In the Darkest Hour

by Anna Carlisle

  “Mom, whatever it is, no one reads the print version anymore anyway!”

  “But it’ll get buried under the bigger stories, is the point.” She hesitated, and Gin took the laptop out of her hands.

  “Oh,” she said in dismay. There, under the headline “Trumbull Top Cop Off the Hook,” was a picture of Tuck Baxter on the steps of the municipal building, leaning in close to speak to Gin. The angle of the photograph made it look like they were kissing. Underneath, a caption read “Baxter celebrates exoneration with consulting pathologist Dr. Virginia Sullivan, daughter of Trumbull mayor Madeleine Sullivan.”

  “Other than the photo, it’s mostly just a summary of the case against Detectives Witt and Clawitter,” Madeleine reassured her.

  “Yeah, if anyone reads that far,” Gin said, handing the laptop back. “Thanks, Mom. At least I’ll know why I’m avoiding the press.”

  “It’ll blow right over.” Madeleine kissed her fingertips and touched them to Gin’s forehead. “Be back soon.”

  “Mom, I’m fine, really,” Gin called after her retreating form.

  Now, though, she had a reason to get up. It might be too late to prevent Jake from seeing the photo before she talked to him—but she owed him a call nonetheless. She had been on the phone almost non-stop since Tuck called Wheeler and she ordered the internal comms records be cross referenced with the records logs. Overwhelming evidence of Liam Witt’s involvement became undeniable fact when the tech support team located a spreadsheet in a folder shared between the two men, detailing every missing weapon going back six months. The file, amusingly, was named OfficeFootballPool.

  She dressed, poured herself a cup of coffee and took it out onto the screen porch, then took a deep breath and made the call.

  As it rang, Gin tried to think of the right words to tell Jake how sorry she was. But what was she sorry about? He was the one who’d left her behind. She’d done nothing wrong.

  But a part of her still felt like they were bound together. And it was going to be a long time before that feeling went away.

  “Hello?”

  “Jake. It’s me.”

  There was a brief pause, one she might not have even noticed had she not been so finely attuned to this conversation, and then he said, “Gin, it’s good to hear from you. How have you been?”

  “I—I’m fine. Keeping busy.”

  For a few moments they made small talk, Jake inquiring after her parents and describing the state of the retreat center as it entered its final phase of construction. “With any luck, we’ll be able to schedule the ribbon cutting for the Independence Day weekend.”

  “I’m really happy for you,” Gin said. With the on-time bonus, Jake would be able to begin his next project with a nice cash cushion.

  “I see that kid’s uncle hired him a lawyer,” Jake said. “I’d feel a lot better knowing he’s off the street.”

  “You and everyone else,” Gin said. “I assume you’ve seen the headlines? They’re calling him the Dead Lands Killer, even though they still don’t have enough evidence to hold him. And apparently sales of the game are at an all-time high.”

  “That’s disheartening, but it doesn’t surprise me. People are fascinated by events like these.”

  “I know. I just feel terrible for his family. They claim they never had any idea it was going on.” She tried not to think about what Keith Walker must be going through, and whether he had figured out by now that ‘Beth Conway’ had never really existed. “Meanwhile, Jonah Krischer has been exonerated, but his father is still pushing ahead with a lawsuit against the department.”

  “Yeah, I saw him on TV. What’s with that guy? He’s gotten everything he wanted. His kid’s off the hook. And he wouldn’t answer any questions about his son stealing his prescription pad so he could sell drugs—it’s like he conveniently wrote that out of the story.”

  Something was nagging at the back of Gin’s mind.

  Something about the prescription pads. The drugs …

  “Jake … I’m so sorry, but I think I need to go.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  Thoughts collided and swirled in her head, beginning to resolve into a picture, a realignment of facts that wouldn’t quite come into focus.

  “Yes … I’m fine, it’s just—Jake, I’m sorry, I really need to get off the phone. I promise I’ll explain later.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “It’s nothing to do with you, it’s—it would take too long to explain. Jake…” There was so much to say, and no way to say it—now, and possibly ever.

  But it would have to wait.

  “I’ll talk to you soon.” Gin hung up before giving Jake a chance to respond. She might regret that later, but for now, she had to figure out if the idea that had just come to her was solid.

  Jonah had stolen his father’s prescription pad and used it to get drugs: Adderall—(or so he’d claimed; they had never actually found it in his possession), Vicodin, and Ativan. They were operating under the assumption he’d sold Vicodin to Marnie Bertram and Brian Dumbauld—and, possibly, the unidentified third victim he claimed he’d killed weeks earlier.

  But he’d never claimed to have sold Ativan to anyone, even though he’d had it with him. That was surprising—thirty percent of overdose deaths were due to a deadly combination of opiates and benzodiazepine like Ativan; and benzo abuse was on the rise. If Jonah wasn’t selling it—it was because he wasn’t offering it for sale. Which begged the question—who was taking the Ativan he’d had with him?

  There was one possibility that she had never considered. What if Jonah had been taking it? Over and over, Gin had observed him having trouble with balance—the many times he’d tripped or stumbled—which was a telling side effect of benzodiazepine use.

  Benzos were prescribed as anti-anxiety, anti-seizure, anti-depressant … and anti-psychotic.

  Jonah’s father had been keen to make the case against his son go away from the very start, even after Jonah had been cleared. What if Mark Krischer had instructed his son to take the medication to address sociopathy—because he feared what Jonah was capable of? Or, worse yet—what if he knew what Jonah was capable of—and had been trying to treat him without anyone finding out?

  All of the puzzle pieces were arranging themselves in a new and terrifying way. Things Jonah had casually mentioned were taking on a whole new meaning.

  My mother couldn’t deal with me.

  My father doesn’t love me.

  He’s always trying to change me.

  And now Dr. Krischer was determined to see someone else put away for the string of murders. Even if it meant that an innocent person paid for the crimes.

  Viewed through this lens, what Gin knew about Jonah’s personality took on a different light. His frequent shifts in mood, his ability to be charming when he wanted, or to evoke sympathy or concern in adults. Was it all a ruse, a manipulation? Then there was the fascination with the macabre, which—though he claimed it was all Logan—was reflected in his interests, especially his gaming. And then there was his drug dealing: his willingness to sell to the most vulnerable addicts signaled a lack of empathy for others, a failure to take responsibility for his own actions,

  Could he be a classic sociopath?

  Jonah had been lying all along. He’d been playing her, playing everyone—covering up his true intentions with a persona that he’d put on like a mask. And his father had known.

  Gin had been all too ready to accept that he was simply a teen driven by unreasonable parental expectations and social pressures to act out, that he never intended to harm anyone, that he was unnerved and even frightened by Logan’s behavior.

  He’d made sure that all the pieces lined up—claiming that Logan had pressured him to play Dead Lands with him, the discovery of the body that would implicate Logan, right down to the gruesome detail of the pig hearts. But all along he’d been orchestrating events from inside his own disturbed mind.

  He’d robbed a grave,
only to disfigure the body—probably to satisfy his own twisted needs, though Gin would defer to psychologists to interpret his actions.

  He’d killed and brutalized a homeless addict for no reason that Gin could ascertain, other than the satisfaction he got from the act.

  He’d implicated Logan so easily and dispassionately that Gin could only imagine he was unable to experience empathy for another human being. Jonah did not care about Logan’s suffering, using him to ensure that he got away with his crimes.

  And now that Logan was the only person who could implicate Jonah, how far would Jonah go to keep him quiet?

  Gin dialed Tuck’s number with shaking hands, only to reach his voice mail.

  “Tuck … call me, please. It’s urgent. I think that Jonah was guilty all along. Of everything. I don’t have time to explain now, I need to warn Logan. Just—just please call as soon as you get this.”

  Then she tried Logan’s number. It rang and rang, finally reaching a generic voicemail notifying her that the person she was trying to reach was unavailable at this time. Quickly, with a growing sense of foreboding, Gin texted him.

  Logan, this is Gin Sullivan. I need to speak with you right away. Please call me back.

  Gin paced the kitchen floor, her mounting fear making it difficult to focus. She tried looking up Cindy Ewing online, but there was no phone number to be found. Finally she decided that she would go to his house; maybe he had turned his phone off, or hadn’t bothered to look at it.

  She had barely gotten into her car when a text chimed.

  Hi Dr Sullivan

  A few seconds later:

  Whats going on are they coming to arrest me

  Gin thought for a moment, worried that she might spook him before she could talk to him.

  No nothing like that. I do need to talk to you though. Can you tell me where you are?

  I didn’t do what they said I did

  I know that now, Logan. We can talk more in person. Please tell me where you are.

  I’ve been trying to stay off the radar. There’s this cabin near my uncles no one is using it so I’ve been staying there. Take the dirt road after my uncles road on the right. Go a quarter mile, You have to park get out of your car at the sign that says no Trespassing walk past it you will see a path that leads to the cabin.

  Gin was typing her response when another text came through:

  I’m just glad someone finally believes me

  Gin finished her text, her heart pounding.

  Stay where you are. I am on my way. I will be there in twenty minutes or so.

  Then she copied Logan’s text and sent it to Tuck, adding that she was headed there now.

  * * *

  The dirt road was exactly where Logan said it would be, but it was rutted and overgrown with weeds, and Gin nearly missed the rusted, faded No Trespassing sign nailed to a tree. She parked and locked her car and headed down the path, her feet getting tangled in weeds, her arms scratched by branches. She’d gone about four hundred yards when she saw what was more of a shack than a cabin, a leaning one-room structure supported by crude posts hewn from logs. One window was missing, the other cracked.

  She mounted the porch, taking care to avoid the rotted and broken boards, and tried the door handle. The door swung open, creaking, and she blinked to adjust to the darkness inside the small, cramped space.

  A single chair sat in the center of the room. Logan was tied to it, his fine blond hair plastered to his forehead with blood, his mouth taped shut with silver duct tape. When he saw Gin, he began making urgent sounds, his eyes wild with fear, rocking violently in an effort to free himself.

  Before Gin could react, something fell over her head and torso, like a scratchy blanket. She pawed at it, trying to free herself, but it was pulled tight around her arms, binding them to her sides. A second later something encircled her lower legs and jerked sharply, causing her to fall. Unable to use her hands to block her fall, she landed hard on her shoulder and hip, and cried out in pain.

  “Shut the fuck up,” a voice said. Jonah.

  More ropes were tied around her, at her neck and her knees, and then her head was lifted off the floor as Jonah grabbed the cloth and pulled up. She heard a ripping sound and suddenly she could see; he’d sliced open the fabric in front of her face, the blade of his utility knife coming within a fraction of an inch of cutting her.

  A light came on. Gin looked wildly around the shack, which was empty except for the broken, rusting springs from a mattress, and an old linoleum kitchen table.

  Jonah regarded her with undisguised contempt. “Welcome to my workshop,” he said, lifting something from a collection of objects on the old table.

  He went to Logan’s side and Gin realized with horror that the object in his hand was a scalpel. He yanked on the tape binding Logan’s mouth and sliced through it, then ripped it from his face. Logan screamed, dots of blood appearing around his mouth.

  “Shut up,” Jonah repeated and, holding the scalpel loosely by the blade, bounced the handle off Logan’s face.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t put this all together sooner,” Gin said furiously, awkwardly maneuvering herself into a sitting position, the ropes digging into her body painfully. “You mutilated Douglas Gluck’s body. You strangled Brian Dumbauld, didn’t you? Just like in the game.”

  Jonah smiled. “Not without help. My good buddy Logan was there, too.”

  “I didn’t help!” Logan protested, his voice hoarse. “I told you to stop!”

  “You did,” Jonah conceded, raising an eyebrow. “I was disappointed in you. You turned out to be a frightened little nothing.”

  “He told me he knew somewhere we could go to buy weed,” Logan said. “I swear I didn’t know what he was going to do. I—I just wanted to try it. The man … the homeless man, he was just lying there, behind the warehouse. I think he was passed out, but he woke up when—when—” His words dissolved into hiccupping tears.

  “When I wrapped my hands around his neck,” Jonah finished the sentence. “I was going to let you do it, before I realized what a coward you are.”

  He walked to the table and set down the scalpel, his hand hovering over the rest of the objects. Now that the light was on, Gin could see that there was a variety of knives, pliers, and a sewing kit with wicked looking curved needles. There was also a collection of little plastic figurines holding various weapons—the characters from Dead Lands 2.

  “That bum was my second,” he told Gin with a note of pride in his voice. “My first was two months ago—nobody even investigated it. It was so easy—I just held his coat over his face until he stopped kicking. I guess the cops thought he died in his sleep from exposure or something. Man, there’s no rush like that.”

  “Why did you bother to bury him, then?”

  “Why not? I had the grave opened up anyway. I only needed one body for insurance, to hold over Logan here. I figured I might as well stash it in Gluck’s place.”

  “But—I don’t get it. If you only needed to incriminate someone else for your crimes, why even go to the trouble of digging up the grave when you had easy access to the homeless?”

  Jonah paused, frowning at her. “I’m disappointed you don’t see it. Those bums—they’re all alike. Disposable. But Mr. Gluck was different. Ever since my dad told me about him, I wanted to see for myself.” He picked up a figurine of a muscular figure with human features except for his long, lupine snout and razor-sharp teeth “Like Shiva here—born different, with a power that he was too timid ever to use. I wanted to study him. To understand him, his essence.”

  “But all you did was dump him behind that cabin.”

  “Yeah, well, he turned out to be a disappointment,” Jonah muttered. “Spent his whole life trying to cover up the only thing that made him special, until he drained his power away. Such a waste. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  Gin shuddered, realizing the extent of Jonah’s madness. Whatever he had been searching for in Douglas Gluck, he
would never find—but that wouldn’t stop him from trying again. From killing again.

  “I told Chief Baxter where I was going,” Gin said. “He’ll be here any moment.”

  Jonah laughed. “Yeah, that’s a good one. I know you didn’t call him, or anyone else—you wanted to bring in Logan all by yourself. You wanted everyone to know—you can’t stand to share the spotlight, can you? See, I know how doctors are. You’re all megalomaniacs like my dad, drunk with your own power. But the crazy thing is, you don’t really have any power at all. You try to heal people, but most of the time you fail. I’m the one with the real power!”

  He was wandering off topic, growing increasingly manic and excited. He picked up a large adjustable wrench and swung it in a lazy arc.

  “Let him go,” Gin said. “I’ll stay—I want to hear what you have to say. I do. But Logan isn’t worth your time.” She closed her eyes, hating the ruse she was about to play. “They won’t cover the death of a poor kid from a bad part of town, not like they would if something happens to me. If you pick me instead, I guarantee it will be in the news for weeks.”

  Jonah looked at her thoughtfully, testing the wrench’s jaws on his thumb, squeezing gently. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying. But why should I let either one of you go? I’ll do him first. Then you and I will go on a little drive tonight, up to the old fire tower. With any luck the rangers will find you first thing in the morning. By the time Jonah turns up, he should be a real mess—nice and disgusting, rotting away in that chair. What’s left of him, anyway.”

  He turned to face Logan. “Who’s the second most feared character in the game, old pal? Huh? Don’t feel like talking?” He sighed and picked up a little plastic figurine, an ogre wielding a small dagger with a blood-red handle. “Necrotto, that’s who. And we both know why, don’t we?”

  Logan began to cry harder, mumbling “No, please, no.”

  “Because he cuts his victims up little by little,” Jonah said patiently, as though speaking to a child. “First the toes. Then the fingers, one by one. Then the feet, the hands … you get the picture.”