by Blake Pierce
Those two weeks of Alex Lynch’s life had been studied and documented closely by criminal profilers and ravenous media outlets over the years that followed. According to the official story, Alex Lynch returned a weed eater he had borrowed from a neighbor in his neighborhood along the outskirts of Williamsburg. The men had words over a ding in the weed-eater’s cover and in what Lynch later described a “blinding sort of rage where I left my body,” he struck his neighbor in the face with the weed eater. He then turned the body of the weed eater around and continued to strike his neighbor’s face while he was on the floor. Lynch could not recall when the man died but he kept striking and striking until the entire back end of the weed eater was destroyed, and the lower half of his neighbor’s face had been “like jelly.”
Lynch later told Rachel and other FBI agents that he’d nearly called the police to report what he’d done, but he’d been too amped up on adrenaline to make any sense of what he’d done. He claimed to have enjoyed what he’d done and within two or three hours had started to figure out how he might be able to do it again without being caught.
His next victim came just fourteen hours later in the small town of Poquoson, in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. He killed an ex-girlfriend and her husband in their home. The husband was killed with a knife directly through the throat. The ex-girlfriend’s fate was considerably worse. When her body was found the following day, she was missing two fingers, most of the skin from her face, and had been stabbed seventeen times. Some of the stab wounds had been done with a knife, but some had been done with a screwdriver.
Lynch then worked his way up to New Jersey, seeming to kill at random. After the neighbor and his ex and her husband, the victims had been total strangers. There had been a man at a rest stop in DC, beheaded and with a collapsed chest cavity courtesy of a brick. Then came the fifth victim, where Lynch had left the prints behind—a model living in Baltimore, twenty-two years old and newly engaged. There had been no sexual assault, no interest in her looks at all, apparently. He’d butchered her, cutting her open from neck to navel as if he had taken a sudden interest in surgery. The sixth victim had been a trucker, sleeping at a 24/7 truck stop; he’d been stabbed twenty times and Rachel and other agents had spent several days trying to figure out if Lynch had bene trying to spell something in the man’s torso.
Then there was the seventh victim, an elderly gentleman that Rachel later found she had been just ten minutes away from saving. They’d been able to track Lynch based on security camera footage from the truck stop and that’s how Special Agent Rachel Gift had ended up staring Alex Lynch down from across the bed of a recently murdered old man, starting into those eyes pierced with darkness.
And now here she was, revisiting that moment, watching the old man’s blood splatter off of Lynch’s hands as he applauded her for capturing him.
Nothing good is going to come of this, she told herself as she drove south. Maybe you truly are losing your mind. Maybe this tumor is messing with your ability to reason.
For all she knew, maybe it was. But as the interstate unrolled before her, she just dared to hope there were answers to be found. And though the idea of peering past the glasses that covered Alex Lynch’s face chilled her, she could not deny that there had been times since his arrest that she wondered if there might indeed be some answers waiting there in that darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The maximum security wing of Arlington County Jail was located on the eleventh floor. Rachel had been inside roughly a dozen prisons for the occasional tasks related to cases, but the one in Arlington was one of the quieter ones she’d ever encountered. The eleventh floor, in particular, was eerily silent; it housed only fourteen men, with the capacity to hold only twenty-six at any given time.
A single guard led Rachel down the eleventh-floor corridor. Unlike the basic cells scattered throughout the ten floors below them, these cells were closed off by solid doors with little slots in them to deliver food, mail, and other necessities. They passed by one door that was opened, revealing a small but tidy interior. Rachel assumed it was the residence of the man she had come to see—a man that was currently waiting for her in the small visiting room at the end of the hallway.
The guard brought her to the end of the hall and gave her a little nod. “I’ll be out here if you need me. He’s pretty docile most of the time but it’s sort of like watching a snake and wondering…you know? He’s quiet now, but you just know it’s going to strike.” He seemed to shudder a bit and added, “It’s in his eyes, you know?”
Yeah, I know pretty damned well, Rachel thought as the guard escorted her.
Rachel entered the room, and the guard closed the door behind her. Across the room, sitting on a stale-looking couch, was a fifty-three year-old man she had seen far too many times in her lowest moments. Every time she’d gone into a dark room or house looking for clues or suspects, she’d seen him in her mind. She’d seen him clapping with his bloody hands and smiling at her through his glasses.
Currently, Alex Lynch’s long black hair hung slightly over his shoulders, tattered and badly in need of combing. The scraggly growth of beard on his chin also needed some attention. He looked at Rachel through thick bifocals and smiled.
“Agent Gift,” he said softly. Then, with what appeared to be a genuine smile, he added, “What a gift to see you.” He sighed, still smiling, and said, “Though, I’m sure you get that joke a lot.”
Rachel said nothing. She wasn’t even sure what sort of expression was on her face as she sat down in a plastic-covered armchair five feet away from the couch. It had been two and a half years since she’d last seen Alex Lynch…and nearly three since she’d arrested him.
Looking at him now, all she could see was the man she had arrested. Though Alex was cleaned up now (aside from the ratty hair and beard), she still saw him as she’d seen him on the night she’d come in on him shortly after he’d taken his seventh life. There had been a maniacal smile on his face, dried blood under his fingernails, and a gleam in his eyes that had peered out from behind those bifocals—a gleam that seemed to devour her, even when she’d pulled her gun on him and pinned him to the ground. And the bloody clapping, of course.
“I hear you’re behaving yourself,” Rachel said.
“I’m trying to. I’ve been reading a lot. Stuff about astrophysics, space, philosophy. Trying to get a grasp on how small I am. How small we all are.”
The maniacal gleam was not in his eyes. All Rachel could take from his current state was curiosity. She knew what she wanted to ask him but also knew that she was opening up a Pandora’s box of trauma and horror by being here.
“Something’s troubling you?” Alex said. “Are you still having the nightmares?”
“No,” she snapped.
He was referring to the two visits she’d made to him in the six months following his arrest. She’d had nightmares about him. There had been two different ones; in one, she had been the model victim in Baltimore, her chest and stomach split open. She had seen her entire murder in dream-form. The grotesque nature of her own murder had been far too vibrant and kept her from getting a sound night’s sleep for nearly a month. The second dream, she’d seen the murders through Alex Lynch’s eyes and had even felt the joy of the act as he’d slit the victims open.
She hated that she’d even told him about the nightmares. But she knew that with men like Lynch, the more power they felt they had, the more willing they were to play ball. And honestly, if Rachel was being honest with herself, it had been almost therapeutic to tell Alex Lynch about the nightmares She wasn’t sure why, but it was the sad reality of the situation.
Rachel did not want to give him any further opportunities to speculate, so she pushed out the reason for her visit. “I need to know why you did it,” she said. “I need to know what it was about your life or your mindset at the time that pushed you to it. All of the court documents and psychiatric referrals state that you appeared to be of a sound mind at the time you w
ere questioned and the way you describe each of the murders suggests you were also of a sound mind when you killed them—something you yourself have admitted to.”
“Ahh,” Alex said. He stared at her for a moment and then to his hands, which were folded in his lap. “You may not want to hear this, but I don’t identify with the man that killed those seven people. I am not naïve enough to think that I was someone else when I did it, but when I try to recall what was going through my head, it makes no sense to me.”
“But do you remember what you were feeling at the time?” Rachel asked. “We have reams and reams of studies and research that sow the vast difference in the mindset of someone that only kills once and someone that kills multiple people. There’s an enormous difference, particularly when it comes to those that were not muddied with pleas of insanity.”
“Well, naturally,” Alex said. “The first time, it’s new and exciting and you get lost in it. It’s much like losing your virginity. There is much nervousness and slight panic the first time. But then when it’s over and the delight has been had…you start to plan for the second time. What can you do different? What did you enjoy and want to keep the same? And then by the third or fourth time, it starts to feel quite natural.”
The explanation unnerved her, but she pressed on. She knew she could not spend more than half an hour or so here. She fully intended to be back in Baltimore in the three hours she’d promised.
“How many did you kill before you stopped having any hang-ups on the right-and-wrong of it?” she asked.
“The second one. During that one…even if I had cared, it would not have been enough to make me stop.”
Rachel cringed when she thought of the second and third victims. The ex and her husband. She saw the ex, the screwdriver sticking out of her pelvis. He’d then cut a vertical line down her man’s navel and partially disemboweled him. It had been one of the grislier scenes, but not the worst. That had been the seventh victim, the elderly man whom Alex had killed by stabbing him in the heart with a pair of scissors and then removing several patches of skin and tissue with the same scissors. The scissors had been found shoved down the poor man’s throat. It was the only time in Rachel’s career that she feared she might throw up at a murder scene. There were still times when she saw a simple pair of scissors and felt her stomach clench up.
“You need help,” Alex said, picking up on her hesitation. “Is that what it is? You are after a killer that is hard to pin down so you are here to ask me my opinions. You want to know why we kill. Something like that?”
“Not quite as simple as that, but sure” she agreed. “We have a man killing women that are signed up for fertility treatments. It’s a solid link but we still can’t locate the man. We’re hoping that if we can figure out why he’s doing it, it might lead us to him a bit faster. The way in which he is killing sort of lines up with some of what you did…to the trucker in particular.”
“Twenty times,” he said with a smirk. “And no…I was not trying to spell out anything.”
Rachel glared at him, letting him know that she was not here just to hear him gloat about his murders.
“How many has he killed so far?” Alex asked. He leaned forward with great interest, peering at her through those thick glasses.
“Three. And they are happening quickly. He’s not taking much time between his victims.” She was aware that she really should not be giving him these sorts of details. But when it was all boiled down, she should not be here at all. She figured if she had crossed the line into this bizarre territory, she may as well go for broke.
“How is he killing them?”
“With a knife,” Rachel said. “The attacks are vicious…not just one stab wound, but several. And they seem to be made in a hectic and angry fashion. There’s nothing slow and methodical about it.”
“I would assume, then, that the killer has nothing personal against the women. He is acting out only because of something they are doing that he disagrees with. More than that, the way he’s doing it leads me to think that he hates these women. He loathes them. He’s doing it quickly with a knife rather than taking his time with it because he can’t stand being around them. He wants it done quickly so he can not only get away from the scene, but so he can be done with that woman.” He stopped here, as if considering his own comment, and added, “I would assume it is not the fact that they are undergoing the treatments that is causing him to select these women.”
“It seems fairly apparent that’s exactly what he’s doing.”
Alex smiled and shook his head. “You misunderstand me. Yes, I believe the killer may be headhunting these women through clinics or services. That makes sense. But the way they are dispatching their victims…it’s odd, given the situation. It makes me think they are killing not for their own needs or beliefs. These sorts of killings, so violent from what you describe, sound like either control or jealousy issues. Or both.”
She was beginning to get irritated because it seemed like he was intentionally speaking in riddles. Maybe he was trying to get as much enjoyment out of this visit as possible because no one ever came to visit him.
“I’m not quite following you,” she said, hating to admit it.
“What I’m trying to say is that the killer is likely not killing these women simply because they have made appointments for these fertility treatments. It seems to me—and I could be wrong, granted—that the killer is going after these women because the treatments will give them the chance to conceive. Meaning, perhaps…”
“That the killer has not been able to have children.”
Alex gave her a little mocking clap and nodded. “Ah, there you go.”
She eyed him with confusion, not sure what to think of him. He said he had changed and the past fifteen minutes backed that up. Yet, at the same time, she had seen the grisly murders this man committed. It was as if a demon had been yanked out of him and replaced with someone capable of sincerity and reason.
“Did any of this help?” Alex asked.
“You know, I think it did.” She got to her feet and the words “Thank you” were on her lips. But then her mind brought forth images of his victims: a man disemboweled, a woman with most of her skin removed from her face and chest, the man with scissors jammed down his throat, a man with a hatchet buried in his crotch…
“Guard,” she said, her voice a bit shaky.
“Leaving already?” Alex said from behind her. And there was a bit too much cheer in his voice for Rachel’s liking.
“Yes. I’m done here.”
“That’s a shame. There’s something different about you now. I can’t quite place it, but…you’re struggling with something other than this case, aren’t you?” He chuckled and added, “You can tell me what it is if you want.”
Rachel thought of Lynch’s ex-girlfriend and the model, all torn right open. She felt like that as she stood in front of him—like he’d ripped her open and could see every single thing about her, even her secrets. And despite that, she felt a question crawling across her tongue. It was unexpected and certainly not one she would have ever dreamed of asking him. But being here in front of him, things were different and she could not help herself. As she asked the question, she could almost sense the tumor in her brain pushing it out for her.
“What’s it like? Being that close to…to death?”
He wasted no time with his answer. It seemed as if he’d spent some time contemplating it himself over the years. “Intimate, but in a very polarizing way. For me, it’s being right there on the edge of it…knowing that one day I, too, will be on that edge, looking out the other way. But to give someone else that push…it’s like nothing you can imagine.”
For a split second, she almost wanted to know what he was talking about. With the tumor, she was definitely worried about her own mortality and was more aware of it than she ever had been before. Before she could say anything else, Rachel finally turned away for good and headed for the door.
“That mu
st be what I see that’s different about you,” he said. She never turned around but did pause by the door, her hand frozen as she reached for the knob.
“Something’s messed up with you,” he said, almost insightfully. “Something’s…broken.”
She said nothing. She knocked quickly on the door and waited for the guard to respond. When he did, Rachel slipped right out and the guard closed the door behind her. It felt like she’d stepped out of an icebox and into the comforting heat of a woodside fire on a winter’s day.
“You okay?” the guard asked.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Though, if she were being honest, she almost felt as if the eyes of Alex Lynch were somehow still on her, even through the closed door. She exited the jail as quickly as she could without seeming out of sorts. When she returned to her car, she sat there for a moment, quiet and unmoving. She stared at the building, going over everything Alex had said.
Something’s…broken.
He’d meant it about her, but she wondered if maybe there was something more there. Could it be the reason someone simply snapped and started killing people? Or could the brokenness be a more tangible thing, a brokenness that served as motivation—as motive?
With that idea turning over and over in her head like a rough stone being polished, Rachel started the car and headed back to Baltimore. She was leaving with no real leads, but with a personal awakening she was not quite ready to face and an idea that might help them pry this case open just a little farther.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Sitting down with a glass of wine, she grabbed her phone off of the coffee table. Her hands were trembling a bit as she swiped up to unlock it. She was not nervous, but anxious. It was not too dissimilar from the feeling she’d once experienced in college when she’d been sleeping with her roommate’s boyfriend. The thrill of sneaking around, of knowing it what she was about to do was wrong. Back then, the anticipation and build-up of meeting with him was often more satisfying than the act itself.