by Hadena James
“That is the most honest and introspective thing I have ever heard you say.” Gabriel lit another cigarette. “And I do appreciate your honesty. I can’t promise how things will go in the future between her or me and I can’t promise that if we stop seeing each other, there won’t be at least a little discomfort between you and I. At first, it may be very awkward. The only thing I can promise is that, for now, she and I are both happy and enjoying the bright spots of life together. I came into this knowing that she isn’t the committed relationship type. And because you’ve been honest, I will keep your concerns in mind. I won’t stop seeing her because of them, but when things end, I will do everything I can to not take it out on you if she breaks my heart.”
“Thanks, I think.” I responded.
“Is that all that’s bothering you?” He asked.
“I don’t like this case. I can’t decide who is guilty or who is complicit or if anyone is. And I don’t understand why this happened to them.” I admitted. “Why did she fracture into separate personalities? Why is only one of the personalities a psychopath and not all of them? And is that personality a psychopath in the way I think of psychopaths or is it somehow different than what I’m used to.”
“That sounds like a Lucas question.”
“I’m not sure Lucas isn’t struggling with the same questions. I’ve read the file and know that she suffered horrific abuse and her mind created alternates to shield the person from the abuse. Why doesn’t it happen more often? Why didn’t it happen to me? Do you think I had a lot of happy thoughts when I was in the clutches of Callow? I knew what he was. I knew what he was going to do to me. Sometimes, the imagination is worse than what actually happens. Why didn’t I end up fractured like they did? Why doesn’t everyone end up fractured like that?”
“I think the obvious answer is that you didn’t need to fracture, you were already protected from anything Callow did because you were born with the mental capacity to process that information differently. Not your intelligence level, your mental illness. It was a built in defense mechanism. We’ve talked before about the fact that sociopaths and psychopaths have elements of dissociative behaviors. You have said that you and Malachi both occasionally don’t recognize your own reflections. You don’t feel connected to it or the world. You have memory gaps. You are terrible at keeping track of linear time. Lucas cherry picked some articles for me and Fiona to read to give us an understanding of dissociative identity disorder. You have some of the symptoms. I asked Lucas about it late last night and he said most sociopaths and psychopaths have those symptoms. Which leaves me wondering if psychopathology doesn’t contain elements of dissociative identity disorder.”
“That doesn’t really answer the question, though, that is your brain chasing its own tail. I know because mine does the same thing. I know I fought back because I am a sociopath or psychopath, if you prefer. But I was still young when it happened and killing someone should be considered a traumatic event. Why then did my personality not fracture?”
“What if some people are just pre-disposed to fracture and others aren’t? Is that an answer you can accept?”
“In other words, perhaps it is a genetic expression that may happen if certain conditions are introduced to the brain while the personality forms?”
“Yes,” Gabriel responded.
“In other words, if she hadn’t seen her father murdered and her mother hadn’t gotten involved with a cult practicing pedophilia and human sacrifice, she may not have fractured either?”
“Exactly.”
“Then perhaps the trauma could be different from person to person as well.” I suggested.
“Or perhaps under just the right circumstances, it could happen to anyone, but most of us are not exposed to those circumstances. You referred to killing Callow as traumatic, but it was much less traumatic for you than it would have been for Nyleena or Xavier or me. If Nyleena had been forced to kill Callow to survive, then perhaps those would have been the specific circumstances required for Nyleena to fracture to protect herself from the trauma.”
“Oh,” I sighed. “Perhaps that’s why some physical conditions can cause it.”
“Could be.” Gabriel answered. “One of the articles I read said young children that experience migraines are more likely to experience symptoms of DID. Perhaps, as well as a mental illness, it’s a neurological disease like Alzheimer’s.”
“That makes some sense. But I had childhood migraines.”
“Yes, but I think your brain was already insulated against trauma.” Gabriel stubbed out his second cigarette and flopped into one of the chairs. “You must at least consider that people like you, Malachi, Raphael, and Caleb process the world so differently from the rest of us, that your brains are insulated from the effects of emotional trauma. And if someone else had lived your life, someone without that built in layer of insulation, they might have fractured. If I had lived the life Raphael had lived mute, molested, ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated, and lonely, I don’t think my brain would have processed it as well as Raphael’s did.”
“Raphael is a serial killer,” I reminded him.
“And I can’t imagine how he didn’t turn out to be a mass murderer. When I am completely honest with myself about it, I think it’s a bit of a miracle that Raphael is only a serial killer. I feel he could have turned out much worse.”
“I’m not entirely sure how it could have been worse, but I see your point to some degree.”
“You are only thinking about the mental aspects of DID, there could be physical components that we just don’t understand yet. If psychopaths can be born or made, why can’t the same be true of people who suffer DID. Why can’t some of them be born with an inclination to experience a fracture of their personality?”
“Psychopaths are less rare than people with multiple personalities.”
“That may not be true.” Gabriel said. “I don’t know the statistics for it right off the top of my head, but I’m sure there are lots of people that have symptoms of dissociative identity disorder that never get diagnosed for whatever reason.”
“I don’t know,” I said after a moment or two and lit a new cigarette. Gabriel lit another one too. “We’re just gonna stand out here and work on giving ourselves cancer?” I asked.
“I’m game,” Gabriel said. “We may also be missing something big, too big to realize we’re missing it.”
“Well that doesn’t make any sense.” I told him.
“Sure it does. Malachi has a form of giantism. Patterson doesn’t have finger prints. You have a blood disorder. Caleb has synesthesia. Raphael doesn’t have vocal cords. All of these are rare genetic conditions. Lucas and Xavier think that having the genes for psychopathology makes it more likely for rare genetic conditions to express themselves. If that’s possible, and I’m inclined to agree with them, then why couldn’t something similar be happening with dissociative identity disorder. I don’t see why it would be impossible for DID to be the rare expression of a gene or combination of genes to create the symptoms we see and the reason nearly everyone has episodes of things like dissociative identity disorder amnesia is because it isn’t rare, like we think, it’s just rare for it to be fully expressed like it is in Amber. Which could be why emotional or physical trauma at a young age, could create a complete fracturing like it did with Amber, but normally doesn’t.”
“What if most of us carry the key combination to experience symptoms of DID, but rarely encounter the contributing factors that create a fully fractured person like Amber.” I frowned as I reworded what he said.
“You’re still thinking just of the mental side.” He said looking at me.
“What if the combination of genes have to be there plus another gene, so ABC and D have to be present coupled with some type of physical or emotional trauma to create someone like Amber.”
“Yes, and maybe 80% of the world’s population carries combination ABC, but only 1% carries gene D. But when something like a terrible car accid
ent happens, because we carry ABC, we get a case of dissociative amnesia, but don’t end up fractured. Only the 1% that also carries D can be fractured completely.”
“That’s complicated,” I said. Lucas was right, everything about this case was complicated. I was getting annoyed with complicated.
“Aren’t most genetic expressions complicated?” Gabriel replied. “And maybe D doesn’t have anything to do with neurological workings, maybe it’s part of the encoding for toenails.”
“That would explain it,” I agreed.
Nineteen
I was jerked awake by a strange cell phone ringing in my room. I jumped, turning to see where I was exactly and where the cell phone was. I didn’t see it flashing in the dark, I could only hear it. It was coming from the little accent chair that was in the room.
Gabriel and I had sat up talking until the wee hours of the morning when he realized he didn’t have a room key with him. He was going to climb back over to his own balcony and stepped on a piece of metal that was rusting on my railing, which had prevented him from going back to his own room.
We’d decided he could sleep in my room so that he wouldn’t have to go down to the front desk and explain what had happened and why he was barefoot. He could get shoes from Xavier, they wore the same size, and have Xavier look at his foot in the morning. Xavier would find nothing weird about the situation, unlike the desk clerk.
The sun wasn’t up yet, the world beyond the balcony door was still dark. Phone calls at this time of the morning were never good phone calls. He finally got his cell phone out and answered it. I grabbed a shirt out of my bag and took it along with my gun holsters into my bathroom. I could wear my jeans for a second day, but my shirt would be noticeable if I wore it two days in a row.
It was a black T-shirt that said “History teaches us that we must learn from other people’s mistakes, because life is too short to make them all yourself.” I put a light weight flannel long sleeve shirt over it to hide my shoulder holster and guns. I didn’t bother to look at myself in the mirror. I took my hair out of the bun, swirled it around a few times and put the ponytail holder back on it in basically the exact same hairstyle I had worn the day before. No muss, no fuss, and I could brush it later.
“Dr. Durant was found murdered this morning by a guy walking his dog,” Gabriel said as I exited the bathroom. “His head was cut off.”
“How did a guy walking his dog find him murdered?” I asked.
“His body, including his head, was in a park near his condo.” Gabriel answered.
“Was he killed in the park?” I asked.
“They think so, there was a lot of blood at the scene.”
“And dead bodies don’t bleed all that well.” I nodded and we exited my hotel room. I shut the door. “Damn, I didn’t grab a key card to get back in.”
“Seriously?” He raised an eyebrow.
“You are a terrible influence.” I said as I walked across the hall and knocked on Xavier’s door. Xavier was his normal cheerful self when he opened the door. He was still fully dressed and I used the word still because it was the exact same shirt he’d been wearing the day before. In law enforcement, you learned to remember those tiny details that seem insignificant, like someone’s shirt. It didn’t take us long to get out to the car. Apparently for whatever reasons, the entire team had slept in their clothes, even the fastidious Lucas. Xavier grabbed a shirt that might have been clean and changed in the SUV.
“Something is off here,” Lucas said as Gabriel pulled out of the hotel parking lot.
“Two murders in two days, she’s devolved into a spree killer.” I said.
“Not about the case, I expected this. About you two. You’re smiling. He’s smiling. He woke you first and he never wakes you first. And you haven’t done much complaining about the sun not being up yet.” Lucas informed me.
“If you were an emotional being with needs, I’d accuse the two of you of having done the horizontal mambo last night. And Gabriel’s been bleeding from the foot, which actually strengthens the case for the horizontal mambo.” Xavier said.
“He didn’t wake me, his phone did. He was in my room, but he was asleep in the little chair and I was in my bed.”
“You don’t have to justify satisfying your naughty needful urges,” Xavier said.
“We both ended up on our adjoining balconies smoking late yesterday evening. Instead of coming around to my room through the front door to have a conversation, he climbed from his balcony to mine. But he didn’t grab his key card to get back into his room. In the wee hours of the morning, he tried to climb back over, stabbed his toe on something and started bleeding. He also nearly slipped. We both agreed that the middle of the wee hours of the morning was not exactly the best time to go get a new key card for his room, what with him being my supervisor and what not. We thought we’d wait until morning, when normal people are up and about before getting a new one.” I told them.
“You finally talked about the situation with Nyleena then?” Xavier said. “Good on ya.”
“Wow, what a terrible line,” I snipped at him.
“She knew.” Gabriel said.
“Told you so,” Fiona answered.
“That turned into a rather long conversation.” Gabriel sighed.
“During which she did something to make your foot bleed.” Lucas said.
“No, I really did hit it on something metal.” Gabriel replied. “A screw or something.”
“Maybe you should have your girlfriend sue them for having balconies that aren’t safe to climb around on,” Xavier said, smiling like the Cheshire Cat.
“You and her suck at the whole concept of a secret relationship,” I told him.
“We know.”
“Even Trevor and your mom know.” Fiona said.
“You thought I was that oblivious?” I asked Gabriel, mostly.
“Yes, they did, no clue why.” Xavier offered.
“That’s just hurtful.” I said.
“Why were you smiling? It’s not like you to grin before the sun makes an appearance if you aren’t kicking down a door or tasering someone.” Fiona said.
“Because these are the types of killings I expect from this killer.” I told her. “I know everyone has their own opinion on why serial killers kill, but these types of killings are rage killings, which is what I would expect of a killer who has been traumatized repeatedly throughout their life. The others were too controlled, too neat and clean.”
“Neat and clean must be subjective,” Gabriel said.
“I think she means that you don’t expect a sexual sadist to cut off someone’s head without a really good reason. It’s a lot of work, so there has to be a reason if it’s being done. The other killings were about punishment, not rage. So why inject them with acid and hang around letting it work? Now though, the killer is killing purely out of rage.” Lucas explained and I just sat and silently nodded.
“For the record, Ace left out the best part of her story. This morning, just as soon as the door shut, she realized she hadn’t grabbed the key for her room either and blamed it on me.” Gabriel said as we pulled into a huge parking lot next to a massive condominium complex. There were two dozen assorted vehicles with their lights on; cop cars, fire rescue trucks, as well as one ambulance and the coroner’s van.
As soon as we got out, an officer in uniform came running towards us. The FBI agent was there talking to Kimberly. Kimberly waved to us.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Dr. Cain, I’m supposed to escort him to the body.” The uniformed officer said.
“Well, Dr. Cain is a she and I think you have her confused with Dr. Reece, he’s the medical doctor. My doctorate is in history.” I replied.
“I don’t know about Dr. Reece or any of the other stuff, I’m just doing what I was told.” The officer answered.
“Told by who?” Gabriel asked.
“The director of the NSA is here, sir, he asked for Dr. Cain.”
“If Peter chase
s me out of that copse of trees with a severed head, we might need a new director of the NSA.” I said as I took a step forward.
“Does that sound like something Peter West is likely to do?” Gabriel asked.
“Well, when we were all kids, Malachi and Peter once chased me around carrying a dead possum, so I never rule anything out.” I offered.
“That doesn’t sound like the Peter West I know,” Fiona said.
“Well it was 20 years ago or so. And I think the idea might have mostly been Malachi’s. But I have yet to forget it and I just wanted to put someone on notice, in case.” I said taking off after the officer.
Peter didn’t have a severed head. There was a ton of blood though in this area. The ground was coated in it. Work lights had been set up, making the area very bright. Peter was standing about ten feet from where the blood started.
“I know, you can’t imagine why I’m here or why I sent someone to get you,” Peter said before I could say a word.
“That about covers it, what’s up?” I asked.
“I wanted to have a private chat and maybe talk to you about a favor.” Peter stepped backwards, away from the crime scene. He still hadn’t looked at me. Despite the fact that Malachi had giantism, Peter was short. He was only a couple of inches taller than me, so he might have been 5 feet, 6 inches tall, with his shoes on.
“Well that’s a terrifying prospect.”
“I know, I cannot imagine owing you a favor, but it scares me less than owing Malachi a favor.” Peter told me.
“Just so we’re clear, I don’t do things that are illegal when I can help it.”
“No, nothing like that, I’m the head of the NSA, I can get illegal favors from just about anywhere. I need a favor related to this case.”
“Oh boy,” I said.
“I think there’s a second victim.” Peter finally met my eyes. He pointed to the giant area of blood coated ground. “And I think she might be one of my agents.”