by Rita Herron
“The law will decide what is true,” Sheriff Waters said bluntly. “You can’t go around threatening people and burning down their houses. For God’s sake, Randall and his wife might have died.” Bryce leaned closer. “Vera Randall almost did die. She’s in the hospital now fighting for her life.”
Paulson’s handcuffs clanged as he shook his fists. “Do you think I give a shit about that bitch? She gave birth to an evil monster. That means the devil is in her blood.” He grunted in disgust. “That means Ellie Reeves is evil, too.”
Derrick dragged him to his feet, his patience worn thin. “You hate Randall and Vera, I get it,” Derrick growled. “But their daughter had no idea what was going on. She risked her life to save those children.”
The sheriff cleared his throat. “He’s right.” Bryce moved up beside him. “And if you decided to kill these other women to get back at her, you’re going to prison for the rest of your life.”
Paulson’s eyes widened, snot dripping from his nose. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Did you send Randall and Ellie Reeves threats?” Bryce asked.
Paulson’s yellowed teeth clamped together, a vein throbbing in his neck.
“I take that as a yes,” Bryce said. “Then when you thought he might get the charges dropped you killed those women to get revenge against the Reeveses?”
Paulson began to shake his head. “No, goddammit, I… set that fire, but that was all I did.”
Sixty-Eight
Rose Hill
Eula Ann stood in the midst of the rose garden, her body jolting as fear swept over her.
As she closed her eyes, she swore she heard the shrill scream of a woman as she drew her last breath. There was so much evil out there in the forest.
There was goodness, too, like that Ellie Reeves girl. And the others who were hunting this latest killer.
Kneeling, she plucked a red rose from the bush, then plucked the petals one by one. Holding them in her palm, she raised her fingers and let the wind pick them up and carry them into the forest.
Folks thought she was touched in the head. But she found solace in knowing the spirits turned to her when they were lost between the darkness and the light.
Tree branches cracked and snapped in the wind, footsteps crunching dried leaves somewhere nearby. She pivoted. Someone was there. Someone watching her.
She’d sensed his presence many times. Heard some of the Shadow People called him the Watcher. Although she hadn’t seen him in some time now.
No one knew if he was good or evil. But he roamed among them all the same. Lurking and watching. Hiding from something.
She didn’t think he was this latest killer. A sorrowful aura radiated from him as if pain and life had been too hard on him, and he was lost.
Softly, as the rose petals fluttered around her, she began to hum her favorite gospel hymn, willing Ellie Reeves to find answers fast before another woman was taken, another innocent life over too soon. Before the evil created a permanent stain on the trail.
Sixty-Nine
North Georgia State Hospital
Ellie looked up at the forbidding mental institution.
While pacing the waiting room at the hospital, anticipating news about her mother, she’d received word from Derrick that he had an ID on the man who’d visited Hiram in prison. As Bryce booked Paulson for arson, she swung by and picked up Derrick.
“The man’s name is Vinny Holcomb,” Derrick said as they parked. “He has a record for assault against women, and he attacked his own mother, who called the police. He’s institutionalized in the same mental facility where Hiram had first been sent for evaluation.” He hesitated. “He escaped last week, Ellie.”
Derrick had already checked to make sure a bulletin had been issued for the escaped mental patient and all authorities at the airports, ports, and borders were notified. It was still active, but with everything else going on it wasn’t something Ellie had been made aware of. Although if Holcomb was the Weekday Killer, he must be hiding out somewhere in the mountains.
The gray stone hospital, located in a neighboring county about twenty minutes away, resembled a haunted castle, with turrets and a spiked roof. An electric fence surrounded the property, which backed up to the river and the sprawling forest behind it. A few who’d managed to get past the guards and the electric fence had plunged to their death in the raging river as they tried to escape.
“I’ve heard about this place,” Derrick said as he parked.
“I’m not surprised,” Ellie said. “It definitely has a reputation. There are rumors that in the fifties and sixties they used to try out experimental procedures on prisoners being treated here.”
Ellie shivered as they entered, the giant stone walls closing in on her. She could practically hear the screams of patients who’d suffered in this place, ones who might have been locked away for life.
The director of the hospital, a tall, thick-chested man with a gray beard and bulbous nose, met them at the front door, introducing himself as Carlton Hudson.
“We’re here about your patient who escaped,” Ellie said.
“Yes, I figured you’d show up sooner or later,” Mr. Hudson replied.
“How did he get away?” Derrick asked.
The director made a low sound in his throat. “The details are sketchy. Happened at night after the patients were on lockdown in their rooms. We think he somehow overcame a guard, stole his gun and then his uniform. Drove out of here in the man’s car.”
“You alerted the police?” Ellie asked.
“Of course. The sheriff over in Ellijay.”
How hadn’t they heard about this?
“What about the Marshal Service?”
He shook his head. “Vinny wasn’t a prisoner, Detective Reeves. It’s true that we temporarily assess and treat convicts here—hence the security measures—but we specialize in long-term, secure treatment of the mentally ill.”
They followed the director through a security area and down a long dark hallway. Voices, medicine carts and a loud banging sound from inside one of the rooms echoed around them. The scent of dust and medicines and something rancid that Ellie couldn’t define permeated the air.
They passed a solarium with potted plants, tables where patients gathered for card and board games, and an area for arts and crafts, complete with easels for painting. Floor-to-ceiling windows allowed sunlight to flood the room, which made Ellie breathe a little easier.
Staff members supervised the small groups and a guard stood by the door, his eyes on the room.
Unease grew inside Ellie as they veered down another hallway, then stopped at another security station.
“Behind these doors, we keep the most dangerous of our patients,” Mr. Hudson said. “Ones who have a history of violence against others. It’s also where convicts who we are assessing or treating are held. Suicidal patients are housed in another section for twenty-four-hour monitoring.”
The second they crossed through the double doors, the atmosphere changed. The space felt cold, isolated, closed off from the world. Ellie had the fleeting thought that this was the stuff horror movies were made of, creepy dungeons where one could easily make an unwanted family member disappear.
An armed guard greeted them, and the rooms had metal doors that were locked, offering no light from the hallway.
Ellie wouldn’t survive being shut in like that.
The sound of someone screaming and another person banging on a closed door made her stomach twist into knots.
The director used his key card to unlock the door, gesturing that they could go in. Inside, the walls were bare, concrete and painted a faded pea-green. The floors were a cold, rough cement and there wasn’t a single window. Other than the cot with a sheet and thin blanket on it, the room was bare. Scratches made by human fingernails marred the walls, and dark copper stains streaked the area near the door, as if Vinny had tried to claw his way out.
“Our people searched the room for
some sign as to where Vinny might go, but found nothing,” the director said.
Ellie pulled on gloves, then crossed the space, checking below the bed and under the mattress while Derrick searched the closet. Three pairs of sweatpants, the strings removed, and t-shirts that had seen better days hung in the closet.
Turning in a wide arc, Ellie glanced up at the ceiling. A vent was directly above the bed. Climbing on top of it, she tried to reach it, but she was too short.
“Let me.” Derrick stepped onto the bed, stood on tiptoe, then pulled out a pocketknife. Flipping it open, he used the tip of one of the tools to loosen the screws.
Dust floated down from the ceiling as he removed the vent, then he raked his hand on the inside. Seconds later, he removed a folder and handed it to Ellie.
Her breath caught as she opened it. There were dozens of articles about her and the Ghost case. Her parents and their arrest. Hiram in shackles and chains as he’d been escorted into the courthouse to be arraigned. And pictures of the small graves where the girls had been found.
Below them, she discovered a series of crude sketches of women who’d been tied down and gagged, lying in the brush and wilderness. Women who looked as if they’d been beaten to death.
Another one was a close up of Ellie at Hiram’s arraignment. An X had been drawn across her face in blood-red lipstick.
Seventy
“He’s coming for me,” Ellie said, her voice riddled with contempt.
“That’s not going to happen,” Derrick assured her, his hands knotting into fists.
Ellie lifted a skeptical brow, and he grimaced, pushing a business card toward the director of the hospital. “Send Holcomb’s medical files to me.”
“We can’t do that without a warrant,” Hudson said.
“You’ll have one by the time you pull them together. What else you can tell me about Mr. Holcomb? Did he have visitors? Family?”
“His mother washed her hands of him when he was committed. Apparently, she’d been through years of trying to help him, but he’d go on and off his meds. When he’s off them, he’s psychotic and violent. His physical attack against her led him here.”
“Did he have contact with anyone outside the hospital, or perhaps a staff member who might have helped him escape?”
“My staff have been questioned and cleared. As far as mail and outside correspondence, Vinny didn’t receive any.”
“I assume you have surveillance cameras. Have you looked at those to determine if anyone approached him or came in and out of his room, someone suspicious?”
“One of our guards looked at them after he escaped,” the director said. “But he said he didn’t see anything.”
“Yet somehow Holcomb got hold of those newspaper articles,” Derrick pointed out. “And the ease with which we found them doesn’t say much for the thoroughness of your staff.”
An ashen look settled across the man’s face. “True.”
“I want to take a look.”
Ellie’s phone buzzed, and she glanced down at it. “The reporter,” she muttered, letting it go to voicemail. “While Special Agent Fox reviews the tapes, I’d like to speak to Holcomb’s therapist.”
“All right. But without a warrant, she can’t tell you much.”
“I still need to speak to her,” Ellie said firmly.
Derrick sent a quick text to his partner asking him to work on the warrants. “That warrant is coming forthwith,” he said. “Now show me the security tapes.”
The director led them down the hall, through the double doors and security checkpoints, to a cleaner section of the building which held offices and two large rooms that he explained were used for group therapy sessions.
He knocked on a door with a brass nameplate indicating it belonged to Grace Wiggins, Mental Health Counselor. A minute later, she invited them to come in.
While Ellie slipped inside to interview the therapist, the director escorted Derrick to the security office and introduced him to the chief of security, a frail-looking man named Roger who looked about ninety. The security system was old and outdated, the camera footage grainy and choppy.
Derrick spent the next half hour reviewing CCTV, focusing on Holcomb’s every movement. Although Roger looked feeble, he did know the names of all the employees and vouched for them.
As the footage from the night Holcomb escaped appeared, the old man adjusted his bifocals, then pulled at his chin. The camera revealed a man dressed in scrubs entering Holcomb’s room, but his boots didn’t match the clothing.
“Who is that?” Derrick asked.
Roger made a clicking sound with his teeth. “I don’t know. Can’t see his face.”
“That’s because he’d intentionally avoided the camera. I want to send this film to my people,” Derrick said. “Maybe they can do something to identify the man. He may have helped Holcomb escape.”
Seventy-One
Ellie scrutinized Grace Wiggins, the mental health counselor, as she seated herself in the office.
The middle-aged woman had choppy graying hair, tortoiseshell glasses and her stiff posture radiated a tough exterior that she no doubt had to possess to do her job. Yet when she spoke, her voice was as soft as butter.
“You’re here about Vinny Holcomb?”
“Yes, he’s a person of interest in a homicide investigation.” Ellie gave her a moment to absorb that information. “I need to know everything you can tell me about him.”
The woman’s fingers worried the pen she gripped in one hand. “I’m afraid HIPAA prohibits me from divulging a patient’s personal medical information.”
“Yes, I’m aware.” Ellie lifted her chin, determined to extract some information from her. “I’m not asking for his diagnosis or details of his treatment.” They would look at that when Derrick got the warrant for the man’s medical records. “But if you feel he’s a threat to himself or others, you have to talk to us. And we believe he may be the perpetrator we’re hunting in the Weekday Killer murders.”
Dr. Wiggins blinked as if to control her reaction and failed, nerves flashing in her eyes.
“The killer has texted me personally, taunting me about the murders,” Ellie continued. “The fact that we found articles about the Ghost in Vinny’s room raises suspicions. The director said Vinny was obsessed with that case. And the warden at the prison where Hiram is currently being held informed us that he tried to visit Hiram there.”
“Oh, my goodness.” Wiggins fidgeted with the pen again. “I didn’t assess Hiram, but he would have been allowed access to the solarium, under observation. He could have met Vinny there, or in the secure wing.”
“Hiram murdered those girls as a replacement for me, because I’m the one he wanted. Now I’m receiving texts from the Weekday Killer, and a mental patient who was obsessed with that case is on the loose.” She tilted her head, gauging the woman’s reaction. “You see where I’m going with this?”
The therapist sighed wearily. “Yes, I understand how you might make a connection.”
Laying her phone on the desk in front of the woman, Ellie scrolled through the photos of the victims. “Here are the faces of the women the Weekday Killer murdered. What I need to know is if you think Vinny Holcomb is capable of sadistically slashing these women’s throats and posing them in ritualistic fashion.”
Dr. Wiggins’ face whitened. Finally, she set the pen down and folded her hands on the desk. “We are speaking hypothetically, of course.”
“Of course,” Ellie replied, raising a brow.
Wiggins’ sigh hinted she wanted to say more than she could. As a patient in therapy, Ellie understood and appreciated patient–doctor privilege. But there were gray areas where a counsellor had to report a patient if they presented a danger to themselves or someone else.
“Hypothetically, a patient with a history of OCD and schizophrenia, off his medication, might become violent.”
Ellie nodded. “This is in strict confidence, and off the record,” she told the woman
. “The killer exhibits ritualistic behavior. He dresses his victims in Sunday clothes as if preparing them for a viewing, poses their hands in prayer, and lies them on a bed of wildflowers.”
Despite her calm demeanor, a shocked sound escaped the therapist.
“He also smears lipstick and rouge on them. Would those actions fit with Mr. Holcomb’s behavior?”
“Again, I can only speak in hypotheticals, but it’s possible.”
“Is there anything you could tell me about these rituals? What they might mean?”
Wiggins tapped her fingers on her temple. “It’s possible the women represent someone else in the killer’s life who wronged him or hurt him. He’s obviously obsessed with death. Have you considered the fact that he might work in the medical field, maybe as an ME? Or that his job has something to do with preparing bodies for burial, like a mortician? He could even be a body mover.”
Cord McClain immediately came to mind. But she trusted him. Didn’t she?
“You should also talk to the police officer who handled his arrest,” Dr. Wiggins added.
Ellie nodded, frustrated that the therapist had danced around her questions, but respecting her reasons for doing so. “Do you keep recordings of your sessions with the patients?”
Wiggins twisted her hands together. “I do.”
“Could I listen to them?”
“You know I can’t release them without a warrant.”
Leaning across the desk, Ellie gave her an imploring look. “Listen to me—this man has murdered three women so far and we’re expecting to find another victim today. Every minute you drag your feet could cost that woman her life.”
Suddenly, the therapist turned to her keyboard.
“I keep digital and physical copies of the recordings. I’ll ensure a physical copy is included with the files you’ve requested. But some sessions are likely to be of more interest than others.”