.”
“How far away from the building?”
“I think the police have already found her,” Adrian says.
“Shit,” Cooper says, banging his fist against the door. The body will give them a whole lot of evidence to work with. “And the knife?”
“The knife is here,” Adrian says. “I would never throw it away.”
Good. That’s at least something. “Listen to me, it’s time you let me out. I can’t afford to get caught. Neither of us can. We have to get away from Christchurch. We have to try and leave the country. If we work together we’ll be okay, but you have to start by letting me out and we have to trust each other.”
“You said you were going to tell me where the girl is,” Adrian says, almost whining.
Yeah, he knows what he said, but his mind is all over the place, probing at every possibility. “There’s a path that goes around the back,” Cooper says, giving him directions to the girl who gave up on him last year and died. “Keep following it, it follows a low brick wall. You come to the end of that brick wall and you turn right. Walk fifteen meters parallel to the building and you’ll find a ditch. Follow the ditch further from the building another twenty or thirty meters and you’ll find a tree that’s fallen over. Cross over that tree, walk another ten meters, and that’s where she is.”
Adrian closes the slot.
“Hey, hey, Adrian,” Cooper says, banging against the wall, but Adrian is gone, and all Cooper can do is lie back down and wait.
chapter forty
Adrian feels agitated. He needs to do something to release the anger and there are only a couple of things he’s good at. His face is hot and he digs at the itches and flicks the hair off his forehead as he runs back out to the car. He’d left it running. It’s not like there was anybody out here to steal it. Up on that hill looking down at those men, they all looked like ants. He pinched his forefinger against his thumb and pretended to squash them, then he turned his fingers into a gun and pretended to shoot them instead. It’s what he should have done to those boys back in school. Should have gotten a gun and finished them off instead of killing their stupid pets.
He snaps off a branch from the tree the car is parked under and uses it to get at the itch centered in his back. It tears at his skin but it’s immediately soothing. The backs of his arms are starting to get blotchy, his skin raised up and raw-looking. This only ever happens when the stress arrives quickly. He snaps the stick in half and throws it onto the driveway. He wants to scream, to release some energy. He would get like this on occasion during his Grover Hills years. Things would upset him, and he wouldn’t be able to calm down. Things like eating nothing but mashed potatoes for a hundred days in a row or not being allowed to go outside for an entire summer. He would panic and scream and he’d be put into the Scream Room and left there for a couple of days, sometimes he’d be beaten. Other times he’d be left alone until his frustration faded and he’d forget why he was so mad. More than once he’d be left down there and he’d beat his hands bloody on the door, begging to be let out.
He gets into the car and drives fast down the driveway. It’s getting dark out now, with shapes in the distance only shadows within shadows now. It feels good to be on the move again. It releases the pressure in his chest a little, but it’s nowhere near enough.
His home is no longer his home! Even at the halfway house the Grove remained out here safe and untouched and waiting for him, and now. . and now these people have ruined it! Why are they being so mean to him?
He knows the roads out here, and stays well away from the main ones in case there are cop cars about. After all, he’s still driving a dead girl’s car. He reaches the highway without seeing anybody, then it’s a trip further west until another set of back roads. There isn’t much in the way of traffic. The sun gone now, but the sky not yet black. There are no other cars around and he goes beyond the speed limit, something he’s never done before, the headlights swaying across the roads as his shaking hands move the wheel. He keeps his grip tight. He’s doing nearly 100 kph and his heart is racing. He has never driven this fast before.
He knows Cooper thinks their temporary home is Sunnyview, but Cooper doesn’t know everything. Adrian has driven here twice. The first time was when he was learning to drive and Ritchie thought it would be fun for them to learn on back roads without risk of being caught. They drove here an
d parked at the top of the driveway, both of them too nervous to go any further, both of them daring each other and laughing. The second time was Monday night when he followed Cooper out here when Cooper had the girl in the trunk of his car, and that time he stayed well back in case Cooper heard him.
This time he pulls up the driveway, there is nobody to dare him, nobody to laugh with. Sunnyview is a much bigger building than Grover Hills and he doesn’t like it; it doesn’t have the homey feel that the Grove has. It’s more modern, it’s made from brick and it’s more boxy and in better condition and life may have been different if he’d been sent here instead. The lawns are overgrown with patches of thistle coming through, and around the back it’s knee length and tickles at his legs and he hates it. The skin on his back tingles as he carries the shovel and follows the path by the brick wall, using a flashlight now to light the way. At the end he turns left and takes a few footsteps before remembering he was supposed to go right. He should have taken notes. He knew it at the time, but he thought he would do okay. The sky is mostly dark now, purple way in the distance. There are big trees only a short distance away and thankfully Cooper didn’t bury the girl in there otherwise he’d never find her. He runs in line with the building and actually trips into the ditch. It’s about a meter lower than the normal level. He follows it looking carefully at the dirt. He finds the tree. It’s a silver birch and the branches are all brittle. He climbs over it and it snags at his shirt and tears a small hole in it. He reaches back and drops the shovel and his foot gets tangled and he falls into the ditch, tearing his shirt even more. He picks up the shovel and bangs it flat against the ground twice, then tosses it forward a few meters, bangs his fists into the ground, and starts to cry. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.
It takes him a minute to get back up. His shirt is ruined. He finds the shovel and carries on. He has a headache. He counts out what he thinks are ten meters. The dirt looks different, it’s raised up a little at the ten-meter mark, and he stabs the shovel into the ground. His itches fade as he digs, but he doesn’t have to dig long before he finds her.