Jared ignored her, hoping the man would do the same.
“What is it, Kassie? You have something you want to add to the conversation?”
“You’re clearly delusional.”
“Ahh, I see. You think you know me, don’t you? Think you’ve seen it all before? Is that what you’re thinking, little Miss Child Psychologist?”
“That’s right, asshole. You are nothing new. Same old, same old,” she said with an exaggerated yawn. “If I had a dollar for every screwed-up kid that sat in my office, looked me right in the eye, and told me his childhood was the best ever, I would have retired years ago.”
“Are you saying I’m a liar?” He set down the scalpel, his face a maze of angry lines as he walked forward and wrapped his long pale fingers around the steel bars of Kassie’s cage. “Are you saying that my mother was a selfish whore who didn’t know I existed—a woman who cared more about feeding food scraps to the pigs than caring for her only son? A woman who was afraid of me because I reminded her of her attacker—her rapist, my father?”
“I don’t think that’s what she means at all,” Jared cut in.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Kassie said, her voice uncaring and flat, bordering on lifeless.
Clearly she’d been overpowered by defeat, Jared thought, and had already prepared herself for whatever the lunatic had planned for her, including a quick death to end it all.
“How many people have you killed?” Jared asked, hoping to get his attention away from Kassie.
“Not nearly enough,” he said, rattling Kassie’s cage, but getting no response from the woman inside.
“Are you responsible for the deaths of Charles and Maureen Baker?”
“Of course,” he said with a smile, the deep lines in his face softening. “Charles didn’t want anything to do with me, but like so many foolish men, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Maureen.” He sighed. “Love can be so bittersweet.”
“What about the Daltons?” Jared asked.
He went to his desk and Jared watched him select a CD from a box. As Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” played, he returned to his table and hovered over his tools again. He mouthed the words to the song, singing along with Roy Orbison as he lifted a knife and once again pointed the sharp tip at Jared. “The Daltons,” he said, loud enough to be heard over the music. “Those two were tricky. They both had me fooled, but in the end they weren’t worth all the trouble I went to. Michael was only in love with himself, but he never would have killed his wife—didn’t have the balls for that. Your girlfriend was the only one who seemed to see the big picture. Why is that? All of your big FBI meetings…all of those supposedly brilliant minds in one room, but nobody can put two and two together except for one very scared lost soul.” He smiled, his eyes wide and demented. “She’s a keeper, that one. After you’re out of the way, she’ll be all mine. My sweet Lizzy was curious to know what my endgame was. That’s it,” he said, his wide grin revealing two rows of neglected teeth.
“What about the love of your life?” Jared asked, referring to the woman in the chair, who hadn’t moved since his arrival. Jared had no idea if there was a human being or a blow-up doll beneath all the clothes and accessories.
“She’ll get over it. She understands that, in the end, I always come back to her.”
“How long has your lover over there been dead?” Kassie asked.
He snickered. “She’s more alive than you’ll ever be.”
“Just another delusion,” Kassie said with a sigh. “You loved her to death, didn’t you? The only way you could keep her at your side was to kill her, dress her up, and play house.” She let out a derisive laugh. “Even after she was dead, you had to tie her to the chair to keep her with you. So sad.”
That was the proverbial last straw. The man went ballistic. He fished inside his front pocket and pulled out the key to Kassie’s cage. There was no hesitation as he unlocked her cage door and dragged Kassie to the table he’d been carefully setting up.
Jared knew Kassie wouldn’t be able to fight the man, and she didn’t. She had nothing left. The infection from her wounds had caused her body to become feverish and wracked with chills.
“Let her be,” Jared said. “Don’t do this.”
But the man had already strapped her to the table and then raised the gurney to a workable height. He picked up the same scalpel he’d used to cut his arm and didn’t waste any time getting started.
Sacramento
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Lizzy pulled up to the curb on Bunker Street. There were police cars and unmarked sedans lining both sides of the street. The media vans had just arrived. She kept hoping her phone would ring again and she would hear Jared’s voice. She wanted another chance to tell him she loved him. She wiped her eyes, angry at the world. She had to stay strong. No time for tears. They would find Jared. They had to.
She had talked to Jimmy a few minutes ago. His warrant had arrived and he and his men were finally inside the Lincoln house.
Still no sign of Jared or Kassie Scott, but they did find the well-preserved and embalmed bodies belonging to Todd and Karen Beck. Inside another barnlike building on the edge of their property, they found an old limousine with two dead bodies that consisted mostly of bone and hair, bodies they believed belonged to Maureen and Charles Baker.
Lizzy opened her car door, but before she could exit, Jessica hurried over—her eyes puffy and bloodshot.
Lizzy’s heart sank as she prepared herself for the worst. “What did they find?”
“Jared’s not inside the home.”
Lizzy’s phone rang. She opened her cell and held it to her ear, disappointed when she heard Maria Trumble’s voice instead of Jared’s.
“There were a few things I remembered about Robert.”
“What?”
“Every Wednesday, I have the kids in my class write about something or someone important in their lives. It’s a task I’ve had my kids do since I began teaching thirty years ago. Robert always wrote about his biological mother, who disappeared when he was young. Her name was Lily. I think that’s why he was always fascinated with flowers. Every so often, Robert would come to school dressed up as a female. I’m not certain, but I think many of the clothes he used to wear belonged to an older woman. In fact, I always figured the clothes must have belonged to his dead mother.”
Lizzy thanked her and then hung up the phone.
Flowers.
A man dressed as a woman.
She looked at Jessica and said, “Lily’s Flower Shop. That’s it!”
“What are you talking about?” Jessica asked. “Who was that?”
“I don’t have time to explain. I’ll call Jimmy on my way. I need you to tell Lieutenant Greer that I’m headed for Lily’s Flower Shop downtown. Tell him to send backup. Now.”
Lizzy shut her door and took off, leaving screech marks on the pavement.
“Where is she going?” Hayley asked as she ran across the street.
“She wants me to tell Lieutenant Greer that she’s going to Lily’s Flower Shop and to send backup.”
“Come on,” Hayley said. “We’ve got to follow her. She can’t do this alone.”
“Can’t do what alone? What about the lieutenant?”
Hayley was already jumping into the passenger seat of Jessica’s red Volvo. “I’ll call Greer on our way. Come on, Jessica. Hurry up. We don’t want to lose her.”
Sacramento
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Lizzy parked at the curb in front of Lily’s Flower Shop, turned off the engine, and jumped out. She ran to the front entrance, but the door was locked. Peering through the glass, she could see the front counter where she’d talked to Jane, the owner, when she was here last. Jane had been dressed up as a woman, but she was a man. She was Robert Beck, Lizzy was sure of it. Eli had said that John Robinson worked at a shop downtown, but Lizzy hadn’t thought to ask for more details because she’d had no reason to believe John Robinson was the Lovebird Killer. She’d also been overwhelmed with too much going on at once. But at the moment, she had clarity. John Robinson
was a man of many names. He had tortured Claire Schultz into silence. No doubt, he had killed Eli’s sister and how many others?
She ran to the rear of the store, but the storage area where trucks made deliveries was closed off by a high metal gate topped off with circular barbed wire. A lot of security for a flower shop. She rushed back to the entry door, gun in hand, ready to fire at the lock, when she heard Hayley yell, “Stop.”
While Hayley pulled out a tool and worked the lock, Lizzy looked toward the street. “Where’s Jessica?”
“She’s in the car, talking to Greer.”
“Why isn’t the alarm on your ankle monitor beeping?”
“It’s a long story,” Hayley said right before they heard a
click
and the door came open.
Without waiting for an explanation, Lizzy ran inside the building. “Stay near the front of the store,” she ordered. “I’m going to take a look around.”
Lizzy held her gun in front of her as she took slow, methodical steps. The front room was empty. The back room was covered with boxes: some empty, many filled with vases and dried flowers used in the arrangements. The sweet smell of tuberoses contrasted greatly with the deadly games the owner of the shop played on a daily basis. There were two small desks. She glanced under both, and then opened drawers and cupboards lining the walls. She came up empty.
After a moment, she stopped and listened.
Hayley walked into the room and pointed to the five-by-six wool carpet in the middle of the room. Lizzy pulled at a corner of the carpet, but it wouldn’t budge. The carpet was stuck to the floor, but she heard something click beneath the rug. “Help me out here,” she told Hayley. Together they pulled as hard as they
could and ended up opening a trapdoor—the entrance to the bowels of Hell, no doubt.
Was Jared down there? Was she too late?
Music blared from inside the hole. Lizzy looked at Hayley. “I want you to stay here. I mean it, Hayley.”
Hayley nodded.
“Do you have something to protect yourself with?” Lizzy asked next.
“Do bears shit in the woods?”
Lizzy headed down the steep wooden stairs leading to a concrete floor below. The smell of antiseptic was overwhelming, immediately overpowering her senses. She didn’t bother looking at Hayley; she just headed downward, unafraid, determined to find Jared before it was too late.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Blood pumped faster through Jared’s veins as he watched the killer slice through Kassie Scott. The worst part was that there was nothing he could do about it. The lunatic was right. Nothing Jared had done in his life as an agent so far had prepared him for this moment. Like many agents, he’d spent hours sitting across the table from a killer, looking into the eyes of a madman as the unsub rambled on, gleefully recalling one horrific act after another—no remorse, no shame—retelling his stories for the sheer pleasure of being able to relive the killing within the ears of the listener.
For years, Jared had thought he understood what Lizzy must have felt when she talked about being beaten down by flashbacks of when she was held captive by a killer and forced to watch young girls being tortured. Now he realized he hadn’t understood at all.
For the first time since he’d been dragged into the madman’s basement, he felt a powerful rage building within.
So far, Kassie had been cut open in three different places. The killer had engraved the outline of a heart in her chest, deep enough to draw blood, but not deep enough to cause her to bleed to death. It was clear he took his surgical procedures seriously, as if each cut were an art form. One thing was certain: he had succeeded in getting Kassie’s adrenaline going. Her chest rose and fell with each breath. Every time she asked the madman to kill her and be done with it, he seemed to become calmer and more composed. While the man worked on Kassie, Jared continued to check every inch of the cage. He crawled to the top and rattled every corner, making the killer laugh every time he did so.
Ignoring Jared for a while, the man talked to Kassie instead. “I heard you talking on the phone when I was hiding out in your closet, waiting for you to enter your bedroom. I believe you said you had a surprise for your husband. Tell me your secret, Kassie dear, or I’m going to cut you open and see it for myself.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice quivering.
He calmly unscrewed the lid from the jar. “Don’t worry if you pass out during the surgical procedure. When you wake up, your baby will be preserved in a jar. I’ll make sure Drew gets—”
“I’m pregnant,” she said as if her declaration might save her baby. “Don’t hurt my baby. Please.”
“You forgot to turn on the video,” Jared blurted, finally able to breathe when the man left Kassie’s side long enough to check.
“Nice try,” he said, smiling at Jared, knowing he’d been tricked. He returned to the table and put the scalpel to her stomach. “Don’t worry,” he told Kassie. “Your baby won’t feel a thing.”
Behind the killer, Jared saw movement. Stunned to see Lizzy making her way down the stairs, he threw his body into the front of the cage, over and over, screaming at the top of his lungs, anything to stop the man from looking over his shoulder.
Lizzy didn’t try to make sense of what she was seeing: Jared screaming and Roy Orbison’s voice singing “Only the Lonely.” She knew crazy and this was it. The moment both feet were firmly on the concrete floor, she kept a good distance away from the man in the lab coat and raised her gun. “Drop the knife, Robert. It’s over.”
He whirled around, the scalpel firmly in his grip as he grinned from ear to ear. “You found me. Spiderman was right about you. You
are
full of surprises.”
She recognized him at once. Not only was he the owner of the flower shop, the man dressed up as Jane, he was also her attacker in the park. “Drop the knife or I’ll shoot.”
He hardly flinched. Just kept smiling, a wild fanatical look in his eyes. “I should have taken care of you while I had the chance.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say. Drop the knife.”
“You won’t shoot because you can’t.”