Freak

by Jennifer Hillier

  Torrance studied him. “Your eyes are bloodshot. You been up all night?”

  “Yeah, I was on a job,” Jerry said. He didn’t bother to elaborate. What he did as a private investigator was none of Torrance’s business. “And I have to get back to it. So why don’t you tell me why you called me here.”

  “This will only take a second.”

  “What will?” He kept his voice low. There were only three bodies in the room—his, Torrance’s, and the dead girl’s—but Jerry didn’t want anyone outside the room to hear him. The door was still propped open, cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. “Come on, man. You know I could never stomach this shit.”

  He had never been good with dead bodies, and Torrance damn well knew that. During his time at PD, Jerry had worked vice, narcotics, domestic violence, robbery. Never homicide.

  “See that?” Torrance’s gloved finger hovered a few inches away from the woman’s neck. “Take a good look at how she was killed.”

  Jerry sighed. Clearly Torrance wasn’t going to explain anything to him until he saw what the detective wanted him to see. Moving closer to the foot of the bed, Jerry leaned forward, his eyes fixing on the spot where Torrance was pointing.

  He saw it then. Holy hell.

  “Zip tie?” Jerry might not have believed it if he wasn’t actually looking at it. The plastic tie was transparent, which is why it wasn’t visible from farther back. Somebody had strangled this poor girl with a piece of plastic you could buy at any hardware store for a few pennies. The tie was pulled so tight that the skin of her neck was bulging out like a squished balloon on either side. It was the goriest thing Jerry had ever seen that didn’t involve blood.

  It would not have been a fast death.

  “Have you ever seen anything like this before, Mike?” Jerry said, trying to wrap his mind around it.

  “Death by zip tie? Not personally, but considering it’s about the cheapest murder weapon I can think of, it makes me wonder what kind of message it’s supposed to send.” Torrance pulled out another pair of latex gloves and offered them to Jerry. “Put these on and help me roll her over. Just a little. There’s something else you need to see.”

  “No way.” Jerry ignored the gloves and backed away from the bed again. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so horrified at touching the body if the dead woman had been fully clothed. But she wasn’t. Jerry couldn’t fathom his hands on her cold, bare skin. “I can’t do that.”

  “She’s dead, pal. She isn’t gonna mind. You really need to see this.”

  Adamant, Jerry shook his head. Giving up, Torrance placed his gloved hands under the dead woman’s shoulders and lifted. It took some effort, but he got the body up about a foot.

  In the bright morning light of the hotel room, it only took Jerry a second to process what Torrance wanted him to see. The woman had been lying in her own blood. The sheets underneath her were soaked with it. The deep red shade was shockingly stark against the hotel’s crisp white linens, and it was more blood than Jerry ever wanted to see in one place at one time.

  Stomach churning, he forced himself to take a good look at the dead woman’s bare back.

  “Somebody carved her.” Jerry was speaking more to himself than to Torrance. He stared at the gashes, which ran from her shoulder blades to her waist. “Man, this is so many kinds of wrong.”

  “Can you make out what the words say?”

  It was difficult to see past the blood smeared all over her, but after a few seconds, he saw that the letters (Carved into human skin! his mind shrieked unhelpfully) spelled out the words FREE ABBY MADDOX.

  Jesus Christ. He had not been expecting to see that. Hell, no.

  And beneath that, more gashes, but Jerry couldn’t bear to look any longer. The dead girl had a serial killer’s name carved into her body. It was horrific enough, thank you very much.

  He sprang a few steps back from the bed, feeling Torrance’s eyes on him, waiting for him to say something. Jerry felt numb. The best he could muster was, “What the fuck, Mike?”

  “This is actually the second one.” Torrance lay the body back down gently. “The first one was found a week ago, the day after the prosecuting attorney announced that Maddox was being formally charged with murder. We didn’t want to alert the media then because we didn’t want to give the killer the publicity he was so obviously seeking. But now, with this second one, it’s clear what we’re dealing with. The murders are pretty much identical. The first victim also had long, dark hair and was slender, mid-twenties. She was also strangled with a zip tie in a hotel room.”

  Jerry was listening but not processing. A moment ago, he couldn’t bear to look at the dead body, and now it felt like his eyes were stuck. He took it all in, her breasts, her shiny hair, the bruises, the cuts, her bloated face. She’d been alive once, and someone had killed her. Someone had carved her, writing words on her like fucking graffiti on a brick wall.

  It was all too much.

  He bolted from the room and made it out to the hallway, breathing hard and ignoring the questioning faces of the other cops who were probably still wondering what the hell he was doing here in the first place.

  Torrance was behind him a moment later. He took Jerry’s elbow and guided him down the hallway, out of earshot from the others. “You all right, pal?”

  Jerry glared at him, still breathing hard. The hotel hallway air was slightly scented and this did nothing to help his nausea. “Pictures would have sufficed, my man.”

  “I really needed you to see it for yourself. I need your help with this.”

  “I’m retired.”

  “From PD, yeah. But your brain isn’t retired, is it?”

  “Who is she?”

  “We’re still working on the ID.”

  “‘Free Abby Maddox.’” Jerry began to pace the hallway. The white-hot itch at his throat screamed for relief and he tugged at his turtleneck, not daring to scratch. It would be too hard to stop once he started. “Somebody has a sick sense of humor. Who the hell would want that psychotic bitch out of prison? She’s exactly where she belongs.”

  “There’s no end to the utter fuckery of the human race, pal.” Torrance peeled off his latex gloves and ran a talc-powdered hand through his hair, leaving little bits of white in his short, bushy strands. “Maddox is a beautiful woman. She was big news last year when it was discovered she was Ethan Wolfe’s girlfriend, and then she went on the run, and then she got convicted of assault. All that media attention was crazy enough, but now with her murder trial coming up? It’s about to get ten times worse. And I’m sure there would be no shortage of wack jobs who would love to see her go free.”

  “She got nine years for what she did to me, and she’s served a year so far. Now she’s facing a possible life sentence with this murder charge. In what world would she ever go free?” Jerry cracked his knuckles, a habit he’d long given up trying to break. “You want to send a message, you write letters. You picket outside the prison. You don’t go and kill two innocent women just to tell us you think Maddox is innocent of murder.”

  “Not just women. Women who look a lot like Maddox. What better way to get our attention?”

  Jerry’s left temple began to throb. “This is crazy. She’s a serial killer. And now another serial killer is wanting her to go free?”

  Torrance was quiet for a moment. Then finally he said, “She assaulted you, yeah. But is she really a serial killer?”

  Jerry stopped pacing and glared at his former partner. “Fuck you, Mike.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” Jerry’s jaw was clenched so tight his molars were aching. “I’m sick of people suggesting she couldn’t have killed anyone. That she was a victim of Ethan Wolfe herself. You weren’t there, Mike. It wasn’t your throat she cut.”

  “Easy.” Torrance put a hand on Jerry’s shoulder. “I’m not trying to be a dick—”

  “Then stop being a dick.” Jerry shrugged his hand off. “It’s really
not that hard.”

  Torrance lifted both hands in a sign of surrender. A few tense seconds passed. It was as good an apology as Jerry was going to get, and finally he gave his old partner a grudging nod.

  The detective pulled out a pack of Marlboros and shook one all the way out before realizing he was in a hotel hallway and wasn’t allowed to smoke. He stuck the cigarette in his mouth anyway, but didn’t light it.

  “I’d bet my left nut Maddox knows something about these current murders,” Torrance said. “Think about it, pal. Because of you, the prosecuting attorney had an airtight case for first-degree assault, but everyone knows that what the PA really wants is to nail Maddox for murder. Finally, in a highly publicized press conference, the PA announces they’ve got enough to charge her, and a trial date is set. Then within a week we have two dead bodies with Abby Maddox’s name carved on them? At the very least, that’s a pretty good delay tactic, don’t you think?”

  Jerry sighed. “Why don’t you just ask her?”

  “We tried. Maddox doesn’t want to talk to us.” The cigarette bobbed up and down between Torrance’s lips. “So I was thinking, maybe you could give it shot. Go see her at the prison.”

  Jerry couldn’t help but laugh. It came out a bark, short and bitter. “And in what alternate, fucked up universe would I want to do that?”

  “It’s either you or Sheila Tao.”

  “Excuse me?” Jerry’s head snapped up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Maddox has been asking to talk to Dr. Tao ever since she was arrested a year ago.” Torrance wouldn’t meet Jerry’s gaze. He knew better. “I never told you because I knew you’d flip out. I know how protective you are of your friend.”

  “Which is exactly why you should have told me.” Now both temples were throbbing. Jerry started pacing again. “You’re insane if you think I’m letting Sheila anywhere near that bitch.”

  “I knew that’s what you’d say. And I agree, which is why we never contacted Dr. Tao. What she went through with Ethan Wolfe was enough. Plus I don’t need her huge fiancé breathing down my neck like he did for the seven weeks Maddox was on the run.” Torrance plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “So that’s why I’m asking you to go see her. She’ll talk to you. And we need answers, pal.” He looked down the hallway toward room 1521.

  Jerry said nothing. He didn’t know what to say, and frankly, he was feeling pretty resentful at being ambushed.

  His scar continued to scream for relief. Unable to take it anymore, he pulled down the collar of his turtleneck and gave his throat a good scratch. It felt wonderful until it started to burn, as was always the case. Forcing himself to pull his hand away, he examined his fingernails. There were specks of blood under two of them.

  “It’s just one visit to the prison.” Torrance was watching him carefully. “Just to find out what Maddox knows. And what she wants. Did you see the other thing on the body that was carved beneath her name? Come on, let’s go back into the room.”

  “Fuck that.”

  “Come and look at this first, and then you can tell me to fuck off.” Torrance was moving down the hallway before Jerry could say anything else.

  He didn’t want to follow. The image of the dead girl was already etched into his brain permanently. While he felt awful about her death, there was nothing he could do to change it. Getting involved wouldn’t help anything, other than to make his life worse than it already was. He’d already been scarred by Maddox, and in more ways than just the four-inch-long welt across his neck.

  On cue, his scar screamed, and he scratched it again, drawing more blood. His personal life was already in the toilet. Work was busy and stressful. The last thing he needed right now was face-to-face contact with the psychotic bitch who’d tried to kill him.

  Down the hallway, he saw Torrance reenter room 1521. Whatever it was that his former partner wanted him to see, it couldn’t possibly change his mind about talking to Maddox. Right?

  Shit.

  Two seconds later, Jerry was striding toward the room.

  What was that thing about curiosity killing the cat?

  Yeah. That.

  chapter 3

  MORRIS DIDN’T WANT to marry her. It was becoming painfully obvious. Dr. Sheila Tao was a professor of psychology, an expert on human behavior, and yet somehow she had missed all the signs. Because she hadn’t wanted to see them.

  She picked at her small bowl of honeydew and orange slices, which may as well have been cardboard, for all she could taste. Across the table in the brightly lit restaurant, her fiancé ate his own fruit contentedly, blue eyes focused on the giant flat-screen television mounted above her head. She sighed. She should have known better than to agree to eat brunch at a place that had TVs in it, especially when they needed to have a serious talk about the wedding. Unfortunately, Morris didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood.

  Their server refilled Morris’s coffee, her pierced eyebrow raised at the sight of Sheila’s barely touched fruit. “Is the melon okay?” she asked.

  “It’s fine.” Sheila forced a smile. “Just not as hungry as I thought.”

  The server topped off Sheila’s coffee. “I’ll have your eggs out in a minute.”

  If Morris was listening to this exchange, he didn’t show it. Clearly ESPN was much more interesting. Sheila had no idea what game he was watching, or even what sport, and she didn’t care enough to turn her head to find out. Being a former NFL offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers, Morris Gardener still loved football, but the man would watch anything with a score.

  She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored wall behind him and saw that she looked pissed off, her full red lips pursed into a thin line, the space between her dark, almond-shaped eyes crinkled. Smoothing her hair, she arranged her features into a less hostile expression and turned her gaze back to her fiancé.

  A few more moments passed before he finally broke away from the TV, and he smiled in surprise to find her watching him. “What’s up, darlin’?”

  “What’s up?” Sheila knew she sounded pissy, but there was no way to pretend she wasn’t pissed off. “What’s up is I’ve been watching you watch TV for the past twenty minutes. If I wanted to watch you watch TV, we could have stayed home.”

  “Whoa, Nelly.” Morris put his fork down and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “It’s just sports highlights. Steelheads game doesn’t start till noon. What did I miss?”

  Reaching into her oversize purse, Sheila pulled out her wedding planner. She placed it on the table between them, moving the little tray of condiments out of the way so he would have a clear view of the thick leather binder. Morris’s gaze dropped to it and his whole body stiffened. He leaned back in his chair, and Sheila might have laughed had she even a trace of good humor this morning. Ex-pro football player turned investment banker, six-four and two hundred sixty pounds, and yet here he was, scared of a goddamned wedding planner.

  “Yes,” Sheila said, reading his thoughts. “We are going to talk about the wedding.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to.” She continued to make eye contact with him. “Morris, I’m going to ask you point-blank. Do you or don’t you—”

  “Okay, who had the ham and cheese omelet?” The cheerful voice of a server—not theirs, a different one—cut in. Exasperated, Sheila looked up into the face of the forcedly chipper young man who was balancing a large tray of food on a forearm full of tattoos.

  “That’s me,” Sheila said.

  “You must be the eggs Benedict, then.” The server placed an oversized plate in front of Morris. “You look like an eggs Benny kind of guy. My favorite, too. Would either of you care for fresh ground pepper on your eggs?”

  “We’re fine,” Sheila said at the same time Morris replied, “I would love some.”

  Morris grinned at her. Normally Sheila loved his smile—it made him look devilish and handsome—but at the moment she was to
o irritated to do anything but glare back.

  She seethed in silence while the server dashed off to get the pepper mill. Then she seethed some more as Morris allowed the younger man to grind a generous amount of peppercorn onto his eggs.

  “Need anything else at the moment?” the server asked.

  “We’re fine.” Sheila’s biting tone left no room for argument, and the server disappeared. Making a point not to pick up her utensils, Sheila looked across the table at her fiancé, whose mouth was already full of egg. “Morris. Please. We really need to—”

  “I see Colin brought your breakfasts.” Another ridiculously upbeat voice steamrolled over Sheila’s words. “How does everything look? You’re okay for ketchup and jelly? More cream for your coffee?”

  Feeling as if she was about to lose it, Sheila glanced quickly at the server’s name tag—their server now—then fixed her eyes on the young woman’s pretty face. “Yes, Teri, we have our food, and the eggs are cooked perfectly. And no, we don’t need ketchup or jelly or anything else. And before you can ask, we will not be needing more refills on our coffee. As a matter of fact, you can bring us the bill anytime. Just please, for the love of God, leave us alone. Please.”

  Teri’s eyes widened and she backed away from the table with a what-the-hell-did-I-miss expression, one that eerily mirrored Morris’s own from a moment earlier. Around them, heads turned, the other patrons looking over at their table with curious faces. Sheila didn’t care if she was being loud. Let them all think she was a bitch. Maybe she was. It didn’t matter.

  Morris seemed overly absorbed in his breakfast.

  “Look,” Sheila said to him again, still not touching her food. “I’m just going to come straight out with it, and yes, we are going to discuss this right here, right now. We’re not leaving here until you tell me why you don’t want to marry me.”

  “Who says I don’t want to marry you?” Morris’s words were jumbled as he chewed. “When have I ever said that?”

  “You won’t even set a date.” Sheila was making every effort to keep her voice down, but it wasn’t working. The other patrons continued to stare. “The first time we planned a wedding, you were all over it. But this time? Every time the word wedding comes up, you find something else to do.”