by S. E. Green
Let’s see, though. “You said you would get me information on The Strangler?”
Adam nods. “I’m working on it. I promise. I want to check a few things against a national database first.”
National database. Well, Adam is proving to be an industrious new friend.
“In the meantime, I have something else in mind.”
Something else…okay, clearly he’s been thinking about this for a while now. But I’m curious enough to play this out, so I say, “Okay, what do you have in mind?”
The D.A. chooses that moment to make an appearance. “Adam, get the dog and let’s go. I have work.”
Adam sighs. “See you later.”
29
IN THE MEANTIME, I have something else in mind.
Adam’s words circle through my brain in a constant loop, and I wait for him to contact me. But come the next morning I still haven’t heard a word. And while I’m curious to hear what it is he has to say, I’m more curious to find out what he’s learned about The Strangler.
Adam has something else in mind, and The Strangler holds my sole focus. This isn’t working. I don’t like relying on him for the knowledge I want.
I go through the motions of the morning, taking Justin to day camp and dropping Daisy off at Hammond’s. I don’t work Patch and Paw, and I know Tommy is working a double shift at Whole Foods. Idle hands and all that. I decide to dive into The Strangler. I don’t need Adam and his snooping. I’ve done it before on my own, I’ll do it again.
But when I open my email, there’s an encrypted message from Adam with a subject line: Check your text for the code to read.
Grabbing my phone, I bring up my texts, finding one from Adam with a code to unlock the message. I like that he’s thinking of these things. I type in the code and read the subject line:
THE SOMETHING ELSE…
Lane, this is personal for me.
Her name is Lilith Nealand, and in middle school, she was my best friend. Her older brother was and still is an animal. He stabbed her multiple times with a screwdriver, leaving her a quadriplegic. That was five years ago. This month he was released from prison for good behavior. It didn’t take him but a few days to become live online, under a pseudo, bragging in great detail about his sister as well as other things. So much for rehabilitation. I’m attaching the pics and details of the scene. Call me when you’re ready to discuss.
After I read Adam’s message, I click on the attached photos and everything inside of me hardens. I stare at the eleven-year-old girl, sprawled on her stomach, her yellow nightgown saturated in blood, darker in the areas where the screwdriver went in.
Carefully, I read the details. She was in bed, heard something in the garage, and went down to see. The stabber brother was there, four years older, anger driving his pacing, picking up small tools, throwing them at the back wall. There was an open toolbox, he spun to grab the next object, caught sight of the sister and lost it. Stabbed her four times. The first one went in her shoulder, causing her to fall to the ground. As she tried to crawl away, he stabbed her three more times in the back, the last one severing her spinal cord and leaving her a quadriplegic.
No one saw it happen but he volunteered this information, blaming it on his girlfriend who had just broken up with him and sent him into a blind rage. The mom is who found the sister, only seconds after it happened.
If the mom would have come down a fraction earlier… If the girl would have stayed in bed… If the brother had only stabbed her three times versus the fatal four…
Timing. What an awful thing.
Next Adam has attached transcripts of chat rooms where Stabber Brother has been active under a pseudo, detailing what it feels like to stab a young girl versus an older boy. So Stabber Brother must have targeted someone else, either before the sister or during his stint in juvie and later prison.
I continue browsing the scripts, my jaw tightening with each detailed sentence. At the bottom, Adam has notated Stabber Brother’s IP address and its direct link to his current place of work. There’s even a camera shot of him on the computer in the break room. Proof that the pseudo is indeed Stabber Brother and proof that he’s an idiot. Doesn’t he realize everything’s traceable?
Adam’s got no argument out of me. Stabber Brother deserves my kind of justice, or our kind of justice, according to Adam.
I think, though, that I need to appeal to reason. To let Adam see the downside. Perhaps I need to give enough cons to outweigh the pros. Reason is supposed to lead to self-preservation, isn’t it? Enough reason and he’ll go back to playing with the puppy and leave Stabber Brother to me.
I compose an email back: We already “took the garbage out” twice. Let’s leave it at that. Quit while we’re ahead. We both have too much to lose.
By “garbage” I, of course, mean Teddy and Oily Nose.
A lot of stretched seconds go by, and I get no response. Good, maybe Adam realizes this isn’t for him. But Stabber Brother is definitely for me.
I go to get up and my cell surprises me with a text: I WON’T LET YOU DOWN. ALL WE NEED IS A PLAN.
We. There it is again. I want to tell Adam to get another hobby, that this one is taken, but instead, I go back to looking at the picture of the little girl, face down in a pool of her own blood. Her school pictures are attached, one of her grinning and healthy at eleven and one now at sixteen propped in a wheelchair, her body strapped in and her head tilted back at an odd angle. She’s smiling for the camera, but it’s a lopsided smile brought on by her paralysis.
The meaning of life. I look at her current picture, and I don’t get it. Who would she be right now if circumstances were different? She wouldn’t be this shell of herself, that’s for sure. Does she ever wish she would’ve died? Does her mom? Seems like a last breath would be a mercy for this girl. I can’t begin to imagine the constant pain she endures, not to mention the loss of dignity.
But the worst part is, Stabber Brother doesn’t care.
He’s going to care after I get done with him. After we get done with him. Because it’s clear Adam has been thinking about this for a while now. Whether I like it or not, I’m going to be linked to him on this one, too. Because if I don’t take Adam under my wing, he’s going to target Stabber Brother on his own.
And my gut tells me, things won’t go well. Adam doesn’t see it, but he is not ready for that gigantic step.
30
THE COPS RECEIVE my package to accompany the pedophile, Mr. Oily Nose. After he’s released from the hospital, he’s taken into police custody and is currently awaiting trial. Biker Dudes against Pedophiles are being linked to the attack, though of course there is no direct evidence. Thanks to what happened with my copycat, Catalina, the Masked Savior is long gone, or rather “dead”, and no one even mentions the name.
Now if I would’ve used my Taser and Zip Ties, that’d be a different story. Rumors of the Masked Savior would’ve resurfaced. Which goes to show, I need to continuously mix things up. The animal control pole had been a last minute thought and admittedly a genius one. It’s a good way to control an “animal” from a safe distance. Because an animal is what a person like Mr. Oily Nose is. Yes, the pole is definitely something I’ll use again.
That and a four-inch number two Phillips head Craftsman screwdriver. Tax and all, five-seventy-four. Red and yellow handle, just like the one Stabber Brother used.
I pay cash for it and smiling, I walk from the store. I’m discovering that it’s the preparation that makes me the happiest.
As I unlock my Jeep, my cell rings. It’s Adam. “Nice job,” he says, “wrapping up the pedophile.”
“Thanks,” I genuinely say, liking the fact I can share this accomplishment with someone. I close my door and fit my key in, excited to move on to the next steps—to stalking Stabber Brother, to planning, to organizing… But before I can put my phone on speaker, Adam keeps talking.
“I’m sitting down the block from the half-way house where our stabber currently re
sides. It would be easy to make it look like another parolee did it. That stuff happens all the time. Except with that, there’d be a lot of inquiries and bleeding hearts whining about rehabilitation. No, this needs to be done off the property. Every day he rides a bus to his job bagging groceries. He works the afternoon shift and is expected to be checked into the half-way house at nine p.m. A time, of course, that he won’t be present for. The house where the stabbing occurred has long since sold, and the mom and sister have moved. The new owners are away for the week on a cruise. This is the week it should be done and his body left in the garage in the same location where he did his sister.” He pauses. “Thoughts?”
Adam has more of a capacity and desire for this than I imagined. Plus, he’s just taken away all of my preparatory fun.
31
THAT NIGHT I’M sitting passenger side in Adam’s beat up Chevy, letting him take the lead in this. Or rather letting him think he’s taking the lead. I’m trying to keep an open mind.
“See that door right there?” Adam asks, nodding through the night and across the alley to the back of the half-way house. “He comes out of the door every night at exactly ten to take out the garbage. That’s when we take him.”
“I thought you wanted to take him when he gets off work.”
“I changed my mind. It’s better if he checks in, that way they think he’s on property.” Adam points up to the windows. “Blinds are always closed. No one will know he’s even gone until they come out to look for him.”
“Hm,” I agree because actually, that’s not a bad idea.
I glance right to the empty and wooded lot beside the half-way house, and to the left where a tiny breakfast hut stands, closed at this time of night. Adam’s right. No one will see a thing.
Pushing his glasses up, he shifts to look at me. “‘Be careful what you think you know about someone.’ I hear Mom say that all the time and those words have been coming back to me a lot lately.”
I’m not sure if Adam is talking about me or Stabber Brother, but his mom is right. Be careful indeed. “Why risk all of this?” I decide to ask him, curious of his answer.
“Because there are too many people that get away with too many things, and if I can somehow re-balance that equation, I’m doing it. I know you understand what I’m saying.”
I do, and while his reasons come across principled, my reasons include so many more layers. Like the fact, I need to do this. I crave it. It’s the only way I myself maintain that balance.
Adam puts his car in gear and rolls down the alley. “Okay, so tomorrow night is the night. We’ll use my car since it has a trunk. We’ll hide behind the garbage…”
On and on Adam goes, detailing his plan, and idly I listen, imagining he and I doing this together. Me jumping in with both feet and seeing if this alliance calls to me. Really trying to visualize not being alone and relying on someone else. I can sort of see it, but it feels different, like uncharted territory and oddly exhilarating. Almost like we’re going into business together.
But don’t people say not to go into business with family or friends? Still, without Adam, Stabber Brother wouldn’t even be on my radar.
In my peripheral vision, I see Adam yawn and rub one eye. It’s not even nine o’clock at night. “Tired?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Haven’t slept well the last couple of nights.”
Hm, and here I thought he was “sleeping like a baby”. People that don’t sleep well have things on their mind. Things like the fate of Stabber Brother.
Adam lets out a little chuckle. “Okay, I’ll admit I’m a little nervous. I mean, aren’t you?”
No, not about Stabber Brother, but definitely about Adam. I don’t say this, though, and instead chuckle, too. “Yes, of course.”
Truth is, what makes me think I can count on Adam? He’s new to this. He doesn’t know what he’s getting into.
Be careful what you think you know about someone. I think about those words and what they really mean. We see two things in people—what we want to see and what they want to show us. Really, I don’t know Adam any more than he knows me.
Just like Victor and my mom. A married couple. Raising three kids. Both at the FBI. Seemingly as close as a couple can be and yet an infinite distance between them.
Adam pulls up outside of my house, and Tommy’s here, propped on his bike, arms and legs folded, waiting on me. I don’t hide the smile the creeps into my cheeks.
Putting the car in park, Adam asks, “Who’s that?”
“My boyfriend,” I say, oddly content with those words and that knowledge.
“That’s Tommy? Good job. He’s hot.”
My gaze slides to Adam, and I watch as he appreciatively takes in the long and lean deliciousness that is Tommy. “Mine,” I say and Adam laughs.
“Tomorrow night,” he reminds me, and with a nod, I open the door and climb out. “Thanks for this,” he says through the window.
“Yep, that’s what friends are for.”
As Adam drives off, I stalk my way over to Tommy. Would the neighbors care if I did him right here on his motorcycle? Yes, probably.
I don’t stop as I slide my body against his and my tongue slips right into his mouth. He responds by grabbing my ass and pulling me in closer.
A few heated minutes later and with his erection pressing against me, I eye the motorcycle he’s still propped against. “Ever done it on your motorcycle?”
He nibbles my neck. “No, but I’m up for the challenge.”
I reach between us, grasping his erection and a throat clearing has Tommy pulling back, not me. It’s a neighbor strolling the sidewalk behind us and Tommy chuckles a little as he gently pushes me away.
I’m not a pouter, but I could probably do a really good one right now if I wanted to.
Tommy holds a hand up, warning me to stay a distance away. “Actually, I came over here to ask you out on a date.”
“Oh.” Because I was so ready to go find an alley and do the motorcycle thing.
His lips twitch. “But should I be worried? I mean, we’ve only been official for a few days and you’re already coming home with another guy.”
I smile at his joking. “That’s Adam and he thinks you’re hot.”
Tommy shrugs a shoulder. “Shucks.”
I don’t go into any more details about Adam. “So, date? What did you have in mind? And more importantly, can it begin, or end, with my motorcycle idea?”
Dropping his head, Tommy laughs. “Jesus, Lane, you’re killing me.”
“It does sound like it would be the highlight,” I freely admit.
“What about this weekend?” he redirects me. “Ever been zip-lining? There’s a course in Maryland I’ve been wanting to try.”
That’ll be perfect. Enough time to do Stabber Brother and even some recon on the still-at-large strangler. “Sounds great.”
“Good.” He goes to get back on his bike. “Your dad doing okay?”
I love that he just asked me that. “Yes, better.” On a quick cover-my-ass thought I say, “I heard they called you the night it happened looking for me. Sorry about that, miscommunication on my schedule.”
“All good.” He clips his helmet on, cranks the engine, and with a wink, rumbles off.
Yet another thing I like about Tommy—he doesn’t pry or question. He gets my need for space and privacy. Just like I get his.
32
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE capacity of people to let you down. Never underestimate that someone you know may sell you out. Always look out for number one.
These are all the things that circle my brain in a mad loop as I sit behind the wheel of my Jeep staring at the store where Stabber Brother bags groceries. I don’t know why I’m thinking those words. Adam has yet to let me down. Call it self-preservation, I guess.
Yes, those words are on repeat because way in the recess of my mind, I know Adam is waiting on me at the half-way house and I’m 99.9 percent sure I’m not going to show. Because the more I s
it here, the more I want Stabber Brother all to myself.
This is Adam’s vengeance, not mine, but I can’t seem to help it. I tell myself I’m doing Adam a favor, not letting him fully into this darkness, but I also know I’m going to owe him even more. First I accidentally kill his brother and now I’m knowingly taking Stabber Brother from him.
I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to do this. A few scenarios have gone through my mind. What I do know is that I have to do it before Stabber Brother reaches the half-way house. Because once he’s there, he’s fair game to Adam.
Unseen, unnoticed, and perfect—things I’m wishing for but am not sure I can pull off. I hate to improvise, but Adam’s leaving me no choice.
Stabber Brother exits the grocery store then and stands to the side while he lights a cigarette. From the information Adam sent me, I know this guy is five-eight, twenty years old, and one-hundred-forty pounds. With his red hair, freckled skin, and green eyes, we could be brother and sister.
In the darkness of my Jeep, I watch him inhale and then exhale. I try to picture him stabbing his little sister those five years ago, and I can’t seem to form the scene. I’m certain of course that he did it, and I’m certain that he’s the one who has been active in the chat room and bragging about the stabbing.
Well, I say I’m certain, but I’m operating solely off of the information Adam gave me and not my own research. I’m pressed for time, though, so I work with what I have.
It’s one thing to do a horrible act, like a stabbing, and to truly regret it and make amends, but it’s another whole thing to do said act and then revel in it like Stabber Brother has been doing.
I keep staring at him standing there smoking a cigarette, waiting for the recognition to occur. Waiting for that deviant part of me to recognize him, but it doesn’t happen. Perhaps I need to get closer.