by S. E. Green
“Let’s just say, we all had a bit of a ‘come to Jesus’ moment and I’m trying, really trying, to include them.” Include them in everything but my mother’s true identity as The Decapitator, and my true identity as her killer.
“That’s good and a perfect lead into the other thing I want to tell you.”
“The affair?” I guess.
“The what?”
“I found out that my mom and my real dad were having an ongoing affair and that Daisy is their daughter, too. That’s the ‘come to Jesus’ moment we all had.”
Reggie says, “I’m sorry, but that’s not the picture I have of your mom. She walked on water in my eyes.”
And I’m glad Reggie is now seeing a bit of the real and deceitful woman that my mother was. “You said there was something else?”
“Yeah. When I was digging around, I kept seeing the same IP addresses of two independent people doing the same digging. I traced them back to Victor and Daisy. Eventually, they are going to find out all of this about your mom and Marjoream. God, Lane, was it a mistake to look into all of this? We’ve dug up one too many skeletons. It’s almost too much. I’m not sure I want to know more but somehow there is more.”
“If there is I don’t want to know it, so please stop digging. You found what I needed and I thank you. You’re a great friend, Reggie.”
“Are you disappointed in your mother?”
“Yes.” I didn’t even know her, really.
Reggie says, “She was a good woman and a mother, despite the affair. Always remember that. We all have secrets and that was her main one.”
“Yeah, well, some secrets shouldn’t be found out.” If I could, I would destroy everything about her and close that door forever.
Reggie and I click off.
Across the bar parking lot, Professor Kane Gregg gets in his car alone. It looks like he’s calling it a night. Alone.
Still, I follow him all the way back to his condo and I wait until he’s inside and settled in for the night.
Good, because I really need to talk to Victor and Daisy.
44
It’s close to ten at night when I walk in our home. Both Victor and Daisy stay up until eleven, so I’m fairly sure I have an hour or so to talk with them.
But when I close the front door and slide my jacket off, I find Justin at the dining room table hunched over math homework.
It’s way past his bedtime and I doubt Victor knows he’s down here. I don’t reprimand my brother, though, and instead, give him a hug.
He glances up at me through hazel eyes the exact color of Victor’s. “What was that for?”
“Because I love you, and I will always love you, no matter what.” I kiss the crown of his head, inhaling his freshly washed hair. “Where’s Dad and Daisy?”
“Dad had a headache and went to bed about an hour ago. Daisy is taking a long bath and doesn’t want to be disturbed.” Justin rolls his eyes.
Smiling, I pull out a chair and sit down beside him. I note he’s stepping his way through equations. Math is my thing, and the one subject I’ve always helped Justin with. I pick up a pencil and with a nod, he slides his paper over.
As I always do, I walk him through, line-by-line, and carefully, he listens. He’s a follower, not a leader, which is why he fell prey to the bullies at school.
But I learned a long time ago Justine thrives when he feels in control, like right now as he independently does the next equation. These are the type of things that boost his confidence.
“Was thinking we could work on some moves this weekend?” He’s been struggling to level up in Aikido. A few pointers are all he needs.
He stops with the equation and glances over at me. “Really?”
I’ve been so focused on Daisy, school, Mom’s secrets, and so many other things that I’ve taken for granted my brother didn’t really need me. He needs my attention just as much as everything else. I can’t forget him.
I need to get more and stay more involved with him. “Really.”
He grins. “Cool.”
We continue working for the next thirty minutes or so until he begins yawning and I send him up to bed.
I’m glad I came by, but I still need that conversation with Victor and Daisy.
I leave a quick note for Victor:
Came by to talk to you and Daisy. When is good?
45
The next night I’m back at Wish You Were Beer Bar, this time inside. College students pack the place, most halfway toward full inebriation. A local blues band occupies the back wall, thumping their way through a deep and slow song. In one corner a few students play pool. In another, others play darts. In the center, a few dance. At the bar, the stools are packed with drinkers crowded in behind.
Standing room only.
I choose a spot near the dart boards, leaning back all casual like, tapping my foot to the slow beat, and staring straight across the place to where Professor Kane Gregg stands beside a girl perched on a stool.
She’s laughing. He’s laughing. Life is so funny when you’re drinking and flirting.
Thanks to the sedative I stole from Patch and Paw’s supply closet, I’m ready for this guy. He slips the girls a mickey, I’m slipping him one. He’s going to experience every single thing that he does to them. Tonight is the night.
A beefy wrestler type guy slides up beside me. “Hey, haven’t seen you here before.”
I smile a little.
He glances at my empty hands. “I’ll get you something. What’s your poison?”
Tonight my poison is Professor Kane Gregg. Drugged. Stripped naked. Posed and exposed for the camera. But of course, that’s not what this guy means. “Just water. Thank you.”
“Cool.” With that, he heads off.
Good, I need my space. Professor Kane Gregg leans over, “accidentally” brushing the side of the girl’s breast. She shrugs it off. He chuckles at his “mistake”. Such a gentleman.
I glance around the packed bar, seeing several other older adults that are probably faculty or staff, too. Shouldn’t there be a rule against this? Fraternizing, sure, but there’s no rule about which bar what person goes to.
I spy the beefy wrestler guy still in line to get my water. That’s fine. I’m here until Professor Kane Gregg makes a move. A loud crash draws my attention toward the pool table where a girl just knocked over several beer bottles perched on a ledge. But it’s the person hovering in the dark corner who I zero in on.
Sabrina.
Sipping from a can of Sprite, she’s trying to look all casual, but her stiff shoulders give her away. She’s busy studying the bar and I doubt she’s noticed me yet, but my gut tells me she’s here for the same reason as me.
This is the last place Erna remembers and Sabrina is trying to piece together the puzzle. I thought I had some time to wait things out, but my roommate just upped the clock.
A pack of students move in front of me and using them for cover, I skirt out and around to exit through the door. Outside in the parking lot, I know exactly where Professor Kane Gregg parked his green hatchback and a new plan forms.
I stop a guy going into the bar. “Hi, do you know Professor Kane Gregg?”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell him I saw someone key his car?”
“Sure.”
The guy disappears inside and I walk straight through the dimly lit lot to wait by Professor Kane Gregg’s car. Pulling my phone out, I give it a quick glance, but Victor still hasn’t texted me about the note I left. That’s fine, he’s busy. If I don’t hear from him tonight, I’ll check in tomorrow.
Tucking my phone away, I slide a flask from my jacket pocket loaded with whiskey-laced sedative, or sedative-laced whiskey. Either way, it’ll do the job.
Slipping up on the hood of his green hatchback, I kick back and take a pretend swig from the flask.
He marches toward me. “Excuse me!”
I glance over, all innocent, and with my practiced Russian accent, I
respond. “Yez?”
“This is my car. What are you doing?”
“Oh!” I glide off the hood. “I thought et vaz my friend’z car.”
With an annoyed sigh, he walks the perimeter, looking for the key marks, and apparently appeased that there’s been a reported mistake, he circles back around to where I stand next to his hood.
I take another fake swig from the flask. “Iz okay?”
Cocking his head, he studies me and I keep right on smiling. Up close, he really is a good looking man.
“Where you from?” he asks.
“Rossia.”
“You an exchange student?”
I nod, taking another fake drink. He eyes the flask, and I take that as my cue. I hold it out to him. “Iz cold out, no? Please, iz vheskiy.”
He moves in closer, taking the flask, making sure his fingers brush mine. “Thanks.” He takes a sip, and then another, and I take it back from him. I want him loopy, not passed out.
Recapping the flask, I slide it back into my coat pocket and I step further into him, forcing him back against the hood. His eyes widen a little with my aggressive stance.
I arch a brow. “Leve around here?”
Professor Kane Gregg is already digging his keys out of his jeans pocket as he says, “Yes.”
Pressing a kiss to his neck, I pluck the keys from his fingers. “Let mi.”
He chuckles and chuckles, and I smile and smile. A bit of a lightweight, this one.
Without me even helping him, he climbs into the passenger side and I slide into the driver’s. I let his hands get all grabby as I turn the hatchback on and slowly pull from the lot. He doesn’t think to give me directions but I prompt him anyway, even though I know my way.
By the time we arrive at his condo, he is good and buzzed and nearly passed out. I hope I didn’t underestimate the sedative’s effect.
Once I’m in the garage with the door closed and the engine off, I search his pockets and find the Rohypnol he would have used tonight if given the chance.
Opening the driver’s door, I climb out and I circle around to get him out, too. “Come on, Professor Gregg. Showtime.”
With a half-baked grin, he smooshes his finger into my cheek. “You don’t have an accent anymore.”
I unzip his jacket and slide it down his arms. “So why don’t you tell me about all the girls you bring here.”
He turns a slow circle, letting me take the jacket off. “I like taking pictures of girls.”
“Yes, you do.” I grasp the hem of his long sleeve Henley. “Arms up.”
He listens, and I tug his shirt off. “Can you do your jeans?”
“Yepper.” He unbuttons and unzips, hopping around a bit as he works them down his legs.
I nod over to the mattress with the red satin sheet. “Is that where you do it?”
“Oh, yeah.” He gets his jeans off and strips his boxers without me asking as he walks toward the mattress.
Naked he plops down, and I pick up the camera already waiting on the metal table.
“Show me what you have the girls do,” I say.
Laughing, he rolls over, spreading his legs and giving me a rear view. I lift the camera and click. Not the best view, but whatever.
“What else?” I prompt.
And he proceeds to show me every disgusting thing he makes the girls do.
With the lollipop.
The crotch-less panties.
The dildo.
The baby doll.
And I take pictures of it all.
When he’s done showing me everything, I help him get dressed and help him walk up the stairs into his condo. “Who are you?” he mumbles as I assist him into his unmade bed.
“I’m the person who is making you pay for what you did to all those innocent girls.”
“Oh.”
Oh, indeed.
With a yawn, he rolls over. “I shoot them because they’re pretty. They should thank me because now they live on forever in photos so unique people share them.”
I almost turn and leave, but his words stop me. I look down at him all drunk on the sedative and compliant. I really do need to punch him.
And so I do, hard, over and over again, wishing he were more alert to experience this. At least he’ll feel it in the morning.
Disgusting human being.
I leave him just like he left all the girls, fully dressed and passed out, only to wake up in the morning unsure of how he got home.
I take the memory card from the camera, walk straight out his front door, and the two miles back to the bar where my Jeep still sits parked in the lot.
Now to upload the photos and make an anonymous call that his place should be searched.
…
By noon the next day, the pictures are everywhere and Sabrina finds me in the cafeteria eating a burrito.
She slides her finger across her phone and shows me one. “Can you believe this?”
“Huh, look at that.” I dunk my burrito in guacamole and take a bite.
“That’s Professor Kane Gregg.”
“I see that.”
“He’s the last person Erna remembers talking to.” Sabrina waves the phone in my face. “He took those pictures and someone got him back. They even searched his place and found evidence. He’s been arrested.”
“Sounds like he got what he deserved.”
For a moment, Sabrina stands beside me, quietly watching me eat my burrito. I keep eating, glancing up every so often. Finally, I ask, “Anything else?”
She grins. “No.” Then she shocks the hell out of me when she grabs my face and gives me a loud kiss.
I pull back. “What the hell, Sabrina?”
Still, with the grin, she plops down across from me. “Glad we’re friends, that’s all.” She swipes a finger through my guacamole and tastes it. “Mm.”
I roll my eyes and she laughs. Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m glad we’re friends, too.
As she gets up to go buy her own burrito, a text finally comes in from Victor: CAN YOU COME BY THE HOUSE TONIGHT?
YES, I type back.
Time to tell them what I found out from Reggie.
46
That night, I sit in our living room beside Daisy. Victor sent Justin upstairs to take a shower, and silently I watch Victor pacing. Something tells me he already knows everything I want to tell him.
As soon as the shower turns on, he stops pacing and looks first at my sister and then me.
“This stays between the three of us. Justin is too young to know. I’ll tell him when the time is right.” Victor takes a breath. “The degraded sample.” He looks at me. “Do you remember when we discussed Marji, a childhood friend of your mother’s?”
I look at Daisy. “We know they were sisters.”
Victor pauses. “How do you know that?”
Shifting forward on the couch, I brace my elbows on my knees. I’m not entirely sure what he knows and how much of it matches up to Reggie’s information, but I go ahead. “I had Reggie look into everything when I heard about the degraded sample. I only just found out and planned on telling you two everything. This is what I know…”
I step them through everything. Mom and Marji, childhood friends, Mom watching the murder of Marji’s mother, and the two of them hiding in the closet because they were too scared to come out. Mom’s parents taking Marji in and adopting her. The whole family changing their names and moving. Mom and Marji going separate ways when they got older. And Marji later being found stabbed outside the trailer where she tortured so many young people.
When I get done, I look over at Daisy to find her staring at a photo on the mantel of our family taken a few years ago on a hike we did in the Shenandoah Valley.
With a sigh, Victor sits down on the ottoman. “The FBI needs to hire Reggie.”
That they do.
“And you didn’t know any of this?” Daisy asks Victor.
“No.” He shakes his head. “Your mom never told me any of this.”
>
She looks at me. “And how long have you known?”
“I literally just found out.”
My sister pushes off the couch. She crosses over to the coat rack, slips on her winter jacket and gloves, and walks right out the front door.
I expected tears, a flare of temper, possible shouting, or more questions, but none of that occurs. I get up to go after her, and Victor waves me down.
“Let me,” he says, and I nod.
It’s probably for the best. My sister and I only just made up and this just makes things more fragile.
I find my way into the kitchen and as I make a cup of coffee, I survey Victor’s closed office door.
The last time I checked, there was nothing in there but normal stuff. It doesn’t hurt to check again.
I try the handle and find it locked. He never locks the office door. There’s something in there he doesn’t want us to see. My gut tells me it’s about Mom. I have to break in. It’s the only way to stay one step ahead.
A quick glance out the blinds of our living room shows Victor and Daisy down the block, walking away from our house. Upstairs, Justin shuts his bedroom door. I have to work quickly.
I don’t have my lock picks on me but from the kitchen, I find a paper clip and a butter knife.
Just like Victor taught me how to use lock picks, he also taught me how to use household items to do various things: picking locks, using a newspaper as a weapon, expanding soap in a microwave, using steel wool for a light show...
It takes me seconds longer than usual, but when the handle releases, I breathe out. Yes.
The kitchen light filters in behind me and illuminates the small room. I take one step inside, and I freeze.
My gaze bounces off the walls, the desk, the floor, the file cabinets. Everything covered with notes, drawings, pictures, maps, and lists of various killers that Mom helped catch over the years.
It’s like looking inside of her dark and disturbed mind.
Where did all of this come from, and why is Victor revisiting it?
Is there a new killer I’m not aware of? Is this FBI business?