by Alex Gates
My words tumbled out. “What the hell…?”
Ben sprinted before I did, and I rounded a corner too late. He dove back, pinning me to the ground.
The patrol escorting Eddie Kirwin to the holding cell wasn’t as quick. The man running from the lobby aimed a gun at Kirwin.
Three sharp pops. The shots fired fast.
I heard only the first, the rest shrill in my ringing ears.
Eddie fell. His murderer, a balding meth head so tweaked out he hadn’t even worn a coat, pushed the barrel against his own temple.
“I love you, Alyssa.”
His final words punctuated the shattering of his skull.
13
No one else compares to you.
-Him
My thoughts were dark enough when they suffocated me at night. I didn’t need an emotional catharsis on a couch to realize how bad it’d gotten.
“You witnessed a murder-suicide happen in your department this week.”
Supposedly, Doctor Susan Addler was one of the premier clinical psychologists in Pennsylvania. Didn’t stop her from asking stupid questions.
“That must have been terrible,” she said.
No. Watching my only lead to an unsolvable case bleed out near the water cooler was great.
“I’m fine.”
The under-stuffed wingback chair valued form over function. My leg ached, but I hadn’t shifted yet. No need for the psychologist to correctly assume that I was uncomfortable.
She was one of the more personable therapists. She didn’t take notes, but she served tea in the corner of her office. It was styled to look like a parlor, flower-print furniture and soft music. Tissues and tea bags lined the table. They’d remain untouched.
“Just fine?” Doctor Addler folded her hands in her lap and sat like the damn queen of England instead of a forty something specialist in critical incident stress management. “Have you been that close to a murder before?”
She had my file on her desk. She knew the answer to that. She also knew that I was well aware of the game she played. She’d guide the conversation, follow a set schedule of questions and responses, and address my problems with the same research I had studied in college ten years ago.
Predictable and effectively useless.
Therapy had once sounded noble when I’d planned to be a psychologist. But one violent captivity and ten years of life experience tended to change one’s worldview.
And yet, Ben and I were forced into mandatory police counseling—a way to cope and comprehend what we had to view in the kidnapper’s videos. What exactly could this woman tell me about the world that I didn’t already know?
“You might find it soothing to talk,” she said.
To her? She wasn’t a cop. She’d had never worked a case that broke hearts and minds. Hell, she had framed photos of her dogs on her desk and no ring on her finger, yet she presumed to offer relationship counseling every Thursday.
What a joke.
I shrugged. “Therapists are all the same.”
“Are we?”
“Yeah.”
“How can you be sure?”
Years of therapy following my kidnapping. But she knew about that too. “I wanted to be a therapist, long ago.”
“What changed?”
Almost getting murdered. “Life.”
“What about life?”
Why lie? “I learned the dirtiest little secret about life—some people can’t be helped.”
She lowered her pen. “Like who?”
Me, but that was obvious.
“There’s some real evil out there,” I said. “It’s a waste of time trying to rehabilitate people who can’t understand basic human empathy and behavior. The only answer is punishment—justice. No amount of talking will ever heal the wounds they’ve caused.”
Doctor Addler sipped her tea and left a beige lip print on the white mug. Why wear a shade of lipstick the same color as her lips? Maybe we should have talked about that.
I sighed. “Are you gonna ask me some questions? Or are you just listening to me ramble?”
Doctor Addler smiled, a gentle encouragement that must have worked on a lot of people. “London, I think you’ve needed someone to listen to you for a very long time.”
“Oh, Christ. You think I don’t get that at home?”
“From James? Your fiancé?” Good on her for not needing to check her notes.
“Fiancé. Criminal behaviorist. Sometimes it’s pretty interchangeable.”
“I can see how frustrating that must be,” she said. “He gets into your head?”
He was the only one who could. “I get enough therapy at home. I don’t need it during work hours too.”
“Why not?” Doctor Addler tugged at the wrong string. “A lot of police and law enforcement need an outlet. A safe space to talk about what they’ve seen, experienced.”
“And most police officers have jobs to do. They can’t be wasting their time—”
If she was offended, she didn’t show it. “Is this a waste of time?”
What did she want from me? “Look, the police union will still pay you.”
“A relief.”
“But I’m working a case that needs undivided attention.”
“Why?”
She wasn’t asking to insult the three little girls suffering far away from home, but it felt like she treaded a little too close. “I’ve got nothing to work with and no time to solve this. And my partner’s gotta waste his time too.” I kicked at the chair, finally stretching my leg. “At least it keeps him busy.”
“Sounds like you don’t want a partner.”
I smirked. “I need a partner like I need a therapist.”
Doctor Addler laughed. “Ah. I see. You plan to just…go it alone.”
“It’s worked for the past two years.”
“Just two?”
I paused. “What?”
“London, you’ve been alone for a lot longer than two years.” She tested me, but I didn’t bite. Instead, she changed the subject. “When did you decide to become a police officer?”
I knew what she wanted, and I refused to let the conversation steer that way. “After college.”
“And before that?”
I shrugged. “Well, every little girl wants to be a princess, but that dream was dashed when Kate sunk her claws into Prince William.”
She offered me tea, again. I shook my head, but she made her own cup from an electric kettle on the end table. She reused the same teabag. Yet again, something more interesting we could have discussed.
“So, you decided you wanted to help people.” She sipped her tea.
“Yes.”
“You wanted to rescue people.”
A strange word. I cocked an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s admirable. You won’t hear anyone say a word otherwise.”
“Don’t mean to doubt you, but you know they’re looking for reasons to fire me. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
Doctor Addler lied to my face. “Every word spoken here is confidential.”
That wasn’t true. The only real secret a person could keep were the horrors they’d experienced in the past. Those were the wounds they’d take to the grave if only to bury the memories even deeper.
“Confidential worries me,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because that means you want to talk Poppy Drive.”
Doctor Addler nodded. “Don’t you think we should talk about the case?”
Easy enough. “What’s there to talk about? Get your pen and take this down—I have nothing. A big zero. Draw a line through it if you want, make it fancy, at least. Three kids were taken from their own homes, and I have no leads to where the hell they’ve gone.”
She approached the subject with all the subtlety of a hurricane. “But you have some evidence.”
And I did everything I could to forget it as soon as the laptop shut down. “Yeah. So
me.”
A still moment passed. Doctor Addler leaned forward to rest her mug on the table. Apparently, we were getting serious.
“You’ll need to talk about those images, London. What you’ve seen. How it makes you feel. If you don’t—”
“I’m fine. I have to be fine.”
“Why?”
“People are counting on me.”
She sucked in a breath. “But that doesn’t mean that you are fine. These images. The videos. They’re traumatic to watch.”
What a goddamned understatement. Exactly the reason why I wasn’t talking about this. Not with Ben. Not with her. Not with James.
“Have you ever seen this filth?” I asked. “Have you ever seen anything that could even compare?”
She hesitated. “No.”
“I hadn’t either, not before this case.”
“And now?”
And now I had no reason to not be working twenty-four hours a day to find them.
To stop him from doing…
That. Again.
My words hardened. Wished my heart would too, but it only ached more with every passing second. I had to be stronger than this.
“I don’t think Alyssa is alive.” I conceded the fear only because it was the most logical. “And I worry for Kaitlyn.”
“Why?”
“They’re too old for this man. He discards them at puberty. That’s why he’s taken the third child. Sophia has time, but…” I coughed. It cleared some of the hesitation. “This is the first time I’ve ever dreaded coming to work.”
The admission didn’t surprise her. Maybe Ben had said the same thing? Christ, we’d admitted it to each other already.
“I can understand why this case is hard for you…beyond the obvious.” Doctor Addler picked her words with an abundance of caution that did nothing to cushion their blow. “Especially with your experiences.”
“What’s that mean?”
She folded her hands. “You’ve always helped children in trouble. Just recently, you’ve led two big, very disturbing cases. You rescued those women and children, but you didn’t…watch what they were forced to endure.”
“And?”
“You care about those in trouble, but there’s one person who needs help that you’ve ignored.” She tapped her own chest. “You need to care for yourself.”
Oh, Jesus. “Okay.”
“I’m serious, London.”
Everyone always was. “I’m fine.”
“Has anyone warned you not to take this case?”
“No one who could stop me from doing it.”
“Not even friends? Superior officers? I’m sure James is worried for you.”
I frowned. “And all them understood why I had to do it.”
“Why did you need to do it?”
I never had much patience to spare, and now it was gone. “You want to see the videos? See what he makes them do?”
“I’m not asking why they need to be saved,” she said. “I want to know why you think you’re the only one who can help them.”
“I never said that.”
“But you think it?” Doctor Addler counted on her fingers as she spoke. “You’re searching for girls who’ve been kidnapped, held in captivity, living in a small, featureless room for an indeterminate amount of time, at the mercy of a man who makes a game of obsession, who uses their bodies to fulfill some sort of hedonistic, sadistic pleasure for himself.”
I stood. She was lucky I didn’t kick over the coffee table in the process.
“So, three little girls are kidnapped and raped…” I stared at her in disbelief. “And you’re gonna make this about my past?”
“It’s not just in the past, is it, London?” she asked. “It’s impacting you on this case.”
“It’s not.”
“Are you sure?”
And we were done. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes before the quack brought up my kidnapping. Longer than I thought she’d last.
I grabbed my coat. Doctor Addler hadn’t moved.
“My past has nothing to do with what’s happening now,” I said. “Write it down. I’m not saying it again.”
She sighed. “It’s going to have everything to do with your future if you don’t see the dangers you’re ignoring. No man is an island, but you’re digging a deeper moat.”
“And everyone on the other side is salivating over the thought of using my captivity against me.”
Did I yell? Should I have yelled?
I continued, voice rough. “The department is looking for a reason to throw me off the force. And why wouldn’t they? I work every day with the same men who once set up a tip line in my mother’s living room. They don’t see me as a colleague or someone they can trust. They see a victim. Always and forever.”
“How do you see yourself?”
Wasn’t answering that. “I survived. And the sick fuck who took me never once abused me the way this asshole is hurting those kids. It doesn’t compare. It will never compare.”
“But it does, London.”
I wasn’t listening to this, but Doctor Addler kept talking. Like they paid her by the word—regardless if she was right or not.
“But you think it does compare.” Her words were soft. “And the guilt you hide for equating your experience with those girls is eating you alive.”
A sickness rose in my throat. I forced it down.
“You did your job,” I said. “Now let me do mine.”
Doctor Addler reached for her tea. “We meet weekly, London.”
Like hell. “No. We don’t. I’ll come to you if I need help.”
She expected it. Her words were murmured, solemn.
“And it’ll be too late when you finally realize you’re in trouble.”
14
Most people look for the exit…
Why are you looking for the truth?
-Him
They’d engraved his tombstone with a baseball bat and glove.
That only made the grave for Jeremy Gibson more tragic.
Without visiting the cemetery, without reading the words myself, I’d never believe such heartache could befall a single family.
First, eight-year-old Jeremy Gibson unexpectedly died.
Then, only three years later, Kaitlyn Gibson was stolen from her family home.
Losing one child was horrific. The death of another?
I stared at the grave, silent for long enough to earn an uneasy glance from Ben. I didn’t let him ask the question.
“The Gibsons didn’t mention Jeremy at all,” I said. “There’s only a brief note in the file about their son.”
Ben hesitated, his voice soft. “Well…what are you supposed to say to someone who’s lost a child?”
Did anyone know the answer to that?
“Maybe they can’t talk about it?” I cleared the weakness from my words. Blamed it on the cold. “It’s a terrible thing.”
“Yeah.”
“You never know what to do. How to act. Just keep asking yourself…what if it was your fault?”
His hesitation was appreciated. So was his silence. What grieving mother would believe anything that wasn’t already deadening her heart or twisting in her gut?
I changed the subject before it revealed more than anyone should have known. “So what happened to Jeremy?”
This was a safer conversation. Ben seized it. “Tim was in the park with his son playing ball. He hit his head, but everything seemed fine when they came home. Later that night, the boy died. Didn’t even know anything was wrong.”
It was horrific—an undiagnosed concussion leading to the swelling of his brain. One minute he was there, his presence promising a future of love and family and warmth.
Then the next…
“How does a fall do that sort of damage?” I bundled my coat a little tighter as the wind twisted a layer of fresh snow flakes over us. “Did anyone take a report?”
“They thought it was an accident,” Ben said. “Why make a
report?”
“Maybe the doctors had a suspicion?”
“We can check, but CPS didn’t even investigate. Everyone believed he died from a fall.”
I didn’t. Kids didn’t fall onto their temples. They scraped knees and brush-burned their hands. They got dirty, maybe a little bloody, but nothing so terrible he’d end up in a grave.
“How are you feeling about Tim?” The job didn’t allow me to think the best of people under good circumstances. The questions no one wanted to answer were the most important. “First impressions?”
Ben threatened to light his cigarette. My arched eyebrow dropped the lighter back into his pocket. “He’s abrasive. Not sure if he’s abusive.”
“Heather fits the type. Meek. Nervous. Relying on her husband for cues to speak and act.”
Ben knelt and removed a cluster of dead leaves from the gravesite. “I’ve seen it before. It doesn’t have a good resolution over in Homicide.”
“Never does. And that’s why we’re here.”
“Little dramatic to drag me to a cemetery, don’t you think?”
“You complaining? We could stay in the office.”
“No.”
Ben might have answered too quickly, but what was he hiding that I didn’t feel as well? Anything was better than sitting in that closet…watching those movies…seeing those photos.
It’d gotten worse. The images went home with me, forever ingrained in my head. It was the first time I decided I hated silence. Despite my instincts, despite the obsession to listen for the creaks in the house which might have revealed someone hunting from the shadows, I had to put music on. Anything to get their voices out of my head.
And so here we were. I winked at Ben. “Lucky for you, the grave was just a pitstop.”
“Cheery.”
“We know a lot about Kaitlyn, and nothing about Jeremy. The parents don’t talk about him, the file’s definitely limited. So, we need to take the investigation to people who knew them both.”
“Who are you thinking?”
I pointed across the street, just outside the church and cemetery’s property. A series of red brick buildings spanned three lots, a blacktop and playground nestled in the middle.