by Hadena James
“What?” She asked.
“For the under educated, Sekhmet might be misunderstood as being associated with Set.” I closed my eyes. “There was a movie recently with the hot guy from Phantom of the Opera in which Set was portrayed in a similar fashion as Satan.”
“You mean Gods of Egypt,” she said. “You obviously didn’t watch it.”
“No, I did not.” I said.
“You think someone could confuse Set and Sekhmet? And then because of a movie, think it’s an ‘evil’ religion?”
“Yes, people know the big ones Osiris, Isis, Bast, Horus, maybe Anubis. Whatever brush with it they are given in their high school history classes. Sekhmet doesn’t rank high enough to get an honorable mention, but Set does and he has several names.”
“Right, until I met you I was taught it was Seth.”
“Both are basically correct, it sort of depends on the teacher.”
“Almost murdered because of a case of mistaken identity among dead gods.”
“I think so.” I shook my head. “Which means our killer probably only has a passing pop knowledge reference regarding any of those she deems worthy of murder.”
“And now we have a picture, which the FBI is going to run through facial recognition software for us,” she said. “This is about to become a spree, isn’t it?”
“I think so.” I answered glumly. “I think it has been working its way that direction for a long time, and now, her ability to stalk and plan has been removed from her.”
“Is that a personal opinion or your professional opinion as someone who has dealt with it before?”
“Both,” I told her. “It’s what I would do and I’ve seen it happen a bunch. It actually doesn’t take much to disrupt the routine of a serial killer and send them spiraling out of control.”
“You mentioned a rabbit hole earlier.”
“Yeah, it’s an Alice Through the Looking Glass reference,” I told her.
“I know that.” She snipped and then smiled.
“Well, all psychopaths and sociopaths can get sucked into this state of being that is a little surreal when they are intensely focused on something. It is not a sane place. The point is, it always has a trigger. I think whatever triggered our girl to start killing also sent her chasing rabbits.”
“You think she had a psychotic break?”
“Yes, no, I don’t know. To have a psychotic break requires her to dwell in the real world and I’m not sure she does.”
“We have a name,” some guy in a suit came over and told Kimberly.
“A name for what?” I asked.
“The girl in the picture, she was arrested for killing a guy about 10 years ago, it was eventually pleaded out and she voluntarily committed herself to the state for psychiatric care. A year ago, her psychiatrist, a Dr. Mel Abernathy, cleared her for release and a deal was worked out with the State of Florida that she could be released on a probationary condition, she has to attend therapy three times a week and check in with the office of Probation and Parole once a week.”
“You say all that like it should be important, but I don’t know what it means.” I informed him.
“Amber Wilhite?” Kimberly said.
“Yes,” the guy in the suit replied.
“Not from around here,” I reminded everyone and saw Gabriel stalking towards me with Lucas.
“Well, what do you think?” Lucas asked.
“She’s falling apart.” I answered.
“Yes, she is. This was incredibly sloppy; poorly planned and executed.”
“I think she’s just barely been holding it together from the beginning,” I told him.
“Me too.” Lucas agreed. “I’d wondered if you’d noticed that.”
“We’re all heading back to the Tampa PD to talk about Amber Wilhite.” Gabriel told me. “She’s an interesting one.”
Brexton to the Rescue
Brexton stared at the car, its tires sunk in the mud on the shore and swore loudly. How had this happened? How had the car gotten so bogged down in the mud? Hadn’t Martha been warned this plan wouldn’t work? Brexton was sure a note had been left in that ridiculous Danielle Steele novel for Martha about how to properly dispose of the vehicle when she had first settled on the idea of driving it into one of the many lagoons in the area as a precaution if it was ever identified.
Brexton climbed into the car using one of the back doors. Gently, they rocked the car out of the mud, grabbing traction on the grass that bordered the man-made lake. Drought no doubt played a part in the mud. No matter, there were other spots to put the car into this particular lake. They carefully backed up and drove around to the side near the fishing dock. Here the ground was harder. They backed up nearly the length of a football field, enough room for the car to get up speed to hit the water. Brexton climbed out, replaced the rock on the accelerator and let the car go.
Brexton and Martha guessed the car was going close to 50 when it hit the water. It didn’t bog down, it slipped under the surface. Several gators came up out of the depths, snapping their jaws as they lumbered onto the land, their relaxation disturbed by the invading car.
No matter, they’d hoof it for a while. Martha had been careless. She had sworn that the kids were going away to camp. And what had happened? They hadn’t, they’d just gone to spend the night with a friend. Nobody sent kids away to camp anymore. That was a thing of the past.
Brexton thought Martha should read some crime novels instead of those sappy stupid romance novels, then maybe she’d be good at her role. Or maybe, Brexton was wrong, maybe Martha was just as stupid and useless as Caroline and Amber. Which meant of the group of four, Brexton was the only competent one. Well, this mess would need to be sorted out. There were other targets.
Brexton had known that eventually Martha’s plan would fall apart, and things would go Brexton’s way. It had happened sooner than Brexton had expected, but that was okay. Brexton would ride to the rescue and from now on things would be done Brexton’s way. It was time to start with Brexton’s list and at the top was that tedious, tiresome, narrow- minded idiot Dr. Durant.
Brexton had not been aware of Amber, Caroline, Martha, or Melissa until Dr. Durant began mucking about with them. Martha told Brexton that Caroline, Melissa, and Amber had been coping just fine until Dr. Durant began the integration process.
A process that would make them all aware of each other and purge the ones that couldn’t cope. That process had awakened Brexton to the others. Now, Brexton was self-aware and aware of the others. Brexton could check up on them, Brexton knew all that they knew.
Then Melissa, the original personality, had disappeared. Dr. Durant had been convinced Melissa was the one called Martha, but she wasn’t, and Melissa had winked out of existence. She had been the frailest of them all. A fragile butterfly who didn’t have the ability to understand what integration was nor was she strong enough to face the reality that lay before her, she was inhabited by multiple people and she was the weakest, it had broken her, and suddenly Brexton and Martha had found her gone.
But Martha hadn’t wanted to punish Dr. Durant for it. She had been fine with leaving him alone, she talked about justice, but seemed unwilling to go after it, except in these stupid couples she wanted Brexton to punish for whatever perceived wrong Martha held against them.
Brexton complied, because Brexton wanted to kill. Brexton had been wanting to kill again since taking the head of that jerk that had hurt Melissa and made her fragile. Brexton killed who Martha wanted, because that was Brexton’s job. Brexton was the rescuer. Brexton was the protector. What had happened to Melissa had proven that Brexton had been weak, but not anymore. Brexton would never allow Caroline or Amber to be victims again. Brexton would rescue them.
It was harder to protect Martha because Martha knew about Brexton. Martha could bring Brexton forward to do her bidding. Until now. Brexton had not been the dominant personality, things were changing, though. Martha needed Brexton to rescue her and Brexton w
ould, but at a price to Martha. Brexton was just as aware as she was, there was no reason for Martha to remain the dominant personality.
Brexton pulled a baseball cap out of the bag, piled their hair up, and slipped the cap over it to hold it into place. There were clean clothes in the bag, too, Brexton stopped at a gas station with outside bathrooms and headed into the ladies’ room. Once inside, they changed their clothes and stuffed the dirty ones in the bag.
Then they walked over a half a mile to catch an Uber. Brexton knew better than to grab a bus near where they had ditched the car. The police would be watching for that, it would give away the location of the car as well as possibly figuring out where they were headed. That couldn’t be allowed. The days of Martha’s list were over, it was time to work on Brexton’s list.
Brexton was sure they would be sent back to a hospital after this. A hospital with another idiot administrator, they’d be in there for maybe twenty years. Caroline and Amber could do arts and crafts, some doctor could attempt integration again of the four remaining personalities. They’d be studied and written about. Brexton was sure of this because Brexton had been doing research on their condition. If Brexton and Martha went away for a while, some kind-hearted judge would see Caroline and Amber for the scared kids they were. Their history would be taken into consideration and they would be just fine. And some soft prosecutor would decide not to make an example out of them, it was rare to have a psychopathic personality with dissociative identity disorder and their childhood had been extreme enough to warrant one. Everyone would see that and take pity on them. Especially since Amber and Caroline weren’t just childish but cute as baby penguins.
Plus, the family had the money to pay for a good institution. They had a trust fund for them, they only worked because Dr. Durant had demanded it as a condition of release. He thought making them work might help keep them from switching back and forth between personalities. It hadn’t. What Dr. Durant didn’t know about dissociative identity disorder would fill several tomes. Brexton hadn’t even been able to figure out why Dr. Durant had muscled in on the case. Dr. Durant hadn’t liked any of the three girls he’d met and he would have liked Brexton least of all. But Dr. Durant hadn’t suspected Brexton existed, only Dr. Abernathy had, and she hadn’t been able to get proof of it, unlike with Martha, Amber, and Caroline.
Brexton looked at their hands. There were more cuts and scratches on them now, and Brexton wasn’t sure where they had come from. The skin of the middle knuckle on the right hand had been whacked out somehow. It had stopped bleeding, but Brexton didn’t remember it happening. Maybe they’d knocked it on the rock or something when they were picking it up or resetting it on the gas pedal.
The Uber dropped Brexton a few blocks from Dr. Durant’s building where he occupied a condo on the third floor. The sun was starting to rise. Dr. Durant would come out for his morning run soon. Was it too early to kill him? Would it be better to wait until tonight? Brexton stood and thought, unsure for a few minutes about whether or not they should go forward with her plans immediately or wait.
Eleven
According to the case file, Amber Wilhite had killed a guy when she was fifteen. The guy had been her mother’s new husband. She’d been raised in a cult, which explained the therapy and voluntary incarceration at a state run hospital for the criminally insane. In Amber’s defense, she had been abused sexually and physically by the guy, her mother, and other adult members of the cult.
At the age of twelve, she had watched the guy murder her older sister, who had been fifteen. She told police her mother had prepared all her daughters to be sacrificed to the devil. Which explained why she was killing Satanic parents I supposed. However, devil worship and Satanism were vastly different. Especially devil worship within a cult like atmosphere.
Amber had stabbed her mother and the mother’s new husband who was going to do actually do the sacrificing and ran away to her aunt’s house. Only after her aunt told the police did they raid the compound the cult inhabited and find the dead man and Amber’s mother who was not mortally wounded. They also dug up more than a dozen skeletons, all of them appeared to be around the same age as Amber at the time, fifteen.
She was now twenty-seven. She didn’t have fingerprints to leave. The tips of her fingers were listed as scarred to the point that her fingerprints had been removed, which perhaps explained her fascination with acid. It was difficult to remove fingerprints permanently even with scarring.
The conversation regarding Amber Wilhite revolved mostly around her being weird and her growing up in a cult. I didn’t find it particularly useful. And apparently neither did Lucas. He and I loaded up in the SUV shortly after traffic started to get heavy and headed to see Dr. Melinda Abernathy, Ph.D. and MD. We carried a generic court order that voided most privacy laws. It always amazed me what people were willing to give up for the illusion of safety.
The mental health ward where Dr. Abernathy saw patients was at a small hospital that looked like it was privately funded. It did not look like a state run institution, in other words. We told the guard and receptionist who we were and who we wanted to talk to, passed over the court order and took seats in the waiting room. There were two big doors with the crisscrossed wire in the little glass windows. We didn’t wait long before there was a loud buzz and the door opened.
Dr. Melinda Abernathy was taller than me by a few inches, had dark hair starting to grey, and what appeared to be plastic framed glasses with an all plastic construction. She stood erect and showed no hesitation in talking with us. She lead us down a hallway that had a door marked authorized personnel only and into a small cluttered office. The desk was immaculate but there was too much furniture in the small room which gave it a feeling of being cluttered and claustrophobic.
“Serial Crimes Tracking Unit, huh?” She said as she motioned for us to take seats. “And you said you wanted to talk about Amber Wilhite, I take it Martha is killing.” She paused. “Oh, wait, the Satanist murders, I take it you suspect Martha of doing them.”
“Martha?” I asked.
“Martha.” Dr. Abernathy took a seat at a little square table. “Since you don’t know about Martha, I’m guessing Dr. Durant did not release her medical chart to the police or probation and parole.”
“Dr. Durant?” I said. “Let’s start from the beginning, I think.”
“Dr. Durant is the director of the hospital and my boss. I did not want to release Amber Wilhite, but he over ruled me. Said her integration had been successful. I don’t believe integration of violent personalities is ever successful, so I was unwilling to release her.”
“Amber has dissociative identity disorder?” Lucas asked.
“Yes, it’s not surprising really given how she grew up. What do you know about Amber Wilhite.”
“She was raised in a devil worshipping cult that murdered some of the children of the followers and she saw her sister murdered.” I said.
“Not much in other words,” Dr. Abernathy sighed. “How much do you understand about multiple personalities?”
“I’m a trained psychiatrist and Dr. Cain knows enough about everything to be dangerous.” Lucas smiled at her.
“I’ve read about you, Dr. Cain, not just in the news but at a conference, one of the presenters did a lecture on your case from the 1980s and he had handouts for us.”
“Yes, I admit I am a great big mess.” I tried not to give her a creepy smile.
“Strange it was presented as just the opposite, a high functioning psychopath with mental symptoms more in line with a high functioning sociopath, but the physicality of a psychopath. And very smart. It was presented by a Dr. Kelce.”
“He was the psychiatrist I had to see after my abduction.” I told her.
“Was he correct or was it all just bluster to make himself look important?”
“He was correct,” Lucas answered for me. “We’ve been trying to figure out what to term her mental and physical condition for just over 5 years now.”
>
“I see. And you understand the basics of multiple personalities?”
“Yes.” I answered.
“If you lose track, stop me and I’ll explain.” Dr. Abernathy said. “Amber was my patient because dissociative identity disorder is my specialty. She comes from a very wealthy family. I’d say she is worth millions, although I think it is all under the guardianship of her aunt, she could afford a private hospital for her voluntary incarceration, so they choose us. She was here for seven years. During that time, I discovered 3 personalities, Amber is the original, but she suffers from mental stunting. She will forever be a child, incapable of comprehending adult concepts and responsibilities like driving a car or holding down a job. Then there was Caroline, Caroline is a little older than Amber, I suspect she’s the fracture that resulted from watching her sister be murdered. She’s 16 years old and slightly more mature than Amber. Neither Amber nor Caroline are the dominant personality. And neither was Martha, even though Martha appeared to be an adult; she understood the concept of working, personal responsibility, and other traits you would expect from a teen getting ready to pass into adulthood. Martha was smart, capable of learning, capable of manipulation that neither Amber nor Caroline could do. Talking to either Amber or Caroline is like talking to a child. Talking to Martha is much different. I suspected there was a fourth personality, but I could never bring it out. Martha talked about it, though, a few times and it is that personality that is the killer. Dr. Durant believed Martha was making up the fourth personality, manipulating me into believing that she wasn’t the dominant. He did have one point in favor of his theory, Martha was aware of Amber and Caroline, even though they were not aware of her. Normally, only the dominant personality is aware of the others. But normally is not always. And while we eventually labeled Martha the violent personality, I believed the fourth personality was also violent, possibly more violent than Martha. Martha would get violently angry over imagined insults, but it wasn’t mortal violence if that makes any sense. She never tried to grab an ink pen and stab anyone or bash someone’s head into the floor.”