by Susan Lowry
Evidently, Sarah had noticed that Kate wasn’t exactly relaxed about her driving. “Sorry. It’s just because I’m so angry. I’ve had a lot of practice in the last month so I know what I’m doing, really. I don’t actually have a license,” she admitted, laughing.
Kate wondered what Jack’s childhood had been like. He hadn’t mentioned it even once. With all of her prodding… if that wasn’t a huge clue that something was wrong.
“Lillie didn’t let me use the car. I was saving up for my own, but it wasn’t easy with my wages.”
She wished she hadn’t eaten anything. How could a seven year old know what foods are healthy? How does he look after himself in such terrible conditions?
“Listen sweetie, once you calm down we’re going to have some telepathy sessions together with him. It’s going to blow us away, okay?” Sarah smiled and patted Kate’s thigh.
Sarah chanced the highway. It turned out to be fine since she got off well before city build-ups. Kate was in a daze, almost asleep, though she didn’t want to close her eyes, the wide spectrum of possible disasters drifting through her mind prevented her from that.
They had both been practically silent for almost an hour when Sarah spoke causing Kate to blink back from her daydreaming.
“There’s something I haven't told you yet.”
“What?”
“I've been getting vibes for a month or so. There’s definitely someone else out there, though she's struggling, poor thing. I think that with you and the boy, we might get through to her.”
She fondled a strand of Kate's hair. “Feeling any better?”
“Hold on,” Kate said soberly, “what’s that ahead?”
Sarah stopped the car in the center lane and gazed out her side window. “Looks like a forest fire. Not surprised with this weather.”
Kate glanced at the temperature gauge on the dash. ”Ninety-five degrees and climbing — we’re going to have to settle farther north than this I think.”
“Need some more water?” Sarah asked, stepping out of the car. Kate got out and walked over to the trunk just as Sarah had grabbed two cold colas from the electric cooler. “Might as well enjoy them while we can,” she said.
They leaned against the car. The cola was still bubbly and fresh tasting. Kate could smell the smoke blowing toward them.
“He's at the upper part of Texas anyway. Let’s not waste time Sarah. I have a bad feeling about him. We should head north for a while.”
The further they drove away from Jack, the more anxious Kate felt about the boy, sensing that they were needed more desperately now, that his health was declining rapidly. She wanted nothing more than to be there for him. Sarah drove north until the billowing smoke near Tallahassee was out of sight, then veered west until the sun was glaring beneath their sun-visors.
Sarah took the ramp off the interstate, pulled into a Costco parking lot and stopped outside the main entrance. She wanted to stay there for the night.
“It’s going to be fucking hot in there Sarah.”
“Na, they’ll have fans. We’ll hook them up and stay by the doors. We can’t sleep cramped up like this for three days.”
They both hopped out and Kate lifted Snowy’s cage from the back seat. Sarah took him and put him in a nearby shopping cart. Then she pulled her gun from her purse, peering over at Kate. “It was Lillie’s. A single mom's got to protect her family. I'm getting a second cart for our stuff.”
She wheeled Snowy’s cart closer to the entrance, skipped over to get another one and brought it back over to Kate.
“Remember those game shows, where they had to cram as much stuff as they could into their carts before the time limit?”
Kate gazed at her.
“Come on now, cheer up. We might as well enjoy ourselves. Holy shit, what I’d give for one of those big chocolate cones,” Sarah blurted pushing a nervous Snowy into the cavernous building.
“Oops, watch out Kate, a body!”
“Sarah, I think I'm gonna…”
But it was too late. Kate was vomiting.
“Oh shit Kate, you’ve got to stop that. Come away from that thing! Let’s head for the back of the store sweetie, the air will be better there.”
“It’s dark back there. And it stinks,” Kate said weakly. Her head was throbbing and she thought she was going to faint any minute.
“Don't worry. They should have a garden centre back that way with the side doors open. Look! Flashlights and batteries, see? We'll make a cozy little nest right by the doors. It'll be fine. It's not too hot in here for you is it? Grape juice. Look at the expiry date Kate; no refrigeration needed and it's got 120% of your vitamin C in just one serving.”
They began to fill the carts with everything they needed for a comfortable evening and then to add some spontaneous extras. Dragging a queen-sized mattress over to the garden center doors where a very mild breeze could be detected, they set up some jumbo flashlights around it and finally a couple of battery-powered fans.
Veiled in eerie shadows they sat on a lawn-swing with their dinner — a smorgasbord of foods they’d picked off the shelves. Sarah had eaten enough for both of them when she suddenly stopped chewing. “It is a little creepy in here,” she admitted, her eyes somewhat distorted by the weird lighting from the flashlights.
They had been listening to random noises, some quite loud, others strangely unidentifiable that cracked or warbled from darkened corners of the huge warehouse.
“It's just the changes in temperature and humidity,” Kate said. A second later an intense boom resounded from the direction of the bakery and they found themselves in each other’s arms.
“What was that?” Sarah whispered still holding on to Kate. They waited, and then they both laughed.
“Oh God… where are those potato chips?” Sarah giggled.
“I'm going to lie down now Sarah. Are you coming with me?”
Sarah brought the chips and a bag of cookies with her and dropped down on the mattress — which they had covered with a blanket — beside Kate; pillows, towels, plastic water bottles, tissues, cans of fruit, cutlery, and napkins were all laid out conveniently around the bed.
Kate sighed, relieved to be able to stretch out. It was admittedly quite comfortable there and she was grateful her sister was with her.
“I’m taking this blanket with us,” Sarah whispered. “It’s so soft.”
“We've only got one car. How much can we take?” Kate said. The shopping cart was packed full.
“Yeah, I guess we'll downsize in the morning. Such a shame.”
“You're so greedy,” Kate laughed. “There are hundreds of stores like this all over the place. Stuff is going to be the least of our problems.”
“I know. I haven't been doing any laundry. I just throw things out. We should always do it that way. What do you think Kate?”
“I think I'm exhausted.”
“Okay then.”
“Night.”
“Night-night.”
“Sarah?”
“What hon?”
“I was thinking…”
“I noticed.”
“Seriously. I was just thinking about Jack.”
“What about the asshole?”
“I feel sorry for him.”
“Well honey… you’ve obviously got feelings for him. That’s just because you fell for him before you knew what a monster he really is. But trust me, he isn’t worth your energy.”
“I guess.
“We don't have a need for secrets, do we Sarah? We trust each other enough to show our dark sides to each other. And then we are forgiving.”
“Of course. But we don’t really have anything to hide. Not like him. What kind of an idiot would admit doing something so evil?” Sarah said.
“But that’s what bothers me. Why did he even bother to tell me then? He didn’t have to. I just don’t get it. All of a sudden like that.”
“Because he's insane!”
Sarah was probably right abou
t that. But Kate needed more details to understand him thoroughly. “What if I could reach Jack telepathically?” Kate added. “He said he had sensed me all the way from his prison cell. I don’t believe it though. He couldn’t possibly have, could he?”
Sarah shuddered. “Trust me, you wouldn’t want inside a mind like that.”
Her poor unborn child. What had she done? Kate sighed. “I should have known.”
“Come on honey. You need to forget about him.”
But Kate began to weep. “My baby won't have a father.”
“We’ll find him a father. Don’t you worry about that, okay? Go to sleep now, you’re exhausted. And we have a long day of driving tomorrow,” Sarah insisted.
“Okay, goodnight. That poor little boy.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Accusing Fingers
(July 17th, Year One, PA)
Jack stirred his boiling oatmeal on top of the gas barbecue glaring at the wisps of steam writhing up the walls of the pot and then dissolving into the air like lost souls. The atmosphere had been thick with humidity for days and now a roll of thunder drew his attention out to sea. Gazing at the approaching black sky he thought he could feel the electricity coursing through his veins as a fork of lightning cracked over the water.
He grabbed from the ledge of the barbeque grill his machete, whacked the blade into a coconut and split it open. Staring for a moment at the heavy weapon still in his hand, he finally walked with it into the beach house, placed it at the bottom of a kitchen drawer, and returned to the veranda. Just as he sat down the encumbered clouds released torrents of rain that plunged into the ocean.
The storm was quickly headed to shore. Jack rose and put a lid on his pot of cereal as the storm surged across the sand towards him driven by unruly gusts which pushed the patio chairs across the veranda; the pot was knocked from the edge of barbeque and splattering hot oatmeal spilt over Jack’s feet.
On his first day in prison — after having changed his plea to guilty — as Jack had shuffled down the cold, austere corridor with his hands cuffed, his feet shackled, and his body clad in bright-orange prison scrubs, all he had thought about was the trial.
Jack's parents while on the stand each in turn had spoken of their son's immoral past, evading his gaze in apparent shame. Jack had bitterly noted that when, for the remainder of the proceedings neither of them were anywhere to be seen, the prosecutor had pounced on their absence, using it against him throughout the rest of the disturbing trial.
“Unless they knew of his guilt, wouldn't any parent want to be here to support their son in court?” he had asked the jury. He had posed the same question to Jack, whose response was to say with a detached shrug, hanging his head, “They were never there for me. It’s typical.”
Sketching the defendant's character for the jury as sullen and cold with a history of violence in his youth, the prosecutor expressed the improbability that Jack possessed any compassion for his patients. “As we have well learned, this is an immoral man with a seedy past who couldn't stay out of trouble in his early years — not even before he reached high school; he was a drug pusher, a thief, and an assaultive bully,” the lawyer reminded the jury.
“The correctional institutions our defendant attended in his youth guided him to an academic path which eventually led to a medical degree. But please keep in mind – Jack's innate character is sociopathic.”
The seasoned attorney paused for a moment to view the jurors, taking the time to look each one of them in the eye, measuring their reactions and allowing his words to take root.
“Sociopathic in his abnormal lack of empathy, his ability to mask it, and the sadistic pleasure he draws from the suffering he inflicts upon those most vulnerable. We can be certain that his intentions regarding his extensive education were to satisfy those twisted and heinous cravings. They alone were his motivation for becoming a doctor — a profession that calls for compassion and a deep inner desire to promote, maintain, and restore human health — not to destroy it.”
He had turned to the members of the courtroom, and paced from one end of the room to the other, rubbing his chin pensively. Then he’d gazed at Jack who had remained detached, finally lowering his head. The lawyer had accused with outrageous anger projected from his booming voice.
“He knew what he was, and what he needed, early on in his life and he coldly planned a way to satisfy those perverse yearnings. It was those evil impulses that fueled his ability to achieve such lofty goals. As a doctor he performed in an arena where he could prey upon the most frail and vulnerable of all victims. And let us not forget that Jack is borderline genius.”
The prosecutor pointed an accusing finger at Jack, looked into the wary eyes of the jurors and lowered his voice to reveal his disgust. “He used his mental agility to take advantage, and he acted out his depraved fantasies in the most brutal, heartless, and barbaric of ways.”
Jack had heard those condemning words although it might have appeared that he wasn’t listening. He’d stared at his hands and then squeezed them into fists.
“The evidence is presented here before you members of the jury, sickening and despicable as it is. The images do not lie. What you see in these photos is an innocent child's remains.”
The jury and the members of the court became noticeably uncomfortable, gasping and groaning in protest, squirming in their seats.
“It's ugly, I know,” the prosecutor said compassionately, “but there it is in graphic detail. A four-and-a-half year old boy.” He turned his head to the jury once more. “But he was old enough to identify Jack. Just barely. Had he not been viciously murdered in the middle of the night, had he survived the sexual torture, this child could have explained to us why he was taken from his hospital bed when there was nobody around to protect him; and he could have told us what had been done to his fragile, cancer-ridden body.”
The lawyer pointed one more time at Jack who was now gazing at the image on the screen ahead of him. “But he was clever our Jack; and he knew how to destroy the forensic evidence. He removed his own DNA from the child's lifeless body. And please keep in mind that we know for certain that he was the last person to be seen with the child.”
Jack's reaction to the graphic photographs projected on a large screen for all to see was astonishing to all present at the trial. Forced to view the blatant violence, he was pushed over the edge and subsequently confessed. At that, his horrified girlfriend stumbled to her feet and dashed out of the courtroom.
“Life without parole,” declared the weary judge. This was not good enough for the grieving parents who wept at the verdict. Jack had glanced back at them, certain by the father’s unforgettable glare that it had taken all of the man’s strength of will not to throw himself at Jack and pummel him to death. But at least there had been some sense of closure for the parents — the monster had been stopped and justice would be done in the name of their lost son.
Jack had been incarcerated in the most secure facility in the country — ADX Florence in the state of Colorado — known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies, a prison in which the most violent of offenders were locked up under supermax conditions, in twenty-three hour confinement and with few amenities. If Jack had slipped up just once, he would have been sent to the ultra-secure section, to twenty-four hour solitary confinement, where human contact was rare, and the opportunity to earn better conditions through good behaviour practically nil.
Flanked by two guards and his assigned correctional officer, Jack had been directed into a stainless steel elevator. He’d kept his head down, obeying the abrupt orders barked at him as the tight group moved to the upper corridor, their hasty steps reverberating around them. It had seemed a lengthy walk, around a bend to the right, several units along, and past many inmates who’d immediately perked up at the sight of a new prisoner.
Jack had been a short, entertaining and irresistible source of distraction from their boring miserable routines and they had relished the opportunity to spew insult
s and laugh at him — even enjoying the repercussions as the guards bashed the steel bars.
When their destination had been reached, Jack had scanned the bleak, windowless cell consisting of a toilet, sink, and mattress and ingested the stale sweat and urine that had lingered in the stagnant air as the steel doors opened. The shackles were removed in silence as he’d assumed he was not worthy of conversation nor would he ever be again. Watching the exiting guards, the door slammed behind them and he had finally been left alone.
Forming his hands into fists, the muscles in his forearms flexed and hardened, the veins running across them bulging, his mind had burned red-hot with fury. In that cramped cage he’d thought would take his freedom until his final days, Jack had felt as small as his father had always intended.
The image of those eyes and the flash he’d seen in them whenever he had passed his father would not leave. It had stayed with him in his cell; he’d felt the silent words passing between them, the same as they had a thousand times before. For five years whenever Jack had turned those years of secrecy over in his mind, his jaw had clenched with rage.
***
“Why are you stopping?” Sarah asked, automatically steadying Snowy's cage in the back seat.
“Shhh… give me a minute.”
Kate closed her eyes searching for that familiar feeling.
“Oh man, it's gone now. I could have sworn there was someone trying to connect. But now I'm not sure if it was just me, it was so… fleeting and almost –”
“What?”
“Never mind. It was nothing.”
“Well, maybe you've found someone,” Sarah suggested. “That's what's been happening with me. A twinge of something here and there when I least expect it. When I try to grab on, it's gone.”
“Wish whoever it is would try harder. I guess he doesn't realize what he’s doing.”
“I'm sure that's what the problem is.”
“Time will tell,” Kate muttered. Still feeling confused and unusually anxious about it, she sped up along the interstate heading west. They were wearing new clothes from Costco and she glanced at both of their long legs which were dappled with light-pink scars.