by S. E. Green
I don’t do hugs, so I simply nod. “Forgiven.”
Friends. Not friends. I seem to go back and forth in that area. Zach, Reggie, Tommy, Dr. Issa, and now Adam. I’d like to think I’m a good friend. Or have the potential to be a good friend. I would definitely have any one of their backs if need be. And Adam’s right, real friends say no when it’s not right. I said no.
“Adam, are you dying?”
He leans back. “What? No. Why would you think… Oh.” Behind his glasses, he takes a second to rub his already bloodshot eyes. Patiently, I wait.
“I told you my dad died last year?” he reminds me.
“Of alcohol poisoning,” I confirm.
He scoots off the hood of his car and paces away, then he turns back. “Not exactly. I, um, I ended his life.”
It’s not often my eyes go wide in surprise, in fact I can’t recall a time they ever have, but they do now. “Okay.” I wait for the rest.
Adam takes a second to zip up his lightweight hoody, and I can tell he’s buying himself some thinking time. “He’d been moved to hospice, was going to die anyway. He was barely breathing, Lane, and every breath he did take went in and out in this painful whine.” He paces away again. “I really hated him, and I remember thinking, ‘You deserve every one of those painful breaths.’ What kind of person thinks that way?”
“A normal one,” I assure him.
Adam’s pacing has now put him completely in the dark and out of the light streaming down from the nearby lamp. I want him to step back into the light. I want to see his face.
“He asked me to, no begged me to. He said it would be a gift. It would give him peace. I didn’t want to give him a gift. I didn’t want to give him peace. He assured me I’d be doing a good thing. But if it was so good, then why didn’t I feel good about it, ya know?” He paces further into the darkness, like being not seen gives him anonymity to keep going.
“It was seeing my mom and my brother so distraught that made me do it. I wanted them to have the peace and the gift, not him. Not Dad. So I did it. I smothered him with a pillow. He didn’t even struggle. I cried the whole time. I didn’t think about it then, but now I constantly wonder if he asked Scott, too. Or did he know I would be the son to embrace the idea? I killed him, Lane. I ended his life.”
“It’s good that you did,” I’m quick to reassure him. “It was mercy.”
Adam moves back into the light. “Was it? Was it really?”
“Yes, for your whole family.” I step into the light with him, and I put my hand on his shoulder. “You need to let it go now.” I squeeze his shoulder. “Do you hear me? Let it go. It’s okay. You’ve told me. No one else needs to know.”
Adam’s bottom lip quivers, and he presses them together to keep himself strong and brave. “Thank you,” he murmurs, trying not to cry. “I really needed to hear that.”
I said I wasn’t a hugger, but I pull him in and give him one. A few seconds later and with a sniff, he pulls away. “I need to go,” he says, and I nod.
As he’s opening his car door, he says, “Lane?”
I glance over, and he tosses me a flash drive. He doesn’t say a word, but I know it contains all the information on The Strangler.
41
“WHAT DID IT feel like to end your mom’s life?” Adam asks me.
“It felt like justice.”
Adam nods his understanding. “We’re like-minded, you and me. Imagine the great we could do in this world.”
“Yeah,” Catalina agrees. “Imagine.”
My eyelids open, and I look at the ceiling in my bedroom and the shadows flicking eerily across it from the tree outside blowing slightly in the breeze.
That’s two times now I’ve had a dream about Adam, but what the hell is it with my copycat, Catalina, making an appearance? Adam and Catalina are nothing alike. Yeah, initially I thought Catalina and I had made a friend connection, but that whole thing turned sour fast.
Adam’s different. He’s not purposefully deceiving people. He’s lost and trying desperately to make sense of his life. I get that. I do.
He wanted Stabber Brother all to himself, and I took that from him. Maybe I should give it back. Maybe I should take him in, really take him in, and guide him. I’ve already alluded to working together on The Strangler case, but now I could really follow through with it. We could work together, truly work together. It would be nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of, someone who could back me up and vice versa. And if I feel he’s ready, and in a true act of selflessness, I could give him the final act of justice.
The idea circles around inside of me, warming me. But just as quickly as I begin to feel excitement over the prospect, I think about my real parents, the Decapitator team, and the unsettling realization that I now see the appeal of a partner. Someone to share the darkness with. Someone to watch me. Someone who I can watch.
Someone who I can watch…I think about that for a second and backtrack to that alley with Stabber Brother. What would it have felt like to watch Adam do what I did? To not participate, but just to watch.
Hm, it’s an interesting thought. It would take our friendship to a whole new level, that’s for sure. Though it also seems like it would be the end of my perfectly constructed life. Relationships are complicated, that’s for sure. Bringing Adam into my world in a real way would be a gamble, and most gamblers eventually lose.
Something to consider.
The flash drive Adam gave me is sitting on my desk, unused. The old Lane would have stayed up until three in the morning, devouring every single thing on there. I think, though, that I already knew that drive is meant to be reviewed with Adam. Even though he’s already seen it, my first time reviewing it should be with him.
I want to keep thinking through things, but the need for sleep begins tugging at me. I try to blink and stay awake, but my eyes eventually stick shut on a last thought. Yes, I’ll review it with Adam. I owe him that.
42
LATE THAT AFTERNOON, I drive over to Adam’s house with a decision made. Like last time, he’s in the side yard playing with the puppy. I love that.
I park my Jeep and climb out. As I make my way over to them, I notice that he’s bought and installed a dog house, complete with climate control, windows on all sides, a porch, and steps up to a balcony. I doubt my first apartment will look better than this dog house.
“Wow,” I say, coming to stand beside him. “That’s a masterpiece.”
Adam smiles. “It came earlier today.” He motions around the gigantic yard. “Tomorrow the invisible fence goes in.”
“Did you name her?”
“Sally.”
I love it when people give their pets a human name. She yip-yaps her way toward me, and I squat down to love on her. She’s grown quite a bit since Adam got her. I was right, Sally’s going to be huge.
We spend a few sunny and breezy minutes playing with Sally before Adam turns to me, “You stopping by to say hi or is there something else?”
From my front jean pocket, I slide out the flash drive and am surprised that I do not feel awkward or hesitant when I say, “Was thinking we might want to go through this together. Do a little brainstorming.”
Adam laughs. “I’ve already been going through it and was going to ask you the same thing. I was hesitant though. I wasn’t sure where we stood.”
“Two brains are better than one and all that.”
Adam glances toward his house. “Now?”
“Sure, let me just get something from the Jeep.”
A few minutes later I meet him inside carrying one of my journals and the independent research I already did.
We head upstairs and into his room. It’s the first time I’ve been up the stairs in their mansion. Everything gleams—from the wood floors to the gold doorknobs and from the ornately framed photos to the polished antique furniture. I’m sure they have someone whose job it is to keep everything shining.
Adam leads me through an open door and into a bedroo
m bigger than mine and Daisy’s put together and complete with a king size bed, a lounging area, a television center, an en suite bathroom, an office, and even a mini-fridge.
I mean, really? What teenage boy needs all of this?
He crosses the recently vacuumed carpet and plops down at an L shaped desk. I take a seat in the leather swivel chair sitting off to the right. While he boots up his massive computer system, I open up my journal.
Adam gives it a side eye. “Old school, huh?”
“I don’t like to leave trails.” I nod to his corporate sized computer set up. “I’m leery of the cloud.”
He gives my journal a pointed look. “May I?”
Not many people have seen my journals, and those that have were very much by accident. I’ve never voluntarily shared them with anyone. But I told myself I was going to try something new with Adam, so I force myself to hand over my most recent purchase.
This particular journal contains only those things since meeting Adam. It contains details about Scott and Ted, Mr. Oily Nose Pedophile, research on Stabber Brother, and my most recent entries regarding The Strangler.
Silently, Adam flips through the pages, carefully studying my entries and I find myself holding my breath, waiting for something, though I’m not quite sure what. His questions perhaps. Or maybe his surprise at my detailed entries and my analytical thoughts.
He glances up at me. “Something tells me this isn’t the first journal you’ve done.” He grazes over Ted’s pages. “You watched. You learned his routine. Where he went and when. What he did when he got there. You were trailing him before I ever entered the picture.”
I don’t answer, but my silence says it all. I’m not sure how much I should tell him.
Adam taps an entry I made. “You actually met him, didn’t you?”
“I thought he was The Strangler.”
Adam hands me back the journal. “Where did you learn how to do all of this?”
I shrug, playing it off. “Common sense, plus both of my parents are in the FBI. I’ve learned a lot from them by just observing.”
Turning to his computer, he types in a password that I note for later if need be. “So you’re just naturally curious?”
Again, I shrug. “Like I said, both parents in the FBI make it part of my life. So, yes, curious.”
A few clicks and he brings up a file. “So you would be doing this even if you hadn’t met me?”
“Yes.”
“Cool.”
And that’s all we say before we get down to business. I feel like there’s so much to teach Adam. I don’t want to overwhelm him. Or me. If I was going to stop this, if I was going to back out, I’m afraid it is past time. Adam and me, we’re officially in this together.
Thirty minutes later we’ve got things sketched out on a whiteboard that Adam pulled from storage. We’ve got a map of the area, much like what I printed off, with red dots on each spot where the girls were found.
“Don’t you think it’s odd each girl is precisely placed around Ted’s house?” I ask.
Adam turns away from studying the whiteboard. “The Strangler is trying to pin it on Ted. No one knows he’s dead but you and me. And by the way, it’s working.”
“What do you mean?”
“I overhear things when Mom is on the phone. Ted Lowman is the number one suspect in The Strangler case.”
“What’s your mom’s response to that, given the sex tape connection he has with Scott?”
Adam shakes his head. “She’s so scared Scott’s extracurricular activities are going to come to light. Though she’s not tampering with the investigation, she’s also not hard handling it like usual. I don’t think she knows what she’s going to do.”
I try not to make promises because who the hell knows if I can keep them, but I say, “Listen, we’re going to find The Strangler and after we deal with him, we’re going to make sure everyone knows who he is. Ted Lowman will officially fall off the radar. Okay?” No one will know Adam stabbed him, and no one will know about the sex tapes.
Adam nods. “Okay.”
We go back to work. We’ve got pictures of each girl, their data, and information on them dating back ten years. Hell, we even know when this one girl started her period. The internet is ridiculously full of information.
We’ve got close up pictures of their strangled throats, and the forensic report (thanks to Adam) details that the first girl was strangled with hands and the other three with a silk scarf.
What we have, of course, that the detectives don’t is the Scott and Ted sex tape link, which brings me to that. As I had surmised, all four strangled girls are on the various videos. Let’s just say sex tapes don’t always give the best angles. So Adam ran facial recognition software as definitive proof.
I put the cap back on the dry erase marker. “Okay, so all the girls lived in Loudoun County and all are featured on the sex tapes. Scott and Ted either shared the videos with someone or someone hacked their system and downloaded them or—”
“Or they uploaded them to a porn site.” Adam reaches under his glasses and rubs his eyes. “I can’t believe my brother was involved in all of this.”
I can. Family sucks. I haven’t gotten around to it yet, so I tell Adam, “I’m not for sure, but I think Scott and Ted met at your brother’s school. Ted was an SAT tutor. I found a picture on the school’s Facebook page. If that’s where they met, it could be where The Strangler comes in.”
“What about all the girls from the videos? Were they in this SAT thing?”
I shrug. “I haven’t gotten that far. I did see one of the strangled girls, but I haven’t had time to look for the rest.”
Adam immediately dives back on his computer, spending the next thirty minutes comparing the girls from the sex videos with pictures of the SAT study group. Some match and some don’t. But what Adam does find is the reoccurrence of two other adults. One male and one female.
“Let’s focus on the male,” Adam says.
“No, both. Just because she’s a female doesn’t mean she’s innocent.” I know this all too well.
While he zooms in on their faces and begins identification, I turn back to the whiteboard and run my finger down the forensic report again. While the strangled girls had recently had sex, there was no evidence of sexual assault. They participated willingly, and though there was bruising on their wrists and ankles from being bound, the bruising pattern indicates seconds of struggle versus minutes or hours. The hypothesis being they struggled only during the last few seconds of life, not the entire time.
So it seems they knew they were being strangled and they were okay with it until they realized it was going too far.
My eyes go back to the picture of the first girl. It’s one her parents provided. She’s sitting on a horse, smiling, her long dark hair blowing in the breeze. “I think the first girl was a mistake, and once The Strangler got a taste of the euphoria, he fine-tuned his method to incorporate a silk scarf. There has to be significance to that scarf.”
Yes, once our strangler got a taste of the darkness, he (or she) began to branch out. It’s what my parents did. It’s what a lot of serial killers do. They fine-tune their methods.
I think about Ted Lowman and how he ended up in Penn’s court. The first girl had been at his house hours before and several people said they disappeared into his room. He claimed they were hanging out listening to music, but his DNA was found all over her clothes, which really just means she was in his house. But the strangulation pattern on her throat didn’t match the size of his hands and so Ted Lowman got off.
At which point I started following him because something just didn’t sit right with me about the whole thing.
“Okay, I’ve got I.D. on the unknown man and woman,” Adam says. “According to this they’re married, no kids, the woman is a nurse, and the man an engineer.” Adam glances up at me. “A husband and wife killing team?”
“It happens.”
43
AD
AM CASTS A nervous look around the dark parking lot and the condominium community we’re currently parked in. Straight ahead sits the side door that opens into the three-story building. The nurse and the engineer live on the third floor in unit 5. Mr. and Mrs. Garner.
Or as I like to refer to them, Mr. and Mrs. Strangler.
“Are you sure we want to do this?” Adam hesitantly asks. “Breaking and entering. What if we get caught?”
My eyes slide over to his. “Really, Adam? All the things we’ve done and now you’re worried?”
He lets out a nervous laugh. “Right. You’re right.”
“We need to see inside. Just like we did at your brother’s place. Just like I did at the pedophile’s apartment. You don’t really know a person until you start digging through their stuff.” I take in his anxious expression. Maybe I made a mistake bringing him here.
“No, no, I’m ready,” he assures me like he can read my mind, and starts to pull his gloves on.
I stop him. “Not now. Wait. It’s summer out and warm. We’d look weird walking in wearing gloves.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right.” Adam sits straight up in my Jeep, nodding to the side door. “There they are,” he whispers.
As expected, Mr. and Mrs. Strangler emerge from the building, her in scrubs and him in a suit. They kiss goodbye and head to separate cars. She’s working the night shift, and he’s heading to a business dinner. We know this because Adam hacked their wifi and their personal accounts.
“They look so normal,” Adam says.
Don’t they all? He’s twenty-seven and she’s twenty-eight. Married five years. Met at the hospital where she works. He’s five-ten and she’s five-eight. Both are runners. Both have brown hair. To anyone, they are “normal”.
We’ll see about that.
Their cars clear the parking lot, and I open my door. “Let’s go.”
We walk straight toward the building’s side door and Adam swipes a card security key he created by hacking the building’s system. Yeah, this partner thing might be a good idea.